Tuesday, June 22, 2010
June 20, 2010 - Pentecost +4
Everybody loves Raymond episode
Debra's sister comes to visit
and drops a bombshell
Debra's hippie, free-spirited, free-love sister
the one who lived in a commune & smoked pot & hung out w/ all sorts of questionable characters
the one who blows in & out of town w/ little communication in between visits
comes to visit
only to tell them that she is about to become a nun
of all the things she could've told them, that's the least expected
and it throws the family into a tailspin
they don't know what to do
how to act
how to treat her
They were used to thinking of her in 1 way
Especially Debra
who was the good sister
the good daughter
the stay-at-home mom of 3 w/ the stable life
and a house right here in Lynbrook
and she can't quite believe it
can't quite accept it
and actually gets down right mad at her sister about it
Because it doesn't fit her image of her sister
She can't imagine such a dramatic change coming over her...
I imagine the man in this story went through some of the same stuff as Jennifer
and the people of the town reacting like Debra
Because there he is, for years the town's wild man
the one who “had a demon”
the one who hadn't worn any clothes in forever, but just went around naked
the one who was homeless, & now lived out at the outskirts of town in the local cemetery
a living man among the dead
the one they had to keep an eye on
keep under lock & key as often as they could manage, with chains & shackles, in case the demon would seize him
until he would escape and run away into the wilderness
And then along comes Jesus, this man from out-of-town
from across the Sea of Galilee
A Jew coming into was was likely Gentile territory
who steps off the boat
and no sooner does he do that
but the man who had the demon is confronting him
recognizing him
knowing who Jesus is & what he has the power to do
and the power within the man – not the man himself
begs Jesus to leave him alone
not to torment him
not to banish him/them into the abyss
but to send them into the pigs
And Jesus says, 'go ahead' – leave this man & enter the swine
and suddenly
well, you've heard the expression,
when pigs fly, right?
and there they go, all those little piggies, not literally flying
but rushing down the hill and into the sea
where they & the demons drown
And when the townspeople, notified about what had happened by the swineherds
who are suddenly out of work,
come a-runnin' to see what has really happened,
there they find the man
the man they've known as wild & out of control for years
sitting there at Jesus feet
clothed
and in his right mind
And you would think this would be a cause for rejoicing
you would think they would celebrate that this man has been healed
that he has been made whole
that he has been restored
you think that they would be glad that the threat had been removed from their presence
that they didn't have to worry about the crazy naked guy living in the cemetery anymore
that they would be relieved of the chore of chaining him up to protect him & everyone else
But they see what has happened
and much like Debra
they can't take it in
It turns their world upside down
It upends all their expectations
their understanding of their town & how the world works
of who this man is & who they are...
You know how that goes
often in families, there's that one black sheep
the one everyone can look to when their own life is a mess
& say, well at least I'm not as bad as him;
at least I don't do the same things that they do,
haven't made the same dumb mistakes
haven't screwed up my life entirely
But what happens what that person comes into town & says,
“I'm a different person now”?
When that person cleans up their act
and gets their life back on track?
There may on the surface be some rejoicing
But underneath
or maybe right out there for the world to see
there is just as likely to be
suspicion
resentment
questioning
confusion
disbelief
Because how can anyone really change that much?
And if you have,
what does that say about me?
Who am I, if you are not who you always were?
But the thing is,
Jesus really does have the power to transform lives
Not just the people who lived long ago in the Bible
Not just the sinners and tax collectors Jesus so loved to eat with
Not just the blind and the deaf and the lame
Not just those taken over by powers beyond their control
these stories that populate the Bible
But people today
people like you and me
and our friends and neighbors
people who are caught up in things that really aren't us
people who wrestle with addictions
and mental illness
and depression
and disease
And even people like the townspeople
and Debra's of the world who think they have everything under control
until they run into Jesus
and his power to change
Jesus has the power to turn our worlds upside down
to stun us and surprise us
and to restore even those we thought were beyond restoration
Jesus really has the power to change even us
Just as he did the man in the gospel
to cast out the things that take us over
and hold us captive
anger
and bitterness
and fear
and resentment
and cynicism
to restore each of us and make us whole
in some way
in body, mind, spirit, relationship
It's what he does
And when he does,
he calls us to go & proclaim what God has done!
