"Peace, Be Still" June 24, 2012

PEACE, BE STILL. This is the Day the Lord has made, This is the Day of Salvation. This is Graduation Sunday. I remember our family's Graduation Sundays, not only for hearing the name of your child for their accomplishments and scholastic prizes, but with all the family from out of town, with a schedule that literally we had to go from a Graduation Breakfast to Worship, to a Graduation Brunch at Krebs, to Commencement, to the Parties. I recall the worry, about how we would ever afford University, we had only a decade before finished our school loans. What would happen to our children, would they graduate college, would they find employment, would they find satisfaction and friends, would their lives have meaning. The anxiety was not that we were not proud, not they would not graduate, but that something would be missed, something forgotten, it is the anxiety of waking in the middle of the night when you cannot recall if you put paprika on the Deviled Eggs, or put the Potato Salad back in the Refrigerator. Churches are known for making bloopers. There is a Broadway Play about The Church Basement Ladies... there are always Newsletter and Bulletin problems of syntax, like: “Next week we will be using the Baptismal font at the Altar and the one at the Narthex, infants may be Baptized at both ends.” One of the current favorites come from a Church sign which reads: “Don't let Worry Kill you, allow the Church!” Worry, Anxiety Fear are faith killers. Worry, Shame, Fear cause our minds to shut down and our worst nature to take over. Anxiety transforms us, from the persons we want to be, into people we do not know or recognize. I made a mistake a few weeks ago. Preaching on the Gospel of Mark, we named the power of Shame, as Jesus' own family question if he has a demon. The mistake was in naming Shame and anxiety, and due to time and length not naming the reality of Evil. Anxiety, Worry, Fear are Evil, they blind us to the truth, and distort reality, so we become a house divided against ourselves. The story of David and Goliath has become so popularized over time, as to become a cultural icon about the Underdog versus the Giant. But the faith story is about so much more. We hear and we imagine the Philistine has as weapons Shield, Sword & Spear, the Shepherd boy has a slingshot and stones. Goliath the Giant stands 6 cubits, that is over 9'6” tall, weighing over 300 pounds, his armor alone weighs 125 lbs of bronze. More agile, fighting differently, the little boy David like Jack and the Beanstalk: kills the giant. Because of anxiety and fear, the child David is changed into a warrior. Not with the armor and weapons that King Saul shares, but the things which actually make for killing another: hate, fear, desire to dominate and control. We have witnessed censored video of Al Quaida beheading their enemies. In the French Revolution, the Guillotine was a favorite method of demonstrating that those who were powerful, those who as Aristocracy saw themselves as more than common humanity, could have their brains separated from their bodies. As one blood-thirsty warrior had pledged to another, after the slingshot David decapitated Goliath. Throughout the Renaissance, the image of the little half-naked boy David holding the severed head of Goliath was a romanticized image of true power and strength in a next generation. But setting aside the fear and anxiety of Goliath's taunts and intimidation, the Champion of Israel entered this battle not with Shield or Spear, but with faith in the Name of the Lord God. The problem is that our cultural icon, is of Davy and the Slingshot, the five smooth stones, and the severed head as the Philistine army runs away; rather than lifting up that where the hearts of King Saul and his army had melted, the champion of Israel was armed with faith, so it did not matter how tall he was, or how strong, he could not lose. My fear as a preacher, is how often because of fear, because of anxiety, we become warriors, combatants, rather than considering if we are fighting for the Lord, for righteousness or only self-righteousness as every side loses its head. Due to the longest war in American history; due to our feelings of helplessness as the economy continues to hurl into the abyss and make only minor gains in part because of fears of Europe's economy and our oil dependency; due to worry about what fracking will due to our groundwater, we each, everyone of us believe we are the underdog, we and we alone are fighting for truth. As much as we struggle, as much as we work and try, the giants/everyone else, does not seem to understand what is on our minds. Our affection is that we are the Underdogs, singing “We are the Champions of the World,” and we never question if our fears and anxieties have made us Goliaths spouting threats. PEACE, BE STILL. After a long and emotional day of being with family and friends, of preaching and teaching, and healing,... along toward Sunset, at the end of the day, Jesus the Carpenter, the Rabbi, Messiah, puts himself into a boat, places himself into the hands of his disciples, the territory of professional sailors and fishermen, and his disciples set out to cross the Galilean Sea. As the exhausted Jesus sleeps the wind begins to lift and the sea begins to churn, like the primordial vision of chaos the water becomes a tumult. The Gospel harkens back to the Book of Jonah, as the Sailors do everything in their own power to control the situation, the Man of God is sound asleep, and the sailors and fishermen in each story wake him saying “Do you not care, that we are perishing!?” Different from Jonah, Jesus calms the troubled waters with a word. Then at the center of this pericope asks the question “Why are you afraid, have you no faith?”