God's Plan, Our Choices (Sermon 9/23)

Genesis 15:1-6

            What is God’s plan? Many times, in some of the darkest moments of our lives, people (well-meaning people) tell us that God has a plan for our pain, that what has happened to us makes sense in a grand scheme, that we are not hurting in vain. Yet think about what that says about God: that God uses pain as a means to an end, to bring us where God wants us to be? That there is a long-range plan, full of illnesses and pains, which is how God is bringing the kin-dom into fruition? That the forces that oppose God, including cancer, chaos, and criminal actions, do not really have any power- though we go through the motions of renouncing them at baptism.

            If God’s plan for the world is down to the tiny details, what’s our part in it? Do we play a role? Are the encouragements in the creation story, the relationship that we see there between God, humans, and the rest of creation, is that a real relationship or just a backdrop while God moves us around according to a plan?

            If we take a look at Abraham’s story, we can see two things: one is God has a plan and two, people are participants in that plan. God’s plan for Abraham is no less than God’s plan for anyone of us- a future, hopes fulfilled, abundant life. God draws Abram out into the dark of the night and promises that, though currently childless, he will be a father to many generations. God has a plan for Abram’s future… including a name change, but God’s plan requires trust and faithful action on Abram’s part.

See chart above:

The chart moves from the idea that God has an over-arching plan, but we are called to respond, through the gifts of faith and free will. Consider the choices Abram/Abraham made. 

God helps those who help themselves: Hagar and Ishmael

Expedient Choice (ending up badly): Passing Sarah off as his sister

Faithful action: leaving homeland, creating Isaac, arguing on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah, near-sacrifice

            Each of this situations arise from choices that Abraham makes, just like each of us find ourselves in situations because of our own choices. Occasionally, we find ourselves in situations, good or bad, because of someone else’s choices. As participants in God’s work in the world, as co-creators and communicators of God’s blessings (just like Abraham), we are continually called to think through who we are as people, as families, as a faith community, as a city/state/nation.

            The idea that God is micro-managing us and everything else leads to a kind of carelessness- a disregard for ourselves, for others, and for creation. The idea that God helps those who help themselves inevitably leaves someone out in the cold and, eventually, leaves many people feeling separated from God.

            Faithful living, on the other hand, is hard work. It comes from trust. Trust can only be based on a foundation of fulfilled promises, consistent action, and a reasonable expectation of future care. The Abraham story lets us see that we can only expect those things from God and not because of God’s reign in minutiae, but because God is the details of care, of peace, of justice, of community relationships.

            Because we see through scripture and through experience that we can trust God and that trust makes the foundation of our faith, which God graciously counts to us as righteousness. We get credit for the right response because of God’s history of faithful action to God’s people and through Jesus.

            God’s plan is always for creation in the way he explained it to Abraham- a plan for generations, a plan for descendants, a plan for a future hope and a fulfilled promise. God also graciously invites us into that plan, gives us the solid foundation of faith, and allows us the freedom of choice in how to respond. Do we deserve this? No. Did Abram deserve a special promise? Did Mary deserve to be chosen by God? It’s not about what we do, any of us, it is always about what God does. God’s plan always included the curious, the stubborn, the little, the lost, the least, you, and me. And that plan, into which you and I are invited, is always for hope, for justice, for blessing, for creation, for relationship, and for peace.

            Amen. 

Not Safe for Children (Sermon, 9/16)

Text: Genesis 6-9            

          In all the things I do for our children’s service, Heavenly Sunshine, one thing I never do is read the flood story. I do a lot of wild and crazy things, but I never read that story. I do not like presenting it as a story for children. It’s not a story about cute animals- it’s a story of the idea that the world went so wrong that God decided to undo creation. That’s not Vacation Bible School-friendly, that’s apocalypse. No number of cute songs or rainbows can make me okay with this story.

            This is an interesting perspective because most of us never hear about the flood again after our VBS or day camp days are finished. A few of us may have discussed Genesis as adults or once or twice heard a sermon on the flood, but so rarely. Who wants to talk about it? Who wants to consider that God, who was merciful to Adam and Eve and to Cain (after he killed his brother), decided a few generations later that things were so bad, they had to end.

