What Needs to Be Said

How do we measure the impact of 65,000 words?

A novel is considered a piece of writing that is a least 40,000. So 65K is a book, for certain.

Now, imagine 65,000 words in 1543.

Those words have to be written out with ink and a quill. They must be scratched onto expensive paper. Then to print and distribute your work of 65,000 words, each page must be set out carefully in the moveable type of the time, inked, and printed. Then the pages must be collated and then tightly handsewn together.

If a book had an illustration, it was likely a block print- carved out of wood, pressed in ink, and the image transferred onto the paper.

All of this sounds tedious, and it was, but it was so much faster than the hand-copying of the previous centuries, prior to Gutenberg and his glorious printing press.

What was carefully written up and printed in 1543? What ideas were worth carefully laying out the moveable type, carving a block print, and distributing far and wide? What topic could inspire 65,000 words?

This is the year in which Martin Luther published "On the Jews and Their Lies". In his earlier years, Luther believed that Jews had been unable to be drawn to the truth of the gospel due to misinterpretation by the Church. Now, in the midst of reinterpretation, he has assumed that Jews and Turks (the name he called Muslims) would be drawn to Christianity. As that turned out not to be the case, and then his prince and benefactor- John Frederick, Elector of Saxony- began to persecute Jews with his (the Elector's) realm.

Slowly, as Luther aged, he became embittered against Jews and then wrote his treatise, "On the Jews and their lies". Sixty-five thousand words railing against Jewish people and calling for their schools and synagogues to be burned, their rabbis and teachers to be prevented from doing their work, for Jews to be ghettoized- unable to live among Christians, for physical protection to be withdrawn from them, and for them to be enslaved or have their property taken away until they truly converted.

Luther never renounced these views.

Neither, in full, did the Protestant Church at the time or the Roman Catholic Church. A full rejection of anti-Jewish sentiment in the church did not happen until well into the lifetimes of some of the youngest people here. 

Great effort was taken to print and disseminate this treatise around Europe, especially among those who could read German. At the same time, there was an enormous (and commendable) effort to have the scripture translated into the vernacular. Thus, people now could read the Bible in their own language, but may or may not have had the skills to reflect openly on what they read.

This means that the subject of "On the Jews and their lies" was in conversation and at the same time that people could, for the first time, read about Jesus' encounters with his own people, their conversations, and their responses to one another. If one had not been adequately taught that Jesus was Jewish, that God always keeps God's covenants, and that Christianity was grafted into Israel's tree of life, then what does do with the idea that Jews are terrible people, living in one's own cities and towns?

Like a contaminated stream flowing into a river, "On the Jews and their lies" polluted the waters of Christian consciousness. To be clear, this particular river already had anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic detritus floating in from historical persecution against Jews, which has a very long history. This poison stream, fed for thousands of years, continued to contaminate the river of Christian consciousness beyond the Reformation on through the Renaissance, the foundations of American history, in 19th century Russia, into the European and American eugenics movements, through the horrors of the Third Reich and Holocaust, continued on in various forms in the Soviet Union, was present in the KKK and neo-Nazi movements of the United States, and committed its most recent horror yesterday in Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennslyvania on the sabbath day of that community.

Now, please take a deep breath.

Why on earth, on my last Sunday here [at Lutheran Church of Hope], when I have so much to tell you and so much love to share with you, would I take my last twenty minutes of sermon time to speak about the pain, the horror, and the sin of anti-Judaism? Why would I bring up this aspect of Luther's life? Is this the time? Is this the place?

Rabbi Hillel, living close in time to Jesus, said, "If not me, who? If not now, when?"

The ultimate question of life is this: Why are we here?

The religious ultimate question is not "Is there a God?" That is a philosophical question.

The ultimate religious question, which already accepts that there is a god of some kind, is: What does God want with me?

If I have accepted, on through hearing the words of faith, that there is a God and I am not that God, then my life is spent coming to understand and further accept that I am not in control of very much. 
If God has done the work of:
- providing me with a pioneer and perfecter of my faith in Jesus
- giving me the gift of the Holy Spirit
- making me righteous
- ensuring my salvation
- cultivating my love [and]
- bringing me at the last to eternal life...

If I control none of those things, then what exactly is my work?

Let us consider, briefly, Psalm 46, verses 8 and 9:

Come, see the Lord’s deeds,
    what devastation he has imposed on the earth—     

bringing wars to an end in every corner of the world,
    breaking the bow and shattering the spear,
        burning chariots with fire.