So who have you told lately?
Thursday, June 17, 2010
June 13, 2010 - Pentecost + 3
A few years back, I went out and bought a label-maker. I like it. It makes me feel organized. I've used it for my files & folders here in the office and at home, for binders with old class notes. I've used it a lot in the kitchen so I can remember what's in all of the different Tupperware containers of food – different kinds of rice or beans or flour. It's a great tool, because when you label things, you can tell at a glance what's inside. You know what to expect; you don't have to think too hard about what you'll find.
From the way Luke tells this story in the gospel, I get the idea that Simon the Pharisee would've liked my label-maker. Labels simplify things. They make it easy to separate things into different categories. When something has a label, you know where it belongs, what you are supposed to do with it, what it's good for. The only problem in this story is that Simon, like so many of us, attaches labels to people. Even Luke does it. When we first meet the woman in this story – all we know about her, before she even does a thing, is that she was a sinner. That's how Luke describes her: “a woman in the city, who was a sinner...”
Now we don't know why she was called a sinner. Luke doesn't tell us anything about the nature of her sins. In years past, there was a tendency to label the woman in this story a prostitute, but there's nothing in the story itself to back that up. In fact, it would seem that perhaps her sins were of the not-so-obvious kind – or else why would Simon think that Jesus needed to be a prophet in order to know what kind of a woman she was? All we know is that the people in town consider her a sinner – and whatever she did, that's all Simon can see as she kneels there at Jesus' feet, crying out her guilt and relief and amazement at being forgiven. Simon can't see past her past, past the label she's been given.
You know how it works – you get a bad reputation, and it's nearly impossible to live it down, no matter how much you change, no matter how hard you work to turn your life around. And it just doesn't seem to matter how much time has passed. I ran into someone I went to high school with last summer who was home for her 20th class reunion. I don't think she had ever been to a class reunion since graduation. But here she was – and let me tell you, I think it took all the courage she had to make herself go. Because in that last year of high school, she'd done some stuff, made some bad decisions, hurt some people. She kind of became this wild child, breaking the unwritten, unspoken rules of our little rural town about how good girls behave. And 20 years later, she was afraid that when she met her old classmates again for the 1st time in so long, that that's all they would see. That she wouldn't even be given a chance to tell them about how she had changed, how she had learned from her mistakes, how she had turned her life around. She was a different person now – but she was afraid she'd be labeled based on who she used to be – even though that's not who she was anymore.
And you know we've all done it – we've been on both sides of that equation. We've all labeled other people; we've all been labeled by somebody else. And so often those labels are based just on what we can see on the surface. We don't really see each other because we can't see past the label. Those labels that come out of my label-maker, they stay put pretty well, but give 'em a good pull & they come right off – but it doesn't work that way with the labels we put on each other. Because when it comes right down to it, labels are easy. To borrow a line from the movie, The Breakfast Club, we see each other how we want to see each other, in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But if you've ever been labeled, you know how devastating it can be.
Thankfully, Luke reminds us that Jesus doesn't do that. For as much as I like my label-maker, I don't think Jesus would've been too impressed. Because no matter how many labels we have stuck on us, even if we're covered from head to toe – Jesus sees past the labels. He looks beyond them & sees the whole person. Even more than Simon does, Jesus sees this nameless woman, and he knows what she has done – far better than we ever could, far better than Simon, far better than anyone else in town. Jesus knows that she has been a sinner. But Jesus has forgiven her. By the way the story plays you, you get the impression that this isn't the 1st time Jesus & this woman have met. It looks like they've met somewhere outside the scope of what Luke wrote down – and that she has already been forgiven. And that forgiveness has changed everything for her. Whatever guilt she was carrying around, whatever shame was weighing her down, whatever it was she had done that left her feeling unforgivable, unacceptable, unlovable, all of that was washed away by the love of Jesus – and so she has come, uninvited, interrupting dinner, filled with a gratitude and love that overflow in her tears, that are poured out with the ointment. Jesus has pulled away that label “sinner” and replaced it with a permanent one that says “forgiven” - and because of that, she gets a chance to start over, to begin again.