            Things were so bad (how bad were they?) that Genesis 6:5-7 says: The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, “I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.”

            What was the great sin of the time? As I thought about this story this week and wished I had anything else on which to preach, I read an interesting thought in a Torah commentary. A Torah commentary is a Jewish commentary on the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures. This modern commentary sifts through thousands of years of Jewish scholarly thought and offers small nuggets to chew on regarding different texts.

            The commentary suggested that the early people- the pre-flood people- stopped valuing children. I am not saying this is what’s in the Bible, but when commentators through the centuries have read this story and the rest of Hebrew Scripture, one of the conclusions they have reached is that the destruction of the flood is attributed to a societal neglect of children.[1]

            Since Noah lived to be quite old, the Scriptural tradition understands that he did not have children until he was five hundred years old. (Remember one of the punishments that comes with the flood is that people will no longer live past 120.) Noah waited a long time to have children, possibly, because he did not think the world was a good place in which to bring children.

            A lack of spiritual and social role models, a failure to plan carefully for the future, a disregard for community support of parents, a breakdown of the societal institutions that offer support and structure for future generations… all of these might have been characteristics of that pre-flood culture (or a contemporary culture, come to think of it). Everyone did what they wanted, focused on themselves and their needs first, and failed to consider God’s preference, God’s desires, God’s commands toward relationship and fruitfulness- which means bearing children, supporting children, and being a part of a society that values children.

            To value children does not mean that everything becomes child-centric. Not everyone can or should have children, but we all live in a world in which children are affected by all kinds of decisions. Economic, political, spiritual, educational, environmental… if our thoughts are not on the impact of what we choose and how we choose it, then we have stopped considering the future generations, we have stopped valuing children.

            And so we have the story of the flood. A story told and re-told to make sense of a devastating event. A story that is filled with grief and anguish. Noah and his family surely had friends and neighbors who died, who were killed. A story in which God has regrets. A story that may have been repeated because in later generations, when the world seemed very upside down, people wondered how bad could it really have been before the flood?

            It is a story that is not for children because it can be understood to be about children. The later events of the Hebrew scripture are completely focused on children- on having them, on their struggles, on God’s promises of children. Even when we read about the time of slavery in Egypt, the Hebrew people were more focused on continuing to have and preserve the lives of children than they were on obeying the Pharaoh.

            At the end of the Noah story, God promises not to destroy the known world by flood again. Very shortly thereafter, Noah gets drunk and his sons get in trouble over their reaction. Despite the warnings of the flood, people didn’t change. Mistakes are made.

            Yet the story reveals God as resolute, as having made up God’s mind. The price of destruction is too great for a creator to pay. The pain of the loss is not worth the break in relationship. So God makes plans, plans for the generations, plans for hope and a future. There will still be judgments, but there will also be mercy. And there will not be massive destruction that comes from the hand of God as a judgment. God takes the long view and the long view includes many, many, many children.

            The question for us is do we have that same view? In a week with the death of a U.S. ambassador and many others, where are our values? Have we thought about children- about our children, about the children of our neighbors, about the children of the world? Do we trust enough in God’s promises of life and hope for all, in Jesus, that we make decisions based on the continuity and value of the people who are to come after us? Decisions about relationships, leadership, natural resources, or economics?

            The story wraps up neatly when we tell it to children, but for we who are older… it’s tough stuff. Maybe we avoid the flood story, not because of the deaths and the destruction and even what it makes us question about God, but because we can see that the same behaviors are rising, like dark water, all around us. 

           God will not forget God’s promises. Do we remember them? Do we care enough about those promises to be guided by the Spirit in all things, for the sake of children? Do we trust enough in God’s memory to believe that destruction has not been forgotten and that, if we are willing to see them, all around us are signs of renewal and creation? If not, maybe we should just leave this story to the kids.

Amen.

---

[1] Artson, Rabbi Bradley Shavit. The Everyday Torah. McGraw-Hill, 2008. p. 10 f. 