What is the devastation that the Lord causes, according to the psalmist? It is the ending of war. The bringing of peace brings devastation to the earth. The end of the weapons of war, the conclusion of the rumors of war, the elimination of the terror of violence- this is the work of the hand of God. 

Why is the end of war devastating? 

Because it shatters the lies about control. War is about dominance, about power, about winners and losers. War and its fellow travelers- death, chaos, pain, and uncertainty- are the tools of the forces that oppose God. They are evil. They tell lies. We forcefully reject them. They oppose God's true reformation work- revelation of love, restoration of relationship, and resurrection in the face of death.

If God's devastating work, to be brought to fruition in creation, is the end of war- in all its forms, then the people of God must be at that work. It is not work that saves us. It is the work we are about precisely because we have been saved. It is the joy of our salvation, of trusting that we have been made right with God and not by our own selves, that allows us to take up work in our homes, in our backyards, in our neighborhoods, in our city, in our state, in our country, and in the world. 

And the work we are to be about, then, is God's own work of ending war. 

We are called to end the actual violence of war that comes about through political contests of will. We are called to end the war of sexual violence against women, girls, and all who identify as female. We are called to end the war of racism- in all its forms, including in institutions, within our justice system, and in our own hearts and minds. We are called to end the war of violence, exclusion, and hate against our LGBTQ+ siblings and neighbors. We are called to end the war of people versus the environment, remembering that the careful stewardship of creation is our first vocation as human beings. We are called to end the war that permits the denial of mental illness, lying about its causes, and ignoring treatment and possibilities for healing. 

We are called to end the war of anti-Jewish sentiment, of lies told about Jews, of misinterpretation and misapplication of scripture, of failing to wrestle with, apologize for, and learn from history. 

If God's devastating plan is to end war, then let it begin! And let it begin with me! Now! 

What is the weight of 65,000 words? Those words have the weight of the destroyed houses of pogroms in Russia, of stolen resources through oppression, inquisition, and general theft, of children who were denied resources because of their homes in ghettos, and the accumulated heft of bodies of murdered Jews through time, political dissidents, and others. That's what 65,000 words weigh. 

It is no small thing- to decide to be on the side of God's work to end war. 

It means, truly, to think about what Jesus would do. It means to pray to have a peacemaking heart, beginning in your closest relationships. This isn't a heart of enabling or accepting pain, but a heart that seeks to speak the truth, dismantle systems that create pain, and to work for the healing of the world. 

This is hard work. 

The work of war is easier, to be sure, because it allows the illusion of control and permits the inflicting of pain to those who are in one's way. War seems easier than peace because peace means a willingness to see, to accept, and to respond to the humanity of another person or group of people. Furthermore, peace means accepting that the other person or people are equally beloved by God and have also been justified (or made right with God)in the same manner as one’s self. 

When I was approved for ordination, the two professors from the now-non-existent Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia told me that they perceived in me the gift of patience. It was a kind of stubborn patience, they said, that was kind and firm. I would be best, they said, in congregations where there had been pain and conflict. The gift of patience, they said, would be put to use in helping a congregation to heal. 

You, my friends of Lutheran Church of Hope, don't need my patience anymore. I have been called to a place that needs the end of different kinds of wars and needs my patience to help with that. 

You have your gifts- your own desire to welcome, your gift of teaching and shaping pastors, your willingness to be generous with space, time, and money, every single person here and more. You know the wars that must end in Anchorage and in Alaska. The Holy Spirit is already guiding you. 

Though we will no longer be side by side in the work of caring for others and the world that God made, we will never truly be apart. Those who have been baptized, those who have eaten together, those who have wept, laughed, worked, and rested together- those are made into one in Christ- can never truly be separated. 

This will be hard. And we will be sad. But our work will go on, because God will not let us stop. 

65,000 words have a terrible weight. 

But they can be destroyed with a single word. 

Love. 

God is love. (1 John 4)

God's love intends to destroy war. 

God's love brought us together. 

God's love will carry us forward. 

God's love gives us good work for this world. 

God's love is enough. 

I love you. I am not God. My love for you wouldn't be enough, nor would yours for me. 

God's own love for us is enough- enough for our strength, our hope, and our courage. 

Enough to end the wars. 

Enough to bring eternal peace. 

May it be so.

