Tending the Urgent Wound

Tending the Urgent Wound--December 15, 2016

[Mary said:] "God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty." (Luke 1:52-53)

I love both of my children. Dearly and fiercely, like any parent worth their salt.  That's a given, day in and day out. I love them both, and I dare say I think they know it.

But when one pushes the other down, or when one steals the other one's apple slices at breakfast without provocation, guess what--I take sides.  At least, I should say, I don't let the sibling-smacking or apple-pilfering go uncorrected by responding identically to both in that moment.  If my son has been hit, then I am going to be wrapping my arms around him, and his sister will have to face consequences for her choices and eventually have to apologize to him.  If my son is the puckish fruit thief and takes his sister's snack while my back is turned as I cut the rest of the apple, well, then I will make sure she gets apples given back to her.  This is, of course, basic Dealing with Small Humans 101.

Same thing, really, when there is a scrape, a splinter, or other boo-boo: I love both of my kids, but only the one who has the cut needs the Band-Aid.  I love them both fiercely, but when only one is running a fever, only that one gets the Children's Advil, even thought they both think the blue raspberry liquid is like drinkable candy.  I am not saying that the health of the well one doesn't matter--but rather the well one doesn't need the medicine while the sick one does.  And in fact, giving medicine to the well one, out of some misguided attempt to show that "all my kids' health matters," would only run the risk of causing liver damage.

And even though  I would hope this is obvious, let me be clear: I still love both my kids in the midst of those situations. 

Sometimes love is comforting, and sometimes love is correcting. Sometimes the most loving thing to do for a kid is to give them medicine, and sometimes if that child is already well, more medicine would not be an act of love but harmful. Sometimes loving everybody means that special attention is given to the one who just got stepped on, or who had their snack taken, or who is demonstrably feverish... not because the other one doesn't matter, but because that's the one who is especially hurting right now. Of course both of my kids matter--but in any given moment, one may need to own up to their unkind choice and the other may need to have their snack given back.  In any given moment, one may need help, and other may need to see where they have caused hurt.  And when I set things right, yes, sometimes it means that I give apple slices to the one whose dish just got spilled on the floor, but no more to the one who already gobbled up their own share as well as some stolen ones from the sibling across the table.

If all of that is just plain obvious when it comes to managing young children, why is it hard for us to see the same with adults? And why is it so hard for us to hear in the Scriptures?  Not just as in Mary's song, but woven throughout the stories and visions of the people of God in the Bible?  God loves everybody the way I love both of my kids--sometimes you comfort one and confront the other, not because you don't love the one you are scolding, but because they have to see how they have hurt their sister, their brother.  And of course everybody's life matters to God--but you have to ask in the very same breath the questions, "Whose life is most threatened right now?"  "Whose lives are least valued by their brothers and sisters right now?"  "Whose lives are cut and bleeding--because those are the ones who need the band-aids."

Mary gets it. She would not deny that God loves every mother's son, every last father's daughter, every last one of us.  But Mary, here, not even a mother yet herself, knows a thing or two about raising small (and small-minded) humans.  Mary knows that when somebody is hurting, that's the one you comfort.  And when the brother across the table has pilfered the apple slices, he has to be told, "No--you don't get to do that to your sister!"  And she has to hear that there will be enough for her to be fed. 

So Mary sings about God the same way anybody would talk about a half-decent parent: the ones who bully the others need to be stood in a corner for a while. The ones who take from their siblings without caring about them need to be sent up to their rooms for a while, and the hungry ones who are afraid need to be given daily bread.  In Mary's words, that is exactly what God is up to in the world: "throwing down the powerful from their thrones, filling the hungry with good things, and sending the rich away empty." That doesn't mean God doesn't care about bullies and stinkers, no, not all. But even parents who love their children don't want them to grow up to be greedy jerks, and part of loving your kids is helping them to change when they are on the verge of getting spoiled.  Sometimes the world's so-called "winners"--the rich and the powerful, the pedigreed and the prestigious--need to be sent away without an extra prize, and the ones who have been picked on and gone without need to know they are cared for.  Everybody matters--but in any given moment you have to ask, "who is getting picked on... who is getting tromped on...and who is doing the tromping?"  Those folks' needs matter especially.  The band-aids are for the kid whose knee is scraped, not for the one to pushed the other down and just wants one for a fashion accessory.  Mary's song just helps us to see that God has always been about that business on the grand scale--not merely apple slices and scraped knees, but dethroning dictators and feeding the hungry, turning the tables on the powers of the day, whoever and whatever they are.

That's what Mary's song is all about.  That's the movement God has begun. That's what the Kingdom Jesus announced and embodied is all about.

