Fear and Great Joy--June 30, 2023

Fear and Great Joy--June 30, 2023

"But the angel said to the women, 'Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him. This is my message for you.' So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and tan to tell his disciples." [Matthew 28:5-8]

Fear... and great joy.  Gospel truth... that sounds too good to be true.  Hatred and indifference that crucify Jesus... and love that bears the nails and then rises from the dead.  These are not opposites from which we must choose--they come together.  They are held in tension, in paradox.  

Follow me back to that first Easter morning for a moment, would you?  This seems a fitting place to conclude this month's focus on how love "rejoices in the truth," as we've been looking at throughout June.  One of the things I keep coming back to about this story, especially as Matthew tells it, is the mix of seemingly contradictory reactions to the truth of the empty tomb: the women run from the tomb "with fear and great joy." Not just fear, and not pure ecstasy, either, but both at the same time.  After all, if Jesus really is alive again, then everything they "knew" about life, about power, and about the universe itself is thrown up into the air and turned upside down.  That's going to mess with their heads for a while, and ultimately rearrange their entire way of thinking and living in the world.  Like the line of David Foster Wallace riffing on Jesus puts it, "The truth will set you free, but not until it is finished with you."

That's resurrection morning for you--an impossible mix of news so good it brings tears to your eyes that is also so mind-blowing it forces you to do the hard work of rethinking everything else.  Most of the time in our lives, we are resistant to that kind of truth, because we don't like our views of the world turned on their heads, nor our apple-carts upset.  When Copernicus realized that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the solar system, he ran into hostility, rejection, and condemnation from the Respectable Religious Leaders of the day (both the Roman Catholic magisterium, and sadly, our own Martin Luther ridiculed him) who couldn't fit that discovery of truth with the systems they had already permanently set up in their minds.  When that happens, people get excommunicated, burned at the stake, or branded as heretics, time and time again.  So you can understand why there is at least some level of "fear" for the women who have just been brought face to face with an angel and an empty tomb.  If Jesus is alive again, they don't know what is solid anymore--and they are being sent into uncharted territory to bring the dangerous news to the disciples who will also be skeptical and afraid when they hear it.  And yet, of course, the truth that Jesus is alive again was reason to rejoice--and to see the truth in the folded graveclothes and the rolled away stone made it clear this wasn't a cruel joke or wish waiting to be disillusioned.  It was good news, worthy of rejoicing over, exactly because it was true.  And yet it was also scandalous and subversive news, because it was it was the truth and not just a fairy tale.

I want to suggest that being a Christian always involves the choice to live in that constant tension, holding together both the deeply joyful and comforting news of life beyond the grip of death and the deeply perplexing need to re-think everything in light of the resurrection.  And I want to suggest, further, that in some ways our whole lives of faith never move beyond that Sunday morning as we find ourselves in the sandals of two women named Mary running from the tomb to preach the first Easter sermon.  We never grow out of the call to tell anyone we can find, with tears of joy and trembling hands at the same time, that Love incarnate refused to stay dead in order to make everything new.  We never leave that mission behind, for whatever other things churches may do and whatever other projects, programs, and ministries we might pick up.  And neither do we ever move beyond that tension of being stirred up with joy alongside being shaken to the foundations as the resurrection makes us re-examine everything else we thought we knew.

That brings me to one last thing I want us to be clear about from this month's focus.  When we say, along with Paul the Apostle, that love "rejoices in the truth," it's never separable from the particular truth we have come to know in Jesus--the truth of life beyond the grip of death, the truth of love that is stronger than hatred, the truth of grace beyond deserving.  We don't throw a party for every factually correct sentence ever spoken, just because it is "the truth" (I'm pretty indifferent, actually, about the fact that two-plus-two-equals-four, and I'm heartbroken by truths like a terminal diagnosis for someone I care about, or the number of children who go hungry every night).  Rather, we rejoice in the particular truth of Jesus--the truth that at his table the outcasts are given places of honor, the truth that his love will not let us go, and the truth that his life.

I remember an insight of my preaching professor from back in seminary that stays with me these days. He used to say that a faithful sermon will always speak "trouble enough to make you squirm and grace enough to make you weep."  I think he was right, and I would say that beyond just preaching sermons, that's each of our calling.  We are sent as witnesses--to whomever we meet in ordinary life situations and routine workdays--to share joyful news that Jesus is risen, which is also troublesome news because it makes us question all the other stories we've come to believe about the finality of death, the need for power, and myth of scarcity.  

May we find ourselves both always reeling from the revolutionary announcement that the Old Order of things has been dethroned, and always rejoicing at the message of the women that the same Jesus who dethroned that Old Order is alive forever with a love that will not let us go.

Lord Jesus, keep us rejoicing in the truth of your life beyond the grip of death, even when it shakes everything else we thought we knew down to the foundations.

Tell What You See--June 29, 2023

Tell What You See--June 29, 2023

"When John [the Baptizer] heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, 'Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?' Jesus answered them, 'Go and tell John what you hear and see; the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me'." [Matthew 11:2-6]

For all of our tough talk about telling "hard truths" and how reality can be a "bitter pill to swallow," sometimes we forget how beautiful the truth really can be. And for all the ways that Christians sometimes brace themselves for the world's rejection of the Good News, sometimes the word we are sent to bring is like rain for thirsty ground and balm for hurting souls.  Rather than assuming that people will always cover their ears or become hostile when Jesus' message is really spoken, maybe we should begin with the expectation that Jesus' truth really is captivatingly beautiful (or maybe, "liberatingly beautiful"?) after all.

And of course, the converse is worth considering, too--if what we think we've been sharing as "Good News" doesn't sound like, well, good news, to actual human beings who are hurting and in search of hope, maybe we need to check again and see if we've lost the thread.  Because Jesus sure seems to think that the truth about who he is and what he has come for is compelling enough to make us weep for joy.  All it takes is for people to share what they've heard and tell what they see, and the truth of Jesus' goodness enthralls us.

That's what I love about this scene from Matthew's Gospel--when a rightfully skeptical John the Baptizer sends messengers from prison to find out if Jesus is the Messiah they'd been waiting for, Jesus doesn't argue his point in a debate, shout his "rightness" to silence his critics, or launch into a philosophical proof of his divine status.  He just says, "Tell what you see."  He is convinced that the truth is not only powerful enough, but beautiful enough, to get through even to a despondent John the Baptizer.  I wonder sometimes if we believe it too.

Look, I get it that sometimes we church folk can feel backed into a corner.  We look at  changing demographics and declining numbers in church attendance across the country and feel threatened.  We fall for buying the "culture war" posture that sees Christians as inescapably in conflict with the wicked world and think we need to "reclaim" the levers of power... or positions of privilege... or whatever people think they mean in the name of "taking back their country."  We turn "truth" into a battlefield, and we are convinced that we Christians (especially the ones "like us") are not only the sole possessors of "The Truth," but also that therefore it is up to us to "defend" the truth by arguing others into submission.  We set ourselves up for conflict as though no one would ever willingly choose to listen to Jesus' message--they must be "won over" with tough talk and superior debating skills.  I've even seen children's curriculum for Sunday School or Vacation Bible School framed as part of an "epic battle for truth" between "us" and "them," and designed to teach kids to see the world as out to get them for their faith in Jesus, rather than ever seeing the world as full of people aching to hear good news.  And when you reinforce the idea that the world will always and only reject the Good News, you're not only going to nurse a sizable persecution complex, but you'll also assume everybody is hostile to the faith you want to share and that everyone must be treated as an enemy combatant in your war for truth.

