Peace Community Church

The distractions, like the Realm of God, are in our midst.
Luke 10:25-37
July 11, 2010
Steve Hammond

There were three people who saw a wounded man on the side of the road. Only one stopped to help. What was with the other two?

I don’t think they were bad people. It seems to me they were more likely distracted. I can understand that since I get distracted quite easily. Just ask Mary. I can walk over to the phone to call somebody. I see something on the table and pick it up and read it, and then go back to what I was doing without ever making the phone call. I go to the grocery store to pick up milk. On the way I pass the pancake syrup. “Oh, we’re out of pancake syrup,” I say to myself, and grab the pancake syrup and proceed to the checkout stand. Then later that day Mary says, “I thought you got milk today.” And I go, “Oh, man. But I got pancake syrup. It was on sale.”

What did Jesus say our number one priority was? “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God.” What did he know the challenge for us was? The distractions. All three of those men knew what the Kingdom or realm of God required of them. Help that man out. But two of them were too distracted. They could have been distracted by their fear. By their religious and family responsibilities. Maybe they were distracted by their ideologies or religious and political convictions. They may have been late for work, or promised the kids they would be home for supper.

We all are distracted. There are sick kids. There are bills to pay. There are conflicts at home, church, and work. There is the computer that’s not working and the lay off that has just been announced. The World Cup Final is this afternoon. The dog hasn’t been walked yet today. The homework assignment has to be finished. I haven’t done any practicing today. The car won’t start and where is the money to fix it. I know my mother is going to call this afternoon and I haven’t sent the thank you note. We’re still waiting to hear from the doctor. The distractions, just like the realm of God, are in our midst. And so we just walk by when the realm of God is staring us in the face, or lying on the side of the road.

Jesus didn’t tell us much about the Samaritan, because the fact he was a Samaritan was enough. Making the Samaritan the hero in this story was the most over the top thing he could think of, given how the Jews and Samaritans felt about each other. It would be like Jesus going into a big convention of some organization of the religious right and telling the story this way.

“One of the folk registered for this convention was beaten up and robbed on his way over here. His money was taken. He was stripped naked and left in the street to die. The preacher for that evening saw the man lying there, but hurried into the convention center. The President of Young Christians for a More Godly Nation didn’t stop either. He pretended he didn’t see the man because the executive committee had to get its statement done about the growing threat of Barack Obama to all that is good, and godly, and decent about America.

“The only person who stopped to help was this flaming gay guy, the head of the local chapter of the Coalition for Same Sex marriage. He called 911, and after waiting 15 minutes he put the wounded man in the back of his car and took him to the emergency room himself. When they asked who was going to pay for the man’s care he said, ‘my partner and I will go out and start raising the money.’” That’s kind of how that story sounded to those first people who heard it.

And the story surely took that rich young religious guy by surprise who wanted the call to love our neighbor to rule out people like the Samaritan. And ever since religious folk have been trying to figure out exactly who we don’t have to count as our neighbor.

The Samaritan shows us that everybody counts. And, if we can get past the distractions, there are opportunities everyday to find God’s realm, to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

This story Jesus told also shows us that seeking God’s Realm is probably not as intimidating as we might think. Especially if we realize that Realm comes to us in little bits and pieces every day. Our call is not to save everybody’s soul. We don’t have to end hunger, create racial harmony, bring peace to the Middle East, or clean up the Gulf Coast, though it is good that people are trying.

When the Samaritan stopped to help that guy, he did not bring and end to violence. But he found God’s realm. He let go of the distractions.

Do any of you ever listen to the radio show, “Speaking of Faith?” Last week Krista Tippit interviewed, Shane Claiborne who has written this fascinating book, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical. If you get a chance, go to the Speaking of Faith web site and find that show from last week. Scroll down a bit, and it’s the one about the Monastic Revolution. I’ll send out an email later today with the details. You also may want to read that book.

But the ordinary radical part is his belief that finding the realm of God comes in the very ordinary stuff that can make radical followers of Jesus out of us. He quotes Mother Teresa. “We can do no great things. Just small things with great love. It’s not how much you do, but how much love you put into doing it.”

Let’s face it. Helping one victim of violence isn’t going to make the world a safer place. And who knows, the victim may have been horrified, rather than grateful, when he learned it was a Samaritan who helped him out. But in that moment, the Samaritan was about the work of the Realm of God. He was doing God’s work.

I just saw an article this morning in the New York Times about the recovery, or lack thereof, from the earthquake in Haiti.

Here is how it starts. PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Hundreds of displaced families live perilously in a single file of flimsy shanties planted along the median strip of a heavily congested coastal road here called the Route des Rails.

Vehicles rumble by day and night, blaring horns, kicking up dust and belching exhaust. Residents try to protect themselves by positioning tires as bumpers in front of their shacks but cars still hit, injure and sometimes kill them. Rarely does anybody stop to offer help, and Judith Guillaume, 23, often wonders why.

“Don’t they have a heart, or a suggestion?” asked Ms. Guillaume, who covers her children’s noses with her floral skirt when the diesel fumes get especially strong.

Thankfully, there are lots of people who are trying to help some of the folk in Haiti. It seems overwhelming, I’m sure. But that guy who was beaten and left for dead along the road, was glad someone was willing to stop and help.

Some of you are going to be helping out with the Interfaith Hospitality Network this week. There will just be a few folk there out of the millions of homeless people in this world. But you will find the Realm of God there.

I assume that the Samaritan, after dropping the man off with the innkeeper, just went on with what ever he was doing before he encountered that poor man on the side of the road. He didn’t start an organization to help victims of violence. He didn’t organize a growing police presence on the road to Jericho. Jesus says nothing about him setting up a preaching mission to persuade robbers of their waywardness, and their need for Jesus. He went on to see him Mom, or deliver the present to his niece, visit his brother in jail, sign the contract, make the sale, or whatever he was doing. But along the way, he got past the distractions when he bumped into the Realm of God and discovered who his neighbor was. It’s a pretty good story.

Be Saved and Repent
Luke 7:36-8:3
June 13, 2010
Steve Hammond

“This is crazy,” the woman thought, as she made her way toward Simon’s house. But she had to do something to let Jesus know how he had changed her life and how grateful she was. So she grabbed the perfume. It was a gift from one of her regulars. He had spent a lot of money on it, but he had a lot of money to spend. She was only supposed to use it for him. But she didn’t care. He was going to have to take his business elsewhere, anyway. She was done with him and the others. She was done.

She knew the only way she could get to Jesus was to just walk right in to Simon’s house as if she belonged there. Of course, she was well aware that no woman belonged there, especially a woman like her. But even though she wasn’t that woman any more, she was still a woman.

The thought of it actually made her let out a little laugh. “I can’t wait to see the look on their faces. How am I going to get past Simon, though? That holy roller, that guardian of the law, has never paid me a personal visit. So he won’t come off like a hypocrite, anyway, if he tries to shoo me away. I’ll have to figure out something when I get there.”