Today, what might happen if we let Mary's song make us squirm where we ought to be made uncomfortable, and what might happen if we started asking the question underneath her poetic prayer: "Given that everybody matters, who in particular is bleeding?" I suspect we would come to see God there as the Presence of Fierce Love who both binds up the wound of the children who are hurt and who says, "No more," to the children who have been doing the pushing.

Lord God, give us the ability to see your fierce and honest love in all things, both as you correct us and as you comfort us--as you stop us from hurting one another or taking from one another, and as you restore to us what has been broken and hurt.  Thank you for the many ways your love is real with us.

Undermining the Overlords

Undermining the Overlords--December 14, 2016

[Mary said...] "His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts." [Luke 1:50-51]

Here is one of the places where Mary's words--the very words of Scripture, the words of the Mother of the Messiah no less--are hard for me. And yet, to be honest, it is the difficulty that gives me a surprising kind of hope.

What is hard for me about these words of Mary's is that she speaks them like they are accomplished facts, rather than wishful thinking.  She doesn't simply long for the proud and puffed up to be taken down a few pegs.  She doesn't merely say, "Wouldn't it be nice if the world worked like that?" like Woody Allen in Annie Hall, pulling Marshall McLuhan out from off-screen to chastise a pompous blowhard in line ahead of him at the movie theater, before Allen looks at the camera and says, "Wouldn't it be great if we could do things like this in real life?"  Mary doesn't just imagine, a la John Lennon's famous song, that things might be or could be different.  Mary sings like it is true... like God has already done it.

And the thing is... in this life, it sure doesn't look like the proud and pompous have been scattered or quieted.  The arrogant have a way of shouting more, barking louder, and patting themselves on the back, and it sure can look like they win the day.  From the days of the obnoxiously narcissistic Roman emperors and generals going on victory tours to try and impress the crowds of the vanquished and conquered people, and ever after, there is this recurring impulse with the proud ones of history to overplay their hand. They can't just win--they have to convince you it was an utterly overwhelming triumph.  They can't just leave wounded hearts to heal--they have to rub salt in the wound.  They cannot imagine that somehow there are minority reports like Mary's that dare to say the emperor is wearing no clothes, and they cannot hear a word of reality to bring them back down to earth--that sounds too much like criticism to the ears of the proud.  And here is the terribly irony--it is often the proud and puffed up who have the most fragile egos, in all reality.  I suppose that makes sense by the laws of physics, too--a balloon that is fully inflated with the hot air of your breath will explode with just the slightest prodding from a sharp pin. So it is with history's "proud."  They sure seem to win the day an awful lot, though.

That's what makes it hard for me to hear Mary's words.  So often, the proud aren't scattered--they are clumped together in seats of power and prestige, from Pharaoh in Egypt to Babylon and Rome and in every empire since.  But Mary speaks with such confidence, such certainty.  And that's odd just by itself, because surely Mary herself hadn't seen much evidence of the proud being scattered in her own lifetime.  Just the opposite, really.  Every year (at least), the Romans would march into Jerusalem, their occupied capital, with swords and helmets flashing and banners with Caesar's image flapping in the wind, just to remind everybody in Judea who was in charge.  Thirty-odd years after Mary's pregnancy, of course, an itinerant rabbi would stage his own subversive version of this imperial parade coming into Jerusalem riding on a borrowed donkey while the crowds waved palm branches--but when Mary sang the words of Luke 1, that moment we know as Palm Sunday was barely a gleam in her eye.

So Mary has something in common with us--we still live in this world order where the proud don't seem particularly humbled yet, and they still lord it over everybody else.  For that matter, if we are unflinchingly honest, there is that proud and puffed up streak in all of us to some degree, and we have a tendency of resisting anything that would let the hot air out of our balloons.  We don't like to admit we are, or ever were, wrong.  We are the ones who don't like to hear or consider the possibility that there is more to the story than we can see.  We don't like to admit our own blind spots or biases.  We, all of us, are all sure we've got it right, and "they" are the ones who have it all wrong.  And we have conveniently engineered news channels, social media feeds, and our circles of friends to become echo chambers that will only reinforce what we already think.  If all I ever hear are stories and comments that already fit with what I already believe, well, then, I'll never have to admit to being incorrect or incomplete, and I'll never have to have my perspective widened.

But Mary's song keeps calling to us and pulling at us.  Mary sings about a God who has scattered the proud, and with that, at the very least she forces each of us to ask ourselves where we are in need of being brought back down to earth, and where each of us has been the arrogant one tromping on the people around us.  And you know what else--Mary forces us to consider that God just might have already begun to humble the proud... by coming among us in Jesus.  Maybe, just maybe, Mary was onto something--and the way to undermine the puffed-up and pompous powerbrokers of history is to begin to undermine the way they define themselves.  Instead of accepting the rules they play by, where shows of power or influence or prestige or force or wealth are the measuring rods of being "great," what if you save the world without an army or two coins to rub together, and instead save the world with self-giving suffering love that breaks open the grip of death?  What if you save the world, not by raising up one more empire to take down the last one, until the next one comes along, but by refusing to play the world's ridiculous game of "King of the Hill" in the first place? What if it turns out that God is an awful lot more subversive and surprising than we realized, and if God is not the one propping up the powerful in their comfortable positions, but rather the One who calls into question all of history's pompous victory tours by riding into town on a donkey toward his own execution?  And what if Mary was on to that all along, and wants us to see that from the beginning, too?

