Breaking Radio Silence

It has been nearly a week since I posted to our blog.  I suppose my absence has to do with the difficulties of last weekend, surrounding the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School.  One of my favorite  preachers, Richard Lisscher, wrote in his book, The End of Words:

“Violence has a way of making a mockery of words.  After Auschwitz, Hiroshima, Vietnam, Cambodia, Rwanda, all words sound hollow. . .The proclamation of God’s justice or God’s love meets a wall of resistance, first in the throat of the proclaimer, then in the ears of the hearer.”

I think that is true.  I have also been appreciating others who have expressed themselves more poignantly than I could. I linked to many of these posts via twitter (follow me @ RevGirlKazoo)

In reality, though, my failure to post comes from a much more pedestrian and practical problem: I'm a preacher with three sermons to complete before Monday.  With three different texts and ideas swirling around, I haven't had much space to throw my thoughts up here.  But now that I have my ideas (mostly) sorted, I will provide you a preview of what we can expect from the pulpit (or the lack-thereof) in the coming week.

December 23

Text:       Luke 1:26-38; Isaiah 9:2-7
Title:       The Power of the Most High
Themes:  We've been looking at the various words of Gabriel to Mary: "The LORD is with you." "Do not be afraid" and now "The power of the Most High will overshadow you."  I appreciate what this last announcement does in terms of reminding us WHO it is that really accomplishes the work of Christmas. Isaiah 9 does the same thing with it's many passive verbs.  Reading a combo of Martin Luther & Will Willimon this morning helped me to tie these ideas together.
Thought to Ponder:   At Christmastime, are you a giver or a getter?

December 24

Text:         Luke 1:46-55
Title:         May It Be to Me as You Have Said
Themes:    After an Advent full of Gabriel's pronouncements to Mary, we at last get to hear Mary's response.  Some moments in history summarize all that has been and all that will be.  Mary's obedience to God's work replays many stories of faith in the Old Testament.  Mary's attitude is shared by all who encounter the Christ Child in the Biblical narrative.  And, finally, Mary's willingness to follow is the story of the Church at it's best in every generation.
Thought to Ponder:  Where do you hear the foreshadowing and echoes of Mary's words -- "May it be to me as You have said" -- in the Biblical story, the history of the church or the people of God today?

December 30

Text:             Luke 2:21-40
Title:             Faithfulness Through All Generations
Themes:        We meet for worship one last time in the year 2012.  It has been a full year for the DC CRC. We have much to celebrate.  And we have losses that we might remember and grieve.  Then we turn toward a new year -- 2013.  Nothing like cracking open a new calendar!  Fresh starts and New Year's Resolutions abound.  But we are a people deeply rooted in history, context and tradition.  Like Simeon & Anna in the Temple, only a lifetime of disciplined faithfulness prepare us for what God intends for our future.
Thought to Ponder:  Anticipating a New Year on the calendar, what are the good things you are bringing with you into 2013?

Sermons are all still in the works so if you have feedback on these ideas, I'm happy to hear them.  Help a sister out, is what I'm saying!

Our Worship is Our Wrestling

Like clergy across the nation, I made a bigger-than-usual pot of coffee this morning & I just got off the phone (for the second time) with our valiant & wise worship co-ordinator.  What needs to change in tomorrow's service to adequately reflect and address the up-ended-ness of the past 24 hours?  And what needs to stay the same to remind us that we have not been set adrift from our anchor? To demonstrate that we are, in fact, held in place no matter the waves?

This morning I turned to an unusual source for comfort.  Well, it's in the Bible, so it's not that crazy-out-of-the-box. My thoughts turned to one of my favorite stories in the Old Testament, Genesis 32:22-32

Jacob the trickster has turned his life around and is returning home to his brother.  Mind you, the brother whose life he ruined many years ago before fleeing to the far country and doing very well for himself.  On the night before their reunion, Jacob -- the title in my Bible tells me -- "wrestled with God."

"But Jacob replied, 'I will not let you go unless you bless me.'
The man asked him, 'What is your name?'
'Jacob,' he answered.
Then the man said, 'Your name will no longer be Jacob but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with human beings and have overcome."

The people of God from that day forward were identified by Jacob's new name -- Israel.  It is a name that means "struggles with God."  To be the people of God is to wrestle with God.  To be the people of God is to walk with a limp received in the struggle.

When we gather together on Sunday mornings -- especially the Sundays when the struggle is most intense -- we are doing the work of being God's people.

Our worship is our wrestling.  

God forbid that our worship fails

To acknowledge the difficulty of human faith.  

God forbid that our worship fails 

To acknowledge the relentless tenderness of God's presence.

Our worship is our wrestling.

When God DOESN'T Break In

I'm sitting cross-legged on the stage in our sanctuary, wondering what I would say if we were all here together.  I lit the advent candles for us.

After a season of wrestling to feel Advent, today I don't know how to feel any other way --



Waiting,


Desperate,


Anxious,













Angry.

Come LORD Jesus.  

For we are well past ready.

And I know the incarnation is a miracle in it's own right -- divinity shrunk to the size of a fetus and all that -- but that is not enough for me today (forgive me if that's a shocking and unholy thing for a minister to say).