Tension

I have been re-reading parts of Victoria Sweet's God's Hotel for two months now. I've maxed the renewal time of my local library and finally decided to buy my own copy. Though the book is about the last almshouse in the United States, located in San Francisco, it is about more than healthcare. I strongly recommend this book.

Sweet writes about the spiritual and emotional dimensions of caring for the chronically ill. She studies the work of Hildegard of Bingen and considers how the tools of ancient medicine apply to practice today. In a sermon here, I talked about Sweet's understanding of the difference between anima and spiritus.

She also details the tension between different factions in the hospital, between doctors and nurses, administration and city government, willing patients and resistant patients. Though many of the decisions for the future of the hospital are necessary, but lamentable- Sweet reflects on the writing of Florence Nightingale regarding the necessity of tension in medicine.

Nightingale wrote:

“A patient is much better cared for in an institution where there is the perpetual rub between doctors and nurses and nuns; between students, matrons, governors, treasurers, and casual visitors, between secular and spiritual authorities… than in a hospital under the best governed order in existence.” (Nightingale, Notes on Hospitals, 184).

Sweet interprets: 

“But then I remembered what Florence Nightingale had written about the struggle between medicine and nursing and administration. That struggle was irresolvable and should not be resolved, she said, because it was in the patients’ best interest. If medicine ever won control of the hospital, too much would be practiced on the patient; if administration, too little; if nursing, medical progress would be curtailed in the interest of the spiritual and emotional care of the patient.” (Sweet, God’s Hotel, 327). 

Part of the reason I've kept this book for so long is for the passages like this. I turn this over and over in my mind and I wonder about the necessary tension in the church. What is the critical balance between laity, clergy/rostered leaders, and administration/judicatories? How do we balance the interests of all and how do we discern to whom God is speaking and who thinks the sound of their voice is God speaking? 

There is also the balance between history, tradition, and spontaneity, between styles of music, prayer, and preaching, between interpretation, meditation, and contemplation. 

Some of the truly difficult work of the church is learning to live with the tensions, when to give and who should give, and how to move forward. And in all this, we must also remember not to let the work of the church interfere with the work of the Lord. 

Sweet, Victoria. God’s Hotel: A Doctor, A Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine. Riverhead Books, New York. 2012. p. 327, 372

A Prayer for Suicide Prevention

On World Suicide Prevention Day: 

God of all space and time,

There is darkness that exists which feels impenetrable.

Darkness that seems to overcome all light.

Darkness which swallows the will to live,

The desire to go on,

The possibility of grace,

The existence of hope.

There is darkness in this world, in some hearts, in some minds...

Darkness which makes a person feel separated from You and from Love.

You have created a light which no darkness can overcome,

But sometimes the darkness seems too great.

On this day, be with those who feel surrounded by darkness...

Who are afraid to speak of their plans,

Who are pondering in their hearts what seems the only end to their pain.

Be with those who have reached out, but not been believed.

Be with people who are left behind, who have questions, who blame themselves.

Send your Spirit of consolation and hope into the world on this day,

Turn up the Light of Love- burnish and banish the darkness,

Strengthen all to speak, to listen, to hold, and to share.

Holy God, we ask for the kind of peace- in hearts, minds, and all creation- that can only come from you.

Gracious God, hear our prayer.

And in your mercy, answer us.

Cross-posted at RevGalPrayerPals

Choose This Day (Sermon 8/26)

Joshua 24:1–2a, 14–18; John 6:56-69

If, on a morning, I open my eyes,

My first decision thereupon lies.

Will I continue to lie in the bed,

Allowing my thoughts to run through my head?

Will I get up and go to the shower,

Regardless of both weather and hour?

What of my child, who may want me to stay?

What of the tasks that call me this day?

From the minute of waking, there are choices to make,

What will I give today? What will I take?

I want to be saintly and say my first thoughts are of God,

But sometimes they’re not and, in that, I’m not odd.

We may rise with the sun or maybe at noon,

And we make hasty promises to get with God soon.