If you have found yourself, now or ever, in that place of darkness and despair because it doesn't feel like the arrogant of history get the humbling they deserve, then maybe what we most deeply need is Mary's song to point us to Jesus, and then to take up the cause of dethroning the proud by taking an honest look inside ourselves for blind spots and biases we did not want to admit were there.

Thank God for inspiring the revolutionary voice of Mary, who sang this subversive tune into the ears of her infant son, so that he could indeed break open the stagnant old patterns of history.

Lord God, give us the courage today both to look at ourselves for places we have puffed ourselves up, and to look hopefully at your way of turning the tables on the arrogant and the pompous, so that all of us may find ourselves lifted up together.



The Soundtrack of the Revolution

The Soundtrack of the Revolution--December 12, 2016

And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name...." [Luke 1:46-49]

Be careful the songs you listen to--they will get stuck in your head... and from there, into your heart, and then into your whole self.

You know, even from day to day experience, what's it's like to get a catchy jingle or the latest bit of pop bubble gum top 40 music in your head.  You may not know what the song is about, or be able to decipher all the words... but you catch yourself singing bits of it days later, in the shower, on the way to work, or under your breath as you get your lunch.  Be careful what bits of melody and rhythm you let into your ears--they will lodge themselves there while you don't even realize it is happening.

Then there are songs whose words get inscribed on your heart. Those are even more permanent--you'll find them coming back to you not just days later, but years, or decades.  They may be words of comfort, or words that provoke and haunt you.  I remember a year ago this Christmas-time, how a group of carolers from our church family went to sing at a nearby nursing home where a member who is over 100 years old lives as a resident. And even though she couldn't muster a conversation with us, when we sang, "Silent Night," she began singing along with us from her bed, the well-worn words having never been erased from the deepest part of her memory. Or it's the way Martin Luther's famous words from "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," make your knees straighten and your body stand at attention like it is the national anthem for your soul, when you hear, "We tremble not, unmoved we stand--they cannot overpower us."  Or in my own experience, I think about the way my head and heart were changed, like waking from a dream and seeing with terrible clarity, the first time I heard Billie Holiday singing "Strange Fruit."  Songs are powerful, and once we let them into our ears, they have a way of taking root in some corner of our spirits like seeds and spreading like kudzu or creeping myrtle.  And the ideas contained in their lyrics have a way of becoming implanted in us until they come to full bloom and bear fruit in our actions and habits.

All of that is to say, don't dismiss the power of songs to change the world--they are often the catalyst for changed hearts that then spark change in others.

And that brings us to these words of Mary's, which for two millennia the church has heard as a song.  It is Mary's song, but it is also the song of longing and fierce hope sung by all those seeking for the world to be put right.  Mary herself is riffing on the song of Hannah from 1 Samuel, who also sings after news of a miraculous birth and the table-turning power of God.  And both Hannah and Mary see God as One who lifts up the lowly and breaks the pride of the arrogant and the pompously puffed-up.  Mary, like Hannah and like Miriam before, is one of a chorus of brave and faithful and fierce women who knew to look for God on the side of those most-stepped-on, and they knew the right response to such a God was a song of praise and thanks.  Mary's song is not bitter, even if it is urgent with divine fire.  Mary's song is not empty wishful thinking, even though it envisions a world and a day beyond what we see before our eyes.  Mary's song is not saccharin sanctimonious escapism merely promising a better life in the great hereafter--it is unapologetically grounded in this world and the feeding of this world's poor... and even, yes, if we dare to take her words seriously, sending the overstuffed rich away empty.

Mary's song is radical.  Here is your warning now--if you dare to read the Bible on Mary's terms, it will change you.  If you dare to let Mary's, Hannah's, and Miriam's chorus into your ears, their song will take root in your heart.  It will affect your vision so that you can no longer ignore the people the world and the powerful would rather label "losers."  It will affect your ears so that you can no longer ignore the angry grief of mothers grieving their sons who were beaten, shot, or lynched.  It will affect your voice so that you can no longer comfortably stay silent when other people are being stepped on.  It will affect your heart so that you are no longer content to have a comfortable life for yourself--you will long to see things set right for all people, everywhere, even when it comes at an inconvenience or sacrifice for you.