I don't want a baby God.  I don't want a weak and vulnerable God. I don't want the God of mindless Christmas schlock that gets played over the loudspeakers at the mall.  Not today.

I want a God who will come in power. I want a God who will rip open the heavens. A God who is going to come down here and start kicking .... well, you know ... and taking names.  I don't want "little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay."  I want the God in whose "name all oppression will cease."

How long, LORD?

Will you hide your face forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I wrestle with my thoughts 

And day after day have sorrow in my heart?

How long will my enemy triumph over me?

Look on me and answer, LORD my God.

Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,

And my enemy will say, "I have overcome him,"

And my foes will rejoice when I fall.

But I trust in your unfailing love;

My heart rejoices in your salvation.

I will sing the LORD's praise for he has been good to me.

Psalm 13 ends with a vow to praise.  The author writes that he DOES trust God.  That he DOES rejoice in the gift of salvation but that he WILL sing the LORD's praise ... just not yet. Not today. Tomorrow, in trust, there will be praise. Today there is prayer. And sadness. For Advent longing remains our truth. 

Come LORD Jesus.  

For we are well past ready.

Khumbayah -- "Come by here"

Which is, I suppose, another way of praying:

Emmanuel -- "God with us"

When God Breaks In (Part III)

A reflection on the fact that God breaking into our world doesn't automatically make things easier, more straight-forward or joyful.

Sometimes God's breaking in makes things more difficult, convoluted and may even contain it's own measure of sorrowing.  So I like the title of this piece.  An authentic wrestling with God, by Stanley Hauerwas.

God, Could You Leave Us Alone?

Zealous God, we confess, like your people Israel, that we tire of being 'the chosen.' Could you not just leave us alone every once in awhile? Sometimes this 'Christian stuff' gets a bit much. Life goes on and we have lives to live. Yet, unrelenting, you refuse to leave us alone. You are, after all, a zealous God. You startle us from our reveries by gathering us into your dream time, into your church. May we, thus gathered, be so inspired by your Spirit that our lives never tire, that we have the energy now to wait, to rest, in the goodness and beauty of your truth. Amen.

When God Breaks In (Part II)

So many of the Bible's stories are stories of commissioning, of God's people being sent.  So much of our lives, as disciples of this Sending God, are characterized by how well we listen and respond to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Jolted By Address

Walter Brueggemann

From: Prayers of a Privileged People

We are surrounded by a din of demanding voices:

                                Selling,

                                Recruiting,

                                Seducing,

                                Coercing.

We screen them out in order to maintain our sanity,

                                                                To secure our rest.

And then, in the night, you address us,

                                                You call us by name,

                                                You entrust to us risky words,

                                                You empower us with authority.

But your voice is on first hearing not distinctive.

We confuse your voice with that of an old friend

                                                                Or a deep hope

                                                                Or a powerful fear

                                                                Or an ancient bias.

We hear, but we do not listen –

                Jolted, bewildered, resistant.

But your voice sneaks up on us:

                You address us,

                You call us by name,

                You entrust us with risky words,

                You empower us with authority.

Sometimes . . . Occasionally . . . boldly . . . we answer:

                                “Speak, I am listening.”

                                Then we say, “Here am I”

And listening, we are made new and sent dangerously

                                                By your address.

When God Breaks In

Lessons & Carols Service this Sunday!

Katie has crafted a beautiful service to help us remember that the God who came to us in Christ, has always been in the business of breaking into the lives of God's people.  The Old Testament is one story after another based on this theme.  And our lives, if we are careful and attentive, bear out this theme.  Emmanuel. God is with us.

For the remainder of this week, I will share various readings and prayers that may begin to help us in the journey of contemplating what it means When God Breaks In. 

Gentle Us Open

Ted Loder

Lord of Life and Light,

            Help us not to fall in love

                        With the darkness that separates us

                                    From you and from each other,

            But to watch large-eyed, wide-hearted,

                        Open-handed, eager-minded for you,

                                    To dream and hunger and squint and pray

                                                For the light of you and life for each other.

Lord, amidst our white-knuckled,

            Furrow-faced busy-ness this season,

                        We realize deep within us that your gifts 

                                    Of mercy and light, peace and joy, grace upon grace

                                                Can be received only if we are unclenched open.

So this our prayer, Lord: Open us!

            Gentle us open, pry, shock, tickle, beguile, knock,

                        Amaze, squeeze, any wily way you can us open.

Open us to see your glory

            In the coming again of the light of each day,

                        The light in babies’ eyes and lovers’ smiles,

                                    The light in the glaze of weariness that causes us to pause,

                                                The light of truth wherever spoken and done.

Open us to songs of angels in the thumping of traffic,

            In the rustle of shoppers, the canopy of pre-dawn silence,

                        In the hum of hope, the wail of longing within us,

                                    In the cries of our brothers and sisters for justice and peace,

                                                And in our own souls’ throb toward goodness.

 Open us, then, to share the gifts you have given us

            And to the deep yearnings to share them gladly and boldly,

                        To sweat for justice, to pay the cost of attention,

                                    To initiate the exchange of forgiveness,

                                                To risk a new beginning free of past grievances,

                                                            To engage with each other in the potluck of joy

                        And to find the gifts of a larger love and deeper peace.