It's just that Jesus doesn't do that.  Like... at all.  

Yes, as we've seen already this week, Jesus prepares his disciples for the contingency that they won't be well-received everywhere. And yes, Jesus is well aware that some will find their families and friends parting ways with them because of Jesus.  And yet, Jesus doesn't think his message requires us to become belligerent or defensive, and you will never find him fighting a culture war or engaged in an epic "battle for truth."  Jesus believes the Good News he embodies is beautiful enough to grasp our hearts all on its own.  All we ever need to do is to tell what we see.  Because to be honest, wherever people are made more fully alive, we will find ourselves drawn like a moth to the flame.  Like the old church father Augustine of Hippo so famously put it, "Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you, God."  We are aching for the kind of life Jesus brings.  We are hungry for the sustenance he offers.  We are in desperate need for the grace Jesus gives.  And so is this whole hurting world, beautiful and bruised as it is.  We don't need to attack people into faith (as if we could); we just need to tell what we see.  

What if that's what the people around us most need?  Not to be argued into submission but to get to hear what we've heard from Jesus, and to see what Jesus has shown us.  What if our whole life's calling is just to point to the way Jesus brings people to life and then to get out of the way of our pointing?

Maybe today's a day to remember that Jesus doesn't need to attack people or confront them to defend his work or his message. He is confident enough that God's Reign is unfolding through him that he can just point at what is happening all around--the blind see, the lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised, and the poor are given good news--and he knows the truth by itself compels a response... because it is so deeply good.

Let's share our faith that way today.

Lord Jesus, give us the confidence of knowing you are at work in the world, and let us simply tell what we have seen in you.

The Unarmed Truth--June 28, 2023

The Unarmed Truth--June 28, 2023

[Jesus told the disciples:] "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell [Gehenna]. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from from your Father. And even the hairs on your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows." [Matthew 10:28-31]

Okay, we've got to be real clear about two things right off the bat here, or else we're going to get lost and pointed in the wrong direction.  

The first this is this: the One to "fear" isn't the devil here--it's God.  And "fear" isn't like the gnawing insecurity that there might be monsters under the bed or a divinely lightning bolt hurled your way if you don't keep checking behind your back.  This is a big deal, because when Jesus says, "Don't fear those who can only kill your body, but rather fear the one who can destroy both the physical part of you and the spiritual part of you," some have thought he was talking about "the Evil One"--the Tempter, the Accuser, the one we sometimes call the devil or Satan [which just means "Accuser"].  But Jesus isn't telling us to substitute one fear of a small villain with a bigger fear of a supervillain.  Rather, Jesus is saying that the One who really has the power and the perspective that matters is God, not any lesser authority or threat.  And when Jesus talks about "fear" here, it's in the same vein as the Hebrew Scriptures which talk over and over again about "the fear of the LORD" as the beginning of real wisdom.  When the Scriptures talk about cultivating "the fear of the LORD," it's more like the awe of standing before a rushing river of rapids or with your feet at the edge of the Grand Canyon: it's not there to hurt you, but you would be wise to watch your step.  So Jesus isn't saying that the "real" boogeyman, the devil, should keep us up at night with fear--but rather that the One who has the real power over life and death, creation and destruction, is the same One he invites us to call on as "Father" in the next breath, the One whose care watches even over sparrows and hairs on our heads.  It's a "Don't be afraid--God is bigger than any threat you might face" kind of statement, not a "Let me give you something to fuel your nightmares" sort of thing.

Now, once we're clear on whom we do--and do not--have to fear, there's another point we need to talk about here in this passage many of us heard this past Sunday. Jesus has been preparing his disciples to be truth-tellers and good-news sharers out in the towns and villages around them.  And along with the instructions to heal, cast out evil spirits, raise the dead, and announce that God's Reign had come near, he is also bracing them for the very real contingency that they'll meet with resistance.  After all, if Jesus has been rejected, mocked, and turned away [and he has been], then Jesus' spokespersons should be prepared for the same.  Jesus was scorned by the Respectable Religious Leaders who were incensed that Jesus ate and drank at dinners with "those tax collectors and sinners," and that he seemed to think that God's Reign included a whole bunch of unacceptables and outcasts.  And he was deemed a threat by the political so-and-sos of the day as well, both the Romans and Herod, because he announced the arrival of a different sort of Kingdom which exposed theirs as hollow frauds.  So of course, Jesus says, his followers are in for the same kind of reception, presumably for the same reasons [again, like we said earlier in this week, we don't get to cry "persecution" for just being jerks, bigots, or self-appointed know-it-alls].

Okay, so taken together, Jesus has been telling his disciples first, that they should be ready to meet with rejection, harassment, and exclusion from both the religious and political powers of the day insofar as we have been following the way and embodying the character of Jesus, and then, second, that in the face of that hostility, God has our back even when the powers of the day do their worst.  The worst they can do, after all, is kill us--but God insists on getting the last word and holding onto our lives even through death into resurrection life.  And if God is even aware of every last songbird's tumbling through the air, then of course, Jesus says, God is aware and cares when we meet with trouble, rejection, or persecution.  And God reserves the right to have the last word--even if they do their worst and string us up on crosses, which is exactly what they did to Jesus, after all.

But you'll notice in all of this what Jesus doesn't think we need in the face of hostility and threats--there's no mention of needing to arm ourselves to fight back or prevent the persecution that might happen.  Jesus doesn't say, "The Empire won't like the message of a different Kingdom, so you've got to stock up on swords and spears to be ready to fight 'em off when they come for you!"  Jesus doesn't say, "If your words don't persuade people of the Gospel's truth, maybe your weapons will convince them!"  And Jesus definitely does not say, "We have to defend God, and righteousness, and truth, so you'd better be armed!" There is no strategy to avoid persecution, to shield our vulnerabilities, or to attack preemptively in order to keep the "bad guys" at bay.  There is instead only the call to stare down that hostility and danger, continuing to speak the words Jesus gives us, and to answer hatred with love, evil with good.  Jesus is convinced that God doesn't need our help or protection even from the mortal threat of the crucifying empire, and he is convinced that we don't need any additional defense other than the God who won't let evil or death win the day.  After all, even if they do their worst, God can raise us up to resurrection life--and that is exactly what God did when the powers of the day did their worst to Jesus.

It is easy in our day and age to think that we need to back up our faith with firepower, and to respond to fears of some ominous "THEM" who are out to get us with more and more weapons.  There are lots of voices insisting that Christians need to be "ready" to attack enemies or defend ourselves in the name of protecting God or preserving righteousness.  And those voices can be persuasive.  It's just that they're not listening to Jesus.  Like Stanley Hauerwas says it, "Any time you think you need to protect God, you can be sure that you are worshipping an idol."  Or like the old line puts it, "You defend God like you would defend a lion--by getting out of the way."  Jesus knowingly sends us out vulnerably into a hostile world, without promising us that nothing bad will ever happen, but convinced that the way we witness to God's kind of power is like Jesus: without returning evil for evil. We will face the hostility of the world with Jesus' kind of love and truth-telling, rather than needing to "get them before they get us."  We will believe that God's good news is compelling enough that we don't have to coerce people into it.  And we will live without fear of what anybody can do to us, because even if "they" do their worst, God has promised that resurrection gets the last word.

Today is a day to take our calling as Gospel truth-tellers seriously--and with that, to take seriously that God's promise is all we need to bear that unarmed truth for the world.

