Reflection on a New Year's Eve

Reflection on a New Year’s Eve

 

The space between

this year and next,

like the border

between nations,

is

an arbitrary dotted line—

a pause, a clear-cut demarcation,

decreed and then agreed-upon,

more or less,

and made into

the official

boundary

dividing here and

there,

separating now

from then—

a fabricated

watershed.

 

What makes,

after all,

the earth beneath

one Scotch pine

North Dakota,

and yet birch roots

twenty feet away

across the barren slash

are planted in

Saskatchewan?

What makes this moment

the last of one

elliptical trip

around the sun

and

now

this the first one

of a new circuit,

except for

the whim of

some long-dead

emperor

whose ego needed

stroking?

 

This midnight is

one drop in

the crooked creek

that flowed long before

your grandfather

settled down here

among these hills,

whose waters still

will run long after

I am buried

at the top of another.

 

This moment is

a stillness between

breaths.

 

Nevertheless

within such silence,

such ordinary silence,

as lasts in a

single sweep of

a second hand

one can see the

persistent glow

of a light still

shining stubbornly,

not overcome,

never overcome,

and so, to discover

that the One who

fills all empty

places and who

is born and lives,

dies and rises,

on the margins,

who is unrestrained

by borders,

walls

or fences,

this One is here,

here, now,

eternally present in

the space between

this year and last.

Ain't No Mountain

Ain't No Mountain--December 21,2016

"Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David.  He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child...." [Luke 2:4-5]

You know what is an underrated Christmas song?  "Ain't No Mountain High Enough." 


Yep--that one. No, I'm not confusing it with "Go Tell It On the Mountain," which everybody already knows as a Christmas song.  No, I'm thinking of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell.  Yep, the one you are starting to sing right now, "Ain't no mountain high enough, ain't no valley low enough, ain't no river wide enough--to keep me from getting to you, babe."  That's the one. 


And the reason I say it is underrated as a Christmas song is that in many ways, the story of Christmas is that the whole Christmas story is a sort of show of God's refusal to be stopped by any obstacle to come to us, and then along with that, how the people who are swept up in God's momentum find the same drive and determination.  Despite the whims of Caesar, despite the lack of room made for the baby, despite a million other things that made it harder the way it played out, it still happened anyway.  God came among us.  Joseph and Mary still made the trip, still had the baby, still did all that followed after the birth, too.  Because in a very real sense, they were free. 


There is an unexpected kind of freedom for the people caught up in God's movement. It is a freedom to keep on doing what you are called to do, without fear of consequences or inconvenience.  When you are clear about where God wants you, and when you are clear about what needs to be done, all of a sudden, you find a new courage, and a new peace. You find yourself almost singing the lyrics yourself as your own: there isn't any obstacle too high, too low, or too wide to keep you from getting where God is leading.

This is part of what makes God's movement so radical--instead of stopping to pick fights any time someone or something wants to make it harder for us to live out God's justice and mercy, we won't have to get distracted.  We will just keep on keeping on, convenient or not, consequences or not.

Yesterday we considered how Caesar Augustus tried to make himself seem as important as possible, even down to an exercise in imperial muscle-flexing by declaring an official government registry. And the irony, of course, in all of that, is that for all the imperial bluster and bragging, Augustus is practically irrelevant to us... except for the fact that during his reign, Jesus was born.

The flip side to that conversation is the position of Joseph and Mary in the face of all that Caesar did: they keep on doing what God has called them to do, and they do it while bearing with the stupid decrees of the arrogant emperor. They do not complain or get in a huff about the inconvenience of Augustus' self-serving census decree.  Frankly, they don't expect any better from the powerful. But in the face of opposition and hostility... and the additional level of complication of the baby on the way... and the trek to Bethlehem, Joseph and Mary do it anyway.  They go where the empire dictates, back to Bethlehem, even though it is a farce that the empire suddenly has to have a record of their names and locations, and even though it is a colossal hardship for a very very pregnant Mary. 

Why?  Because they are clear about who they are and what they are about. Joseph and Mary both are convinced by this moment that God has called them to raise this child, and that through this child, eventually all of history's empires and emperors will be put in their place and taken down a few pegs.  They are willing to bear the added hardship of the trip, not out of fear of what Caesar might do to them if they refuse to comply, but frankly, because they have bigger fish to fry. They are a part of God's moving in history, and that frees them, in a manner of speaking, not to have to care anymore what Caesar says. Regardless of what Augustus wants, the promised child will be born--whether it's in Nazareth where they had been living, or in Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph are invested in God's mission for them.