Open us, Lord of miracles of the ordinary,

            To the breath-giving, heart-pounding wonder of birth,

                        A mother’s fierce love, a father’s tender fidelities,

                                    A baby’s barricade-dissolving burble and squeak,

            That we my be born anew ourselves

                        Into the ‘don’t be afraid’ fullness of your image,

                                    The fullness of a just and joyful human community,

                                                The fullness of your kingdom,

                                                            In the fullness of your time;

                                                                        Through the eternal grace of

                                                                                    Your son, our brother Jesus.

                                                                                                Amen. 

A Word of Explanation

You may soon discover that I like to have "big ideas" -- changing the Sanctuary around, for example -- which seem random and unaccountable.  Rest assured, they only seem that way because I often forget to let people know WHY I've done the crazy things I do.

So, as for the sanctuary ...

I am grateful for the portability of furnishings in the sanctuary because of the opportunities this provides to create and craft something new.  In the run-up to Advent, I was thinking about the tradition of the Advent wreath and what it means to be the waiting people of God.  And I realized that, with the possibility of putting the sanctuary "in the round" we could visually and literally become the Advent Wreath.  The unlit Christ Candle is center stage, reminding us that what we long for is not yet fully arrived.  Each week a different individual or family has created their own Advent Candle display.  This way we see demonstrated the unique way God has crafted each one of us and that, for each one of us, the process of waiting may look different.

So, as we worship together on the coming Sundays, look around the sanctuary.  Remember that none of us is waiting alone.  Together we long for and praise the Coming King.  Together we prepare for and worship the Baby born in a manger.

We are the waiting people of God, Christ's own advent wreath.

For Your Sabbath

You may have noticed that I didn't succeed in finding a song for that last portion of our Isaiah 40 -- the dual images of a Sovereign LORD, ruling with a strong arm and bringing his justice with him & the Gentle Shepherd carrying the lambs in his arms, close to his heart.  There is no song I know that gives us both images in all their glory.

All I know is I long for that God to come again.  And that longing is palpable (click below):

O Come, O Come Emmanuel

Commissioned

Even though, as Isaiah just got through saying, mortals are like grass and human kindness is like the flowers of the field -- destined to wither and fade -- we are still commissioned to the work of restoration.

You who bring good news to Zion, go up on a high mountain.You who bring good news to Jerusalem, lift up your voice.Lift up your voice with a shout. Do not be afraid.Say to the towns of Judah, "Here is your God!"

I am stuck on the image of Christian witness as walking through life with others; gently prodding or stopping someone dead in their tracks and shaking them by the shoulders announcing: "Here is Your God!"  Or, "Look!  That was God right there. Did you see it? Do you acknowledge it?  Well, how awesome is this?!?"

We spoke in Bible Study this week about the Christian task of "evangelism."  Some take to it very naturally.  Others of us squirm in our seats and talk about how we can be silent witnesses, which, while true, also seems a tad too convenient.  Maybe we let ourselves off the hook too easily with that particular justification?  At some point people need to hear the words that connect the dots -- "Here is Your God!"  

Evangelism is a word that has it's root in the Greek, evangelion, meaning "Good News."  Those of us who are fearful of this task feel hesitation, I suspect, because we equate evangelism with fire, brimstone and judging others.  But what if we re-calibrated our expectation so that we put ourselves in the business of "Good New"-ing people.  Or, as the prophet Isaiah said it long ago, say to them, "Here is Your God!"

From the same band I used yesterday, Open Up is a song about accepting the commission that comes along with God's grace in our lives.  Take some time today to use it as your prayer.  Who, in your life, needs some Good News?  Who needs to hear, "Here is Your God!"?

Isaiah 40 (the hard part)

"A voice says, 'Cry out.'

And I say, 'What shall I cry?'

'All people are like grass, and all human faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.  

The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the LORD blows on them.  

Surely the people are grass. 

The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God endures forever."

Amid the comfort and release from sin and Glory of the LORD, there are these lines.  Difficult to understand not least because the Hebrew text does not use quotation marks so it is only with the help of scholars (who disagree among themselves) that we are able to reproduce who is crying out what to whom and why.

This is a sobering word about human limitations, frailty and, in a word, mortality.  Of course it ends with a twist as God's eternality reshapes our own lives.  Finding music that does all that was a trick.  I had to dig into an album entitled Lent to find it. But then, that is appropriate right?  What the season of Lent is to Easter so is Advent to Christmas.  It is a moment for reflection, for the cultivation of true wisdom.

True wisdom, as defined by John Calvin, "consists in these two parts: knowledge of God and knowledge of self."  This song captures that tension well.  And it is not an inappropriate meditation for this season.  As winter descend in darkness, we long for the coming light.

The Glory of the LORD

After yesterday's diversion into indie and classic rock, I now return you to your regularly scheduled appropriate and tasteful (if somewhat expected) musical choices.

And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed and all people will see it together.  For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

Isaiah 40 ... the soundtrack continues

A voice of one calling, 'In the desert prepare the way of the LORD; makes straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.'