So be warned now.  We are delving into the words of Mary's song, and our insulated comfort will not come out unscathed.  Her song is the first cut on the soundtrack of the revolution of mercy God has begun, and once we hear it, it will become our song, too.

Lord God, let our ears be open to the song of the women you raised up like Mary, Hannah and Miriam, and let our hearts be ready to be changed by your table-turning power.



A Revolution with Dancing

A Revolution With Dancing--December 9, 2016

"Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart, 'Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.'  Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy...." [Isaiah 35:3-6a]

The Reign of God is serious business--but seriously joyful, too. 

We need to remember that.  Our calling as the people of God is indeed important--vitally important--because the world needs people who will speak truth, who will do justly, who will love mercy, and who will walk humbly.  The world needs people who will forgive and wash feet, and who dare to admit their need for forgiveness and offer up their own dirty feet to the basin.  The world needs people who are looking for the face of Christ amid the hungry and homeless, the sick and the dying, the stranger and the excluded. The world needs people trying, even when we half-fail at it, to follow after Jesus. That is all desperately serious business in a world that is preoccupied with counting Facebook likes, making sure their kids never miss a soccer practice or basketball game, and buying stuff we don't need to amuse ourselves or make our neighbors envious.  In the face of so much nonsense that won't last and won't change a life, yes, the people of God are called to important, essential work that often takes us into the way of suffering--either because we are choosing to share the suffering of others or because we risk losing popularity by speaking up for people who are getting stepped on or because we are giving up our creature comforts for the sake of others who have nothing.

All of that is part and parcel of the Kingdom life and the Movement of Mercy to which all of us belong. Yes, that is true.

But don't ever forget, either, it is all joy, too.  God's Reign is all about joy in the full, life in the full, and "goodness and mercy following us all the days of our life," as the old psalm-writer puts it.  Now, joy is not the same as "happiness." Happiness is a fleeting instant of chemicals in your brain.  It is a mirage, a will-o'-the-wisp.  It is there, and then it is gone, such that you never quite know if it was real or just imagined, and you never quite can manufacture it.  Joy, however, grows and thrives even in hostile soil.  And so the people of God can be both serious about the important work we are called to, and seriously joyful.  Being aware of the friend dying of cancer or the news that the last hospital in eastern Aleppo was bombed last week does not mean that we cannot also smile when a dear friend comes to visit, or laugh when the child ahead of you in line at the store makes a silly face at you as a gesture of playfulness.  Being aware of the heartache in your extended family doesn't mean you cannot enjoy the beauty of lightly falling snow on a December morning or the taste of your morning cup of coffee.  Being aware of the deep darkness someone you know is going through doesn't mean you cannot find joy inside knowing that you--and they--are beloved of God. 

There is real sorrow in the world, and yes, the calling of God's people is to be in the midst of it. But we are meant to be there as channels in which joy can erupt, too.  Ours is serious work, but not so serious that people cannot break out singing or dancing.

There is a moment in the movie V for Vendetta, the 2005 adaption of the graphic novel of the same name, right before the central character launches his grand revolution.  The title character, V,  is a vigilante in a Guy Fawkes mask (don't ask if you don't know the story already--just go with it) who is seeking to topple a cruel and oppressive fascist government in a dystopian future in England.  And yet, just before he launches his grand finale to bring the oppressive authoritarian dictator to his knees, V asks his friend Evey to dance with him.  Just one song.  Just for a moment, before everything else unfolds.  She questions him about the timing of this odd request: "On the eve of your great revolution?  A dance?"  And V, voiced by the great Hugo Weaving, answers, "A revolution without dancing is a revolution not worth having."

That seems a good rule of thumb.  A revolution without dancing is a revolution not worth having.  A movement of people that does not send out ripples of joy for the brokenhearted, hope for the hopeless, and love for those feeling left out... well, that's hardly a movement worth belonging to.  Not to say that there aren't other kinds of popular "movements" out there--you can, I suppose, go join a group of people who are mad about their taxes or want to legalize marijuana or whatever.  But if the "movement" you belong to is really just a group of people being selfish together, you've got to ask what the point is.  But the Kingdom is never just about me and my petty wish list or grievances--it's about something profoundly good, profoundly beautiful, for all of us.  That's what makes it both serious and seriously joyful.  The Reign of God is a revolution... with dancing.

When the old poets and seers start envisioning it, they picture God's movement in history looking a lot like a dance, or at least a big musical number.  There are the blind, being given their sight, yes.  There are the ears now hearing music for the first time, over there.  There are the feet that could not move a moment ago, now leaping up for joy and dancing.  There are the voices that were either too sick or to heartbroken to speak, and now they are singing out with joy.  It is God turning things upside down, turning things inside out.  It is God leading a movement in history... and making room for a dance in the midst of it.