Corpus Christi

Thirty-five days ago, I left Poland. It has not yet left me and I don't really expect that it will. I am still sorting through what I saw, felt, heard, and experienced. Some of these things may take years to put together and some I may have already forgotten. Only God knows how these things will finally take shape or root within me.

There is one experience that I actually continue to think about almost daily. Going in, I thought about this with almost anthropological interest, but very little emotional attachment. Yet, now, I think of it constantly. When I think of this situation, I feel grief and frustration, sadness and hurt, impassioned and, yet, paralyzed.

By Manederequesens (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons

On Thursday, May 26th, Roman Catholic Poles, along with Roman Catholics around the world, celebrated the Feast of Corpus Christi. In Krakow, the Friend of Calvin who came to visit me and I were interested to see the observance of this feast. It is a national holiday in Poland with many shops and places closed for observance. There is a procession from Wawel Castle to Krakow's Main Square and St. Mary's Basilica.

The procession involves a priest carrying the Host, the consecrated bread of communion, in a monstrance under a canopy, which is itself carried by deacons. Behind the priest is a procession of hundreds, if not a thousand, people. There were soldiers, nuns (so many nuns), monks, priests, bishops, first communicants, town elders, town leaders, church leaders, Roman Catholic bishops and archdeacons, and probably several groups that I missed or don't know how to classify.

Krakow's Main Square, one of the largest in Europe, was filled with people who were not in the procession, but who came to see it, to honor the Host, to hear the sermon (presumably about Holy Communion and the presence of Christ. It was in Polish), and to receive communion. People stood(!) on pavement and cobblestones to listen. There were young men in dress shirts, ties, and dark slacks, wearing portable speakers to broadcast the sermon all around the square so that all could hear.

As the sermon concluded, the priest carrying the host (at the very front of the procession), began to move again- toward the Basilica and the altar. As the monstrance passed, people knelt. Some bowed deeply, but others fully knelt on the cold stones, crossing themselves. Some wept and stayed down. Others stood again after the Host had gone by. These people were acknowledging what they believe is the Presence of Christ, the Real Presence, in the wafer framed in the monstrance. (See the pic above for an example of an empty monstrance.)

I was pulled along in the crowd until I realized I was very close to where communion was going to be celebrated. Suddenly I realized that not only was I not in the right frame of mind to observe this, but that there were people behind me who would like to be closer. So I moved through the tightly packed crowd back to the more open air of the square, toward the clock where my friend and I hurriedly gestured that we would meet.

In chatting, we decided to go for a coffee, but when we sat down at a table in the square, I ordered bison grass vodka and apple juice. In a rare moment of actually feeling my feelings at the time they were occurring, I realized that I was mad. By this time in my trip, I had toured Jewish history sites in Warsaw. Friend of Calvin and I had gone to Auschwitz and Birkenau just two days before Corpus Christi. In all my reading, I knew that Poland (not alone in this) has not ever dealt fully with its anti-Jewish history (or present). Due to Germany's attack on Poland, most Poles felt/feel that they were more sinned against than sinning in World War II (and preceding), despite the complicity of Polish men and women in turning in their Jewish, homosexual, Roma, and "political" neighbors. Poland does not acknowledge complicity in the Holocaust, despite making money through "dark tourism"- the thousands of people who travel to see the concentration and death camps each year.

Additionally, Poland is currently struggling with government leaders (and communities) who want to keep their borders closed and reject immigrants. Anti-Jewish activities have seen a rise in the past few years, as well as anti-immigrant displays and commentary. All of this knowledge, of this awareness, of all the grief, came swirling into a head as I poured cold vodka down my throat and thought about the procession I had just seen.

People had reverently, tenderly, carefully acknowledged the presence of Christ in pressed bread, but would they do the same to their neighbor? Had they done the same in 1942 or 1968 (Polish Jewish Exclusion) or today? The Feast of Corpus Christ is nearly 1000 years old. This means that Poles (and others) likely observed this same procession in the German occupation. There were probably soldiers and others who knelt, receiving the body of Christ in their mouth, and then rose to go back to the hideous work of the war and its atrocities.

Christ is as present in the host, in the bread and wine, as he is in the person next to us. Furthermore, He is as present therein as he is IN us as we do anything in his name.

The truth is that most people willfully ignored what was happening around them or followed orders because they either believed what they had been told or shut their minds to the cognitive dissonance of the words of their faith and the words of their political leaders

We want to believe that we would be different. That we ARE different.