This text lends itself to the soundtrack of roadtrip.  Having driven out West a couple of times, I know that stretch of highway through Montana's Big Sky Country.  There is something so liberating about those roads after busting through the traffic around Chicago and the strange beauty of South Dakota's Badlands.  The ubiquitous Wall Drug signs are behind you now.  So you point your car toward the Rockies and you drive.  There is no song that captures that feeling for me like this one.  I admit it is a strange choice for a soundtrack of Isaiah.  I'm hoping that by being outlandish, someone will bravely provide a counter-offer in the comments. (hint, hint.)

Then again, you can never go wrong with U2 ...

Advent Playlist

With radio and Pandora stations dedicated to Christmas music, I often find it helpful to create my own playlist of particularly Advent-y music.  Of course, there is plenty of reason to enjoy Harking to Angels' Singing, and Gloria in Excesis Deo-ing. Christ has come!  And we are right to celebrate.  But we also know that Christ will come again.  And we are right to long for and prepare. All is not yet as it should be. What we see in part at Manger and Cross, we will someday see in full at Christ's Return and Kingdom Come.

Next Sunday we continue our examination of Gabriel's announcement to Mary.
Yesterday we focused on the proclamation that "The LORD is with you" as remarkably Good News, but not easy news.  That Jesus choose to belong to us in order that we might belong to God.
Next Sunday, we think of Gabriel's words, "Fear Not!" in conjunction with the Old Testament prophecy: Isaiah 40:1-11.  My challenge this week, should I choose to accept it (and I do) is this: to create a soundtrack for Isaiah's words.  Maybe you'll like my selections.  Maybe you will have your own to offer.

Comfort, comfort my people, says Your God.Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received double from the LORD's hand for all her sin.

Sunday Text & Theme

In conjunction with Luke 1:26-38, the Old Testament Lectionary text for this Sunday comes from Jeremiah 33.  Together we'll focus on verses 10-16, particularly how they communicate, as Gabriel did to Mary, The LORD is With You.

¹⁰ “This is what the Lord says: ‘You say about this place, “It is a desolate waste, without people or animals.” Yet in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem that are deserted, inhabited by neither people nor animals, there will be heard once more ¹¹ the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, and the voices of those who bring thank offerings to the house of the Lord, saying,

“Give thanks to the Lord Almighty,
    for the Lord is good;
    his love endures forever.”

For I will restore the fortunes of the land as they were before,’ says the Lord.

¹² “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘In this place, desolate and without people or animals—in all its towns there will again be pastures for shepherds to rest their flocks. ¹³ In the towns of the hill country, of the western foothills and of the Negev, in the territory of Benjamin, in the villages around Jerusalem and in the towns of Judah, flocks will again pass under the hand of the one who counts them,’ says the Lord.

¹⁴ “‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will fulfill the good promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah.

¹⁵ “‘In those days and at that time
    I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line;
    he will do what is just and right in the land.
¹⁶ In those days Judah will be saved
    and Jerusalem will live in safety.
This is the name by which it^[c] will be called:
    The Lord Our Righteous Savior.’

Jeremiah was a prophet at the end of Judah's reign in the Promised Land.  For more than 400 years an ancestor of David had sat on the throne in Jerusalem.  The people had flourished in the land.  But a series of degenerate Davidic grandsons were tilting the whole nation toward exile. Many had already landed, with a first wave of captivity, in Babylon.  As Jeremiah is receiving and reciting this very prophecy, the dust of King Nebechednezzer's chariots and horses was rising off the eastern horizon.  Jeremiah is under house arrest because his own people are sick of his negative prognostications.
However, in the chapter just before this one, Jeremiah had bought a parcel of land in Judah -- a ridiculous gesture of hope in what was a hopeless time.  Here they were -- the neighborhood that society had forgotten.  Homes are in foreclosure.  Neighbors for 50-60 years are aging, their children have left for more promising parts of the city, even left for other states!  What is to become of this old place?  City Commissioners don't seem to care.  Has God forgotten to care?
When, all of a sudden, new developments begin to go up across the street.  The show home is beautifully staged and at least half-a-dozen yet-to-be-built homes have been purchased.  "Well, what is this?" Think the neighbors.
In one of the most quoted (and ill-quoted) texts of Jeremiah, the prophet proclaims the promise of God -- a promise intended for the WHOLE PEOPLE OF JUDAH (not necessarily to individuals therein):

"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD. 'Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future.'"

It's just that, who would have thought this plan would be so outlandish as the Second Person of the Trinity descending to our humanity?
Who would have thought that prosperity looks like a manger and grubby shepherds?
Who would have thought that our protection from harm required the suffering of an innocent?
Who would have thought that our hope and our future began with a Nazarene teenager woken from ordinary life by the proclamation of an Angel of the LORD?

Introducing Advent

My strange Advent-funk of yesterday is passed. Well, mostly.  No divine epiphany or perfect resolution.  Sadly no angel announcements or choirs.  Just a reminder -- via Mary -- that waiting is not static.