Whatever things you do in this day to live out your faith, let that be a two-sided guiding principle for the day: make it matter, and make it count for joy.  Do things that make a difference in the brokenness of the world... and do them in such a way that brings more light to the universe.  Take this Kingdom business seriously... and with great joy.

Lord God, give us joy as we do the work and live the lives you call us to.  Let us dance in the midst of the revolution you are bringing to the universe.

The Conspirators

The Conspirators--December 7, 2016

Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: grace to you and peace. [1 Thessalonians 1:1]

Everybody in this verse is a conspirator, no exceptions.  So were James and John and Peter and Andrew and even old doubting Thomas.  So were Mary Magdalene, Priscilla, Tabitha, Mary the mother of Jesus, Joanna, an anonymous woman at a well, and lots of other women.  Jesus, too. And truth be told, Paul's wish, if he thought much about people reading his words 2,000 years later, would have been that everybody who ever reads this verse and the letter that follows would  become a co-conspirator, too.  Their dream was that bold and their vision was that wide.

To read this or any letter in the New Testament, and certainly the Gospels, is to be pulled into a concerted effort by an underground movement to turn the world upside down with the new ordering of the God whose power is enemy-love and whose agenda is mercy. 

"All right, all right," I can hear you saying to yourself, "isn't this all a bit melodramatic here?  I mean, may be Paul himself had a flair for adventure, what with always being on the run or thrown in prison, and getting himself lowered out of city walls in baskets or shipwrecked.  And maybe it was an exciting time to be a Christian back in the first century.  But a conspiracy?  Really--from Saint Paul, the man we name churches and half of the Twin Cities after?  And saying that the church today is part of a conspiracy, too?  Most people I know think of church as the local community bulletin board and the place where raffles and bake sales are held, not a place of daring adventure, or a revolutionary movement.  Can you just cut the drama and let us get back to having a nice plain Bible study, so I can check the 'religious activity' portion of my to-do list and get on with some other errands?"

No, I'm sticking with conspiracy.  The church is one--or at least, is supposed to be a part of God's grand conspiracy, and we are all drawn into the thick of it.  It's not a cover-up in the style of a Dan Brown novel, where "the Church" is behind a fiendish plan to hide scandalous things about Jesus.  It's quite the opposite--we are part of a movement going back two millennia to show and tell the world all about Jesus (including some rather scandalous bits, to be truthful) in our words and actions.  And the conspiracy is about how to do it in ways that will catch the world's attention without playing by the world's rules.

I'm also sticking with conspiracy because of the word itself--as plenty of others have pointed out recently, the etymology of this gorgeous word means literally, "breathing together."  (Yes, that "spir-" part in the middle of the word is the same as in "respiration" or "inspiriation" and even "spirit." And the "con-" at the beginning is the root for "together" or "with," as in "construction" or "concord.")  A conspiracy, then, is those who are breathing the same air, whose sails are caught by the same wind.  We are people who breathe the same air, we Christians, or more to the point, who breathe the same Spirit, who has been seen to indwell us.  All of us, then, who are filled with the Spirit, are a part of what Dallas Willard calls "the divine conspiracy." 

It's not a conspiracy of our invention--it's not a bunch of Christians getting together saying, "Let's become really powerful in political circles and accomplish our own pet agendas."  Awful things tend to happen when supposedly Christian folks sell out the Kingdom vision of Jesus and trade it in for a spot at the table of Caesar. The conspiracy comes from the Spirit himself, who brings to us and breathes into us God's agenda, God's design, and God's vision of a restored creation and of victory over death through Jesus.

All of that brings us full circle--we are all conspirators, we Christians.  That's an important part of the Christian message and way of life. We are all players.  We are all a part of same world-changing, life-changing movement.  We all will play our own roles, and not everyone will go running all over the world like Paul did, but we are all a part of the movement.  We are all conspirators.  It's the same in our local congregations.  Maybe it feels sometimes like we are tucked back in the safety and obscurity of small towns.  Maybe we like to imagine that Christianity is just a small compartment of my life that is there to give me warm, fuzzy feelings when I am feeling pouty, but it's always been a movement meant to grip all of us--anybodies and nobodies and everybodies.  It's not up to pastors or book-writers to carry the movement forward.  It's not up to "youth ministry experts" or "praise bands" to draw people in.  We are all a part of the movement--we, in western Pennsylvania at the end of a rough 2016, our older brothers and sisters in the faith who lived in 1st century Thessalonica (on modern-day Greece), and Paul, Silas, and Timothy, too.  We are all conspirators, breathing the same Spirit.

The real surprise about our conspiracy--or really, God's conspiracy that we get to be a part of--is that, as the last words of this opening verse say, our movement is about filling creation with grace and peace.  We're not about getting a political party elected, our economic philosophy carried out at the Fed or on Wall Street, or putting ourselves in power. We should be the first to object when somebody tries to co-opt our faith and brand themselves as the standard-bearers for the Kingdom of God.  That's not us.  No, we are about infecting (if you can hear that word in a positive sense) a graceless and hostile world with the reconciling grace and peace that come from Jesus.  That is the revolution we are caught up in.  That is what makes us fellow-breathers, co-conspirators, with the likes of Saint Paul himself.