Lord Jesus, give us confidence in your promise of God's life-giving power so that we can face even the worst the world can do, with your death-defying love.

Echoing Jesus--June 27, 2023

Echoing Jesus--June 27, 2023

[Jesus said to the disciples:] "So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops." [Matthew 10:26-27]

We keep inventing new and more powerful ways to communicate with more and more people. The only question is the one that so often goes unasked: what is worth saying?

There was a leap forward with the invention of the printing press, to be sure, which made it possible for large numbers of copies of a book, treatise, or pamphlet to be distributed to many people.  And the arrival of radio and television made it possible to communicate at even longer distances to larger audiences.  But now in our time, you don't need to own a publishing house or broadcast tower to get your ideas out.  Now with the click of a button or the swipe of a finger on a screen, ideas can be shared all over the world in real time for free, and you can share videos of your personal thoughts and opinions to anybody in an instant with the advent of cell phones and social media. But... to see how many of us use those technological leaps to share pictures of what we ate for lunch or to troll people whose politics differ from ours, I'm not sure we're using these platforms of ours very well.

Americans like to talk a great deal about defending the right to free speech, and about how each of us is guaranteed by the Constitution the freedom to say whatever we want to say, no matter how trivial, foolish, hateful, provocative, scandalous, or just plain incorrect it is.  And it is all well and good to have safeguards that protect people from being silenced just because their perspectives are unpopular--after all, without some kind of protection like that, the little child who cries out that the emperor is wearing no clothes would be silenced by the crowd.  But for all the energy we spend on insisting to each other, "I can say whatever I want and you can't stop me," we spend precious little giving even a passing thought to the question, "What should I say with my opportunity to speak?" or even, "What message should I amplify with the platform and megaphone that I have?"

These are the questions that Jesus calls us to wrestle with--not just "Can they stop me from saying it?" but more fundamentally, "Is this something that's worth saying in the first place?"  And if you are anything like me and find yourself sometimes just fed up with the sheer noise of frivolous and furious voices, then our way of responding to the babble is to choose wisely about what we use our voices, screens, and soapboxes to say.  Every time I drive through the not-too-distant town with the video billboards cycling through a loop of angry messages that range from partisan vitriol to unfiltered bigotry to casual racism, I find myself thinking, "What message do I send with my life? And what am I amplifying with my public presence?"  Every time I go past a flagpole blaring profanities, not-so-veiled threats (like the all-black flag that means "no quarter given"--yikes!), or white supremacy, I have to ask myself, "In my own life, where I only have the space to send one message, what is worth announcing to the world?"  And every time I find myself behind a vehicle in traffic whose bumper stickers or decals spread hatred, I have to stop and think about what I'm communicating to strangers in the course of my day through my words, actions, and sure, my car's decorations.  And when I take that extra moment to reflect, I find the only thing I'm really convinced is worth amplifying is the voice of Jesus.

That's what Jesus says to his disciples here, too.  If we are going to be Jesus' followers, and if we are seeking to live out his kind of love, then it's not enough to stop with declaring, "You can't stop from saying whatever hateful thing I want..."--we are compelled to ask further, "What would Jesus have me say?"  And Jesus' direction on that question is simply, "What have you heard me say?"  It may not be easy or popular, but it really is that simple.  What is consistent with the way and words of Jesus?  What messages reflect the Reign of God that we've come to know in him?  Those are the things to amplify.  The rest is noise and nonsense.  Jesus is the one worth echoing, until his words become our own.

That doesn't mean we can only ever speak in Bible verses or quote hymn lyrics at people.  But it does mean that the character and content of what we say, and the ways in which we say it, need to sound like echoes of Jesus.  That's how we'll know what is worth saying, and what is best left to silence.

Imagine for a moment what that might look like--what that might sound like!--and how just that look inward at ourselves, without needing to censor or silence anybody else, might make a difference?  What words might be kept from being shouted in anger, or lobbed from insecurity?  What words that we've been afraid to speak would find their voice because we realized we were meant simply to echo and amplify Jesus--to shout from the housetops what we first heard whispered in secret?  And how might others come to hear Jesus... in our voice?

Let's dare it today.

Lord Jesus, let our voices be echoes of your truth and love, rather than just more noise.

On Not Being Jerks--June 26, 2023

On Not Being Jerks--June 26, 2023

[Jesus said to the disciples:] "A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household?" [Matthew 10:24-25]

So... if we find ourselves ridiculed or criticized for our words (which does sometimes happen), how do we know if it's because we're being faithful to Jesus--or just because we're jerks?

That's the thing.  To be sure, sometimes Jesus' followers will be insulted, mocked, or maligned because they are being faithful to Jesus.  And then sometimes, it's just that we are acting or speaking like a horse's rear-end, and others are just calling us out for it.  Like James Finley's line puts it, "It may be true that every prophet is a pain in the neck, but it is not true that every pain in the neck is a prophet.  There is no more firmly entrenched expression of the false self than the self-proclaimed prophet."  Ouch--but fair point, sir.

For that matter, even if you actually know what you're talking about but are determined to be a jerk about it, the Scriptures warn us against pontificating.  As the Apostle Paul famously put it, "If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or clanging cymbal.  And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have fall faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing."  In other words, it is possible to be factually correct and still be completely un-Christ-like in weaponizing what you know that you are no longer really a voice for truth--at least not the truth that matters, anyway.

This is the bind we're in if we are going to take our calling as Christians who care about truth seriously: I can't just assume that any time I have a strong opinion, I must be the sole truth-teller, and that anyone who doesn't like what I have to say must be ridiculing me for my faith.  And on the other hand, we can't just give up on ever saying anything for fear of being ridiculed--because sometimes difficult truths need to be told, rather than rehearsing what people want to hear.  So what are we to do?

Well, I want to suggest that Jesus gives us direction on this very question: when we stick close to him, we're on solid ground.  When we listen close to Jesus and pattern our way of speaking on him--not just what he says, but how he says it--we're less likely to be spouting off from our own soapboxes with our pet peeves.  That also means a constant willingness to check ourselves with Jesus, as we've come to know him and as we're introduced to him in the Scriptures.  That keeps us from just telling ourselves that whatever we already think must be in line with Jesus, because we're Christians and Christians know Jesus.  [There's a line of Richard Rohr's I ran across just the other day where he says how often the posture of Christians is to say about Jesus, "He's God of our saved church, which means that our church is right--and so are we."  How very easy it is to jump into that circular thinking and stay there.]

When Jesus tells his followers to be ready to be insulted, rejected, and maligned, he takes it for granted that it will be because we are echoing his words and his way in the world.  "If they've mocked the master of the house, how much more will they mock the rest of his household," he says.  That presumes people see a common thread, a connection between our witness and the way of Jesus.  Jesus presumes that we'll stick close to speaking what we've heard from Jesus and embodying the way we've seen him engage with people, rather than just letting us baptize our pre-existing opinions, bigotries, and hobby-horses.  And of course, when we echo the audacious boundary-crossing love we've first encountered in Jesus, we'll likely find ourselves condemned by the same kinds of Respectable Religious Folks who criticized Jesus for eating with sinners, welcoming the outcasts, and including the "unacceptables."  When we speak up for people to be treated justly, graciously, and with neighborly kindness, even if that upsets others who are comfortably complacent, we'll meet with the same kind of resistance and ridicule that Jesus ran into when he told a scandalous story like the Good Samaritan.  When we stand in the face of power without fear, like Jesus did before Pilate, we shouldn't be surprised to run into hostility.  Staying close to Jesus keeps us from just shouting our own agendas with spiritual dressing.