Re:Arranged

Advent 2012

This year for the 4 weeks of Advent we are going to enter into the life of Mary in order that she might enter more fully into our lives.  Using Luke 1:26-38 as a base text each week, we will look together at what it means to discover: The LORD is with You, Do Not Be Afraid, The Power of the Most High and, finally, to see the courage it takes to respond to each of these truths with bold obedience: "May It Be to Me as You Have Said."

In truth, there are many different Marys floating around in our collective Christian consciousness.  Catholic Mary with the halo, Orthodox Mary with the blue frock, Evangelical Mary who, when talked about at all is praised for the virtues of submission and passive acquiescence to the will of God - what a woman!  But who is Protestant Mary? Does a picture come to mind or was Mary left behind as a baby in the Reformation's bathwaters? And what of Biblical Mary?

As an exercise in creative writing, I've asked myself these two question: 

1) What was Mary doing exactly 30 seconds before Gabriel caught up with her?  What was her life like? Who were her friends? How did she spend her time? 

2) Thinking about how ordinary her life must have been until that angelic interlude, then, how was her life, her relationships, her thinking, her expectations, her heart Re:Arranged in the 9 months she was given to wrap herself around the idea of Messiah growing in her womb.

That kind of waiting isn't static.  It is active and intense. It's about shifting from what has been to what God will do. It is letting go of all that does not harmonize with this intrusion of God into everyday life.  It is pondering, wrestling, accepting the strangeness of God who becomes flesh.

A resource for me this Advent Season is an older book now called: Blessed One: Protestant Perspectives on Mary.  It is a compilation of essays very beautifully and thought-provokingly rendered.  So, I will leave you today with a thought from the introduction: 

To elevate Mary to a status beyond ordinary personhood is to abdicate the very hope of the incarnation -- that God has met us in the mundane and beautiful context of creaturely existence. Respecting the ordinariness of Mary (as surprising as it is), ... is to accept our own vocation as the ordinary and imperfect, called and loved, people of God.

Strange Space

Usually I am ready, oh-so-ready, for Advent. We had an early-ish Easter and an extra Sunday after Thanksgiving.  I recognize that it has been "ordinary time" for far too long and I am ready to raise a glass and toast the first Sunday of Advent, which is the New Year for liturgy geeks.

Everything starts fresh in Advent: Lectionary readings, sanctuary colors and installations  worship songs and worship words come around again. They arrive, not with the shock of strangeness but as familiar friends we haven't seen in a long time.

And there's an obvious cultural subversion to practicing Advent rightly.  The whole world is bustling with self-assigned goodness: baking, gift buying and wrapping, holiday feasts, decorating, entertaining, crafts.  Meanwhile the church slows itself.  Holiday traffic whips around us but we respect the restraints of human speed limits. So I like the "haha! You won't catch me going crazy this time of year" sensibility that Advent, rightly practiced, provides.

Yet, this year, ordinary time has been far-from-ordinary.  I came in touch with the DC CRC during Holy Week. I had an interview the week before Pentecost and was planning a visit to DC within a month.  My ordinary time (to say nothing of DC CRC's experience) this year was filled with the pathos of wondering, uncertainty, expectation, longing, anticipation.  The call was extended and we waited. The call was received and we waited. I said goodbye to my loved ones in Kalamazoo while the congregation in DC patiently waited. I drove into town and waited. My moving truck arrived and even then we waited.

It was only a month ago this coming Sunday that I was installed as Pastor at DC CRC.  It was last week that my kitchen was finished, last weekend that I finally organized the last room (the basement) of the parsonage.  This morning I was still hanging things and re-arranging my office at church. Life in DC is still strange.  Ordinary appears only in snatches between the clouds of newness and the fog o' strange.

So, here we are.  Just beginning. It finally feels like time to engage, not time to wait. But now the Almighty Church Calendar tells us that we ought to slow down again and wait and be still and do that counter-cultural thing of NOT going crazy this year.  But, if I'm honest, the effort to not go crazy this year might actually cause me to go a little bit crazy.

I'm just looking for a little more Ordinary Time because we've been living Advent for the past 7 months! I don't have an answer or solution to my soul's hesitations.  I'd be happy to hear any homemade remedies you feel appropriate to prescribe.

In the meantime, I'll begin my preparations for Sunday and see what the Holy Spirit can do for us here.

 

Can the Christian Life Be Playful?

This is the question I am working with over the next two days in advance of Sunday's sermon: Transforming Space: recreation (or is that ReCreation?) So:

Can the Christian Life Be Playful?

If not, why not?

If so, what does that mean and/or what does that look like?

Tuesday TextS & ThemeS

Ordinarily, this will be Tuesday Text & Theme but, with a Thanksgiving Service thrown in for fun, we are getting two this week.

Our series is entitled: Transformed, taken from II Cor. 3, "We all with unveiled faces, contemplate the LORD's glory, are being transformed into His image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the LORD, who is the Spirit."

Last week, Transforming Time was an examination of what it means to Keep the Sabbath as a reaction to a culture that tries to teach us that either time is our oppressor or else time is ours to control & manipulate.

Our Thanksgiving Text is:  Luke 14:12-24
Our Thanksgiving Theme is: Transforming Place, an examination of the role of hospitality in the life of the church.  Here's one quote from Elizabeth Newman's Untamed Hospitality: Welcoming God and Other Strangers

"To say that worship itself is our participation in divine hospitality is also to say that worship is the primary ritualized place where we learn to be guests and hosts in the Kingdom of God."