Today, what different would it make if you saw yourself, not so much as a mild-mannered respectable citizen who fits in religious 'stuff' in between the kids' hockey practice and dance lessons and your favorite TV show, but rather if you and I saw ourselves as the New Testament imagines us: conspirators set on turning the world upside down with the unexpected justice and mercy of the God whose face is Jesus?

O God who is the Source of all life, as you did in the beginning, breathe into us, your people, again, and bring us to life.  Give to us the life that really is life--the kind of life offered to us in Jesus, and let us breathe together with all your people of all times and places the same Spirit that drives us forward and sends us out to be your agents of grace and channels of peace.  We pray it in the name of Jesus, whose motion began and sustains our movement.

"The Picture on the Lid"

The Picture on the Lid--December 6, 2016

"⁶The wolf shall live with the lamb,
  the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
 the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
  and a little child shall lead them.
 ⁷The cow and the bear shall graze,
  their young shall lie down together;
  and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
 ⁸The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
  and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
 ⁹They will not hurt or destroy
  on all my holy mountain;
 for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
  as the waters cover the sea."

When you start on a jigsaw puzzle, you start by taking a look at the picture on the lid of the box.  You see what the finished puzzle will look like when it is complete.  You note things like colors that appear in certain parts of the picture, and you observe what is on the edges and the corners.  And then you go to work putting pieces together.

The finished picture not only gives you a sense of hope at what the completed image will look like, but it also gives you direction for how to get there.  And at least if you are anything like me, once you see the picture on the lid, that picture pulls at you to start putting pieces together, even if only one or two at the moment, to begin to try to get the whole picture to be complete.  The completion, the harmony, the sense of everything belonging, of everything being included even if you don't know how yet, that drives us to want to start putting pieces together. 

And so, slowly, sometimes with missteps along the way and wrong pieces connected until the right connection is found, slowly, we take puzzle pieces and work to join them rightly.  The box top makes the promise to us that they will all fit eventually, and if you take that promise seriously, then every individual step of putting pieces together is somehow important.

So... Isaiah has a picture for us to see.

It is a picture of a promised future, a picture in which all the pieces of all of creation fit together and find their belonging.  It is a future in which those who have long been enemies are reconciled, in which predators are transformed to live at peace with their former prey, and the prey are no longer afraid.  No one will hurt or destroy.  No, not one.  And Isaiah offers that picture to us, not simply as a possibility, not simply as one of many things we could make out of the pieces in front of us, but as God's promise.  Isaiah doesn't say, "Well, if you all work hard enough at it and all do one extra random act of kindness, you can make the world a perfect place with sheer moxie and determination," nor does he say, "If you don't like this picture I'm giving you, you can always choose a different future where you all live estranged from one another forever and ever."  God is determined to renew creation, even quite unnaturally from the way we seem wired to kill and eat each other, and the pieces do not fit any other way but with restoration.  There is no option of leaving somebody out because we do not like them.  There is no option of the wolves all pinning all the blame for the world's problems on the cows and deciding to kick them out of the scene.  There is no scenario in which God will forever leave the puzzle unfinished because the pieces in one corner of the rectangle can't get along with the pieces on the opposite corner.  There is only the promise that eventually every last piece belongs.

Even yours.  Even mine.  No matter what anybody else says.  It is not up for a vote, thank God.

There is the promised future right in front of us, staring back at us like the lid of a puzzle box.  New creation where lions and cows and wolves and lambs and humans can live with one another.  Old hates are turned from.  Old enmities overcome.  Old grudges let go of.  Old fears no longer necessary.  New ways of living together begun.  A new kind of new.

Now... if that is the picture we have... where do we start with the pieces in front of us? 

It may feel like we are a long, long way--maybe impossibly far--from the picture on the box.  But, ok, yeah--that's because we are a long, long way from getting there. But every puzzle starts out that way.

The question for us today, then, is, What might it look like to find the first few pieces from the pile of chaos in front of us, and to put them together where they belong?  How, in other words, do we take the first step, maybe one of a thousand, sometimes with wrong turns and missteps, but always trying and always searching for pieces that go together?  How do we begin?

Maybe here.  What if it started with a conversation--maybe over lunch, maybe over coffee--with someone with whom you disagree.  Over anything.  Maybe it's the distant sibling who gets on your nerves.  Maybe it's someone at work who always seems to have a chip on their shoulder.   Maybe it's someone you have been avoiding out of shame because you know that you have wronged them and have been ignoring them to ride out the anger from a distance.  Maybe it's someone who voted differently than you--there are more than 60 million who did, no matter what you picked.  But whoever it is, sit down and have a civil conversation.  Ask questions, and listen to how the other person thinks and sees things.  Find out what upsets them, and what gives them hope.  Listen more than you speak.  Be honest when you disagree, and be up front about why--what underlying assumptions, convictions, and facts are you starting with. Be respectful.