So often these days, when the watching world criticizes Christians, it's not because they want to mock our devotion to Christ, but because they see how very un-Christ-like our words and actions come off.  We are less likely to be maligned for being faithful to Jesus than to be called out for being jerks and using our faith for cover.  So in those cases, it's worth listening honestly and humbly to see where maybe the critics have a point... and where we can be correctible.  And where we are echoing Jesus' words and way, there we can stand on solid ground and take whatever insults or mocking come--because if the accusations or insults are for being like Jesus, that's really high praise.

Today, let's dare to be correctible, to keep looking again and again to Jesus, and to pattern our witness on him.  That will ground us in truth that is solid as well as love that is real.  And that's where we need to stand today.

Lord Jesus, make us to speak, act, and love like you, and then it won't matter what anybody else thinks of us.

Our Particular Truth--June 21, 2023

Our Particular Truth--June 21, 2023

[Jesus instructed his disciples:] "As you go, proclaim the good news, 'The kingdom of heaven has come near.' Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment'." [Matthew 10:7-8]

When we say that Jesus brings the truth, it's not just any random truth.  And when we say that Jesus' followers are sent to speak the Gospel's truth to the world, again, it's not just an assortment of unrelated statements that are factually accurate.  We are called to bring a particular truth--the truth of the Reign of God.

In this passage that many of us heard this past Sunday, Jesus sends his disciples out with a specific message, not just to say things-happen-to-be-true.  The call for Christians is not to insert ourselves into other people's conversations spouting unsolicited trivia factoids--we don't just shout things like "Mercury is the closest planet to the sun!" or paint messages like "Wait an hour after eating before you go swimming!" on sandwich-board signs to wear on the street corners.  The particular message of Jesus' particular community is the specific truth of God's Reign coming among us--what we sometimes hear the Scriptures call "the kingdom of heaven."

In other words, when Jesus sent his followers out to the surrounding towns and villages as his witnesses, they weren't there to just offer unsolicited advice or offer lessons in general knowledge.  They were there to tell people that at long last God's Reign was breaking into the world in a new way, and then they were supposed to show people what that Reign is like--by healing people, raising the dead, casting out the powers of evil, and cleansing those with contagious diseases like leprosy so that they could be restored to community and reunited with those they loved.  In other words, they were bringing both a message and then an embodiment of what the message meant.  And all of it was good--all of it was about showing God's love to people who needed it, in different ways, and in all directions.

You'll notice, too, that Jesus doesn't frame any of this as a sale-pitch or an infomercial.  He doesn't tell the disciples that it's their job to "close a deal" or "get people to sign on the dotted line." There's no, "This first miracle is free, but if you want more, you're gonna have to subscribe."  Instead, they are supposed to show people what God's Reign looks like by helping, healing, and mending people, and then simply to tell them, "This is what it looks like when God's will is done.  Life.  Renewal.  Hope. New creation."  They were supposed to tell people that God's love was coming to them, and then to show them what that love meant in real life situations.  

Sometimes, let's be honest, church folks miss that.  We end up thinking that our job as "church folk" is just to get more recruits for our team, or new customers for our religious product.  But that's not it--we're not here to "sell" ourselves, but to embody for the world what it looks like where God is reigning.  And we offer that to the world, not in order to prop up our institution and get more resources for our little religious club, but as an expression of God's love for the world.  

This is hard for us to wrap our minds around in the culture of free-trials (with strings) and paid-promotions in which we live.  When a TV streaming service has a new show out, they might release the first episode for free to everyone, but it's not out of the goodness of their hearts or selfless altruism--they want to hook new viewers who will pay for the service to watch more episodes and new programming.  When the department store offers you big savings if only you'll sign up for their store credit card, it's not because they want what's best for you, but because they want repeat customers.  And when the grocery store is selling packages of Oreos or your favorite tortilla chips in a two-for-one deal, it's not because they are committed to ending world hunger: they want your business, and they want you to think of them the next time you've got a craving for Cool Ranch or Double Stuf.  But the community of Christ is different--we're sent to speak the true message of God's Reign in our midst, not as a means toward getting more for ourselves, but because God loves the people to whom we are sent. That makes us completely different from all the advertisements, sales-spiels, and telemarketers on the planet.  Like Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it, the church is the one community on earth that exists for the sake of those who do not yet belong to it.  We're not here to salivate over how to "get more people in our pews" as a survival strategy for our congregations or to "win more souls" like we are racking up points in a game.  But rather we have been sent by Jesus so that others may be drawn into the sway of God's love and might more fully experience the fullness of God's goodness.  So we speak it, we enact it, we share it, and we invite others to participate in it, because all of those things are glimpses of the Kingdom.

These days it is terribly tempting for each of us to take our own Strongly-Held-Opinions and decide that these are "The Truth" that the Church must take up and shout to the world--whether it's a political party's platform, culture war wedge issue talking points, or my own personal hobby-horses.  It's easy to turn anyone who disagrees with me as "enemy" and to dismiss them as "rejecting the truth," as though Jesus has committed to endorse my already pre-formed opinions. But when Jesus sends his disciples out, whether in the first century or the twenty-first, he gives them a different message from any of those--a clearer one.  Our calling is to bring the news that God's Reign is right in our midst, and then to be the evidence of what that looks like.  It will be to tell the particular truth that God has come near, and then to embody a glimpse of what that love does among us--healing the sick, raising the dead, and overcoming evil with good.

What if we spent our day today looking for ways to answer the question, "How could I show someone else the truth of what it looks like when God's Reign comes near?"  I suspect those answers will overlap quite a bit with those of the question, "What will it look like to love the people around me today?"

Let's find out.

Lord Jesus, when there are so many possible messages we could send in this day, keep us focused on communicating the good news of your Reign coming near. Let that be our particular message in words and in actions.

"Until Everybody's Free"--June 19, 2023

"Until Everybody's Free"--June 19, 2023

"Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, 'If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.' They answered him, 'We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, You will be made free?' Jesus answered them, 'Very truly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.'" [John 8:31]

"Free indeed." I've been thinking a lot about this well-known line of Jesus today in particular, on this, the commemoration of Freedom Day, or Juneteenth.  I will admit that it wasn't until I was well into my mid-twenties before I had ever even heard of Juneteenth or learned the story, which probably suggests a whole conversation unto itself about how we choose to tell, and not to tell, our histories.  But today I can't help but reflect on the memory held by this date on the calendar, and how powerfully it illustrates what Jesus says.

The story, in short, goes like this: it was on this date, June 19, in 1865 that word finally arrived in the slaveholding state of Texas, that both the Civil War was over (with Lee's surrender to Grant, back in April of that year), and that those who had been enslaved in the rebel states of the Confederacy had been declared "forever free" by the Emancipation Proclamation that went into effect on January 1, 1863--some two and a half years prior.  When the news was announced there in Galveston, it meant that in the last holdout strongholds of slavery, finally there was hope of liberation.  And it is a reminder, too, that the Emancipation Proclamation by itself could not set people free, especially those who had never been told what it said--and at the same time, that winning a war on a battlefield could not by itself set them free, either.  Ultimately, it was when the truth came and met them where they were that those who remained in chains could be liberated. (Of course, the actual practice of that liberation has always been more elusive than the words of the initial promise--as Dr. King would put it a hundred years later at the March on Washington, it was a "promissory note" that had "come back marked insufficient funds" for the descendants of those enslaved). But this is one of those days in our nation's history where, even if only in part, we are witness to the way the speaking of truth sets people free.  Despite the efforts of the Confederacy, of White slaveholders, and of the whole economic and social system of the time to maintain and perpetuate slavery, eventually the truth was spoken that set real people free... indeed.