- What  hath worship to do with hospitality?
- What does the grace received teach us about the grace we give?
- What are some distortions to our practices of generousity -- Faux Hospitality, as it were?

Our Sunday Texts are: Isaiah 55 & Mark 10:13-16
Our Sunday Theme is: Transforming Space, an examination of the role of recreation (or ReCreation) in the life of the church.
Honestly, I haven't chased this down very far yet.  But I do know there is something here about delight. About participating in play and art and nature and laughter.  This is the part of Sabbath that got amputated from the legalistic version many people grew up with.  But there is something incumbent upon a Transformed Community to find delight and beauty and love, even in ordinary places.  So, to that end, here is a youtube link you may appreciate.

Two Things:

Monday Morning Preacher-ing

Okay, what questions did the sermon raise that didn't get sufficiently answered?
Did you hear anything new?  Or something old in a new way?
Do you need more concrete examples/ideas?
What difference does this make as many of you look at going back to work tomorrow?
Any concerns over outright heresy?

Now's the time.  This blog is the place.  Let's keep the conversation going.

Practicing What I Preach

As soon as I post this, I plan to practice some Sabbath.
Of course, I am ALWAYS available by phone for emergencies.  And I'm honored to be able to respond in these situations.
But I also want you to know that I practice what I preach.
So after this blog post, I'm done for approximately the next 24 hours.
I trust the world will continue to spin on it's axis...

"Talk amongst yourselves.  I'll give you a topic - the Sabbath. Discuss."

A Saturday Snippet

(whenever you see a post like this from me, particularly on a Friday or Saturday, you might assume that I am attempting to procrastinate in sermon writing.  And, 80% of the time, your assumption will be correct.)

As I was picking up groceries to make peanut noodles with sesame vegetables for tomorrow's potluck (yeah, I still feel the need to impress you all.  Next month, Stouffer's lasagna), the cashier ringing me up handed me my receipt with these words:

Have a peaceful holiday.

It stopped me in my tracks.  A peaceful holiday.  Now I know there are folks who get uppity about the whole holiday/Christmas thing.  I do not believe that there is a "War on Christmas," unless, of course you are referring to Herod's massacre of the innocents in Bethlehem after he learned of the Christ Child's birth.  Now THAT was a war of Christmas.  But I digress ...

So I celebrate Christmas but, I recognize that isn't the only holiday being celebrated.  And, especially in advance of Thanksgiving, there are many holidays to be celebrated in the coming six weeks.  What struck me was the the adjective: peaceful.

I admit that, by temperament and personality, I tend to feel accosted by Holiday Cheer.  I hear "Have a Merry Christmas" in the imperative voice: Do it.  Be Merry. NOW!  "Happy Holidays" as almost a slap in the face.  In my line of work, I am well aware that the holidays are a difficult time for many people, which is only compounded by the societal expectation that this will be "the most wonderful time of the year."  I am quick to hear in all this bustling and hubbub an almost sinister undertone: "Be Jolly, or else..."

So, when I heard "Have a peaceful holiday," what struck me was that I felt blessed by those words.  It was a holy moment.  Still and sacred, even with a line forming behind me and the conveyor belt still conveying turkeys and fixins at me.  I didn't hear an imperative.  I heard permission to let this season of the year be what it needs to be so long as it accords with peace in myself and with my neighbors.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, whether Thanksgiving includes the chaos of extended family, may you know PEACE.  Whether the table is less crowded and the offerings less plentiful, may you be surrounded by PEACE. If you are alone or missing someone special this year, you needn't strive for jolly or merry or happy.  Instead, I wish for you peace.

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." -John 14:27

But How Does Sabbath Work?

I was thinking yesterday morning about common responses to conversation about Sabbath.  Mostly what I hear falls into two categories:

1) A concern for the legalism that historically adhered itself to Sabbath practice.  The stories I've heard of people confessing that their family was considered suspect because they were allowed to go swimming on the Sabbath.  But, they hasten to add, we weren't allowed to splash.  To this I say: "what the what?"

What was Sabbath/Sunday like in your family of origin?  

What was good? What was difficult or just plain bizarre?

2) The other response I get is a general agreement that the idea of resting, being refreshed, taking time to re-orient ourselves in a dizzying and confusing world sounds like a good idea.  But it is quickly followed up with something along the lines of: 

"But for my family, right now.  It's impossible."

"There is no way with the demands of my work right now."

I don't pretend that everyone's life is as dope as mine (yeah, that's right. I just said "dope." Deal.) And I can't speak to the life situation of those in the thick of child-rearing. Or high-power/high-stakes/high-pressure employment.  It's possible I just haven't been properly interculturated to DC living yet. Maybe 24 hours of extra sleep, easy hospitality, hikes in the woods and all the rest of it is unrealistic.