It turned out, though, that Simon wasn’t about to stop her. This was perfect. He couldn’t have planned it any better himself. They were all looking for a way to put an end to this nonsense. Jesus said this. Jesus did that. That Nazarene, of questionable parentage no less, claimed to know more about God than the Pharisees, the priests, the teachers of the law combined. But look at that woman crawling all over him like she’s been there before. They will be talking about Jesus all right. But the things they are going to say now.

There she was, letting down her hair, no less. But as Jesus watched her it wasn’t with the lust and judgment that was in the eyes of her customers. But Simon didn’t notice any of that because all he was doing was waiting for Jesus to go slinking out of there. This was shaping up to be Simon’s best dinner party ever. Not only was Jesus getting knocked off his pedestal, but here was poor, righteous Simon forced to suffer such an indignity in his own home. He could make this go a long way.

Jesus wasn’t leaving, though. Simon couldn’t believe what was happening. “Why is everybody staring at me instead of Jesus and his pathetic little hooker. And now he’s speaking to me, looking me right in the eyes, as if we were some sort of equals. What? He’s telling me one of his stupid little stories. What nerve!”

Simon had Jesus on the ropes, but now Jesus had come out swinging. Simon knew he had to be careful. More than one of his colleagues had walked into these traps Jesus set.

At first hearing, though, Simon thought he did okay. Maybe he wasn’t the punch line of the story after all. It was a story about debts being forgiven. Everybody knew he hadn’t piled up the moral and religious debts like that woman had. She was the one who needed forgiveness, not him. But Jesus wasn’t done.

What was that accusation they often made about Jesus? “He eats with sinners. Wine bibbers, tax collectors, and prostitutes.” Well you can add another one to the list, Pharisees. Even though Jesus knew that Simon and his friends were hostile to him, he accepted Simon’s invitation anyway. Jesus was at that dinner as much for Simon as the woman. But she was the one who realized that.

“Simon,” Jesus said. “Do you see this woman? I came to your home; you provided no water for my feet, but she rained tears on my feet and dried them with her hair. You gave me no greeting, but from the time I arrived she hasn’t quit kissing my feet. You provided nothing for freshening up, but she has soothed my feet with perfume. Impressive, isn’t it? Pay attention to this Simon. She is the one who, like God, offers radical hospitality. Not you. It’s not enough to open your little dinner parties to a traveling preacher. She is the one tearing down the walls. She has figured out something about God that you haven’t.”

Simon was stunned. And the woman had forgotten about the other people. She was past caring about what they had to say about her. “But why is he telling me my sins have been forgiven,” she wondered. “I already knew that. That’s why I came in the first place. It must be for the Pharisee and his friends. If they would just pay attention to Jesus they would be down here washing his feet with me.” That image brought another smile to her face.

I don’t know if she was paying attention to that little story Jesus told about the two debtors and the banker. But unlike Simon, who was paying close attention to everything Jesus said and did, she knew what Jesus meant. This was a woman who knew what it was like to have the debt canceled, to know the freedom that comes with forgiveness.

I wonder, though, if Jesus isn’t getting it wrong here. I’ve always been told that God demands the debt be paid, big or small. It’s not canceled. God finds somebody else to pay it. Jesus. But not in the story Jesus told Simon. The banker doesn’t say to the two debtors I will go find some benevolent benefactor to pay your debts for you, so that I will get what I require. The banker just cancels the debt.

It kind of blows the whole theory we have been working with. You know, we confess our sins, our indebtedness, to God, and God has Jesus pay off the debt for us. Repent and be saved.

But that’s not the way it was in this story. The woman got saved first, and then the repentance came. She knew that what Jesus was talking about, what reduced her to tears and made her bold enough to let down her hair in front of all those men, was a lot more than a self improvement program. It was way beyond being a better person and cleaning up her act. It was about finding the life Jesus talked about, it was about believing in the God Jesus believed in, not the god Simon believed in. “How crazy is this?,” she thought, “Simon and I need the same thing. But he doesn’t know that yet.”

The story says that Jesus left that place accompanied by the 12 and many women. Maybe she was one of them. Who knows? It could well be. Where else was she going to go?

The same person who wrote this story in the Book of Luke also wrote the book of Acts and talks about how a great many of the Pharisees became followers of Jesus. Maybe Simon was one of them. Imagine Simon and this woman, church members together in Jerusalem.

Obviously, I don’t know that Simon and the woman were ever in church together. But I know that we are. And that’s an amazing thing. It’s enough to make you let down your hair and weep. We get to follow Jesus together, to be on the look out for God with each other, to find that thing that enabled that woman to take such risk to be with Jesus.

I don’t know if they ever finished or even started that meal at Simon’s house. The woman kind of disrupted things, and ended up causing all kinds of trouble.

Maybe that’s what we get to do too. Disrupt things. Cause trouble because we are so taken by the life we are finding in Jesus we don’t know what else to do but break the rules. It’s enough to make you cry.

Mama wisdom is knocking at the door
Proverbs 8
May 30, 2010
Steve Hammond

Who is that standing at the corner of College and Main streets shouting “come on you blockheads, pay attention to me!” Who is that lady?

Well Jesus might have been talking about her, or at least a lot of scholars think so, when he said this. “If you love me, show it by doing what I’ve told you. I will talk to God who will provide you another Friend so that you will always have someone with you. This Friend is the Spirit of Truth. The godless world can’t take her in because it doesn’t have eyes to see her, doesn’t know what to look for. But you know her already because she has been staying with you, and will even be in you! I’m telling you these things while I’m still living with you. The Friend, the Holy Spirit whom God will send at my request, will make everything plain to you. She will remind you of all the things I have told you. I’m leaving you well and whole. That’s my parting gift to you. Peace.”

They unwrapped that gift on the day of Pentecost. We weren’t here last week, but I think you must have talked about that. They call that book the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, but for those in the story it’s more like the Acts of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus was right. They were not left alone. And they were being led into truth, though the Book of Acts, and the rest of the New Testament makes it clear they weren’t always easily led into truth. But Mama Wisdom was with them. They never knew when she would knock on the door and come blowing in. They learned that Jesus was right when he said the Spirit is just like the wind. You don’t know where it’s coming from or where it’s going, but if you lift your sail you will get quite a ride.

By most measures, the church should have never survived. The persecution was intense. They were a amazingly small minority of people scattered throughout a big empire in tiny churches, most smaller than this one. But, as their accusers say in the Book of Acts, they turned the world upside down.

And when they started they weren’t known for their great faith. Remember how they scattered when Jesus was arrested and wouldn’t come near his place of execution. When some of the women said that Jesus was alive, most of them thought it was nonsense. On the day of Pentecost, they were hiding out afraid they would be captured by the Romans.