At least, I assume we do.

Most of us, though, still kneel reverently at the altar and, with Christ's body still in ours, make excuses for why we do what we do, say what we say, think what we think. It happens all the time.

How do we change that? What are the words, the steps, the turning that need to be done?

If Christ's presence in communion does anything, it gives us the strength to make that change. The power is actually IN us when we commune. We just have to be willing to join into the work, to participate in the change, to bear the cross of truth and to lift it high.

It seems likely that a very, very, very tiny percentage of people present in Krakow on 26 May 2016 were also present in that same procession in, say, 1943. Yet, the repercussions of the actions against Jewish neighbors and others, before and after, still reverberate through that country. And the repercussions of what I witnessed and felt on that day still reverberate through me.

Not Your Story to Tell

This was published first here at RevGalBlogPals.org.

She gripped my hand in the doorway  of the church, following the Good Friday service, “I’ve never really liked Jews.”

I had just finished decrying present-day harassment of Jews in the Ukraine and noted that we are kidding ourselves if we thought we would treat Jesus better now than he was treated then. We prayed. We grieved. I again felt the chasm between the religion of my heart (Christianity) and the religion of my blood and my ancestors (Judaism). Always the tension between betrayal and the realities for anyone of Jewish ancestry or culture, here I was, being told by a parishioner I love deeply something that amounted to, “I’ve never cared for an entire race of people [to which you belong through your mother and her parents and your grandparents].”

Gripping her hand in that doorway, I looked her in the eye and said, “Do you know any Jews?”

“No,” she admitted.

“Well, now you do.”

This story comes to mind as I watch the turmoil around Kate Breslin’s For Such a Time (Bethany House, 2014). Nominated for a 2015 RITA, For Such a Time tells the story of a blonde, blue-eyed Jewish woman who is rescued from a firing squad by a Nazi commandant and becomes his secretary. She hatches a plot to save people from the trains to Auschwitz and her uncle, Morty, foils a plan that would have killed the commandant. The commandant pressures her to kisses and into an engagement. And, in the way of magical realism, a Bible continues to appear unexpectedly and she learns to find some consolation in the New Testament, instead of in the Hebrew Scriptures of her childhood. All ends as most romances do with a happily ever after with our lovely Jewess marrying the Nazi commandant, who helped Jews escape the camp in question. Presumably, they raise lovely blonde Christian children.

I think I need to wash my hands after typing that. The to-do over this book is that many, many people- Jews and non-Jews- believe that romance between a Jewish prisoner and a Nazi commander violates any spirit of consent. In the portions of the book when Stella/Hadassah wrestles with her feelings about Aric, I was reminded of the guilt rape survivors sometimes feel when their bodies responded to the act of violation in a different way than their heads and spirits were. No matter how humane the Nazi in question was made to seem- he had the power to kill her or those she loved at any time.

This retelling of Esther misses a critical piece of the story. We never hear that Ahasuerus and Esther had a great love story because she was property, a girl more beautiful than the others who were culled from the countryside to see who would please the king. She made the best of a bad situation and, in so doing, saved her people.

For Such a Time is not the same thing. It is what I will call “supercessionism porn”, wherein the ultimate happily-ever-after for a Jew would certainly be to become a Christian. Breslin and her publisher, Bethany House, have received criticism for the book on the grounds that it violates consent at best and allows for a kind of truth of the Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism at worst. These criticisms have generated their own backlash to the backlash, with such authors as Anne Rice arguing that speaking against For Such a Time is a kind of censorship.

If one must write a romance about the Holocaust, one could write about the impossibility of one occurring between Jews in a ghetto, in a camp, or in the Russian front. One could write about two German non-Jews, who fall in love as members of the Resistance. One could write about a French, British, or American soldier or nurse rescuing non-Jews from a concentration camp (they were there) and falling in love through the healing process. Some of those stories could adequately include an aspect of Christian faith that would satisfy the audience of an inspirational novel. Any of the scenarios and a number of others allow for an equality in the relationship that would never, never be the reality between a Jewish woman and a Nazi camp commandant.

What it means to live as a Jew in modern America is to have complex feelings about history, about G-d, about Israel, and about one’s own practice. It also means, at a certain level, a wariness. No country has ever allowed us to stay, unharmed, permanently. We cannot take anything for granted. You never know when someone will say to you, “I’ve never liked Jews”. And you can’t always be sure what will follow that statement.