I think it's worth us remembering that Jesus describes his own mission and ministry in those same terms--the setting free of those who are in bondage.  We are so used to thinking and talking about Jesus as the one who "gets us into heaven" like he is a travel agent booking a spot on the cruise ship for us, that we can forget Jesus' own way of talking is about something wider and deeper than an afterlife reservation.   It is about releasing human beings from the various ways we are held captive--and that we keep putting ourselves and one another into captivity.  Jesus has come to free people--he even said as much in his opening sermon at his hometown synagogue in Nazareth: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor" (see Luke 4:18-19). And he does that by what he says--his "word" that "sets us free"--rather than needing an army to conquer, weapons to destroy with, or political power to threaten with.  Jesus is convinced that the truth is enough to make people free.

For a long time in our own nation's history, the fear of losing status, power, wealth, and a way of life kept slaveholders (and all parts of society that depended on slavery for cheaper crops and labor) from being able to love their neighbors whom they had enslaved. And that fear led them to keep the truth of emancipation hidden from the human beings they claimed to own for as long as they possibly could.  Fear does that to us--it makes us hide from truths that make us uncomfortable or threaten our way of life, and it distorts our vision of other people. But the kind of truth Jesus brings breaks the power of that fear and enables us to love.

It's always funny to me in this scene that the people who reply to Jesus seem to have selectively remembered their history--insisting they have never been slaves to anyone, when in fact the formative story of ancient Israel was slavery to Egypt for 400 years.  And of course, that refusal to face an uncomfortable truth is part of why they are still captive--when we cannot face our stories truthfully, we will always been captive to the version of history that we'd prefer to remember, and all too often we'll stop at nothing to silence any other versions of history exactly because they make us squirm.  Jesus insists on being one to tell us the truth, not to make us feel bad but to set us free--and so that others who are held captive by the lies we tell ourselves can be set free, too.

And so that we're clear, that "Truth" Jesus tells isn't just an abstract concept--it has everything to do with him and with the way of life he makes possible.  Jesus tells us that we no longer have to be captive to fear any longer--not fear of losing power, not fear of being rejected, not fear of facing our failures and mess-ups... and therefore we can be humble, vulnerable, and honest.  Jesus tells us that we no longer have to be captive to our old pet hatreds and bigotries any longer... and therefore we are enabled to love and welcome those we had gotten comfortable condemning.   Jesus tells us that we no longer have to be captive to the insecurities that make us push someone else down in order to puff ourselves up... and therefore we can claim our identity as God's beloved, and see it in everyone else.  All of that is possible because Jesus' mission is to set people free--not at the point of a gun but with the words of his mouth.

Today is a day to remember just how high the stakes really are in this life for telling the truth and refusing to keep it from others.  And today is a day to remember that Jesus has come so that all of us might be liberated by his word of love, until all of creation is made new.  After all, as Fannie Lou Hamer put it, "Nobody's free until everybody's free."

Maybe today it begins in your life and mine as we tell someone else that, on Jesus' authority, they are free indeed.

Lord Jesus, give us the grace and courage to tell the truth about ourselves, and the faith to believe the truth you speak about us, so that we might all be free.

An End to the Secrets--June 16, 2023

An End to the Secrets--June 16, 2023

"Then Joseph said to his brothers, 'Come closer to me.' And they came closer. He said, 'I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors...." [Genesis 45:4-7]

So many times in our lives, we are afraid of people finding out "the truth" because we're worried it will wreck our relationships with them.  But sometimes the truth is the thing we were waiting for to remove an obstacle that had been keeping us apart.  Sometimes when truth is spoken, we are at last able to reconcile.

I need to remember that, and so I find in this story much needed hope.  This is a story that reminds us all how truth-telling can be what brings us together.  You are likely familiar with the story of Joseph and his brothers (the same Joseph who becomes the central character in the rock opera "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," if you're an Andrew Lloyd Webber fan), and how those brothers had sold young Joseph into slavery because they hated him.  You might also know that, through a dramatic journey of twists and turns, Joseph ends up rising from slavery and imprisonment for a crime he did not commit to becoming the chief advisor of Pharaoh and that he develops a plan to get both Egypt and the surrounding lands through the seven years of famine that have fallen up on the region.   So at long last, after decades of separation, Joseph's brothers come to Egypt seeking food but convinced that their long-lost brother is either dead or still enslaved somewhere far away--and eventually, Joseph himself reveals who he is.  It is the truth, "I am your brother," that allows them to restore their relationship.  It is the speaking of that truth that allows love to hold them together once again.

It can be very easy in our own lives to think that the family secrets, unspoken histories, and difficult truths of our lives need to stay hidden and buried.  From long-lost siblings to "black sheep" that just aren't talked about to scandals of a previous generation, families sometimes keep secrets in the name of avoiding trouble or hurt feelings.  So often, the question is left hanging, "What good could it do if So-and-So found out the truth?" or it's stated directly, "Telling them what really happened would only cause more heartache, so we need to keep this secret."  But Joseph's story suggest the opposite--that truth-telling can be the way we finally can put the past behind us because we can finally deal with it.  Like James Baldwin says, "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."  What Joseph does, at long last, is to finally face the truth that his brothers thought they had buried for good, and to help them face it as well.  I'm sure it wasn't easy to have that conversation, and I'm sure there were tears all around--but all of it was what allowed love to hold them together after so long apart.

I don't know what things you are dealing with in your life--if there are family secrets you've been pressured to keep, or taboo topics that "we just don't talk about," or questions you're not allowed to ask about, or chapters of history that are left blank.  And I make no promise that bringing those things out into the open will be easy or painless or without resistance.  But I would say at least that Joseph's story dares us to imagine what good might come from truth-telling, even if we have a hard time imagining that it could be so.  Maybe it's time to pick up the phone, set somebody free from the truths they've been forced to hide, or to encourage someone to end their silence so that everyone can be healed.  Maybe it's time to speak difficult truths so that they can be faced... and so that there can be healing, rather than letting old wounds fester.

Today, let's dare to be truthful, so that love can grow.

Lord God, give us the courage to hear and to speak the truth, so that reconciliation can happen where we need it.

Called Out and Called Up--June 15, 2023

Called Out and Called Up--June 15, 2023

"But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood self-condemned; for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But after they came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction. And the other Judeans joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, 'If you, though I Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?'" [Galatians 2:11-14]

We would like to believe that our faith journeys are marked out in straight lines--always forward, no steps back, and no detours or getting lost.  We'd like to tell ourselves that our life stories are framed entirely as progress, with no failures and no setbacks.  We're happy to sing those words from "Amazing Grace" that go, "I once was lost, but now am found... was blind, but now I see," if it lets us believe we can never get ourselves lost again and never have our vision clouded.  But it just ain't so.  We keep making mistakes, misunderstanding the truth, and messing up.  We need people who will pull us back on the track of Christ-like love, even when they have to confront us to do it.

That's true even for our heroes, including biblical heroes of the faith like Simon Peter.  This story, an episode we have from Paul's letter to the Galatians, is a reminder that even the hand-picked inner circle of Jesus sometimes gets it wrong and needs other voices to hold them accountable for the sake of love.  And as hard as it can be to see the ones we looked up to and respected can sometimes get it wrong, it's also good news to know that when they do, there is the hope for change, new beginnings, and a restart, even if it comes through a verbal smack-upside-the-head from another Christian.