. Just as with the Church Bloopers, we need to be very careful about what is really being said. Often times, we confuse saying “There is nothing to be afraid of” with saying “Why are you afraid have you no faith?” In the middle of the night, when your three year old is screaming, and as parents we bust into the room, to take them up in our arms, and wipe their sweaty locks from their forehead, we vainly try to convince them, our children: “There is nothing to fear.” But there is. Maybe they heard Mom and Dad arguing. Maybe the child picked up on the unnatural silences of their father staring off in space in worry. Maybe the child is afraid of graduation, of leaving home, of college and the economy and war, of the unknown. Jesus' disciples as fishermen knew the dangers of being out on the sea at night. Peter and James and John, knew the power of that body of water that was beyond their professional ability to control. Jesus did not say to them, “You have nothing to fear,” but rather instead of letting your fears add to the chaos of the churning water, instead of allowing yourself to be dominated by fear: act in faith, faith in God, faith in one another, faith in the church. Ultimately, this morning, I find myself clinging desperately to several strands: Can we name our anxieties, why we are afraid and so own these by bring these into the light? We as the church took a solemn vow to encourage our leaders, to trust them to lead us in the way of Jesus Christ. And Paul's Letter to the Corinthians which we began with this day... From now on, we regard no one from a human point of view; though once we regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard him thus no longer. If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation; the old has passed away, behold the new has come! All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to God, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to God's self, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. So we are Ambassadors for Christ, God making God's appeal through us. We beseech you, on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake, God made him to be sin who knew no sin, that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Working together with Christ then, we entreat you not to accept the grace of God in vain. For Christ says, “At the acceptable time I have listened to you, and helped you on the day of salvation.” Behold, Now is the acceptable time. Behold, Now is the day of salvation! We put no obstacle in anyone's way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, tumults, labors, watching, hunger, by purity, knowledge, forbearance, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything. You are not restricted by us, but restricted only in your own affections.

June 17, 2012 "Seeing the Heart"

I Samuel 15:34 - 16:13 Mark 4:26-34 What a marvelous word for our time! As simple and common as these stories are, I can think of nothing More Counter-Cultural! Everything in our society screams: Time is Money, Money is the Value of all things, Time is Wasting. Make a decision. Choose the fastest, smallest, most unique, sexiest, most expensive, most experienced. And Be careful not to do anything to offend the existing power structure. Yet Samuel, the last in the line of The Judges is told to go to a family with no great lineage, no power, they are not royalty, not great warriors, or heroes, not even the most faithful or devout. Jesse's great great grandmother seduced her father-in-law. His great grandmother was a Canaanite Prostitute; his grandmother was a foreigner from Moab. Now, Samuel from among this lineage, select a new King, Not the First-born, Not the most experienced, the most attractive, the strongest, the wealthiest, the most secure but instead choose the most child-like. The point is not the quality of the seed, or the skill of the planter, but to trust that God is doing what God needs do. A parable is not reasonable, a parable is not learning a different language or higher level math. If anything, hearing a parable is like looking at the world cross-eyed, perceiving everything spiritually through faith, as if all life were pointed to the cross, not as a symbol of persecution and suffering, not even as a symbol of the Church, but that Nothing not even death can separate us from the Love of God. Samuel was seeing the world through captivity to his fears. He had known it would be a mistake to ordain a King, yet God told him to do so. The people wanted Saul to be King, and Samuel warned them the cost, but he had had to anoint Saul King, and Saul was a vicious and terrible king. So now what? Saying I told you so will not change reality. Saying or doing anything may bring the wrath of Saul upon your head for treason or even blasphemy. And God instructs Samuel, “DO SOMETHING RELIGIOUS” Because No one will pay any attention! Samuel goes to anoint a King to displace Saul, and he does not simply go to pray, he takes a sacrifice, not a handful of grain, or pair of turtle doves, or a lamb, even a young calf, but a full grown heifer. And as instructed, he comes to