Transparent Acceptance, September 23, 2012

Proverbs 31 Mark 9:30-37 The point of our Biblical passages this morning is to be aware of overwhelming expectations! For generations, in churches across N.America, Proverbs 31 was referred to as The Mother's Day Passage, that annually on Mother's Day we extolled the virtues of women. By doing so, we created this image of the Wonderwoman who spun her own yarn and thread from wool and flax, who tailored suits for her sons and sweaters for her daughters, who was wise in business, generous in charity, a connoisseur among chefs, with biceps stronger than her sons, who wore fine purple like a Model, birthed babies with ease, possessing internal dignity and character that allowed her to laugh at times to come.The great travesty, was that such a Biblical model demanded women become even greater over-achievers. In the Old Testament, this was not set up as The Expectations of a Good Wife, or as the NRSV describes a Capable Wife! A Good Wife is only a television show with Julianna Marguiles about a woman who struggles to cover up her partner's indiscretions. Instead, the Bible always personifies God as if a human person. Not as a force, not as electricity or power; often as Creator, or Warrior, Liberator, even Judge. One of the virtues of God has always been Wisdom. As humans we strive to master this virtue and actually master only knowledge because knowledge gives us control over our world. Wisdom is different from knowledge, wisdom requires that the believer try to understand motivations and outcomes, feelings and the web of interconnections that make up the other person. God's Virtue of Wisdom has always been personified as a woman. The Book of Proverbs began, that Wisdom this female personification of one of the virtues of God cries out in the street, in the marketplaces, atop the wall, at the City Gates, she agonizes over her children: “How long will you love being simple?” Here at the conclusion of this book of Wisdom, the mother describes to her child what Wisdom as a partner could provide. Rather than a passage about women as compared to men, this is a description of what we as women and men need to strive for together. The accusation of this passage of Scripture is that we are COGNITIVE MISERS, who practice an ECONOMY OF INTELLECT. We possess great fortunes and abilities of knowledge, insight, intuition, understanding, discerning, awareness and control; yet we hoard these gifts, accepting the expectations of others rather than spend the capital we have. We watch and listen as we are spoon-fed the interpretation of events and circumstance and their impact, as if entertainment, rather than using our minds to think. We are not an Overly-Reflective Society, who are able to draw together all the threads available to us. Would that as a people we sought as Partners for life: One who is more precious than jewels, whom we can truly trust with no thought of personal gain, but only seeking our good. Very recently, I learned something. Seven years ago, those whom we had claimed as refugees and redeemed as our friends, brothers and family were not yet American Citizens, not yet able to travel, of all places not able to go home to their families. So as their pastor, I gave my time and resources to go for them. When I arrived in South Sudan, it was to me an entirely foreign world. I was greeted by people who said “You claim to provide miracles. You return our children to us who were lost for 20 years. You redeem us to our children. You have offered to build for us a Clinic to address our needs.” And the Paramount Chief offered this Blessing and Curse that has now become infamous. What I had not thought through, what I never before had the wisdom to share, is that what he was saying was “We come from the most isolated and desolate of places on earth. The heat reaches 120 degrees, so hot the earth breaks open, then it rains so hard for so long you need a boat to get from hut to hut and place to place. A place of Polio and Tuberculosis, Malaria and Cholera, and AIDs. That would be harsh enough. But we are a people who have been kept impoverished and oppressed, there are no schools, no stores, no businesses, no roads come to this place, no one from the outside world knows we are lost. This would make adaptation, change and advancement impossible. We are also a people who have been at war, as long as any can remember. This is a culture where our children have been taken from us, trained as soldiers to come home to kill us. We know not who to trust or what to believe. The blessing we receive this afternoon, is a statement of thanksgiving that we have been partners responding to others. The agony of every preacher with this text from Mark, is that our culture is so different from Galilee, that the text has lost its edge. Our expectation is that Jesus loves babies even more than the pastor! If Jesus did not do this, we would be more in shock than the disciples as jesus described his crucifixion. But in that time and place, children were property. And Men would never deign to hold a child let alone a baby. Imagine the Board Room of an International Corporation, or the Congress of the United States, better yet the War Room of the White House, or a Meeting of the United Nations. In this august adult assembly, Jesus places a baby before them. Here once again, we have too much information in our heads...we jump to the conclusion that we are the baby. What Jesus said was that “whoever receives a chid like this receives me, and not me but actually God.” The important identification here is not in being innocent, or vulnerable, but in acceptance, absolute transparent acceptance like a man or woman with a child, like a child with a baby, suddenly we have a new identity of being in relationship. Leadership is not about GREATNESS. Leadership is not intellectual, a demonstration of power or prowess. Leadership is doing what people need and want. True Leadership is doing what people need even when it is not what they think they want. This morning I need to dis-illusion you of something. There is an expectation that Ministers as leaders have great learning and experience, so have complicated involved plans for what we will do, when. Like some Machiavellian Prince, or Rasputin, we could manipulate people to do what we desire, to give to support what they do not believe in. I have been in leadership in the Church all my life, and I do not recall ever doing anything in the local or larger church because it was what I wanted. With absolute Transparency, what a pastor does is listen to people and try to help them fulfill their desires. I did not become your pastor so as to build a church, or an organ, or create a health care system, or of all things to put in a soundproof bathroom. Members of the church expressed need. Members gave resources to the church to make a difference. So problem-solving, we found ways to make each thing happen. The problem is that as humans with experience of distrust we approach one another with expectations. As described by the Psalmist, how do we stand with the righteous rather than scoffers? How do we live as trees beside streams of water? Take life in, as it comes, trusting God and working to make God known. Three decades ago, Scott Peck wrote a book titled The Road less Travelled. He then wrote a less well-known book titled The Different Drummer. In the Drummer, he describes a church that has lost its way. No one comes to the church for anything, and the group of monks there, fear the future when they will die out. The Abbott goes to see the local rabbi, who tells him of a Dream, that in your midst is Christ. The Abbott comes back with this fabulous revelation, that none can believe. But over the next several days, they each begin to wonder. Could it be Brother Francis? Could it be Brother Skip? Brother Gustav? They begin treating one another differently, and treating one another differently, the world treats them differently.