If this is the relationship you have toward Sabbath, I need to recommend an amazing book to you: Sabbath in the Suburbs: A Family's Experiment with Holy Time by MaryAnn McKibben Dana. (order it on Amazon. Right now. Reverend's orders.) She is a mom of three. A pastor. And living in a dual-career marriage.  Oh yeah, and she lives in the Metro DC area.  So she DOES know what it's like to be in the thick of child-rearing. To live the DC lifestyle and to juggle vocational aspirations.  Her book is joyful, thoughtful, playful & realistic.  (She'll even teach you how to "cheat" on your Sabbath practices with handy tips called "Sabbath Hacks" in each chapter.)

So maybe you can't do 24 hours every week.  

But what could you be doing to honor time as God's gift to you?   

* One family (this is from MaryAnn's book, I think) decided that once a week they were all going to walk the dog together.  That was their Sabbath hour.

* One couple (Linford & Karen Detweiler, if any of you know them) tell the story of how, at a crucial moment in their marriage, they would put a bottle of wine on the Table every night with two glasses.  And they would sit and talk until the bottle was empty.  This practice restored them to each other.

* Limits on technology?  I will not answer e-mail between 11pm & 9am.  I'm not that important.  And I'm a pastor so it'd be easy for me to make the case that I AM that important.  But I'm not.

* What about Sabbath and our relationship to food?  Love to cook but never have time? One night a week, buy the ingredients, chop, saute and delight in God's good creation.  Hate to cook but have to feed the kids everyday?  Sabbath can be as simple as ordering in pizza -- really good pizza. Not cardboard with rubbery cheese & funky red sauce.

How is your life regularly out of balance?  And how can God's gift of time bring that out-of-wackness back into the goodness of Christ's Kingdom?

What are Sabbath practices YOU have heard of/tried/might be willing to try?

...But I Digress: Is Sabbath a Justice Issue?

(It seems likely this will be a recurring kind of blog post.  As I dive deep into a text or an idea each week, there are inevitably tangents I discover that are well worth sharing but unlikely to become part of a 20-minute sermon on Sunday mornings.  So perhaps I'll throw them up here [pun possibly intended] to see if it is a conversation worth having in another format.)

So, Is Sabbath a Justice Issue?

This afternoon, as I'm hunkered down at home surrounded by books about Sabbath, a woman I've met before rings my doorbell to see if there's any way I can help her out with money for baby formula.  I know from limited experience with her that she has 4 kids, works two jobs and still regularly falls short on basics like gas, food, etc.

I told her that we have deacons at the church on Sundays who can help her with her request.  She seemed disappointed but understanding and I was satisfied that I'd held the party-line (a party-line I believe in, by the way.)  I even invited her to the potluck at church on Sunday, I thought, straining my elbow to pat my own back, as I shut the door behind me.

I sat back down amid my Sabbath books and it hit me -- how the heck do I know she doesn't work on Sundays?

Most of us work -- at least in part -- because we have financial obligations to meet.  For some that means funds for elite prep school for the kids or a car that won't overheat in DC traffic or a nest egg suitable for early retirement.  But for others "financial obligation" is far more rudimentary. How many people in this country (and LORD have mercy if we extend this thought globally) work at least two jobs or excessive hours and still don't have enough to make rent, pay for health care, groceries, transportation, let alone anything that would give them the whatever-it-is that will help them take a step forward?

We don't live in a world that values everybody's time equally (If time is money, then I submit for evidence the salary of a public school teacher and the salary of the president of the United States.  Oh, and the salary of the stay-at-home parent, come to that.)

Should I just end my sermon about the difficulty and importance of celebrating Sabbath with a giant hashtag:
#firstworldproblems   or
#invisibleprivilege

Sabbath teaches us that time does not own us.  Likewise, we do not own time. We do not make/create/waste time as we are fond of saying.  Sabbath teaches us, as the Psalmist wrote: "My times are in Your hands."  God owns time.  And God gives us time, held in trust with the expectation that we will steward this resource, along with all others, as our participation in the Kingdom of God.  The Sabbath is a Transforming Time because it re-orients us to God's Kingdom.  Then, as God's Kingdom People, we are sent into the world to engage in the work of Transforming Time (see what I did there?)

In the Kingdom of God, time -- not simply our own but everyone's time -- belongs to God.  And is intended to serve eternal purposes (six days & on the seventh day.)  If we believe this, then shouldn't we be advocating our brains out for things like: fair labor practices, living wages, generous family leave policies. We should know the practices of the companies we frequent in terms of the hours they require and the benefits they provide.  If you are a Democrat, you should lobby congress.  If you are a Republican, you should take it to the CEO.  I don't much care except for this: If you are a Christian, you should do something.  

Because, if time is sacred,

then EVERYBODY's time is sacred.

And Sabbath becomes a Justice Issue.

New Testament Sabbath

The New Testament text for Sunday is: Luke 13:10-17, which, after yesterday's Old Testament lesson, should provoke some questions for the saavy reader.  Chief among them:

* Was the Synagogue Leader wrong in his condemnation of Jesus?  Or, more accurately, his condemnation of the people who would come to the Synagogue on the Sabbath to request a miracle?

* Also, if we begin with the premise that Jesus did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it, in what way was his action in this case a fulfillment of Sabbath?

* What is the A.D. meaning/purpose of Sabbath?