Yet, that instant, a choice has been made-

The balance of time against God has been weighed.

We can’t do it all. Surely God understands.

Consider this: did not God make this world, its demands?

But in each thing we choose, and it is choose we must

We have decided in which god we shall trust.

When we make decisions for work or for pleasure,

With money or time, talents or leisure,

With each small decision we leave or we make,

We are choosing a god for each task’s sake.

When Joshua says, “Choose this day whom you’ll serve.

My household and I, from God we’ll not swerve.”

He means the God of justice and freedom,

The God who through the desert did lead them.

This is a God of providence, of mercy and manna

Compared to others, God proved top banana.

For the Israelites, Joshua clearly lays out a decision,

Because they had, in history, treated God with derision.

Sometimes God seemed so far and so distant,

They struggled to find God’s mercy consistent.

Yet, who gave the manna? Who gave the quail?

Who brought forth the water when the people did wail? 

“People of Israel,” Joshua said,

“Turn all that you’ve known ‘round in your head.

Think of the guidance through both day and night,

Think of God’s grace. Think of God’s might.”

The people responded, “Our choice has been made.

We’ve looked around. Only Yahweh makes grade.

Only one God can say, ‘I am who I am’

Only one God would work for our father, Abraham.”

So Israelites promised to serve God whatever may come,

For richer, for poorer, when happy, when glum.

The years passed, however, and memories faded.

People thought of this choice and became jaded.

The desert, the manna- they all became history.

What God’s doing now… that became mystery.

It became easier to feel freed by law and instruction,

Only society’s rules prevented destruction.

But that structure left some people wanting,

The gift of the law could seem rather daunting.

When onto the scene, this man Jesus appeared.

Some people rejoiced. Some people jeered.

Then, and again, he talked about bread

About life here right now and life after we’re dead.

He healed sick people, he fed many others,

But his teaching confused both sisters and brothers.

What was this about flesh to eat, blood to drink?

A hard teaching to swallow, most people did think.

Said his disciples, “Jesus, this is enough.

What you’re teaching- it’s too much. It’s too tough.

We don’t like it. We don’t understand.

We’d like to quit you, but it doesn’t seem that we can.

We’ve looked around as to where we might go.

The problem is, there’s some truth we do know.

Within a world of struggle and strife,

You have the words of eternal life.

Only you have offered hope in the future,

Between God and us, you are the suture.

Even though it is hard to stay,

We cannot leave you or your way.”

The disciples decided (or most of them did)

It was with Jesus that they placed their bid.

They decided, as their ancestors had,

To be on God’s side couldn’t be bad.

And so I say to you this day…

“Wait, Pastor Julia, I’ve something to say…”

“What is it, my child, what bothers you so?”

“Well, you’ve confused me. And so I must know

I thought God chose us. I thought it was done.

I thought the war’s over. The fight had been won.

Didn’t Luther write we’d never say yes…

Without God’s Spirit, we can’t acquiesce!

If you tell us, ‘Today you must choose’

Are you not setting us up… to lose?”

You are right, my child, in every way.

And yet you made a choice today.

You came to be here, to be in communion

To pray, to eat, to embody reunion.

Each day, we see gods far and near.

We can worship success. We can give over to fear.

We can spend our resources or over-honor our kin,

We can reverence our bodies from our toe to our chin.

We can make work our idol, honored, adored.

We can seek that which gives immediate reward.

But in the end, it all fails. It all becomes dust.

These idols- they fade, they die, they rust.

In the end, what we want is something that lasts,

Something that goes beyond all other forecasts.

What can bring order to confusion and strife?

Only the hope of eternal life.

Eternal life, both for there and for here.

A growing, a knowing, a ridding of fear.

This is what Jesus offers- in body and blood.

Without that promise, bread and wine are just mud.

Like us, they’re from dust and to dust shall return,

But through eating and drinking, still we can learn

That God has chosen in creation’s favor,

The presence of Christ is what we savor

When we gather at table, both willing and able

To experience Jesus as truth and not fable.