It's not that Joseph and Mary suddenly think the empire is great, or that they have been intimidated into going along with the imperial decree to be registered.  Rather, they have a clear focus on what God is calling them to do, and along the way they will put up with injustice, inconvenience, and hardship, because they are rising above pettiness.  They will not give the empire the satisfaction of letting its decrees and soldiers break their spirits, and they will not give the empire ammunition for being more ruthless and authoritarian than they are already.  They are simply going high when the empire goes low... which is pretty much the way of empires already anyway.  And no matter how low the empire, or Herod, or anybody else goes along the way, it won't be enough to keep God and the people in God's movement from getting where they need to be.


I have a newfound, or maybe newly rediscovered, appreciation and respect for Joseph and Mary that way.  To be honest, a lot of the Christians I know, myself included, are pretty coddled, and we work up a huge sweat of righteous indignation when the way ahead is not a primrose path.  We work up persecution complexes, sure that everybody out there in "the world" is on a crusade to stop us from saying "Merry Christmas." We get incensed about not getting special treatment.  We get upset when governments, or businesses, or just "the powers that be" seem to make it harder to do the Kingdom work we believe we are called to do, when maybe what we are really just wishing for is special treatment.  But the people of God have never had a right to expect special treatment.  My goodness--Jesus' own parents had to get in line with everybody else and go to be registered!  They knew that the registration was just a prelude to a tax... and that their tax money would end up helping to pay for things they didn't like, probably... like the "privilege" of having more Roman soldiers occupying their land, as well as foreign wars in other corners of the empire that they didn't have any investment in.  But Joseph and Mary go anyway. They get registered anyway. Not because the empire is always right, but because they know better than to expect any help from the powers-that-be and the barking lunatic of an emperor in Rome who thinks he is so great.  And frankly, Joseph and Mary go anyway because they have clarity about where they need to dig their heels in, and where they don't.  They have bigger fish to fry, and so they just don't need to get all worked up about the real, but not insurmountable, obstacle of having to go all the way to Bethlehem.


Today, instead of expecting things to be made easy for us, and getting all upset if they are not, what if instead we aimed for Joseph and Mary-like focus on what matters today, where we need to be, how we are called to spend our minutes, and what Kingdom work is needing to be done today.  If the Movement of Mercy, the Reign of God, is the most important thing in the world (and, yes, it is--Jesus says seek the Kingdom first and everything else you need will come along for the ride), then that's where we spend our energy. 


Love people, regardless of how it inconveniences you. 
Go where you are needed, regardless of how much further out of your way you have to go then. 
Spend the time with the people God has put as top priorities in your path--the brokenhearted, the lowly, the hurting, the folks aching for good news and mercy--regardless of whatever else you had in your calendar for the day. 


And when that happens, when that becomes our aim for the day, all of a sudden the other obstacles don't seem nearly so high, or so low, or so wide, as they can keep us from being about God's business.


None of that stopped God, either, from coming into the world.


Lord God, give us such an appreciation of your coming to us that we have new focus and clarity like Joseph and Mary to go where you are sending us, to do what you are calling us to do, and not to be goaded into falling for the petty fights along the way.  Let us go where you are leading us, as your mercy is moving us.

Blessedly, Irrelevant

Blessedly, Irrelevant--December 20, 2016

"In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered.  This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria." [Luke 2:1-2]

Poor Caesar. For all his straining and striving to be remembered, poor old Caesar Augustus is just not very important in the big scheme of things.

If you know the name Caesar (the  Roman title for the Emperor) Augustus--and that is an "if" to begin with--chances are, the reason you know his name is that at some point during his tenure as emperor of Rome, a peasant girl in her teens had a baby nearly fifteen hundred miles away from the imperial capital who never met Augustus.  Not even once.

If you know the name Quirinius, I am certain it is only because he is mentioned here in Luke's Gospel--he is otherwise regarded as an obscure footnote in history, and biblical scholars themselves aren't really sure why Luke would bother even mentioning him. 

The thing is, though, these guys--Augustus the emperor and all of his local appointed lackeys--all wanted to be important.  They wanted to be immortal, their names forever cheered and inscribed in the annals of history.  They wanted to know they were powerful, important, and glorious. And yet, they were both eclipsed by a newborn laid in a food trough. 

It's wonderful, ain't it?