But then Mama Wisdom came knocking on their door. The Spirit, like a mighty wind, rushed through that place and their lives. They went rushing into the streets of Jerusalem and didn’t stop proclaiming the life that is in Jesus Christ until they reached the ends of the earth.

They were filled with the Spirit, empowered. The word in Greek is dunamis, the word we use for dynamite. They were dynamited out of that room and out of their fear. And here we are today.

This, of course, is a big weekend in town. We are celebrating with people like Anna and Sarah the hard work of education. And, hopefully, we are celebrating some wisdom, too, though education and wisdom are different things.

Those first followers of Jesus were not, for the most part, highly educated people. The Apostle Paul was an exception. But when Mama Wisdom came knocking, they wised up real fast, and began learning the lessons of faith. Mama wisdom was leading them into that truth Jesus talked about. They learned that real wisdom comes from chasing after the things of the Spirit rather than chasing after money. That fearing God means hating evil. They learned that it’s not the arrogant and the proud who are wise.

Remember those stories about Jesus being baptized and Mama Wisdom, the Holy Spirit who leads us into truth, landing on his head? And what did he end up doing? Telling us the truth. The truth about God, the world, ourselves. It was radical truth. The kind of truth that brings life, though it can get you killed. Mama Wisdom was at work in him, and he promised she would be at work in them. He wasn’t about to leave them, or us, alone.

You read all the great stories in the Book of Acts and you have to wonder. Where’s the dynamite? What mess of porridge have we sold our birthright for? Why is nobody really afraid we are going to take Jesus seriously enough to turn the world upside down? How stupid have we become?

In his new book, The Future of Faith, Harvey Cox takes on these questions. If you don’t know who he is, Harvey Cox has taught at Harvard for the last 40 years or thereabouts, and was one of the prominent theologians of the 20th century. In this book, he’s showing us that Mama Wisdom is not done with him yet, and he is making his mark in the 21st century. He was ordained by this congregation.

When Harvey looks at the first couple of centuries of the Church he sees people who were caught up by faith, people who were propelled by the Holy Spirit in all kinds of ways. The dynamite was there and Mama Wisdom was leading them into truth that blew apart their assumptions about how you live in this world.

After awhile though, Harvey says, the church went from this age of faith to what he called the age of belief. We may use those words interchangeably, but Harvey Cox doesn’t. The age of faith was when people were looking for the moving of the Spirit, expecting things to be shaken up and blown apart. The Spirit was taking them to unexpected places and doing unexpected things, and in it all they saw the wisdom of God.

Some people weren’t quite so sure, though, what to do about this free-for-all of the Spirit. It’s hard to control the wind. And to be truthful, some of what was going on wasn’t really all that wise. So Harvey says people started thinking that even though Rome had been tough on them, you couldn’t deny that Rome knew how to keep things under control.

So the age of faith began to give way to the age of belief where conformity and control became key. Being a Christian was not a matter of faith but a matter of belief. Christianity became a set of beliefs rather than a way of life. So they started developing creeds. Harvey points out that creeds weren’t designed to show the differences between Christianity and other faiths, but the differences between Christians and other Christians. People wanted creeds so they knew who the heretics were.

Church hierarchy was developed. Hierarchy simply means the rule of the holy ones. The church was turned over to the bishops and elders and eventually the pope. It was the imperial structure. Harvey Cox points out that someone has suggested that the Catholic Church is the last vestige of the Roman empire.

It’s not just the Catholic Church, though, that has seen the appeal to doctrines, creeds, structures, ways of defining who is in and who is out. We all do it to some degree. Belief is much easier, much less risky than faith.

Today is Trinity Sunday on the church calendar. All over the internet preachers are lamenting the chore of trying to make sense of the trinity in one sermon. But when you look at the stories in the Book of Acts do you imagine the people really cared about the doctrine of the trinity? They just wanted to be caught up by the Spirit and discover some of Mama Wisdom’s wisdom. It was the wisdom Jesus knew about, the wisdom they knew could turn the world upside down.

Harvey Cox suggests the church is now in one of those back to the future moments. Are we indeed entering a new age of the Spirit that reminds us more of those early days of the church where we sense this thing is more about faith than our beliefs and formulations. We may have more education about Christianity, but are we any wiser than those first brothers and sisters who caught hold of the Spirit, or rather let the Spirit catch hold of them and build a church?

Mama Wisdom is right. Sometimes we are just a bunch of blockheads. But thankfully there is this thing we call grace. Then there are times we are wiser than we ever imagined possible. I guess that’s grace, too. It kind of makes you think about that old spiritual We’ve Come this Far by Faith. And it’s that faith in Mama Wisdom, the Holy Spirit who blesses our chaos by making something out of it, that will keep us on the road.

How Shall We Know?
John 13:31-35, Acts 11:1-18
May 2, 2010
Mary Hammond

There are such things as “window texts” in the Bible, those passages which become pivotal to how we understand the rest of scripture. The Beatitudes in Matthew’s Gospel are a window text that illuminates the true meaning of “blessedness” in the understanding of Jesus. The Sermon on the Mount fleshes out the Beatitudes in the teachings of Jesus. The Book of Job is a window text which helps us to see how to remain engaged with God in the midst of cumulative, seemingly unbearable, suffering.

Today’s story in the Book of Acts is yet another “window text.” At first glance, this seems like a simple retelling of a powerful encounter between two people–a Jewish disciple of Jesus named Peter and a God-fearing Gentile army officer named Cornelius. In their own time, the two lived a world apart–there was nothing in their lives that naturally brought them together.

We have heard this story already today–Peter’s vision or dream, and his fierce resistance to its message; the request to visit Cornelius and Peter’s obedient response; the unexpected events that transpire when Peter begins sharing his testimony about Jesus with Cornelius and his family. Peter never expects the Holy Spirit to fall upon these Gentiles as on the Jewish believers. As the scales fall from Cornelius’ eyes, they also fall from Peter’s. Standing in the presence of divine action, Peter can no sooner deny Cornelius the grace of God than he can deny his own powerful experience with Jesus. That is what happens in Acts, Chapter 10.

Chapter 11 re-tells this story in the context of the push-back and fallout Peter faces as he acknowledges the movement of the Spirit and welcomes Cornelius and his family into the family of faith. When Jewish believers in Jesus who still adhere to Jewish law hear about the welcome Peter offers these Gentiles, they are upset. They challenge Peter, and this moment provides him with the opportunity to retell his story–just as he experienced it–not omitting the details of his own resistance and ultimate amazement. It is not scripture that convinces Peter–it is a vision or dream from God followed by the testimony of God’s work in a human being right before his eyes.