Now, I readily grant that even if everybody who ever reads these words goes out and takes that suggestion, at most the only difference in the world will be that a lot more lunches and coffees have been consumed and at best a number of civil conversations may have happened.  That's a far cry from lions and lambs, wolves and cows, all getting along in peace.  Of course it is a long way from that.  But it is on the right trajectory.  It is on the right road.  Because one of the things that may happen in a conversation like this is that you and I may come to realize we are not just the innocent lambs and cows--there are ways each of us is part of the problem, and each of us has been the wolf and the lion.  If we have all convinced ourselves that "they"--the people with whom we disagree--are the predators, and we are the innocent and eternally righteous sheep, we will never be willing to listen, and we will always assume we are totally in the right.  But what if there is something of the wolf in me that I haven't been able to see yet?  What if I have blind spots I cannot recognize, but which will only emerge if I am talking with someone else who can respectfully help me see them?  What if the only way we quit retreating to our own little bubbles that become their own little worlds, with their own realities and their own "facts," is if at some point someone risks hearing something they won't like by buying a friend a latte and picking their brain about their differing opinions on something?  What if those are the first pieces of the picture at hand to start with, just "honest listening" and "civility," which, like the edge pieces of the puzzle, help us to start the work of putting everything else together?

The whole picture is a long way away, and a whole new creation is not in reach by the end of just this day.  But maybe on this day, civility is the benchmark to reach on the journey... and then we'll go from there. 

Today, let us begin the movement, to sift through the pieces around us and look for pieces that can fit.  Let us dare to believe the promise that eventually, everything belongs.

Lord Jesus, keep speaking to us your promised future, so that we will begin to anticipate its coming.

This Is It

This Is It--December 2, 2016

"Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured." [Hebrews 13:1-3]

I felt like Neil Armstrong for a moment yesterday, walking down Main Street by the church.  It was one of those moments that was a tiny, almost unnoticeable event that somehow felt like it was also the beginning of a sea change, too--one of those "small steps" that also could be a "giant leap," despite its smallness... or perhaps even because of its smallness.

I was walking back from the post office when a car pulled to the curb, the passenger window rolled down, and a voice called out, "Hi there--can you help us?"  I walked to the edge of the tree lawn to bend down to see a man driving and a woman leaning out the window and looking at me.  "Can you tell us how to get to the Magistrates' District Court from here?" They held up an envelope from the court, bearing only a Post Office box number, so they had no idea where they really needed to go.

It's funny how fast a million thoughts can fly through your head in a split second.  In an instant, the part of my brain that speaks in navigational terms started working on a location and a set of simple left and right turns with accompanying landmarks to tell the couple, from my memories of previous times I had been at the same Magistrates' District Court. 

And then in the same instant, another corner of my brain started to consider who these people might be--what was awaiting them at their court appearance?  What sort of appearance would it be?  They were friendly enough and pleasant enough asking for my help on a December afternoon, but then again, most folks put on good behavior before going to a court appearance.  I have been in that place before both with people who were innocent victims and those who were rotten schemers looking to skirt the consequences of their actions.  I have been there with people awaiting hearings after being beaten by their boyfriends, and I have been there with people who got caught with too much cheap booze and drugs in their system.  There are victims and victimizers at the magistrates' court. There are people who abandon their kids to cook meth. There are people who get caught stealing to feed their heroin or oxycodone addictions.  There are people who told their drunk spouses to quit hitting the kids.  There are the spouses who have to face up to what they did when they were drunk.  Some are there to give comfort to people who have to testify against their attackers.  Some are truly, courageously, ready to turn their lives around.  Some are just looking to squirm out of jail time.  I realized, as I looked at this man and this woman and gave them directions, that I had no idea what their business was at the court.  They could have been facing child neglect charges or going to support a friend who was recovering from domestic abuse, or any of a hundred other reasons, and I had no way of knowing. 

I winced inside for a moment as I pictured my son and my daughter and the thought that there was even the slimmest possibility that children might have been harmed by the people I was talking to. And then I held myself back from going down that road in my head, because I really had no way of knowing what their business was at the court. 

And then the question formed in some third corner of my brain: did it matter what these people had done or why they were headed to the court?  At least in terms of whether I gave them directions or not, and in terms of whether I would speak to them graciously and respectfully, did it matter what their business was?  And the answer came back to me rather clearly: no.