So just to make sure we all know what's going on here, the person referred to as "Cephas" here is actually the apostle we know as Simon Peter, and yes, that's the same Simon Peter who was one of the original twelve disciples of Jesus.  (In case you're wondering about that name, you probably remember that Jesus gave Simon a new nickname that meant "rock" or "stone;" well, in Aramaic, the language Jesus actually spoke, that nickname was "Cephas," and in Greek, the language the New Testament was written in, that nickname got translated into the Greek word for "rock" or "stone," Petros--or Peter.)  So we've got THE Simon Peter, who became a central leader of the early church.  And this is the same Simon Peter we read about earlier in this week from the book of Acts in the story of Cornelius, who finally came to realize that God was including Gentiles (people who weren't Jewish) in the new community of Christ.  Peter even gave this really powerful speech back in Acts 10 about how he finally realized the truth that God shows no partiality, and that nobody was supposed to call profane what God had declared clean and good.  And now... here, sometime later, after the apostle Paul (whom we've also spent some time reflecting on this week) had begun his own ministry specifically welcoming Gentiles to faith in Jesus, the two have a run-in.  And it appears that good old Simon Peter-Cephas-"The Rock" the Apostle had forgotten what he said he believed.

Peter had apparently found himself waffling about whether or not he would actually share tables with the Gentile Christians.  It was fine to include everybody "in theory" if they were  a hypothetical group of people somewhere else.  And he was even OK, apparently, with sharing a table with Gentiles as long as none of the hard-liners who didn't want to include Gentiles as Gentiles (without making them be circumcised or keep kosher) were around.  But when some of those folks showed up (again, certain that THEY were on "God's side"), Simon "The Rock" Peter/Cephas went right back to the old ways of segregation.  All of a sudden the Gentile Christians were back to being second-class not-quite-members, and he wasn't going to be seen in public with them.  You can see why Paul, seeing all this play out, called this all out as "hypocrisy."

So, why do we have a story like this in our Bibles?  Why bring up this setback in Peter's life, and why tarnish his reputation with a memory of how Peter failed to live up to the ideals he had so nobly proclaimed back in the book of Acts?  Well, for starters, it's just honest--and whether they are biblical heroes, founding fathers of our country, or historical figures--to see them truthfully, even when that means acknowledging their clay feet, character flaws, and regrettable choices.  But we also need to face stories like this to remind us that our faith journey isn't always (or ever!) an ever-ascending rise to better and better heights.  We screw up. We get it wrong sometimes.  We make mistakes, and sometimes we even take a bunch of steps backward for everyone one step forward, closer to Jesus.  And in those moments, we need other people among the community of Jesus who can speak truth to us, both because they love us, and because they love the people affected by our missteps.

That's important to note in this story. Paul doesn't call Peter out just because he wants to be a know-it-all or a jerk (seriously, he doesn't).  Paul is thinking about all of those new believers, who were vulnerable and brave to step forward and risk joining the Christian community despite all the scorn they were sure would be directed at them.  Paul knows that it's not completely safe yet to be Gentile and a Christian. There were still factions trying to force Gentiles to change who they were and become practically Jewish first, and Paul saw that as a misunderstanding of what the Gospel really said.  Paul knew that if you start putting fine print or strings on the Gospel's free gift of grace through faith, you have lost the truth of the Gospel and just turned it into one more self-help program or another variation on Respectable Religion.  Paul calls Peter out because he's concerned about all the people who will have a target on their backs if the wider church follows Peter's lead and starts elbowing out Gentile Christians.  And Paul knows that if the Christian community only talks about God's welcome for ALL but doesn't truly practice that welcome, their message has ceased to be the Gospel, even if it ruffles feathers to include those who were on the margins, like those early Gentile Christians.  So for the sake of those who are most at risk, Paul speaks up, yes to Saint Peter himself, to say, "You can't dismiss these siblings in Christ just because the hard-liners have come to town and you're afraid to stand up to them."  That's a hard truth, but it comes from a place of deep love for the people who are most vulnerable.

But at the same time, this is also about love for Peter--the act of calling him out is meant to get him to wake up, to see the contradiction between his older stance and his newer refusal to eat with the Gentile Christians, and to make a course correction.  Paul wants Peter to be brought back on track, and to step back onto the pathway of Christ-like love.  Sometimes that's what it takes--the willingness of a few faithful voices, or even just one, to speak the Gospel with authenticity when the hierarchy of the church has fallen back into Respectable Religion, and to speak for those whose welcome is most fragile.  Seeing that something like this happened to Simon Peter, and that even he could get it wrong and need a refresher on the implications of the Gospel, means that we can be honest that we may need those voices among us, too.  We don't always get it right, and we are constantly tempted to turn the church into a social club for the like-minded and demographically-homogenous.  We are tempted, like Peter, to pay lip service to the idea that "all are welcome," as long as we don't have to really mean it when it comes to "those people" and actually sharing our tables with one another.  And so we need voices like Paul's to call us out and call us up to take the gospel's radical inclusion seriously once again.  Simon Peter needed that in the first century, and we still need it in the twenty-first.

If the history of the church tells us anything, it's that we keep messing up and need to keep being pulled back to the truly astounding depth of God's love in Christ.  We began as a movement where enslaved people were treated with dignity and enslavers were pressured to release their slaves to be regarded as siblings... and then after enough centuries, Christians were using their religion to justify owning other human beings.  We began as a movement that counted women among the earliest preachers, leaders, and apostles... and then over time took a step back and insisted that women couldn't be any of those things (and told people, untruthfully, that they never had been any of those things).  We began as a movement where the ones on the margins were told that they were accepted, as they were, because God had already accepted them... and yet we are back to fighting, fragmenting, and fleeing over the lines to be drawn for who can't belong.  We keep making Peter's mistake.  So we keep needing voices like Paul's to force us to see where we've been hypocrites, and where we've hamstrung the power of the gospel by making ourselves gatekeepers.

Maybe when one of those voices speaks up around you and me today, we should listen.  And maybe when you see a situation in need of such a voice and nobody else is stepping up, it's your turn to arise.

Lord Jesus, enable us both to hear your truth and to speak it in ways that welcome the lost, the least, and the left-out ones, just as you have always done.

Like Scales from Our Eyes--June 14, 2023

Like Scales from Our Eyes--June 14, 2023

"So Ananias went and entered the house [where Saul was]. He laid his hands on Saul and said, 'Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.' And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored.  Then he got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength. For several days he was with the disciples in Damascus, and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, 'He is the Son of God.'" [Acts 9:17-20]

Sometimes the truth hits like a ton of bricks or a sucker punch. Sometimes it slowly dawns on you like the first rays of the sun peaking through the curtains onto your face in the morning.  And sometimes it feels like scales falling from your eyes.  But no matter how it comes, the truth that comes from God has a way of making new creations out of us, because God's truth is never separate from God's love.