Arguing that anyone can write anything about anyone at any time, or else it is censorship, is the publishing equivalent of #AllLivesMatter.

Would a book about a Yazidi woman “falling in love” with her ISIS rapist be nominated for romance awards?

Would we hope for a movie based on a relationship between a police officer employed by Bull Connor and a young black woman?

Would ratings soar for a novel about a Cherokee teenager being “wooed” by the soldier escorting her family along the Trail of Tears?

Some stories belong to the people who lived them, the people who still grieve them, the people in whose bones they rest. Leave the Holocaust and its survivors alone. They’re not there as easy emotional background for your novel. If you aren’t sure, ask a Jew.

If you didn’t know any, now you do.

What God has Cleansed (Earth Day Sermon)

Acts 11: 1-18

            Care of creation as a part of our Christian life seems a little obvious. Does it feel that way to you? We believe that God’s hand was active in establishing the universe. We understand that there are natural processes that are mysterious to us. We grasp the fact that we are not alone on the earth and that many millions of plants, non-human animals, fish, and lots of other people can be affected by our choices and our actions.

            So we understand, basically, why it’s important. We get it. But do we change what we’re doing based on what we know to be true? I had a lot of heartburn about having a service on Earth Day, oriented toward creation, with a 12-page bulletin. That’s a lot of paper. But we have people who can’t hear and need to be able to follow the service. We have a worship book that turns out not to be very visitor-friendly in its orientation (lots of flipping back and forth). So we sacrificed trees for the sake of hospitality. Does it mean anything to regret this decision? Could we figure out how to go bulletin free one Sunday a month?

            When I ask that kind of question, I immediately see that I have a problem, a flaw in my thinking. I’m skipping right to the specific before I comprehend the reason for the general. I can read Job and understand, again, that God knows and loves all creation on both the micro and macro- scale. Yet, how am we brought into that love? I do not mean how are we brought into loving creation. I mean, how are we brought into God’s love, into God’s knowledge?

            Imagine, if you will, that you are Peter. The Apostle. You fished for years, your life was pretty much set, and then came Jesus. Like a bat out of Nazareth (or something like that). You follow him. You see amazing things. You have powerful revelations. You deny, confess, distort, and accept. You see the risen Christ. You witness the flames of Pentecost. And through all of this, you’re a Jew. Jesus was a Jew. John was a Jew. Thomas, Andrew, Philip- Jewish, Jewish, Jewish. All the people at the Pentecost event- Jewish.

            And now there are people who believe in Jesus as the Messiah. They trust that he is the Son of God. They experience truth in the story of the resurrection. And they. Are. Not. Jewish. What do you do? Send them away? Slap the pork chop out of their hands and circumcise them on the spot? Tell them it is too bad they weren’t chosen?

            When Peter is in Joppa, God sends a vision to a man named Cornelius. Cornelius is an Italian soldier who believes in God and, in his time of prayer, God tells him to go and see Peter. In the meantime, God sends Peter the dream of the “unclean animals” and repeats the scene until Peter gets the point God is trying to make, “Who are you to say that what I have made is profane? Unclean? Unworthy?” When Cornelius appears before Peter and introduces himself and tells Peter of his vision, Peter probably has a little hallucination of a pig, induced by lifelong hatred of Romans and conflation of Roman soldiers with pigs. Then he realizes this is the point of the dream! Truly God shows no partiality because God has even spoken truth to this Italian swine soldier.

            Of course, Peter later gets a lot of flack for sharing the gospel with Gentiles. His reasoning is actually rock solid, “God did it first.” Peter cannot keep the Holy Spirit from blowing where it will, descending as it desires, inspiring the understanding of truth in whom it shall. One of the interesting ironies of the Bible is how long it takes people who have been called by God to realize that God is also working in other people and in other circumstances.

You might think that people whose understanding of God’s work in history included Ruth, Cyrus (the Great), Melchizedek (blessed Abraham), and Pharaoh’s daughter (raised Moses), among others, might not be so shocked that God would conspire to bring inspiration and salvation to non-Jews. And the thing is, we cannot speak against Peter and the other Jews for being slow to come to this understanding. Christians do it all the time. We forget how we have been grafted onto the tree of life. We assume that we are the very roots, trunk, branches, and leaves. (And we know what ass-u-me does.)