Regardless of what this couple had done or not done, my presence in their lives on this day was simply to be good to them.  Others, whose job it is to sort out criminal actions and mete out sentences, would have to handle those other questions.  But in the mean time, I was being asked simply to give directions, and to be as helpful as possible in that process.  I could be gracious to this young man and woman so they would not be late for a court appearance and be assured that nobody would be harmed because I was helpful in rattling off a list of left and right turns.  There is really no question about what I am called upon to do, if I am indeed a follower of Jesus, when a couple in a rusty old car asks for directions to the local court building.  My role is to be a presence of mercy.

In that instant, I thought to myself, This is it.  This is what it looks like to be a part of Jesus' movement in history.  It is often small actions, moments that would barely register in the memory, but moments in which radical grace is practiced in situations that do not look "religious" and do not happen in or around a church.  Here I am, a preacher talking up a storm in church about how mercy moves us, and I need to decide how to act in an ordinary street-level encounter with people I have never met before, with only a split second to decide to be gracious or to be a jerk, to be kind to the stranger or to turn away.  This is what it's all about, Steve--will you recognize it or not?  Will you be moved in this instant, or not?   Mental gymnastics are not necessary--you just move the way Jesus' mercy has trained our spiritual muscles to move.

Because here's the thing: the Reign of God--the Movement of Mercy--doesn't primarily happen in pews, but on Main Street curbs a block away from the local distillery.  The Movement of Mercy isn't contained inside Sunday School classrooms, but happens with people whose stories you and I will not get the chance to know before we are asked to be kind or gracious or just to them.  There was a couple, long ago, who pulled into a small town with an official letter that they had to register with the local government, too, and the question was put to the local people of Bethlehem whether they would make space and extend kindness to them before their baby was born or not.  Mercy doesn't need to ask, "Let me see your papers and determine whether you are worthy of my help or not." Mercy simply makes a place.  That's it.  That's what we are called to be as well.

The followers of Jesus are called to be that kind of presence wherever we go: we will be good to others, do good for others, speak well to others, and listen well to others, because of who God is, regardless of the situation of the people to whom we are speaking.  That's the inner logic of mercy: it is not about whether the other person "deserves" kindness or is in fact a stinker.  We are all stinkers.  It is not about whether or not the other person has "earned" your kindness.  Mercy does not ask "do you deserve it?" but rather asks, "What does the God whose face is Jesus do?"  There were plenty of "undeserving" folks who found Jesus being gracious to them. There were scheming tax collectors, hookers, sick people, and smarmy and smug religious hypocrites, too, who all found Jesus being good them regardless of their stories.  Mercy short circuits the question of who is worthy of our being good to them, just as God's mercy toward us comes regardless of our earning. 

These are days in which it is easy to be distant and suspicious of others, and hesitant to extend basic kindnesses to one another. Are you a danger to me?  Are you going to surprise me with a weapon in a crowded place and start attacking people?--we are all teaching ourselves to be afraid that it could happen anywhere, after all.  Are you a racist? Are you a bigot?  Are you thinking hateful thoughts toward me while I walk past you?  Are you judging my way of life? Are you undermining my values?  We are bombarded with a million questions that suggest a million reasons not to be good to the strangers we encounter on any given day.  These are days in which it is very easy to withdraw from others because we don't know what awful things might be going on in their heads.

And let's not be naïve: yes, there will be people who cross your path who do not wish you kindness back. There will be people around you who have dark corners of bitterness and hatred in their hearts.  There will be people around you who might wish you ill if they had the chance. Yep, there will be people who ask for your help who are not deserving of it--stinkers, schemers, sell-outs, and sinners of all stripes.  But for the followers of Jesus, that is not the pertinent question. The recipients of grace are not the "worthy" ones; they are anybody and everybody who has the need.  The way we respond to hatred is with love that does not give the hateful more ammunition.  The way we respond to jerks is with undeserved goodness so that the old cycle can be broken.  The way we respond to the rotten-hearted is with mercy that doesn't ask "Do they deserve this?"  Because God hasn't asked about our worthiness, either--God has just reached out in grace and swept us up in the movement of divine mercy.

We don't know who we are entertaining when we show kindness to strangers--the writer of Hebrews is correct.  And then he goes on to focus particularly on people who are in prison or being tortured--hardly the honor roll and Boy Scout crowd.  The question is not whether someone else is worthy of your goodness.  The question is how God's mercy moves us, and whether we will let it, or whether we will be collective sticks-in-the-mud when it starts whipping up around us.

Today, it will come.  In some opportunity that looks small, even unnoticeable.  But there the movement will begin.  And we can either become paralyzed by overanalyzing whether someone else deserves our goodness, or we can move when the Spirit moves us.  But if we dare to let God's mercy move us, then even a small step can be like putting your foot down on the moon.

Lord Jesus, let your mercy move us today in whatever ordinary situations present themselves to us.  And let us be ready to act.