That's what happens when we come face to face with Jesus. Because when Jesus looks at us, he sees it all. He knows all the labels others have put on us, the ones we've given to ourselves – whether they are accurate and deserved or not. As painful and scary as it may be to think of, Jesus knows everything about us, not just our outward actions, but our inner thoughts and attitudes and motivations. He knows all about those things we hope & pray that no one will ever see or figure out about who we are – just like he knew what Simon was thinking that day at dinner when the woman was washing his feet.
And he loves us anyway. He accepts us anyway. He forgives us – not based on anything we do, but because of who he is. And in that forgiveness is the hope of a new start. It's the call to begin again – to stop living into the labels that say we can never change, the ones that say we aren't worthy of being loved. In that moment of forgiveness, Jesus invites us to put all those old labels aside and instead claim the label he has given us in our baptism, that he reminds us of in this meal – Forgiven. Beloved. Child of God. Forever. May we, like the woman kneeling at his feet, be amazed and overcome with this gift of forgiveness and start living that forgiveness out, to become the people Jesus has called us to be.
Amen.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
June 6, 2010 - 2nd Sunday after Pentecost
“If you see something, say something.”
Anyone who's lived in the New York area or visited for even a little bit knows this public safety slogan – that if we all work together, we can catch something bad before it happens. It's easy enough – if you see something, say something – but it implies that we are all paying attention. And of course, sometimes we are – the attempted car bombing in Times Square from not too long ago certainly shows that seeing something & saying something can avert tragedy.
But more often than not, we are not paying attention. We are too busy, too caught up in our own lives, not noticing – on purpose. You see it everyday on the subway – people keep their eyes down, noses tucked into newspapers or books, earbuds securely tucked into ears that do not want to hear what is going on with the people around them. It's a survival mechanism, a defense against the overwhelming-ness of the world around us. Because the world is filled with hurt and need: the homeless person sleeping in the cardboard box, standing on the corner asking for money; the little kid who goes to bed hungry because mom or dad or grandma or grandpa has to choose between paying the rent or buying food; the oil spill going on in the Gulf right now, with its horrifying pictures of oil spewing into the ocean, the birds and animals and seashores coated with its deadly slickness – and if you are like me, it is all too tempting to look away, to change the channel, to surf to another website – because there's so much bad news in the world, and only so much one person can do. And if you don't see something, then you have no responsibility to say something, to do something. With all that's going on in the world, it just seems easier & safer – emotionally, physically – to keep our eyes closed.
We might have expected Jesus & his entourage to do just that on their way into the town of Nain. Jesus has already been on a preaching & teaching & healing tour throughout the countryside. In the previous chapters, Luke tells us about how the people mobbed to see Jesus, to hear him teach, to be healed of their diseases – and how from time to time, Jesus had to take a time out, to go away by himself to a deserted place, to rest and pray, to close his eyes, just for a minute to a world filled with people and their never-ending needs. And here, Jesus is just arriving from Capernaum, about 25 miles away. They walked the whole way there, of course. You know how tired you are when you get to your destination after a long journey, even if it's just in a car. You want to get in the house and put your feet up with a cold drink and order food that will be delivered to your door. You don't want to be bothered – right? It would have been so easy for Jesus to see the funeral coming out the same gate he was going in & just to step aside & let it pass. He could have averted his eyes, remained anonymous. No one could blame him – the people at the funeral would hardly have noticed or known that it was Jesus.
But here we are in the season after Pentecost, this long season of the church year after the Holy Spirit has come in and blown everyone away, the time when the church moves out of all the big events of Jesus' life that we celebrate from Advent to Christmas to Epiphany to Lent to Easter to Pentecost Sunday – and into what we call ordinary time. It's the half of the year when we look to the stories of what Jesus did in his day to day life, in the ordinary course of the years of his public ministry, stories that are meant to open our eyes, to teach us about what it means to be disciples – followers of Jesus in our own day-to-day, ordinary existence.