Jesse of Bethlehem. And Samuel looks on the first born, Eliab... And God says No And the second Abinadab is prettier than the first... And God says No And the third Shammah is stronger than the two... And God says No And the fourth is more educated... the fifth more experienced... the sixth... the seventh... Then Samuel asks the question we often neglect to wonder after seeing seven sons... Are there others? And Samuel anoints David the Shepherd of the flocks to be Shepherd of Israel. We need to look with our hearts and not with our eyes! This is a table, like the dining table in each of our homes, where we gather with family and friends. The bread is only bread, the cup is only a common cup, yet gathering, this is our most precious meal. The pitcher filled with water, yet we hear the sound of Baptism, pouring out, empty, and receiving in. The couple profess their love, and kiss as they have a thousand times before, and now they are married. A child is only a child, yet as parents through a lifetime we look upon them in so many different ways. We have known they were coming, yet they arrive, we cannot stop smiling, speaking softly, rocking. I would dare to say, that in all of the Bible, there are few more profound words than this: Jesus spoke in parables, as they were able to hear; he did not speak without a parable. A parable needs to seep and soak and marinade upon you. The point of speaking in parables, is not only the wisdom of the saying, but in learning to see the world, to look beyond circumstance, as if everything were a parable of faith. As spectacular as our windows are, and as gorgeous as the refracted light, by removing these few this morning, not only do we see light differently, not only can we see with greater illumination, not only do the dynamics of this space appear to change, but instead of feeling as if in an ivory tower, a place apart where everything is sacred, we see the world outside this upper room, cognizant that there is sacred in the midst of the community. This week, I had contacted John to suggest that as we are planning for the 5th Anniversary of the Clinic, I remember the words of the Paramount Chief, a man I deeply respect and love, that if you do this thing that you vow you will be blessed, and if you lie you will die a miserable death and be forgot. I asked John if for the 5th Anniversary, the Paramount Chief might now confer his blessing upon us. And simultaneously, John reported that at the dedication of the completed clinic compound the Chief had died and been buried, but that Senators, and Governors, had affirmed what a blessing had been given, how lives had been changed, and like the baskets above the door our lives were interwoven together. Hearing these parables this morning, we need to confirm what has been said a hundred times before, yet never heard. Our economy demands that we spend money, our world decries that we make purchases and investments, and the value of a thing is only in the moment when it is new. When we replaced the administrative offices and nurseries, we rebuilt THE CENTER of the Church. When the floor joists of the Sanctuary were rotting and cracked, we lifted UP THE FOUNDATIONS. When we commissioned the creation of an Organ, we committed ourselves as a Patron of the ARTS & MUSIC for the community. Every act, is an act of faith. Often times, we plan for these, we manage every detail and worry about the outcomes. The parable from Mark is that like a farmer to sleep and wake and work, and sleep, confident that God is causing the world to go on, the Sun to shine, the rains to fall, the seeds to grow and winds to blow. The most telling piece about this passage from Mark, is that after describing three parable about planting seed, that the farmer sleeps and wakes to do the work of God, and that everything is a parable about the Kingdom of God, when evening comes the disciples get into a boat and set out to sea. In the boat at night, these fishermen are filled with fear, while Jesus sleeps. They wake him to say, do you not care we are perishing? Jesus says “PEACE, BE STILL then asks his own disciples: Have you no faith.” The parable is not only, the specific stories Jesus told, but his entire presence, our entire lives. Do we see as we have been taught? To look with prejudice? To rationalize and make excuses? To count up the abuses we have endured, to nurture our anger and resentments, Or do we look with the heart, do we look CROSS-eyed seeing every relationship as opportunity for forgiveness and compassion. This is Father's Day, which in our community means Pancakes and Scrambled Eggs. I thought having known and loved my father, and loved my children, I understood well what Father's Day was all about. But in the years since my Father's passing, I have come to recognize many in our midst, who have served as mentors, father-like figures who provide for us, care for us and occasionally offer wisdom, who want only to be proud of where we go in life as we fly our nests. I am a great lover of Systems theory, of recognizing that we tend to apply and replicate the patterns and systems we have experienced, as if this were the only way there is. Often it is a problem for couples to recognize that other families do things differently. The power of Samuel anointing the 8th son of Jesse, the power of the seeds growing, is realization that we do not have to control life, only live life taking joy that this this is God's Creation.