To trust, to be open, is the choice we must make,

Each day, in the moment right when we wake.

In every moment, we choose a god to serve

With all that we have, each sinew and nerve.

We have a God on the side of all of creation,

Who knows and who loves without cessation.

Who gives us each talents and gives us each gifts,

Who forgives our sins, who mends our rifts.

Who with body and blood has chosen to feed us.

Who through valleys and o’er mountains, has chosen to lead us.

Lord, where could we go? You made us, you know us.

Now, through the Spirit, continue to grow us.

God has called you by name, so as your fear eases,

Choose your god. Every day. I recommend… Jesus. 

Amen.

Between Jesus and Me

In this week's coverage of the scandalous words of Representative Todd Akin of Missouri (see: Akin, "legitimate rape", "shut that down"), his frantic retraction, and the push from other Republicans for him to step down from his race (not because he was wrong, but because he was public)... I have run through a gamut of emotions.

I have revisited how I felt when assaulted by men who did not heed my words to stop and how I felt for friends who experienced far worse assaults than I did.

I have pondered what I will say to the child I currently carry in my womb regarding rights, women, and America.

I have been angry at the attempts to discuss abortion instead of the very real rights and bodies of women- women who are currently alive, women who (theoretically) have constitutional rights, women who are not magical vessels for pedestals or damnation.

All of these emotions swirled in my mind until I had this exchange with myself, in my head, while driving:

I'm so angry about this. I want to write about it, but I don't know how. 
What specifically are you angry about? 
Being made to feel helpless. 
How will you expand upon that? 
I would discuss previous times this has happened. 
Boring. 
Well, I could... talk about it makes me feel depressed and vengeful when men tell me what I can and can't do with my body.
To whom does your body belong? 
To me... 
What about R (your husband)? 
No, except through my consent and our mutuality. My body belongs to me. 
What about your children? 
See above re: husband. 
What about to Christ- think of your baptism? 
Ugh. Now Jesus is just another man, laying a claim on my body. 

WAIT A MINUTE.

This is where I nearly wrecked my car. I could not believe the sentence about Jesus ran through my head- exactly like that. "Now Jesus is just another man, laying a claim on my body." I pulled into the parking lot at work and sat, attempting not to hyperventilate, and thought about that sentence- several times.

The thing is... I do believe that my baptism into Christ's death and resurrection does have a claim on my body.

AND NOW I AM RESENTFUL OF ANYONE WHO WOULD DIMINISH THAT RELATIONSHIP BY ATTEMPTING TO PLAY GOD WITH MY PERSON.

That's right, Akin and other supporters of fetal personhood over maternal/female personhood, by attempting to abort my status as a person via amendments and rhetoric, you nearly came between Jesus and me.

It seems that you'd like to think you're God- knowing the ins and outs of human bodies and minds, but it ain't necessarily so. In fact, it necessarily ain't so.

You are not God.

You are not God. I am not God. You are not me. You are not a mediator in the relationship between God and me. You do not get to claim that your work creates me, saves me, sanctifies me, redeems me, or frees me.

You don't own me. Or any part of me.

What you have not made, what you have not saved, what you are not making whole... you may not claim. You cannot claim. You will not claim.

Jesus appreciates that women can think. I refer you to his conversations with the Canaanite/Syro-Phoenician woman (Matthew 15, Mark 7), in which Jesus yields to the reasoned argumentation of a woman who pleads for the healing of her child.

Jesus believes that women have strength and that women who do not have or may not have children are worthy participants in community life. I refer you to Mark 5, in which a girl who is not yet bearing children and a woman who may be past child-bearing are both healed and restored to their families/communities.

Jesus understands that social situations may lead a woman to make poor choices or to feel trapped by circumstance. Thus, Jesus tells the woman caught in the act of adultery (brought forth without her male partner in John 8) to go and sin no more- granting her the personhood to be bigger and resistant to the male forces that would shape her world. Jesus gives hope to the Samaritan woman at the well, in talking with her as a person of intellectual being, capable of seeing her way to new life, new choices, and renewed hope.