Frederick Buechner beautifully makes the point like this:  Augustus "ruled Rome and thus virtually the whole civilized world. He was worshiped as a god. People burned incense to him. Insofar as he is remembered at all, most people remember him mainly because at some point during his reign, in a rundown section of one of the more obscure imperial provinces, out behind a cheesy motel among cowflops and moldy hay, a child was born to a pair of up-country rubes you could have sold the Brooklyn Bridge to without even trying."

This is the beautiful upside-down-ness of the living God.  Augustus wanted so hard to prove to the world that he was a big deal.  The whole notion of taking a census is a bit of imperial propaganda and muscle-flexing: the empire wants to know how many subjects it rules over, the empire wants to know how much money it can wring out of them in taxes to finance its armies and exploits, and the empire wants to just show off that it can make people do what it says.  Pick up and go to your hometown. Get your name on the registry--we have to know who is who and where you are. We have to be able to track you.  We have to make sure you are not a threat.

It is telling, I think, that one billion Christians in the world worship somebody who was born while his family was getting their names added to an official government registry... and the pompous dictator who ordered the registry in the first place has been virtually forgotten in the mists of time.  This is exactly what Mary was singing about!

Mind you, Augustus thought himself quite important in his own lifetime.  There is an inscription, dated to 9BC, that was found in Priene, in western Turkey, an imperial declaration about the birth of Augustus.  And in the official party line, carved in stone on the walls of the public marketplace, Augustus is called a "god," a "savior," and a "bringer of peace," and his birth is announced as "good news for all people." The official position of the Empire was that Augustus was going to make everything great--peace for all, plenty for all, and the strength of the empire backing it all up.  Sounds like a lot of bluster and a lot of big talk, doesn't it?

One recalls the famous dictum of Margaret Thatcher, comparing true power to social graces, when she said, "Power is like being a lady--if you have to tell someone you are, you aren't."  If you have to go inscribing walls with your name and telling people you are the savior of the world, you ain't.  If you have to tell people you are a god or that your birth was good news for the world, you are more than a little insecure.  Poor old Augustus--he wanted so much to be important.  And now he's a trivia question.  Sad. (Wink.)

This is where the story of our faith begins--with the stark contrast between the world's kind of greatness, and God's upside down way of doing things.  Before we sentimentalize the baby or make quaint little manger scenes in our mind's eye, before we sing a single, "rum-pa-pum-pum," the New Testament dares us to see that Jesus' coming is a revolution right under Caesar's nose, one that upstages even the "great" emperor himself. The Gospels were written, at least in part, to expose the emptiness of the official imperial party line and instead to point to another way.  And for us to hear the Christmas story rightly this year, we are going to need to remember that at the start of it, there is a very frustrated emperor trying, like a mad toddler, to make himself look important, pounding his tiny fists as he insists on putting everybody's name on a registry and puffing up his own self-importance... and the good news is, he's a sham.  God ain't fooled.  And we don't have to be, either.  To read the story of Jesus' birth is to have the curtain pulled away by Toto, and to see that all the propaganda and all the bluster and all the pomp and braggadocio was empty.  And instead, there is real hope in the child laid in the farm equipment who will become a refugee on the run as soon as the powers-that-be find out he is born.

The real savior doesn't need to advertise.  The true God-in-the-flesh doesn't have to announce it or put his name up on a building to make us see we are in the presence of genuine greatness.  The actual birth that is good news for all people doesn't need to be embellished or improved upon--just a baby in the spare trough attended by a teen mom and some night-shift farm hands.  Those are enough to unmask the empty pomposity of Augustus.  Those are enough to undermine an empire.  Those are enough to turn the world upside down.

Poor old Caesar Augustus.  For all of his striving to make himself seem important, the living God revealed him to be, blessedly, irrevelant.

Thanks be to the God in the trough.

O Lord our God, thank you for turning the tables.  Thank you for unmasking the insecurities of the Caesars and emperors and power-hungry of the world.  Thank you for coming among us in all of your upside-down glory.

Teaching Jesus to Be Jesus

Teaching Jesus to Be Jesus--December 16, 2016

[Mary said:] "[God] has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever." (Luke 1:54-55)

Mary taught Jesus to... be Jesus.  And in that, we find our calling to one another, too.

I know, that might at first sound at least odd, or worse heretical.  But for a moment, give a preacher the benefit of the doubt.