Instead of discounting these conversions, excluding Cornelius and his family, and persecuting these Gentile believers, Peter’s critics are persuaded by his words. They, too, can see the work of God. They respond in wonder and praise, welcoming the new believers in spite of all their deeply socialized reservations. They face their own prejudices and stereotypes. They open their hearts and minds to change that is very radical for their own day, time, and context.

This becomes a story for the ages, a “window text” through which we glimpse God’s continuing work in the world. Generation after generation labels one group or another “unclean.” Time and time again, we people of faith are called to challenge our prejudices and welcome the stranger, leaving our fears and stereotypes at the door of the Great Realm of God.

Let me share a 21st century re-write of Peter’s story, found in this week’s Oberlin College newspaper, The Review. The article is entitled, “Where Christianity Intersects with Homosexuality.” The student author, Emmanuel Magara, confesses, “I am a straight Christian who grew up in a highly conservative African society, so the idea of there being devout gay Christians seemed unimaginable to me. I naively thought that members of the LGBTQ community, by virtue of some of the Biblical scriptures against homosexuality, could not be Christian. It was only when I came to Oberlin that I learned otherwise.” He goes on to say, “Chase was one of the very first openly gay Christians I met…his personality undeniably reflected that of a true Christian. For the first time, I appreciated how it was possible for anyone, regardless of his or her sexuality, to explore faith in God…” (April 30, 2010 issue).

At the Peace Potluck last weekend, internationally acclaimed workshop leaders, Cherine Badawi and Arthur Romano illustrated a pyramid of attitudes and behaviors that ultimately leads all the way to genocide and war. The base of the pyramid is inhabited by a tragic reality: the lack of human connection. When we don’t know someone, or we don’t know that we know someone, it is so much easier to dehumanize that person or their group.

Oberlin College graduate, Megan Highfill, just recently posted an amazing blog entry entitled, Interlude: Do I Look Illegal?, where she speaks about people assuming she is Anglo-American when she actually has both Mexican and Japanese ancestry. Megan describes the number of racist comments she hears about Mexicans or Japanese from white people. When she reveals her ancestry, their response is often, “Oh, I didn’t know…” as if that somehow excuses their words.

Badawi and Romano note that lack of connection leads to fear and ignorance. These fester into stereotyping. As stereotypes harden, they become prejudice and discrimination. When transferred from attitudes into actions, prejudice and discrimination foster violence. As all hell breaks loose, genocide and war can result.

How do we, as peacemakers, do our part in re-writing this script? Badawi and Romano urge us to start at the base of this pyramid to begin undoing the lack of connection. Anyone can confront, challenge, and change this in some significant way. Peter’s narrative in Acts 10-11 is a testimony of alienation transformed into connection, connection transformed into community. Jesus’ words to his disciples in the Gospel of John before his death echo this same theme as he says, “This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples–when they see the love you have for each other” (John 13:35).

Hatred is on the loose here in the United States. According to an Intelligence Report of the Southern Poverty Law Center, almost 1,000 hate groups are currently active in this country (see Mark Potok’s article, Rage on the Right, at the Southern Poverty Law Center website). Anti-immigrant vigilante groups are up 80%, with 136 new groups in 2009 alone. The past year has witnessed a 244% rise in Patriot groups, along with their paramilitary wings, their militias.

When cultural messages fan the flames of intolerance, prejudice, hatred, and violence, love becomes counter-cultural, radical, and even revolutionary. The scriptures declare again and again that love is of God. Connection, where once alienation festered, is of God. Humanizing “the other,” “the unclean,” “the outcast” is of God. The sober warning of the Epistle of John declares, “The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love–so you can’t know God if you don’t love” (I John 4:8).

This all seems pretty basic, doesn’t it? Yet, the day I wrote this sermon I had two phone conversations with two people of two different races and wildly different denominational backgrounds in two different parts of the country. Yet, both asked me a nearly identical question: “Aren’t Christians supposed to love like Jesus loved?” And one also asked, “Some Christians tell me that one church may be given a ministry of deliverance, another one of healing, and another one of love–I thought all churches were given a ministry of love! Am I crazy?”

Today we are blessed with the opportunity to celebrate the Lord’s Supper together. What a beautiful table this is! Several years ago, I was so struck by the reality that those of us in this community would not know one another, would not be knitted together like we are, save for our common life in Jesus Christ.

Look around yourself for a moment at the faces you see. Would Linda know Lynn, and Adam know Jeff, and Phyllis know Sherri, and Heather know Paul, were it not for this place? As we share the Lord’s Supper with one another, we bear witness to the power of connection over disconnection. We proclaim the transforming nature of relationship and community, even in our midst.

This is always such a glorious part of serving Communion for me. If you wonder what I’m doing with my eyes closed as you eat the bread and drink the juice, I am praying for all of you, remembering our rich and deep histories with one another, whether short or long, and thanking God for this inestimable gift of communion and community.

As we join in this fellowship meal, I invite you to remember Jesus, who feasted with sinners like you and me. I invite you to remember Peter, who confronted his prejudices head-on with a lot of help and encouragement from God’s Spirit. Even Peter had his moments later when he slipped back, pandering to those who supported the circumcision, and was called on the carpet for his actions (Galatians 2:6-14). I invite you to remember God’s work in your own life as you continue to change and grow. I invite you to welcome others to your own table, whether literally or figuratively. I invite you to peer outside the safety of familiar relationships and take a risk to see God where you have never expected to see God before! Amen.

Psalm 23 and John 10
April 25, 2010
Steve Hammond

“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.” But what if God not only prepared a table for us in the presence of our enemies, but invited them to supper?

Most of us, I think, if we know this Psalm at all know it from funerals, for good reason; it is so very comforting. God leads us to green pastures and still waters. God restores our souls. God walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death. God’s goodness and mercy follow us all the days of our lives. And we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. This Psalm tells us we can trust God when the going gets tough and we are not tough enough to get going.

But there are other layers to this Psalm for us to think about. Did you know, for example, that in other places in this world this Psalm is not read at funerals, but at political protests?

It turns out that in places like Africa and Asia, the political leaders, some of them quite corrupt and despotic, often describe themselves as shepherds who care for their flock. But the response from Christians in those places is “No, you are not our shepherd. God is. It says so right in Psalm 23.” That citing of Psalm 23 is a direct challenge to the rulers who oppress and swindle their people. The people aren’t looking to those so called shepherds for help, but to God. And it’s God, not those rulers, who has earned their allegiance. The 23rd Psalm, it turns out, like so many other scriptures is a revolutionary text.

And that line ‘God leads us in paths of righteousness for God’s name’s sake’ is translated differently in many other places. And they do a better job of helping us understand what is behind that verse when they translate it that God lead us in ‘paths of justice.’

In this Psalm people see that when we fight for justice in this world we are lifting up God’s name. We tread the paths of justice and honor who God is. It’s a Psalm of trust and action.

Jesus was not reluctant to call himself a shepherd, even the Good Shepherd. It was one of the things that got him in trouble. The accusation was he was claiming to be God.