Jesus affirms that women can handle and do handle many types of jobs and tasks. Sometimes they sit and listen, like Mary in Luke 10, to learn and to be part of discussion. Sometimes, like Martha in the same story, women play the role of host- making guests comfortable and providing a gracious space.

Jesus inspires the gospel writers to understand that women are an integral part of the salvific act of resurrection and sharing the good news. All four gospels have women playing significant roles in the spread of the resurrection story. Not as gossipers, but as evangelists- sharing truth with all whom they encounter.

As I consider this Jesus, this Jesus whom I claim to follow, this Jesus in whom I am said to be clothed, this Jesus whose story still brings hope to me and many... this Jesus is a man whom I am willing to allow to lay claim to my body.

Because He sees it.

He knows it.

He saves and renews it.

Furthermore, if and when there is a time when I feel separated from God, because of what has happened to me, because of what I have done, because of choices or actions... I can trust that Jesus will be with me. He will not abandon me. I am and remain a person to (and through) Christ.

But you, Akin and others, ... you do not see me. You do not know me. You have no claim on me. And you have dared to attempt to come between me and God, by way of my uterus, my vagina, and my identity as a woman.

Do not offer your words regarding my potential child or other fetal life. Do not offer hasty retractions- apologies for having been caught, not for your actions. Do not wring your hands about loss of life, when you are so clearly willing to dismiss my life as being less than.

There is one man who can make claims upon my body. That man also happens to be God.

And you, your ilk, your fellow travelers, your co-conspirators...
You. Are. Not. That. Man.











Good reading from this week for includes:

Martha Spong on Old Husbands' Tales
Julie Craig on To Be a Girl, In this World

Gotta Serve Somebody

This week's reading from Joshua includes the famous verse:

 "Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amories in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, well will serve the Lord." (Joshua 24:15) 

When I think of this verse, I consider the truth that we're never really choosing if we are going to have a god, we're constantly choosing what we will worship as god. Will we choose the God of creation, who has chosen us, or we will choose any number of lesser gods- whose glittering promises of health, wealth, and power are played like siren calls from all corners of the world? 

Whom will we serve? 

I keep hearing the words of the prophet, Bob Dylan, singing, "You gotta serve somebody..." It's not that we've gotta, it's that we're gonna... so whom will you choose? 

"Gotta Serve Somebody"

You may be an ambassador to England or France

You may like to gamble, you might like to dance

You may be the heavyweight champion of the world

You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls.

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed

You're gonna have to serve somebody,

It may be the devil or it may be the Lord

But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

Might be a rock'n' roll adict prancing on the stage

Might have money and drugs at your commands, women in a cage

You may be a business man or some high degree thief

They may call you Doctor or they may call you Chief.

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed

You're gonna have to serve somebody,

Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord

But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

You may be a state trooper, you might be an young turk

You may be the head of some big TV network

You may be rich or poor, you may be blind or lame

You may be living in another country under another name.

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes 

You're gonna have to serve somebody,

Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord

But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

You may be a construction worker working on a home

You may be living in a mansion or you might live in a dome

You might own guns and you might even own tanks

You might be somebody's landlord you might even own banks.

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes 

You're gonna have to serve somebody,

Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord

But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

You may be a preacher with your spiritual pride

You may be a city councilman taking bribes on the side

You may be working in a barbershop, you may know how to cut hair

You may be somebody's mistress, may be somebody's heir.

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes 

You're gonna have to serve somebody,

Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord

But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

Might like to wear cotton, might like to wear silk

Might like to drink whiskey, might like to drink milk

You might like to eat caviar, you might like to eat bread

You may be sleeping on the floor, sleeping in a king-sized bed.

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed

You're gonna have to serve somebody,

It may be the devil or it may be the Lord

But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

You may call me Terry, you may call me Jimmy

You may call me Bobby, you may call me Zimmy

You may call me R.J., you may call me Ray

You may call me anything but no matter what you say.

You're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed

You're gonna have to serve somebody,

Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord

But you're gonna have to serve somebody.