While it is indeed entirely accurate that Christians confess that Jesus of Nazareth is quite seriously and literally God-with-us, the Incarnate Deity sung about in the Christmas carols, it is also entirely accurate that Christians confess that Jesus of Nazareth is just as seriously and literally one of us, as human as you or me.  And like all of us carbon-based hairless bipeds, Jesus was born in utter dependency and need, and had to grow up and learn... well, everything.  He had to learn what the world was like, who he was, and what his story would be.  One presumes he even had to be taught the story of Israel, and what Israel's hope for a Messiah was all about, even though he himself was that Messiah (maybe especially because he was and is the Messiah).

Now, the Gospels do not present us with some single moment when, Matrix-like, Jesus instantly downloaded all of that messianic awareness, or the story of his people, or the visions of their prophets.  He had to learn them like we learn anything--which in large part includes the wise and loving voices of family and good teachers.  I cannot help but imagine that his mother was his first and most formative of those voices.  Mothers are like that. I cannot help but imagine that Mary was the one who first told him the stories of Abraham and Sarah, of Moses and Miriam, of the escape from Pharaoh's Egypt, of the notions of jubilee and Sabbath year, of the visions of new creation and swords-beaten-into-plowshares from the likes of Isaiah and Micah, along with all the hopes of a coming "anointed one"--a Messiah--on whom the restoration of all things would rest.

And when the child Jesus asked his mother things like my children ask--things like, "How big is God?" and "How do I know God loves me... or is real?" and "What about when someone else hits me or calls me a mean name--where is God then?"--one has to presume that Mary was the one who first gave answers to the boy Messiah.  For as much as Jesus of Nazareth also had to grow up into his own man, to speak, and for as much as we may also say that Jesus was uniquely in communion with the God of Israel, in a very real sense, the foundations of that calling and identity were laid by Mary. Note here, I am not saying she made him to be a copy of her own thinking, believing, or actions, but rather that like any good mother, Mary enabled her child to become most fully who he was.  Mary quite literally had to teach Jesus how to be Jesus.

So, it stands to reason that if we want to get at least a glimpse of what Jesus himself thought about who he was and what God was up to through him, we should listen to the words on Mary's lips.  Mary seems to think that the coming of the Messiah, her baby, is the agent through whom God turns the tables on the powers of the world.  Her boy Jesus will be the one through whom the arrogant are deflated, the proud dethroned, and the lowly are lifted up.  The movement her son brings about will feed the hungry and humble the overstuffed rich.  He will fulfill the old promises of a new creation, of wolves and lambs lying down in peace, of an end to empires and pompous emperors, and the community of people he will gather to himself will practice an alternative way of life over against all the violence, greed, and hate of the world. 

In a sense, it would be fair to say that you can only get excited about the celebration of Jesus' birth if you are also on board with that agenda.  If' we are not ourselves caught up in the movement of God to lift up the lowly, mend the brokenhearted, and give back the hungry their stolen bread, then we have no reason to observe or celebrate Christmas.  If the celebration that is coming next weekend is just a time for family gatherings, nostalgia about your childhood, the singing of familiar tunes, the exchanging of stuff you don't really need, or the comfort of seasonally-flavored hot beverages while you watch schmaltzy movies on the Hallmark Channel, well, you are entitled to do those things... but they ain't about what Jesus was born for in the first place.  If we get more incensed at some perceived slight about being greeted with "Happy Holidays" at the bank or grocery store instead of "Merry Christmas" than at the reality that a tyrant is currently killing his own people in Syria, or that one out of every eight households you know had a time last year when they didn't know where their next meal might come from, then perhaps we have lost the right to be merry at Christmas. 

Jesus didn't come so we could set up store-bought scenes of his birth in the town square, and he didn't come so that we could over-indulge on buying each other things we don't need in order to prove our "Christmas spirit."  If we are unclear on that, we only need to listen to his mom, who has been telling us now for two millennia what was and is worth getting excited about in the birth of her firstborn.  The joy and the commotion are about the long-awaited promises that at last God would lift up the lowly and restore all things with justice and mercy.

Our calling, then, if we mean it when we say that we Christians are meant to be the face of Christ for the world around us, is to teach and remind one another, Mary-like, how to be Jesus.  Our responsibility, not only to the children we raise in the faith, but to the old and seasoned who have forgotten it in their nostalgia for past times of "greatness," is to help remind each other and hold each other accountable for how to be Jesus for the people you meet today.  Mary began that work... today, let's follow her lead.

Lord Jesus, your mom's words keep reminding us who you are and why we love you.  Thank you for coming.  Thank you for living out the vision she sang in your ear from the manger.  Thank you for whispering that vision to her in the first place by your Spirit.

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.