We look back at all of this debate that has gone on in the history of the Church about what the exact nature of Jesus is. Is he divine? Is he human? Or is he, as the Nicene Creed puts it, very God and very man?

Those are our issues, but I don’t think they were issues Jesus had. “What you see in me,” he was saying, “is who God is.” He was saying nothing more, nor nothing less than that, which is a pretty bold statement all in itself without the arguments over the ontological nature of Jesus. I’m not arguing whether Jesus is God or not. I’m just suggesting Jesus wasn’t either. What I am arguing is that Jesus was saying what you see me doing is what God does.

What is it that God does? The scriptures that Jesus hearers were working with are not of one voice, they are ‘texts in travail,’ as the theologian René Girard put it. Is God this vengeful, unforgiving deity who will gladly wipe us off the face of the earth for even small infractions? Or is God the God of love and compassion who calls out for justice and rescues the widow and the orphan. Is God the God of the 23rd Psalm or the 74th which begins, “O God, why have you cast us off forever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?”

Jesus’ answer to that question of what God is really like is simply, “Look at me. I do what God does. God does what I do. We are one…heart and mind.” Jesus is focusing on behavior. The writers of the Preaching Peace Commentary put it this way. “Jesus does not come with power, he comes serving, he does not come with judgement, he comes with healing, he does not come with vengeance, he comes with forgiveness.” And Jesus makes the claim that’s the way God is, and also claimed he knew what he was talking about.

That’s why I think that when Jesus thought about the 23rd Psalm he would think, of course God would prepare a banquet for us in the presence of our enemies, because God cares for us and loves us that much. But God would also invite them to join us.

Jesus knew that the valley of the shadow of death was never far away; not only the death of these bodies of ours and the grief that we feel when people we love die, but also the lost jobs, the broken relationships, the crushed dreams, the fear and anxiety we feel about so many things, the oppression, the greed, the cruelty, the discrimination, the corruption. There are so many places where we encounter the shadow of death, we don’t need to bring any more.

And God isn’t going to lead us to any of those places but rather to places of green pastures and still waters, even if the shadow of death is just a stone’s throw away. We need God to walk with us through those valleys of the shadow of death and lead us to those green pastures and still waters. And God does it.

Jesus knew, though, that God doesn’t do it alone. When God prepares a banquet for us in the presence of our enemies, somebody has to set the table and clean up afterwards, not to mention share the meal. That’s us. That’s what the body of Christ is about, helping people find those green pastures and still waters, walking with them as God walks with them through the valley of the shadow of death. There are souls we get to help restore.

This afternoon is the CROP Walk. There are a lot of hungry people in this world and the CROP Walk is not going to bring an end to hunger. But can you imagine what it is like to be hungry but for a while, at least, there is food? It must feel something like green pastures and still waters. What if you didn’t have to worry any more about your children starving to death? Wouldn’t you feel like God has walked with you through the valley of the shadow of death? And all because we believe what Jesus believes about God, that God wants hungry people fed and for us to find ways to create structures and help the the hungry to develop the resources so hunger is not a constant shadow in their lives.

I think we need to hear this Psalm at funerals, peace protests, and so many other places. That Jesus called himself the Good Shepherd indicates, to me, that he sure thought about this Psalm. It tells us a lot about God, a lot about Jesus, and a lot about ourselves.

They didn’t read the 23rd Psalm at Jesus’ funeral because, like so many people in this world, he didn’t have one. But he lived believing that goodness and mercy would follow him all the days of his life. And he was right. This Good Shepherd not only showed us God, but he showed us who we can become because of the God who is our shepherd.

The Mustard Seed Conspiracy
John 20:1-18
Easter 2010
Steve Hammond

“I saw him.” That’s what Mary cried out on Easter morning. She didn’t expect to see him, not alive, that is. When she saw that empty tomb, she did what any of us would do. She went running to tell the others that somebody had stolen Jesus’ body. She came back, though. And then she saw him. He was right there in the garden in front of the tomb. She didn’t recognize him at first. But he recognized her. He called out her name. He talked to her. And cemeteries have never been the same since then.

In 1 Corinthians 15, the Apostle Paul writes about the resurrection appearances of Jesus. “Jesus,” according to Paul “appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time… Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one untimely born.”

On the blogsite ralphmiltonsrumors.com Jim Taylor points out something rather awkward about Paul’s litany of post resurrection appearances. Did you notice what it is?

In the gospel story we just read this morning, who saw Jesus first? It wasn’t Peter. It wasn’t the twelve. It wasn’t the 500 brothers or James, or all the apostles. It was Mary Magdalene. All the gospel stories say Jesus appeared to the women first.

It’s remarkable when you think about it, not to mention a bit infuriating. In those very first stories that got passed on about Jesus, nobody thought about leaving the women out. Highlighting the role of women in a world where such a thing was unheard of was pretty radical stuff. Too radical, in fact, as this new religion tried to find its place in the Roman empire. So they began to back off.

You can see Paul struggle with all of this in his writings. He knew the important role women played in the life of Jesus and the Church. He depended on lots of women who were pastors, prophets, apostles, and other leaders in the early church. But he also knew that highlighting it would mean that many would dismiss anything he said about Jesus.

The Gospels, though, are right out there. There are all kinds of stories in them that are embarrassing to the Church. That’s why the Church has had a long history of trying to make more than women disappear from the story.

We have to make sure we don’t also disappear from the story. Because we, too, have seen Jesus. He has brought dead places alive in us. We don’t have to be people of great faith, have the right credentials, have passed the Jesus proficiency exams to be his witnesses. We can let that inner mystic go wild. We can embrace resurrection. We can tell those resurrection stories, especially the ones about how we didn’t recognize him at first, but then he called our names.

I don’t think it’s the women seeing Jesus first that should embarrass us. When Mary, in John’s story for example, goes to the tomb of Jesus, she fully expects to find his body there. Who is going to roll away the stone so she can finish the burial ointments. Resurrection is the last thing on her mind. And it’s that way in all the stories. Jesus said time and time again God would raise him from the dead. But nobody, not Mary, not any of the other women, not Peter, not John, not any of them believed him. These were not people of great faith. And nobody tries to hide that fact.

Remember what Jesus once said about how that if you have the faith the size of a mustard seed, you could tell a mountain to move into the sea and it would? I’m not sure why anyone would want to do such a thing. And it is an odd little word picture. But the point isn’t rearranging large scale geographical formations. It’s just an over the top way of saying that when it comes to faith, a little goes a long way. Just like it takes just a tiny bit of yeast in a whole bunch of flour to make the bread rise.