            This brings me back around to care of creation. We did not invent this. A green revolution did not begin with us. It began with God, whose farm is all creation. The stories of God at the beginning of the world mention that there was not yet land because there was not yet people (man) to tend the soil, to care for the land, to be co-creators.

            People have slowly come around to understanding God’s call to all people, God’s welcome and openness to every person. How long can the rest of the world wait for us to understand the extension of renewal and redemption? How long can we pretend that we do not understand Peter’s dream that nothing God has made is profane? How long will we profane what God has made by being careless with what we eat, what we do, what we buy, how we live?

            I’m saying this to you, but the voice in my head is saying, “Sit down and be quiet, you hypocrite. Remove the plank from your own eye.” We’re in this together… on Earth Day… on the third Sunday in Easter…

            Where do we start? Let’s begin by making the revelation of Peter’s dream our prayer: “What God has cleansed you must not call common.” When you eat, let your prayer be of gratitude for the ways the food got to your table. “What God has cleansed you must not call common.” When you look at the grit of spring or cut your eyes from a man holding a sign on the corner, “What God has cleansed you must not call common.” When you take out the trash or sort things for the garage sale, “What God has cleansed you must not call common.” When you look in the mirror, when you wash your face, “What God has cleansed you must not call common.”

            The first step toward the acceptance of Gentiles was the realization that God had loved them already. God was there first. So the first step in our own journey toward care of creation, realizing that God loves it already. God loved it first. And God has loved us to share entrust the responsibility of caring. But we have to begin with understanding that what God has made clean, what God has welcomed, what God loves, cannot be called or treated as common.

Amen.  

God's Punctuation (Sermon 2/12/12)

Epiphany 6 (NL, Year B)

12 February 2012

Mark 7:1-23

            Some of you may remember George Burns and Gracie Allen. Some of you may have heard of them. Some of you may have no idea what I’m talking about. Burns and Allen were a comedy duo couple in the first half of the last (20^th) century. He was the straight man to her comedy lines and they were very successful on the radio, on stage, and on television. Their television show was on from 1950- 1958. After having some heart trouble, Gracie decided to retire. George attempted the show without her for one year, but it didn’t work without Gracie. She died of a heart attack in 1964. When George went through her papers, he found a note she wrote to him, which included the line, “Never place a period where God has placed a comma.”

            Never place a period where God has placed a comma. George Burns took this reminder from his beloved that his life on earth wasn’t over yet. He went on to continue acting, directing, and writing until he died at the age of 100 in 1996, always missing Gracie, but continuing to truly live his own life. Never place a period where God has placed a comma.

            I was thinking about this phrase with regard to our text today because it is hard to know if the Pharisees thought there was a period at the end of the law or a comma. It is too easy for us to immediately make the Pharisees the villains of any gospel story in which they appear. The organ music ratchets up, “Dum dum dum”, and we practically see them holding their capes up and cackling.

           

            That’s not exactly the most accurate picture. What is that the Pharisees are upset about in this chapter? They are not thrilled that the disciples are not washing their hands before they eat. It’s not just that the disciples aren’t hygienic, but that they are not performing the rituals of cleanliness before eating and not just for their hands, but also their dishes, cookware, and so forth.

The Pharisees are a reform movement. (What, reformers already?!?) They are trying to help people understand and live out the written and oral laws. Why do those laws matter? As the saying goes, “cleanliness is next to godliness”. Both the written law (Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) and the oral tradition are aimed at keeping the community of the Israelites pure. When the Israelites are wandering in the desert, they have with them the Tabernacle of the Lord. This is where presence of the Lord dwelled, God’s RV if you will. The Lord is holy. The presence of the Lord is holy. Where that presence lives needs to be holy. The people who enter that presence better be holy. And it helps if the people around them are… holy. Laws about cleanliness, sacrifice, and punishment are also about keeping the community holy so that the presence of the Lord can and will remain there.

Cut to the Pharisees at the time of Jesus. Part of their mission is to help people understand and follow the myriad rules for cleanliness so that they will continue to be a holy people and, thus, so the presence (and, possibly, the favor) of the Lord will be with the Hebrew people. This does not seem quite so evil, when you consider the oppression of Rome and the long history of struggle to survive.