This is one of those moments in the story of the early Christian community that reminds us God's truth always works in tandem with God's love, like they are two sides of the same coin.  In case the scene isn't familiar to you, this is part of the story of how Saul--the one-time enemy of the church, persecutor of Christians, and coat-holder at the stoning of Stephen--has an encounter with the risen Jesus who tells him the truth about who he is, as well as the truth of who Saul will become.  Saul had gotten permission to go to Damascus with arrest warrants from the Respectable Religious Authorities to bring back any followers of Jesus, men or women, bound and handcuffed, to stand trial for being a part of this subversive sect.  (Can you imagine?  We Christians used to be seen as revolutionary and subversive, rather than the Guardians of the Status Quo we so often cast ourselves to be these days!)  As the narrator of Acts describes him, Saul was "still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord," and he was dead-set against Jesus and anyone who had anything to do with the crucified Nazarene.  Saul was convinced that Jesus couldn't be the long-awaited Messiah--for starters, because Jesus had died an accursed death getting hung up on a tree at the hands of his enemies in the Roman Empire, and that didn't sound like something a Respectable Messiah would do.

Well, it turns out that Jesus has never been interested in fitting the mold of anybody's expectations of what a "respectable messiah" should be or do.  And neither has Jesus ever been held back from reaching out to the people who rejected him.

So the living and risen Jesus appears to Saul while he is on his way to the city of Damascus, seeking to arrest and prosecute the followers of Jesus there. And Jesus knocks him off his high horse (literally--the guy is knocked to the ground) and hits him with the truth that the One whose followers he has been hunting down is very much alive and well and is indeed the Chosen One of God for whom Saul had been waiting.  The truth lands like a gut punch, but not because Jesus is trying to make him suffer.  Rather, we have a way of building our lives around our preferred illusions of "how things are," and when something comes along to shake those foundational assumptions, we get knocked off of our feet.  In that moment, Saul is struck blind by the flash of light that shined when Jesus appeared, and Jesus gives him directions to go into the city and wait for help... whom Jesus is going to send.

And that's where Ananias enters the story.  Ananias is a Christian who lives in Damascus, and he's heard about all the terrible things Saul has done.  He probably has lost friends to Saul's zealous cruelty, who got arrested, jailed, or worse, already.  And at first, Ananias doesn't want anything to do with getting anywhere near Saul of Tarsus, the Chief Persecutor of the Church.  But the same living Jesus who confronted Saul like a ton of bricks got through to Ananias as well, and off he went to go find, heal, and baptize his mortal enemy.  Saul will need to hear more truth about Jesus, and that truth will wrap him in love and open his eyes. And Ananias will need to learn in action that the community of Jesus really does practice love of enemies--and that such love really is capable of transforming them into members of the family.

This is what it means to take the truth of Christ seriously--that the likes of Saul will have their worlds turned upside down when they realize that God really has chosen to save the world through a crucified homeless rabbi after all... and the likes of Ananias will be called to live out the love that embraces even our worst enemies.

As we keep looking through the Scriptures, I hope it is becoming clearer still that whatever we mean by "truth" is always bound up with whatever "love" really means, too.  Saul's story is about both truth that knocks the wind out of him and love that heals his sightless eyes.  Ananias' story is about being certain that "love" is never empty talk but lived out in truth and action, even to show mercy to the one who had sworn to destroy you, in the leap of faith that God's powerful love is able to turn stony hearts into good soil.

Today, if you are reading this, chances are you are already somehow connected to Jesus and his community. So we are dared, like Ananias, to be people who risk living out the truth we've come to believe.  Today we are called to offer love, with our lives on the line, because we believe Jesus' way is the truth--even when that love is directed toward people who count themselves as our enemies.  And of course, as we dare to take that calling seriously, who knows what amazing things God might do through such love?  Maybe scales will be falling from eyes all over the place.

May it be so.

Lord Jesus, give us the courage to take your truth seriously enough to love the people around us, and to let your love transform even the most hardened hearts.

The Joy of Being Wrong--June 13, 2023

The Joy of Being Wrong--June 13, 2023

"Then Peter began to speak to them: 'I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what it is right is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ--he is Lord of all...." [Acts 10:34-36]

There are these moments in life when the fog lifts, the clouds part, and you see things clearly that you did not understand before... and maybe that you didn't even realize you didn't understand.  And in those times of clarity, even if they turn your whole world upside down and make you see everything else in a new light, you discover a sense of unexpected contentment, a surprising peace, like a new day is dawning and its truth is illuminating the world that had been hidden in shadow before.  You feel what theologian James Alison once beautifully called "the joy of being wrong."

I know that phrase might sound like a contradiction--we live in a time where we pride ourselves on our 'rightness' and do not want to permit the possibility that we were wrong about anything--not to anybody else, and not even to ourselves.  We have plenty of bombastic and well-known public figures who seem to relish digging their heels in rather than ever dare admit that they were mistaken, or had more to learn, or didn't have all the facts, or--God forbid!--had taken new insights into consideration and changed their minds about something. Most of us think of "being wrong" as a failure to be admitted or confessed with our tails between our legs, and certainly not something to be joyful about.

But sometimes the truth is not what we believed... and it turns out to be good news.  Sometimes we find out we were wrong... and all we can do is rejoice over it, and maybe laugh at the way God surprises us.  That's what's going on in this scene from the book of Acts--it's about what happens when you realize you had the truth all wrong, and once your eyes are open to it, you can't help but joyfully shout it from the rooftops.

This scene is the climax of a beautiful story in what we call the tenth chapter of Acts, and it has to do with the early church leader Peter (yes, THAT Simon Peter who had been in Jesus' inner circle of closest disciples) learning that God had welcomed in people who were different from him, just as they were.  God was doing a new thing in Jesus, and it included not only Jewish people like Peter but Gentiles--even <gasp> enemies. Peter had found himself summoned (both by God and human messengers) to go meet a centurion named Cornelius, and God had directed him to tell this Gentile soldier of the occupying Roman Empire about Jesus.  And God had gotten through to him by sending him a vision that included all sorts of "unclean" animals and God telling Peter "What God has made clean, you must not call profane."  All Peter's life he had lived within the directives of the religious rules that saw the whole world in stark either-or binaries: clean-and-unclean, holy-and-profane, inside-and-outsider.  And all Peter's life, he believed that people like him, who traced their lineage through Jewish ancestors to ancient Israel, were "in," and those outside of that family line were excluded.  Even since meeting Jesus, he was still stuck in thinking  that the new community of Jesus' followers was limited to "insiders" like him, and that foreigners like this Roman centurion were not eligible for belonging. It was a neat and tidy little system for understanding the world.

And then God got a hold of him.

God leads Peter to a new realization--that God "shows no partiality," and that God in fact was welcoming in Gentiles as well as Jewish faces into the community of Christ.  It meant re-evaluating everything Peter thought he knew, but the moving of God's Spirit made it clear to him: the ones he previously KNEW were ineligible to belong were now being drawn in and included.  Peter discovered what we are so often afraid to face: the joy of being wrong.

That's what I love about Peter's speech here, as he shares the story of Jesus with Cornelius and his household: Peter is basically realizing in real-time here that he was wrong, and instead of covering it up, denying that he was changing his mind, or digging his heels in, Peter laughs with joy that God has gotten through to him at last.  It turns out to be good news that he had been wrong, because Peter's mistaken belief had made God too small, and God's mercy too narrow.  Peter can now rejoice to admit that the very people he assumed were unworthy and unacceptable were the very ones God was reaching out to include.