And what we see in this story is that Jesus doesn't step aside at the town gate. He doesn't just get out of the way and let the funeral procession go on by. He doesn't close his eyes. Jesus sees something, and it prompts him to say something, to do something. Jesus notices the widow, who has lost her only son, who today will bury her only hope of support – financial, physical, emotional – with her only boy, whose situation as a widow is now more precarious than ever. Jesus sees her; he feels compassion for her; and he says to her, “Do not weep.” And then to the dead man, “I say to you, rise!” And just like that, the only son comes back to life, life is restored, the family is restored, hope is restored - the crowds are amazed!
This is what followers of Jesus are called to do. Not to raise people from the dead with a word – I think Jesus cornered the market on that one – but to see something – and when we see something, not only to say something, but to do something! Because the world is filled with an overwhelming amount of pain and need, but we learn from Jesus that we don't have to close our eyes to it. We may not be able to do everything for everyone, we can't fix every situation, but that doesn't mean that we are powerless to do anything at all. Because the Holy Spirit that was set loose that Pentecost Sunday is still on the move today. I said it a few weeks ago on Pentecost, and I'll say it again – the Holy Spirit is still at work among us, breathing in us with God's own compassionate breath, opening our eyes to see with God's eyes what otherwise would be be hidden & invisible, moving us to reach out and touch a hurting world with the love of Jesus. And when the Spirit moves in us, we realize that each of us has the power to make a difference for someone.
I was reminded of that at that confirmation dinner I talked about 2 Sundays ago. One of our families was telling me about how they have their kids go through their toys every so often and pick some out to give away – and then they take them to the neighborhood where the dad works and open up the trunk and give them away to people with children passing by. I'm reminded this power to make a difference when I talk to the women in our sewing group, who for years have gathered on Tuesday mornings & bags that go on the back of wheelchairs along with other items that they give to the residents at the Holly Patterson nursing facility. And this past Friday night, when the Junior Girl Scout group who has been meeting in our church for the past year had their Bronze Award ceremony, I was reminded of it again, as I listened to these young girls talk about the service project they had done – which was not just to collect food and baby stuff for the same New LIFE Center that we support, but also to go there, and sort the food and the baby clothes and talk to the volunteers. While they were there, they saw the clients coming and going, clients who weren't much different than them, realizing how hard it must be to not have enough food or clothing. I was inspired to hear them talk about what a difference it made for them to know that even as kids, they could make a difference – because on that day, they saw something, and they not only said something, they did something. They, like the family giving away toys on the street corner, and the sewing ladies sewing away, saw something, and saw that they could do something about it. They got involved. They made a difference. They didn't change the whole world, but they changed a little piece of it. That's what followers of Jesus do. That's what the Holy Spirit inspires and empowers us to do. Imagine what the world would look like if we all saw something and then did something about it! We could change the world! May God use us this week to see something and then move us to do something.
Amen.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
May 23, 2010 - Pentecost
Today is Pentecost, and in this church, it's also the day when we traditionally confirm our 8th graders. They will come up here in a few minutes & stand in front of everyone and make a public affirmation of their baptism, claiming this life of faith for themselves. It's an important step on their faith journey, and one that we always recognize the week before by having a little dinner here at the church. This year it was my pleasure to get to go & pick out the cards that would go with the gifts they would receive from the congregation, and I wanted to share with you what it said. It went something like this: God is with you in whatever you do, on your Confirmation day, and everyday – Now get out there and show the world!
This promise and this call are a part of every Christian's life. We see from the very beginning, even in this story from Acts. Jesus has died, Jesus has been raised, Jesus has appeared to them multiple times. And just before he leaves, Jesus tells them 2 things: “I will be with you always, even to the end of the age” (Mt. 28:20), and “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea & Samaria, and to the ends of the earth”(Acts 1:8). In other words, the promise & the call: God is with you always, so get out there & show the world.
But that hasn't happened yet. They were told to go out & show the world that God was with them, to share the good news that God is with everyone, but nothing is happening. At this point, there are about 120 believers, not just the original 12 and the women, but the beginning of chapter 2 finds them all together in one place, hanging out in somebody's house, socializing only with their fellow believers. They are immobilized, stuck in the house, waiting for something to change, waiting for the signal that now is the time to begin this work that Jesus has given them.