We have an example of that mustard seed principle right here with the story of Mary Magdalene, and in the other resurrection stories in the Gospels. The Jesus movement was not carried on the back of spiritual giants, but rather through people like Mary Magdalene who if you had hooked up to a faithometer there would have hardly been a blip on the screen. But Mary, and the other women, and Peter, and John, and the 500 brothers, and James, and all the Apostles, and Paul, and all of us were invited to become a part of the mustard seed conspiracy, to put that tiny bit of faith, maybe hardly perceptible, to work.

Mary didn’t come to that garden expecting to find the living Jesus. Far from it. But he still called her name, and sent her to tell the others. And it’s that sending that makes all the difference in the mustard seed conspiracy. We’re the ones who are sent. And its not based on our faith.

I’ll bet most of you here know that old hymn, ‘I Come to the Garden Alone.’ You may regret, or be very glad, that it never gets into the hymn rotation around here. But it is based on this story. It’s sort of about Mary Magdalene going to the garden on that Easter morning. But it is much more about meeting Jesus in our own metaphorical gardens.

In the last verse it gets the Mary Magdalene part of the story right. “I’d stay in the garden with him though the darkness around me is falling.” That’s a whole day in the garden, from before sunrise to nearly sunset. “But he bids me go,” though not with a voice of woe. At this point Jesus must be pretty psyched. And he’s not looking to stay there. What did Jesus say to the scarcely believing Mary? “You can’t cling to me, you’ve got to go and tell the others.”

There is the tendency to want to cling to him in what is perceived as that wonderful spot such as the garden, where we can walk together and talk together and he tells us the we are his own. But this is not a place of tarrying for him, there is resurrection and a gospel to proclaim.

It’s not that we don’t need those times of walking and talking and sharing joy with Jesus, and all this hymn is trying to say. But it’s not Mary’s story on Easter morning.

Take that little mustard seed faith you’ve got and get out of here. Watch it sprout into this really big tree. Just see what happens if you go and start telling others that you have seen me. Resurrection will start popping up everywhere, just like a weed” (which is really what a mustard plant is in that part of the world). That’s the extent of their very short conversation.

And Jesus didn’t tell her to go and tell the others and bring them back so they can set up a little shrine in front of the tomb. Jesus wasn’t looking to do resurrection re-enactments every hour. There was no interest expressed by those first followers of Jesus to make that empty tomb and garden holy ground. That’s not where the action was. That’s not the place to look for evidence of the risen Jesus. Rather it is in his followers, amongst the mustard seed conspirators, the folk that the Apostle Paul calls the Body of Christ.

It’s hard to believe that Jesus could put so much faith in us when we so often respond with so little faith ourselves. But remember what Jesus did right before he was killed? He prayed for us. Mary and I get a lot of people asking us to pray for them because they think as clergy, we have a special in with God. We don’t. With Jesus, though, it’s a different story… He knew the risk he was taking with the likes of Mary Magdalene, the other women, Peter, John, and us. But he was able to trust us to God, though he did have to pray about it. And who other than Jesus would you rather have praying for you? He knew the power of stories, of our stories. And he is still praying for us.

Barbara Brown Taylor writes that if we remember that God has planted new life in us, “then there is nothing we cannot do: move mountains, banish fear, love our enemies, change the world. The only thing we cannot do is hold on to Jesus…. though we would rather keep him with us where we are than let him take us where he is going….into the white hot presence of God, who is not behind us but ahead of us, every step of the way.”

Jesus is risen! Alleluia! We have seen him! We have a story to tell. Jesus was right about resurrection. He was right about mustard seeds.

What’s that smell?
John 12:1-8
March 21, 2010
Steve Hammond

Today’s gospel story is one of the more familiar and debated stories in the gospels. The interchange between Jesus, Mary, and Judas is tense, fragrant (literally), and shocking to its viewers on a variety of levels.

There is a lot to unpack in that triad of characters, in what they say and what they do. And believe me, a lot of unpacking has been done. But I don’t find those three characters and their interactions the only interesting thing about this story. Don’t forget Lazarus.

Before we think a bit about Lazarus, though, I do want to pull a couple of items out of the suitcase myself. First of all, this thing Jesus says about the poor always being with you, may well be, unconsciously for some and very consciously and deliberately for others, the most misinterpreted thing that Jesus said.

We know that Jesus cared a lot about the poor. We see that in stories all over the Gospels. But people take this thing that Jesus says about the poor as always being with us as evidence that Jesus didn’t really care about the poor. Or they make it seem that since the poor are always going to be with us, Jesus is saying that there is nothing we can do about it. We just have to resign ourselves to the sad fact of poverty and go on to things we can maybe do something about. We have used what Jesus said here to further marginalize the poor when Jesus lifted up the poor and made them central to his ministry.

All Jesus was simply saying here is that I’m going to die. Sure this money Mary spent on the perfume to anoint me for my burial could have been spent on the poor. But you are going to have plenty of chances to spend your money on the poor in the days ahead. They are going to be there, and if you are my followers you are going to pay attention to them and their needs. But I’m not going to be here much longer, and Mary is trying to deal with that.

So Mary washes Jesus feet with all the perfume and her tears and wipes them with her hair. This is, obviously, a very intimate moment between the two of them, which might also explain some of the tension in the room.

A few days later, though, what is Jesus doing? He’s washing the feet of his disciples. Did he learn something from Mary at the dinner party about humility and what it means to be a servant Messiah? Is it like that stuff about the first being last that I’m convinced he got from his mama? What was it she said? “God will bring down the mighty from their thrones and lift up the lowly.” Why is it that the more established Christianity became, the more patriarchal it became?

Another thing. In this story, Judas is called a thief. That’s not how we should remember Judas. He may well have been a thief, but more importantly, he was a revolutionary. And that’s why what he did to Jesus, I think, was not so much a betrayal but a terrible miscalculation.

What Judas was trying to do was get Jesus to take charge of the revolt, to lead the revolution. What Judas didn’t understand was that Jesus had a different kind of revolution in mind. Betraying him to the Romans was not going to force Jesus’ hand so he had to meet violence with violence.

The last little bit of unpacking I want to do before taking a quick look at Lazarus is this idea some have that these predictions Jesus made about his death were things that Jesus ever actually said, but added by the writers of the Gospels after his death.

As some Biblical commentators point out, though, we don’t necessarily have to make such an assumption. They argue that Jesus was well aware that what he was saying and doing was putting him on a collision course with the political and power structures of his day.

And some have pointed out that Jesus is not the only one to sense that he was putting himself in danger by taking on the establishment. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Oscar Romero are just two more recent examples of people who were aware that their prophetic ministries would most probably lead to their deaths.

There were already plots to bring about Jesus’ death. It is hard for me to imagine that Jesus was as clueless about all of this as the disciples were. This does, actually, lead us to Lazarus.

There were other folk who were outraged by what was taking place in that room. But, unlike Judas, it had nothing to do with Mary letting down her hair and washing the feet of Jesus.