"Binding the Strong Man", June 10, 2012

I Samuel 8:4-20 Mark 3: 20-35 One of the wonderful things about reading the Bible is that the text does not always mean exactly what we thought or want it to mean, and new things are continually revealed. This passage of a House Divided, we discover Lincoln took out of context when addressing the Republican National Convention and actually is a passage about Family, and about the ways we undermine and humble the Strong Man, which could be a description for anyone Powerful, The Government, The Devil or even God. From the Reformation, one of the teachings of the Church has been, rather than being certain what a passage says for all time, to allow Scripture to interpret Scripture. Imagine you are the younger brothers and sisters of Jesus. As you live your life, reports come back that your brother is disturbing the peace. He stood up to the Pharisees and Priests, he is even getting into trouble with the Roman Empire. Everyone is talking about him, and what they are saying is he hangs out with Prostitutes, he eats with Dirty Hands, he consorts with Lepers and touches the Untouchable. Your resolution is to have a family intervention, to take him out of the spotlight. To do so, you need to find a way to confront him, that will isolate him from his followers, that will weaken him, and make him a man alone. First Samuel, describes a time when being the people of God was in its infancy, after Moses and Joshua, and Judges, the people had come into the Promised Land and continued to fight the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizites and Jebusites. This was a time of instability and threat, when what the people most needed and wanted and felt was for safety, security, to be accepted in order to risk independence. The traditional commentary about this passage focuses on cultural temptation to try to blend in and be like everyone else, to adopt the customs of others, which ultimately leads toward secularism. This week as Great Britain celebrated their Queen's Diamond Jubilee, the commentators described that despite our Revolution against a Monarchy, how many Americans were following this, and speculated that we might actually prefer this celebration to that of our Presidential Debates and robo-calls. The challenge which comes to the Prophet Samuel is that the people abandon trust in his leadership for something different. How similar this cry sounds to the Arab Spring of a year ago, and the societal evolution from Chiefs and Judges and Dictatorships and Monarchies to free elections and Democracy. Like leaders in our own time, Samuel responds defensively. But God intervenes, revealing that this is not a rejection of Samuel, but Rejection of God. The implicit message of this story, more than a desire to be like everyone else, is that “The Nature of Humanity is to Shame God, to reject; yet God Endures.” Psychotherapist Marc Miller published that Shame is one of the most basic of human responses and biggest problems for people to resolve, and yet shame has been virtually ignored in psychiatry. We teach people to deal with anger, love, aggression, lust, loss, sexuality, fear, excitement, but rarely if ever Shame. We are ashamed to discuss our feelings of shame. The exception to this has been a Child Developmental Specialist: John Bradshaw, who describes that the very First thing we learn is a sense of Trust greater than Distrust. Next after Trust, we learn Shame, but there is Healthy Shame and there can be TOXIC Shame. Healthy Shame is learning control to use the Potty instead of a diaper, and learning the word No. We have a need for structure and for discipling. Toxic Shame is a shame at feeling feelings, a shame at needing perceived as being needy, or wanting what we can never possess. When we lose touch with reality, lose touch with what we need, when we lose touch with what we want,. or what we feel, we lose touch with our humanity. Every form of Addiction comes back to this toxicity at the core of our being. A child is a precious gift of God, filled with grace and spontaneity. Addiction is when we no longer know what we feel, what we need, what we want so we satiate our needs and wants and feelings with what anesthetizes. Shame is a sickness of the soul....the humiliated one feels naked, defeated, alienated, lacking in dignity and worth. The shamed avert their eyes and bite their lip, and when the shame is especially exercised, shame disables the ability to think, to speak and to react. The point of shame is to crush the humanity of the other, forcing their submission to your will. Mark's Gospel of Jesus is personal and intimate regarding shame, far more than the Book of Samuel, and as such: painful. This is not about a Nation and leadership, but about family, one's own family. To grasp the Gospel of Mark, we need a perspective different from any other author. According to Mark, the domain of the Devil is NICENESS. If everyone just got along, if no one questioned, no one doubted, the rulers of this world would be in absolute control. To