This story is powerful for us in the twenty-first century for a number of very big reasons.  First of all, for any of us who trace our genealogy from anybody other than Jewish ancestors, this story is the moment that opened the doors up for us to belong in the community of Jesus.  Our place in the body of Christ is made possible because someone like Peter was willing to admit he had been wrong about someone like Cornelius, and let God lead him to welcome the ones he had always deemed un-welcome-able.  Second, it's worth considering that we keep having to learn Peter's lesson: don't call profane and unacceptable what God has called holy and has already accepted.  Some church bodies even today are still struggling with the question of whether women should be allowed to lead, preach, teach, and serve as pastors--and I'd say they need to ask they're making the same mistake of declaring women unworthy when God has already decided they ARE worthy of being leaders, pastors, preachers, and teachers.  Other church bodies are wrestling with the question of including gay and lesbian pastors or welcoming LGBT persons into the full life of their congregations--and I suspect they feel a lot like Peter in this story, coming to grips with the realization that God was including people they thought were not acceptable.  

I'll admit, too, my own faith journey has been one of learning, growing, and change here--there was a time I was sure that gay or lesbian people couldn't be included among the leaders of the church, and I was sure I was on "God's side" on that issue.  And while the details of my journey there are probably too long a story for right here and now, suffice it to say that I know what it's like to be in Peter's sandals and to realize that God is the one pulling you into a new direction, which is going to turn a lot of your world upside down.  I know what it's like to be so certain, and yet to be brought to a re-evaluation of that certainly--not because I was seeking to reject God's direction or word, but precisely because I was listening and seeing what had been there all along but that I never realized. I know how difficult and humbling it is to say, "I used to think these people were unacceptable, and that it was God who said so... but now I realize was God all along telling me these faces are already accepted as they are."  But sometimes you have no choice but to step into the joy of being wrong.

Today that is my prayer--for me, for you, for all of us who, like Peter before us, are striving to listen to what God's voice is saying, and who may well find God's message surprising when it turns out to welcome the folks we thought God wanted kept out, and when it turns out to embrace the ones we thought were unworthy.  I pray that we may be given the gift of rejoicing when we realize the truth that God's welcome is wider than we dared imagine, and that it is not ours to call profane what God has called clean, good, and worthy.

Good Lord, give us the gift of your joy as we receive the truth that your welcome is wider than we dared to imagine.

 

The Truth About Jesus' Table--June 12, 2023

 

The Truth About Jesus' Table--June 12, 2023

"And as [Jesus] sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, 'Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?' But when he heard this, he said, 'Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, I desire mercy, not sacrifice. For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.'"[Matthew 9:10-13]

So... when Jesus answers back to the Respectable Religious People who have criticized him for sharing a table with THOSE PEOPLE (the so-called "sinners"), is it good news... or bad news?

Well, I suppose at first blush it depends on who you are in the story.  If you're one of the publicly pious Pharisees, who have in this scene declared themselves to be the guardians of morality and decency, Jesus' response is a withering insult.  If you're there among the finger-wagging spiritual scolds, upset that Jesus has accepted a whole dinner party full of "unacceptables," this sounds like terrible news.  If you were among those holding little protest signs with arms crossed outside the party of the outcasts among whom Jesus is celebrating, it is a shot across the bow to hear him quote back from the prophets, "Go learn what this means--'I desire mercy, not sacrifice'."  But if you're one of the ones who's been told over and over that you are unworthy and unlovable, Jesus' truth brings you back to life.

This is the thing we're going to have to face if we are really going to seek "the truth" from Jesus--whatever we think "the truth" really is, it is never our possession to weaponize against others.  In fact, Jesus reserves the right to show us "the truth" of just how far off the mark we've gotten when we have failed to love like he does.  He reserves the right to call us out when we've gotten up on our high horses and started looking down on other people.  he reserves the right to show us from the Scriptures that God's will has always been to restore the lost ones, welcome back in the outcast, love the unloved, and to give a new start to people stuck in dead-ends.  And Jesus insists that he has the authority to show us when and where we've gotten it wrong and missed the heart of God.

I think for me that's the most frightening thing about this passage: the Respectable Religious people think that they're doing God's will by chastising Jesus for associating with the "sinners."  (This is a reminder of the wisdom of Blaise Pascal's insight that "People never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.") They think they're "defending God's honor," or "speaking up for God's word," or "fighting for the truth," when Jesus shows them that they've missed the point.  They think that Jesus, who claims to represent God, will taint God's good reputation by sitting at a table with the tax collectors and collective "sinners." They know, of course, that table fellowship communicates a great deal--especially in their culture.  They know that sharing a meal with someone is a statement of acceptance, of welcome, and to some degree, of love--and so they understand that when Jesus shares a table at the dinner party in this scene (possibly at Matthew the tax collector's house?), he is making a provocative claim: that these people others view as reducible to being "sinners" rather than human beings are accepted already.  Not just "acceptable" in the hypothetical sense that someone might, possibly, theoretically accept them, but that they are already accepted by God.

You'll note that when the Respectable Religious people question Jesus (or rather, his disciples, because they are too afraid to actually confront him directly), Jesus doesn't respond by throwing the party guests under the bus.  He doesn't say, "Oh, don't you worry, my fellow Guardians of Holiness--I don't actually accept these people as they are; I'm here to warn them of fire and judgment if they don't shape up!  So don't get the wrong idea here--I certainly don't accept these people as they are." Jesus had that as an out if that were his perspective--that would have gotten the Pharisees off his back in this scene.  But instead, Jesus doubles down on his choice to share table and break bread with the whole list of party guests.  And he quotes a line from the prophet Hosea at them just to make it clear that Jesus' focus on mercy--on love for those others have deemed unlovable--is in fact God's own priority as well.  When the Respectable Religious folks get all bent out of shape about how wide a welcome Jesus' table offers, Jesus has to speak a truth that is difficult for them to hear, but which comes from a place of love.  And that love is both for the ones who have been ostracized and other-ized by the Publicly Pious People, and it is for the Pharisees, too--if they would listen to what Jesus says, they would be opened up to a wider and deeper love than they dared imagine.  Jesus' response to this group of Pharisees here is a hard pill for them to swallow, but it is a truth that is meant to allow both the "not-good-enough" crowd and the "holier-than-thou" crowd to discover that they are all beloved.

It can be so hard for us to face stories like this because we never want to admit that WE could be wrong today, or that WE could be guilty of excluding people whom Jesus has included.  It's scary to face the truth that the Respectable Religious People in Jesus' day were convinced they were on "God's side," only to have Jesus show them that whether they admitted it or not, the Reign of God was setting up shop at the parties where the outcasts gathered.  And reading a story like this today, which many of us heard this past Sunday, forces us to ask, "Where have I been keeping people out whom Jesus has already welcomed in with open arms?"

The hard part is that this isn't just a once-and-for-all question to ask, but that we are called to keep asking, to keep looking for what tables Jesus has pulled up a seat at, to keep letting ourselves be open to how Jesus will stretch our understandings to be big enough to get at least a glimpse of God's Reign among us.

So, is it good news or bad news to hear Jesus say that the tax collectors are sinners are embraced in his mercy?  Well, for the ones who had been told they didn't belong, it's unquestionably good news right off the bat. And for the Respectable Religious Crowd, it might have stung as bad news at first and turned their old thinking upside down, but it really is good news even for them.  To discover that God's welcome is not based on anybody's impression of our "worthiness" but simply and wholly grounded in God's grace changes us.  It frees us.  And it makes us come alive.  The question for us is whether we will let Jesus' truth here surprise us with joy, or make us scowl in judgment.

What will we do with the Good News of wide welcome that Jesus speaks right now?

Lord Jesus, enable us to rejoice at your welcome of the ones we thought unworthy, and allow us to be transformed with the breadth of your love.