Then Jesus enters the picture and he touches dead people, women who are bleeding, and a leper. He eats with Gentiles and sinners of all stripes. His disciples were not chosen because of their success in Hebrew school (shul), but on their willingness to follow. Furthermore, he is teaching these disciples (and everyone else) to disregard the laws that regulate cleanliness and, thereby, holiness. This Jesus is not just a threat to the power of the Pharisees. That’s not their problem. The way they see it, he has the ability to destroy the holiness of the community by making it impossible for God to dwell with God’s people.

Where they see a period, Jesus is a comma- a place where God has broken into the story and is altering the narrative. The story is still the same, but now God is telling it through Jesus in the world.  Jesus tells the Pharisees that it is not that the laws or the traditions are wrong, but that they are going in the wrong direction. By continuing to focus on minutiae as holiness, the Pharisees are missing the forest for the trees. Is it right to allow your elderly parents to have a leaky roof because you financed a new wing to the church (synagogue)? Is it right to proudly carry your beautiful offering of birds past many hungry beggars? Is it right to have prayed a formula perfectly and then to be so proud of how much better you can do it than others? This is the point that Jesus makes to the Pharisees and that he makes to us as well.

These are some of the questions for us as individuals, as a congregation, as part of the Church catholic. Are we worried about the mechanics of our spiritual life or are we actually concerned with our own actions? Let’s say no one here has any sexual sins, thefts, murders, or unrestrained immorality on their record. That leaves greed, deceit, arrogance, envy, insults, and foolishness. If anyone here is totally free of those, I invite you come forward and take over because I may well have done two or three already this morning.

            Does how you live from day to day reflect the idea that God is still acting? In Mark, the purpose of Emmanuel… God-with-us… Jesus is to give us a deeper understanding into God’s desires and actions. But it’s not just touchy-feely, it’s a deep, gritty, too bright revelation that God is present at all times and God cares about us doing the right thing for the right reason.

            The very traditions and habits we think are helping us to live faithful lives may very well be getting in the way of living in the way God is calling us. That includes our attachment to this space, our feelings about the order of worship, formulas we’ve developed for spiritual practices, the excuses we give for not having spiritual practices… all these things can become the minutiae of holiness that prevents us, like the Pharisees, from seeing Jesus right in front of us.

            Never place a period where God has placed a comma. By embracing the idea 1) God continues to act and 2) God continues to bring us to a deeper understanding of God’s written word, we are living into the truth that we are known and loved by a living God. Through the Holy Spirit, we are called out of the distraction of details. We are called away from the habits of religiosity that can themselves become idols, gods of false hope and comfort. We are not defiled by what comes into us, but by what we do and we must be honest with ourselves about the wrongs we do. God already knows them. We are called into wholeness, into holiness with the God who made the whole world a tabernacle. We reflect the holiness of that relationship by how we treat the world around us. We are participants in this relationship, not performers hoping to get the motions right to appeal to a God who appears and disappears on a whim. We are participants in the relationship, which means our input matters. We are living with and in a living God.

            George Burns’s life wasn’t over when Gracie Allen died. There was a comma. God continued speaking through his life for over 30 more years.

            God’s presence is not limited to the tabernacle of the ancient Israelites or to physical body of Jesus. God’s presence is in the world, in every place, through the power of the Spirit. That same Spirit that continues to refresh us with deeper understanding of God’s revelation… That same Spirit continues to shape us… cleanses us… makes us holy places where God can and does dwell…

            The God of creation has not stopped creating… The God of our salvation has not stopped saving…. The God of renewal has not stopped reforming… A light still shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

Never place a period where God has placed a comma.

God is still speaking.

Amen.

** "God is still speaking" is one of the mottos of the United Church of Christ (UCC). They also quote Gracie Allen. Having recently spent sometime with UCC clergy, I've been turning over the idea in my head ever since. 

Advent Crossroad: Fourth Sunday in Advent

Fourth Sunday in Advent: Malachi 3-4 (Narrative Lectionary)

            

           This time of year I think a lot about the fact that I had two Jewish grandparents whom I knew and loved. I had four Jewish great-grandparents who died before I was born, whose parents came from Eastern Europe to escape the horrific persecution of Jews. From my Jewish grandparents came my mother who came to know and believe in Christ in her mid-twenties, but still shared with her children some of the celebrations of her youth- Chanukah, Passover, Sabbath.

            This time of year, when we all reflect on families, I think of the Chanukahs of my youth and I think about the people who came before my great-grandparents. My family tree with many branches cut short on one side because of the violence against Jews in Russia and Eastern Europe in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. When I read stories of pogroms in ghettos and shtetls, I wonder if those were my distant cousins whose descendants the world will not meet, whom I will not meet.