Culture, to Empire, to Church, to Community, to Family being nice and going along translates as dominance. According to the Gospel of Mark, Jesus ripped open the heavens and unleashed powers that were not control-able. Shame is a unique and dangerous experience, because shame is not rational. You cannot think your way out of shame. Most often, when embarrassed, when shamed we look for others to project our shame onto. None of us like feeling anxiety, worry, apprehension, guilt, shame. We find ways to bind our anxiety. Most often these begin privately, with only our knowing a problem, an indiscretion, a sin. We have difficulty accepting our responsibility and ownership of what we have done. We try to convince others of our righteousness and the sin of others. But the privacy of this knowledge, manifests what has been hidden as a Secret. Secrets gain power by their being secret, by being in the shadows and not being known by others. Secrets suck everything from our lives, until all we seem able to do is to protect the secret. The irony is that as soon as what is secret is brought into the light, the secret loses its power. Yet instead of making the secret open and transparent, we bind the anxiety to other persons. While Jesus' family felt shame, they attempted to shame him by describing him as possessed by Beelzebub. Shame is the means of undermining the powerful. Shame destroys political campaigns. Shame destroys marriages. Shame puts down the other's sense of self and makes of them only what we tell them they are. Strangely, the means of coping with shame also requires that we think outside ourself. Here I want to use three examples, one from Literature, one from Counseling, and one from Scripture. The year was 1871, roughly when this Sanctuary was first built, Napoleon Bonaparte was Emperor and France was in the midst of revolution. Babette Hersant was a wife and mother and the chef of one of the finest restaurants in Paris. Suddenly, Babbette's husband and child were murdered, and she needed to flee. Babette found herself on the peninsula of Jutland, north of Denmark, North of Germany, with the North Sea to the West and the Baltic Sea to the East. Searching for work and housing she found a tiny church in the community run by two sisters after their father, the founder, had died. All of their faith was about denial of self, denial of pleasure. The whole community wore black. Their food was intentionally bland. Following the death of their pastor, they had become a people without hope. Babette became the servant of the Sisters of Denial. Babette had one remaining relative, who weekly would play the lottery in Babette's name. Suddenly one day, a letter came in the post, for Babette. Inside was a letter of verification from an attorney, and a check for $10,000 that she had won the lottery. Babette was thankful to be alive, to have found a home and work. So she decided to create for the whole village the most elaborate feast anyone had ever seen. Two boats arrived, with fine crystal and china, and all manner of different exotic foods. When the appointed time came, everyone in the village was there, dressed in black, looking somber, saying nothing to anyone. But as they ate, their senses began to respond with pleasure, with variety, with tastes and textures they had never known. At one point, the Mayor's wife could not contain herself and belched, to which the man beside her said “Halleluia! I have been wanting to do that for an hour.” People began interacting, sharing expressions, looking one another in the eye and talking about what they enjoyed. As they finished the feast, the Village began asking Babette what she would do with her fortune. Babette responded that she had already spent it on this feast. She had withheld nothing for herself, but given it all and all her talents as a Chef, to give those who had given her a home and renewed purpose pleasure. Close your eyes and imagine a picture of yourself at any earlier time, perhaps a year ago, maybe 20, possibly as a child, a time when you were your most shamed, most humiliated, most vulnerable, when you were unclear what you wanted or needed or felt, because you were so alone. Got the image. Now, see yourself today walking into that space. Sit down beside your wounded-self. Take their hand in yours and speak in a soothing way...It is normal to Feel...It is normal to have Needs... I know what you wanted at that moment... I am here as your companion and champion... I will be here with you when ever you need. In both of our readings this morning, God and Jesus reframe who they are to those around them. Instead of the Period of Judges the People of God will now have a Monarchy and yet God will continue to be God. When rejected and embarrassed by his brothers and family, Jesus claims all those he loves as family. Binding the Strong Man, is about how we chose to deal with Shame... Whether we are shamed by shaming, Whether we shame others for our embarrassment, or if we can act in grace for others as an act of reclaiming them differently in faith.