It's a situation we can relate to in the church today, not just in our church, but in many churches. We too have been given both a promise and a call. We hear over & over again that God is with us – we read it in the Bible, we sing it in our songs, we experience it in God's meal – and I sure hope you hear it in the sermon! But with that promise of God's forever love comes a mission – to go and tell others this good news, to speak it, as Acts says, in their own languages, languages that they can understand. We are sent from this place each week to be Jesus' witnesses to the ends of the earth – or at least in our neighborhoods! Yet so often, we find ourselves all gathered together in one place, hanging out mainly with other believers, telling each other the story – but that's where it ends. There we remain, waiting for something to change, waiting for the signal that it's time to begin, perhaps waiting for people to come to us.
But the story of Pentecost reminds us that that's not the way it works. It is good to gather together in one place – but we can't stay there. At least the disciples had an excuse – Jesus told them to wait until they were filled with the power of the Holy Spirit – and when that Spirit came, everything changes. There they are, gathered in that house, and suddenly, the Spirit comes rushing in, filling their ears with the sound of a violent wind, filling up the house with her presence, descending on each of them like a tongue of fire, moving their own tongues to speak in languages they never had known. All of a sudden, their waiting is over – the Spirit sends them out of that place and into the world, out to where people who never would have thought to come into the house have gathered, sends them out to this tremendously diverse crowd of Jews from all over the world, who all spoke different languages, who had heard the commotion and come to see what's going on – sort of like those flash mobs that you hear about or see on YouTube, where some group starts to sing or dance in public & everyone gathers around because this isn't something you see every day, and you have to know what it is, the curiosity is just too much to stay away. Here, finally is the change, the moment when they begin to do what Jesus said they would do – to share the story – to proclaim God's deeds of power in the people's own languages, enabling them to hear, to understand, to be changed by God's people, telling what God has done in the world through Jesus, all of it set into motion & powered by the coming of the Holy Spirit into that place and those people.
And that same Spirit is still in motion today. We who hear this story every year tend to think of it as some past event that happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away – but the Spirit is still alive and active in our world, in our church, in us. I have heard her rumblings, felt the rush of her wind blowing in this place – and I'm not just talking about the wind howling around us like we've heard in church a few times this past winter and early spring. No, the Holy Spirit is on the move even in this place. We may feel more comfortable staying right here in one place with other believers, but I can feel the Spirit moving us, pushing us to leave this place, just as the disciples did on that Pentecost day so long ago. It is the Spirit that is at work in us as we are learning to focus our attention outward, to consider what lies beyond our doors. The Holy Spirit is picking up speed among us, here in this place, as we get more involved in the life of the world around us, as we dare to see the hurts and needs of our world and do something about them, instead of watching and waiting for the world to change on its own.
I see the Spirit working in us in something as simple as our Memorial Day water give-away, which is about so much more than being a part of our community's parade – because it's a way to show God's love in a small but tangible way, to remind people that this gift of God is free for the taking, open to anyone.
I see the Holy Spirit at work in the inspiration to open our summer food drive not just to members of our church but to anyone in the neighborhood who wants to be a part of making a difference for people in need.
And I especially see the Holy Spirit moving in us as we are moving towards becoming a host congregation for Family Promise, because when I arrived here not quite 3 years ago, I don't think any one of us could have imagined throwing open our doors for families who are homeless to come and stay here for a week at a time, to lead the way for faith communities here in Lynbrook to become a part of the solution, instead of just lamenting the problem, to open ourselves to the changes that inevitably happen in us when we dare to try to make a difference. None of these things could happen without the Holy Spirit working in our church.
And that same Spirit is at work in each of you, because the Holy Spirit didn't just come that one time at Pentecost and leave. The Spirit comes in the waters of our baptism, we pray for it to be stirred up within us at the time of confirmation – the Spirit the one who reminds us of the promise, that that God is always with us, every day of our lives, and then sends us with a call. So, let's get out there and show the world!
Amen.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)