Okay, I've got the ball rolling, now check out the text for yourselves (again, some of my language notations included below) and let me know what questions YOU have.

 ¹⁰ On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues,¹¹ and a woman was there who had been crippled (root word: anesthesia! Weakened, incapacity, timidity, frail, ill, incapacitated, limited)
by a spirit (same word: Holy Spirit, evil spirit, way of being/attitude/disposition) for eighteen years.She was bent over (bowed down) and could not (did not have power) straighten up (lift herself) at all.
¹² When Jesus saw (paid attention) her, he called her forward (addressed her) and said to her, “Woman, you are set free (perfect passive: released, pardoned, sent away) from your infirmity (root word: anesthesia! Weakened, incapacity, timidity, frail, ill, incapacitated, limited).”
¹³ Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up (passive voice: was built upright, restored, set straight, rebuilt) and praised (honored, glorified) God.
¹⁴ Indignant (grieved, incensed, offended, irate) because Jesus had healed (cured, served) on the Sabbath, the synagogue ruler said to the people, “There are six days for work (labor, expended effort, business, performance.) So come and be healed (cured, served) on those days, not on the Sabbath.”
¹⁵ The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites (pretenders, insincere)!
Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie (same root word as “set free” release) his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water?
¹⁶ Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound (tied, imprisoned, compelled, restricted, prohibited, made sick, kept a slave) for eighteen long years,
(Is it not necessary for her to) be set free (perfect passive: released, pardoned, sent away) on the Sabbath day from what bound (the bond, fetters, imprisonment, incapacity, illness) her?”
¹⁷ When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated (put to shame, disgraced), but the people were delighted (rejoiced, were glad) with all the wonderful (splendid, radiant) things he was doing. 

Old Testament Sabbath

The Old Testament Text for this Sunday is Exodus 31:12-18.  This comes at the end of Moses' trip up Mt. Sinai.  In fact, this is God's last spoken communication to Moses before sending him back down the mountain into the devolved chaos of the Israelites' unsanctioned Festival of the Golden Calf (funnel cakes and carnival games for the kiddies.  Come one! Come all!)

It strikes me that God's last word to Moses is a commandment to rest & remember, a commandment with sobering consequences for disobedience.  But how many of us treat the Sabbath as the "cute" commandment -- like 9 commandments and 1 suggestion (for those who are less hearty, less important, less than...)?

I don't think you can read this text and come to the conclusion that God didn't really mean it with this one.  That Sabbath is optional in some way.  Or available if you need it but otherwise, off you go on your merry way.

What follows is some of my work in the original text (and in the Greek, which is easier for me than Hebrew).  Is there anything here -- a word, phrase or idea -- that piques your curiousity? You may as well say so now. Otherwise, I'm just going to end up preaching the sermon I think is interested and you'll be like, "What? No. That's not what I wanted to know about.  That's not helpful at all."  Well, listen up people, if you don't register your vote here, I don't want to hear it on Sunday! ;-)

¹² Then the Lord said (promised, declared) to Moses,

¹³ “Say (imperative) to the Israelites,

‘(Above all) You must observe (keep, guard, be careful, protect, obey, see, witness, experience, visit, perceive; also imperative) my Sabbaths.

This will be a sign (banner, standard, flag, miracle, wonder, mighty act) between me and you for the generations to come,

so you may know (find out, experience, acknowledge, choose, know “in the Biblical sense,” perceive, learn) that I am the Lord,

who makes you holy. (sanctify, consecrate, dedicate, hallows you.)

¹⁴ “ ‘Observe (guard, keep, watch, be careful of, defend) the Sabbath,

because it is holy (sanctuary, holy object, as distinct from corrupt & ordinary, “temple in time”) to you.

Anyone who desecrates (defiles, profanes, treats with contempt, pollute) it

must be put to death (die, put to death, murdered, mortified);

whoever does any work (make, create, engage in money matters, cause another to work, execute, perform, build, prepare) on that day

must be cut off (stopped, ruined, failed) from his people.

¹⁵ For six days, work (same as above) is to be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest (consecrated observance of rest, holy repose),

holy (sanctuary, holy object, as distinct from corrupt & ordinary, “temple in time”) to the Lord.

Whoever does any work (see above) on the Sabbath day must be put to death (see above).

¹⁶ The Israelites are to observe (keep, guard, be careful, protect, obey, see, witness, experience, visit, perceive; also imperative) the Sabbath,

celebrating (making, observing, fashioning, cause, bring about, execute, build, perform) it for the generations to come as a lasting covenant (pledge, promise, marriage, will, testament, treaty.)

¹⁷ It will be a sign (banner, standard, flag, miracle, wonder, mighty act)  between me and the Israelites forever,

for in six days the Lord made (make, create, engage in money matters, cause another to work, execute, perform, build, prepare) the heavens and the earth,

and on the seventh day he abstained (stopped, was quiet, kept the Sabbath, ceased, left off) from work and rested (was refreshed, passive voice).’ ”

¹⁸ When the Lord finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai,

he gave (appointed him, charged him with valuables) him the two tablets of the Testimony,

the tablets of stone inscribed (written, engraved) by the finger of God.