The religious leaders, we are told, were outraged by the presence of Lazarus. They we so upset, in fact, that the story says they decided right then and there that Lazarus would have to be killed. I mean Judas was upset with Mary, but he wasn’t about to kill her. But these folk wanted Lazarus dead…again.

Remember that the story before this one is about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. And it is a curious thing that the religious leaders are so upset by that. You would think that being religious leaders and all, they would be out of their minds ecstatic that Jesus had shown the power of God by doing such a thing.

The problem is that the power they knew best was the power of death. And Jesus was taking that away from them. By raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus played the trump card. People were noticing. What the religious leaders didn’t know, of course that it was going to get worse. In just a few days they were going to give Jesus their best shot and he would get up, dust himself off, roll up the grave cloths, and tell his folk to keep on with it.

And that’s exactly what the folk these religious leaders represent don’t want us to do. To keep on with it. To keep bringing life in all the places where they bring death.

As long as we don’t take resurrection too seriously, or just make eternal life about something in the world beyond, rather than this one, they are content. But the minute we start bringing life to their death traps of racism, militarism, sexism, and homophobia, or turn our attention away from the powerful to the powerless, from the haughty to the humble, from the rich to the poor, and find life in those places, then they fight back. They don’t want any more people like Lazarus around who have learned that death is not the final word. The last thing they want is a bunch of us running around saying we are alive in Christ and we’re here to help. What if we came out of our tombs at Jesus’ call? And they started plotting against us because people were believing in Jesus on account of us? Because they saw we were actually alive, that we had left death behind?

Don’t you wonder how that room smelled when Mary busted out that jar and poured out the ointment? It was pretty expensive stuff and must have smelled great.

I wonder, though, how Lazarus smelled. He had been dead, after all, for four days. I don’t know how quickly that smell goes away. Maybe never, really. At least for Lazarus.

And I don’t know what grace smells like, but they were smelling it in that room that day. But isn’t it always mixed with the smell of death? Isn’t that why we need it?

I think the religious leaders got it wrong. They should have been going after Mary not Lazarus. I think Lazarus may have been a little stunned by the whole thing. But Mary got it. She was there when her brother died and smelled that smell when he came out of the tomb. She realized that smell was something there all the time and that Jesus was showing us it didn’t have to be. So all she could think to do was get the perfume and pour it out.

There is something powerful if we will just break open the jar and make ourselves that vulnerable with Jesus. Allow ourselves to be that needy, that hopeful. It’s not we won’t smell death again or not get caught up in death ourselves. That’s always with us. But Jesus raises us back to life. We are called out of tombs to sit, again, at the table. Even if they don’t like it.

Why are the Epiphany banners still up?
Psalm 27
February 28, 2010
Steve Hammond

If you are wondering why the Epiphany banners are still up, it’s mostly Glenn Loafmann’s fault.

On the way to the gym on Wednesday morning, I stopped in the church for some prayer time and noticed the Epiphany banners were still up. I completely forgot to take them down. I remember thinking to myself that I would deal with them later in the week. But by time I was ready to leave, though, I realized I wanted them to stay up, regardless of how liturgically incorrect they are. As if I had any real regard for liturgical correctness.

I had been thinking a lot about Glenn’s sermon the previous day for the Community Lenten Service. Glenn’s experience with Lent is a lot like mine, and a lot of others of us here, I imagine. We’re from church traditions that never really did much, or anything, with Lent. Maybe that gives you a bit more freedom to really take a look at the possibilities it offers. And Glenn has been looking. Just check out his sermon on the web site.

Here is something from the sermon that I have been spreading abroad or, at least, around. “Lent is about facing – admitting, at least to ourselves – our own sin – our own death. We turn our faces to the cross, take our souls into the wilderness. Lent is about being with our own beasts, not naming someone else’s beast – Militarism and consumerism and racism are demons – sins of our world – but don’t hide behind those demons to avoid facing your own. I need to face my beasts, and you need to face yours. Forty-six weeks we can work on the sins of the world; six weeks in Lent we need to work out our own salvation “with fear and trembling.” (Philippians 2:12)

So when I was going into church on Wednesday morning, I was wondering about what ‘facing my own beasts’ would look like. Then I saw the banners that weren’t supposed to still be up. And it occurred to me that facing my own beasts was an opportunity, if nothing else, to not bring any more darkness into the world. And maybe even go a bit further and carry some Epiphany light with me. If engaging my own beasts could do that, then maybe Lent does make sense. And maybe there’s good reason for Epiphany happening just before Lent. They inform each other.

I don’t think I have to argue too forcefully that there is plenty of darkness in this world. Tuesday night at study group, the topic was torture. That’s about as dark as it gets, but it is far from the only darkness that’s about.

I can’t begin to explain why people torture other people, or Haiti is struck with an earthquake, or why Emma Mears Webb, the eight year old child of Amy Mears, a Co-Pastor at Glendale Baptist Church in Nashville TN, was killed in a freak accident on her way home with her family from this year’s Ash Wednesday Service. Emma’s parents, her three older siblings, folk from her church, her friends, and so many others know a stark darkness during this Lent, as do so many others, maybe even you. We’ve had three kids from Baptist Peace Fellowship families die in the last few years. It makes no sense.

I can’t explain how the promise God made to Abraham went so bad, so bad that Jesus ends up weeping over the city that should have welcomed prophets rather than kill them. I can’t explain why awful people like Herod that Fox run this world. I can’t explain why God would promise land that belongs to others to Abraham in the first place. Look how that’s worked out, and the darkness that results when nations regard their land as more holy than others. And it’s not just in the Middle East where that happens.

I can’t answer those and a thousand more questions like them. All I know is that it is dark enough in this world, and that Lent reminds us of the dark, hard journeys some are on. But then there are those Epiphany banners.

We looked at Psalm 27 in Bible Study the other night. That’s another reason the Epiphany banners are still up. Psalm 27 is about the dark things. “When evildoers assail me to devour my flesh…Though an army encamp against me…though war rise up against me… Do not hide your face from me…Do not turn your servant away in anger…Do not cast me off, do not forsake me…Do not give me up to the will of my adversaries.” Those are the cries from the torture chamber. The lament of grieving parents. The confusion of those surrounded by the rubble. The anguish of the person who has just lost her job, or who just had his heart broken, or just gotten the confirmation from the doctor that the test results came back and it’s not good.

Psalm 27, though, is also about something else. “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?…For God will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; she will conceal me under the cover of her tent; God will set me high on a rock…If my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up…Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies…I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” That, too, is the cry from the torture chamber, the grieving parent, those standing in the rubble. We saw that literally happen in those scenes on television after the earthquake in Haiti. In their anguish people were gathering and singing hymns and offering prayers for one another.