            When I think of these people, my ancestors, who died because of their religious and cultural identity, I have wondered if I am betraying them. If I am not practicing Judaism (I am technically a religious Jew, just not of the Jewish faith.), am I undermining their sacrifice?

            It’s not just this time of year that has me asking these questions, but our reading from Malachi. Malachi isn’t really a name, but a title meaning “Messenger of YHWH”. This emissary is bringing another message from God: “See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight -- indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?”

            As I read Malachi, I think of all the stories we’ve heard from the Hebrew Scriptures. The story of Abraham and Sarah, of Joseph and his brothers, enslavement in Egypt and freedom with Moses, the giving of the law, the leadership of David and Solomon, the struggle to keep the faith in the midst of tribal warfare, and when kidnapped and taken to a strange land. Through these stories, the Bible points to God’s ultimate faithfulness despite human unfaithfulness.

            And now we come to the end of the Hebrew Scriptures. There are other stories that didn’t make it into the regular canon, the agreed upon list of Bible books. There are events that happen after Malachi’s prophecies- the Chanukah story with the lamp oil that lasts for eight days is one such story. But here is a place of turning, a fork in the road, a split in the tree. At this place, we either continue to remain in Advent or we move on to Christmas. Malachi says, “But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.”

            For me, as much as I might wrestle with what it means to be Jewish in ancestry, I cannot remain in Advent. This is not the end of the written word of God for me. Somehow, through the Spirit, I have been brought to believe that the sun of righteousness has risen and that Son’s name is Jesus. I may have moments of doubt and of darkness, but I cannot dis-believe the experiences I have had in Christ. The encounters that I have had with Jesus in other people.  My understanding of the powerful reality that God was born onto the earth and knows fully what it means to human.

            Here at the end of Malachi, the branch of Christianity grows out the roots of the tree of Jesse, the Jewish roots of our faith. From this tree we receive our Savior. From this tree we receive the roots of baptism and of blessing bread and wine. From this tree, we receive the understanding of the cloud of witnesses of faithful people who encourage us onward on our journey. Until we are gathered around that manger in Bethlehem and share in Mary’s pondering and the shepherds’ rejoicing, we who believe in God are all Jews.

            But here we are as Christians, believers in Christ, standing at the Advent crossroad and there are two questions for us. The first is will Christ return today? There is still time. And if not, there is still tomorrow.

            The second question that we must ask at this intersection is, “What about God’s promises to Jews?” If we have been brought into faith through Jesus, but there remain some who received God’s promises- what happens to them? What happens to them?

            God happens to them. The oracle of Malachi begins, “’I have loved you’, says the Lord.” The book speaks of God’s election and how God will prepare God’s people to endure judgment and being made holy. Again and again, throughout Hebrew Scriptures, God goes the distance to uphold the promises that have been made between God and God’s people. God does not fail.

"I have loved you" is the banner of a God-created and God-given relationship.  God re-creates and sustains that relationship in the face of human struggle and failure. If no one can endure or stand in the day of the Lord's appearance, then God will have to create and sustain that which can endure and stand. God will not fail.

            We are poised in a thin space between Advent and Christmas, a place where God meets creation, a place where God became creation. In this space we see backwards and forwards- history and future. It is only in this space that, just between waiting and birthing, we sit with the possibility and the mystery of what has been and what will be.

            There is a possibility that my ancestors might not have been killed and that I might still have become Christian. Who can say? But they were killed. Killed because of who they were and it is a great loss, but one that I cannot change. I do not forget them. I honor them by being honest in who I am and by holding fast to what I believe.

           

            And I believe in God’s work for the world in Jesus. I believe with Mary and Joseph, Abraham and Sarah, Joseph, Moses, David, Jeremiah, Josiah, Isaiah, Hosea, and Daniel in God’s promises from the beginning of creation. In God’s plans for hope and a future. In how God loves God’s people like a parent who lifts an infant to the cheek.

            God has not forgotten the promises made to my ancestors and yours. “I have loved you,” says the Lord. That love burns through all distinctions, all sins and all lies and leaves only what endures. God’s promises are all that can endure and, because of that covenant, God upholds those to whom life has been promised. Then. Now. Forever. God does not fail. 

Amen.