Some read Psalm 27 and dismiss it as a fairy tale, as a coping mechanism, as a confused editor making two Psalms into one. No one undergoing such anguish could offer such trust and faith. How could anyone under such stress, experiencing such hardship actually say “One thing I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord,
and to inquire in God’s temple?” But people do it. They show that trust, that faith, they continue to hope, though it is a hard earned hope.

We have to remember, though, that Jesus didn’t only confront beasts in the wilderness. There were angels. There was light in that darkness. The Epiphany banners. Even if we have to confront our own beasts, dive into our own darkness, we take angels with us, we carry the same light that we discovered at Christmas and Epiphany. There is nothing after all, not tragedy, not heartache, not terrible injustice, not even ourselves, that can separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ our Savior.

Jesus took his Lenten journey to the cross. But that’s not where the journey ended. What else did Glenn say in that sermon of his? He grew up learning that there was sin and death, but there was also Easter. The writer of Psalm 27 knew that, too…a long time before Easter.

We took down the lamps and candles, the crystal and the glass that Susan had on the table, that beautiful and amazing reminder during Epiphany about the light that has come into the world. And now that it’s Lent, what have we got up there? Candles and light. It’s different. The light is not blazing, but it is still there. And it is still amazing. And it reminds us of the honesty that Glenn also talked about in his sermon.

Jesus, “the light of the world,” once said, “you are the light of the world.” Maybe it’s because of all the Lent experiences people have that Jesus said we need to find ways to shine.

I think we get it backwards. When Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany roll around we think of it as a break from all the yucky stuff. Finally some light in the darkness. But don’t forget that all comes at the beginning of the church year. It helps us get ready for what’s ahead rather than simply take a respite from what has been. There’s Lent dead ahead, and we’ve got light. We find it in ourselves, right there with the sin and death.

I have an admittedly rather vague memory of Granny Clampett on the Beverly Hillbillies singing the old hymn “Brighten the Corner Where You Are.”

Do not wait until some deed of greatness you may do,
Do not wait to shed your light afar,
To the many duties ever near you now be true,
Brighten the corner where you are.

Isn’t that our Lenten challenge? Isn’t that what these Epiphany banners are telling us we are capable of doing? I’m grateful Glenn stopped me from taking those banners down. They are not done with me, yet.

Dust

Joel 2:1-2
Isaiah 58:1
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18
Glenn Loafmann
Tuesday after the First Sunday in Lent 23 February 2010
OACM Lenten Luncheon Series:
“From Ashes to Glory” – Week One

Dust you are, and to dust you shall return. (Genesis 3:19)

I grew up in churches that did not observe Lent – skipped right to Easter, more or less year round.

To us, religion was about three things:

- Sin: sinful human nature, including my nature, and the sinful condition of the world

- Death: we’re mortal; deal with it

- and Easter. Easter was about how Jesus overcame Sin and Death.

That was it. Everything else was decoration.

So we didn’t observe Lent. We observed others observing Lent – Catholics, Methodists, and some other “high church” types (I grew up in towns where Methodists were “high church). What we knew about Lent, we knew from them, at a bit of a distance.

And, I confess, we rather scoffed at it. “Works righteousness,” we sniffed.

We didn’t notice that one of the Lenten lessonsis Psalm 1:1, “Happy are those who do not . . . sit in the seat of scoffers.” (nrsv) We didn’t follow the lectionary, either.

As time went by I quit scoffing so much at the practices of others, and when I became a minister, I was even called to serve churches that did observe Lent, which meant I had to lead Ash Wednesday services.

The liturgy we used had north European Calvinist origins.

That mumble you hear in the background is the Spirit of Oberlin College saying, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” (cf. John 1:46), but out of Northern Europe came a liturgy of spare, no-nonsense words without ornaments – and so on Ash Wednesdays for many years, I rubbed my thumb in the ashes I had made from the previous year’s Palm Sunday leaves, and pressed it on the forehead of each worshiper who appeared, and with the sign of the Cross put the message of my Baptist roots into the stern tones of that liturgy: Dust you are; and to dust you shall return.

­I never was struck by what I was doing until my son was one of the people in the line. Then I observed Lent.

The unornamented heart of Lent – the path “From Ashes to Glory” – repeats Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem – turns us to the cross to face sin and mortality at home.

Lenten symbols are markers to hold our attention on our moral and mortal limits. Joel sounded the trumpet in Zion; … the inhabitants of the (home)land trembled…” (Joel 2:1) Our challenge for Lent is not somebody else’s sin – not Egypt’s sin or Babylon’s, not Washington’s sin, either, nor Wall Street’s sin. Our penance in Lent is not for the sins of bankers or drug companies or oil conglomerates, not for the sins of Republicans or Democrats or George Bush or Barack Obama.

In last Sunday’s gospel lesson Jesus went into the wilderness with the devil and the wild beasts (Luke 4:1-13, Mark 1:13) He did not send Dick Cheney into the desert; he did not tell Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck to get their spiritual act together. He did not organize a study group to find better ways to distribute loaves and fishes. Lent is not about what somebody else ought to do, or how we can more effectively make them do it.

The “ashes” are for ourselves – we mourn our condition, our sin and mortality, not someone else’s.

Lent is not a time for righteous pronouncements. I once heard a denominational leader offer a prayer of “confession” asking forgiveness for “our” warmongering, and “our” complicity in militarism.

This was a guy who had made a career out of opposing war! He had burned his draft card before that was fashionable, trained hundreds of people in non-violent resistance to war, and he was leading an anti-war service of worship! His confession was ludicrous: he was confessing somebody else’s sin. By “our” he meant “their.”

Lent is about facing – admitting, at least to ourselves – our own sin – our own death. We turn our faces to the cross, take our souls into the wilderness. Lent is about being with our own beasts, not naming someone else’s beast – Militarism and consumerism and racism are demons – sins of our world – but don’t hide behind those demons to avoid facing your own. I need to face my beasts, and you need to face yours. Forty-six weeks we can work on the sins of the world; six weeks in Lent we need to work out our own salvation “with fear and trembling.” (Philippians 2:12)

Being mortal means the sins of the world will outlast us. Evading that limit is the sin of pride. We are not God. We are not big enough or durable enough to change the world in our lifetime, or make it over in our image. What we can do in six weeks is offer ourselves for change.

Getting from ashes to glory begins with setting the world aside – not just its seductions and distractions, but its needs and cries and hunger as well – set the whole world aside, go into the wilderness and contemplate your moral limitations, and the limits of your time; face the realities of sin and death in your life. The “poor you have with you always” (Mark 14:7) – they’ll be waiting when you come back from the desert.

My son was maybe ten on the first Ash Wednesday I put my thumb on his forehead and made the sign of the cross and said, “Derick, dust you are, and to dust you shall return.” To this day, the Imposition of Ashes is his favorite service.

Like God, he appreciates honesty.

Amen.

Benediction: Now go out into the troubling peace of God, and find the good word written in the dust you are.