Life Notes
Every week our pastor, Rev. Doyle Burbank-Williams writes about the questions, insights, and challenges that inform the upcoming weekend's worship. You are invited to ponder along and see where the Spirit is leading us.
August 9
August 9, 2020
Matthew 22:15-22
Then the Pharisees met together to find a way to trap Jesus in his words. They sent their disciples, along with the supporters of Herod, to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are genuine and that you teach God’s way as it really is. We know that you are not swayed by people’s opinions, because you don’t show favoritism. So tell us what you think: Does the Law allow people to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”
Knowing their evil motives, Jesus replied, “Why do you test me, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used to pay the tax.” And they brought him a denarion. “Whose image and inscription is this?” he asked. “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then he said, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” When they heard this they were astonished, and they departed.
I remember my mom taking family pictures. She had an old Kodak Instamatic, the kind that used flashcubes. She’d line us up, do her best to get us looking our best, and then carefully squeeze off a picture. Since both film and developing were expensive that one shot would have to make do unless one of us boys had obviously ruined the image. The pictures were precious.
Today we pull out our phones and snap off dozens of pictures a day, for some people hundreds. We have so many pictures on our camera rolls that we almost never look at them. Somehow having that many pictures so available almost makes them less precious.
In ancient days images were powerful icons of power. It took effort and investment to produce them, and they were most often created for a purpose. Caesar’s image in the denarion was a way of broadcasting Caesar’s influence, his power. It was quite literally the “coin of the realm.” Wherever that coin was accepted as legal tender, it was Caesar’s empire. The image on the coin carried the power of the one it represented.
God did not mint coins, or build statues, or fly banners. God created humanity. Remember back in Genesis 1? “God created humanity in God’s own image, in the divine image God created them, male and female God created them.” That “image” we are created in is God’s icon, wherever God’s image is seen - there is the boundary of God’s realm. That’s how far God’s influence is felt.
In Jesus’ day, it would be a grave insult to the empire not to take the coin of the realm as legal tender. That was the trap his opponents were trying to set for Jesus. Jesus turned the trap back on those religious teachers, though, by calling to mind God’s coin of the realm.
The definition of white supremacy is valuing some lives less than others based on skin color or ethnic background. That those of us who have the privilege of being in the dominant culture want our children or grandchildren to go to the best schools but are not scandalized by the atrocious conditions of “urban” schools shows that in some way we have determined that those lives are worth less. Yet if the children in crumblings schools bear just as much of God’s image as any human, are we not defying God’s reach and authority? Jesus asks us “Whose image is on those lives? Then give to God what is God’s.”
Confronting racism is about recognizing the reach of God’s realm, one that we often say has no bounds or limits. But when we behave in ways that mar or diminish God’s image in other humans, any humans, we refuse the coin of the realm. Knowing that Creation began as an act of love, then the bestowing of God’s image is also an act of love. To deny God’s image in another is to deny Divine Love. Racism refuses the image of God for one of our own making. It does violence to God’s Kin-dom. Following Jesus means seeing the loving image of God in all Creation.
What happens when we see ourselves in the image of God?
When we see others that way?
Who do we struggle to see God’s image in?
Where has our society limited the reach of God’s realm? In what ways?
How can we expand the recognition of God’s image in all humanity?
Matthew 22:15-22
Then the Pharisees met together to find a way to trap Jesus in his words. They sent their disciples, along with the supporters of Herod, to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are genuine and that you teach God’s way as it really is. We know that you are not swayed by people’s opinions, because you don’t show favoritism. So tell us what you think: Does the Law allow people to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”
Knowing their evil motives, Jesus replied, “Why do you test me, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used to pay the tax.” And they brought him a denarion. “Whose image and inscription is this?” he asked. “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then he said, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” When they heard this they were astonished, and they departed.
I remember my mom taking family pictures. She had an old Kodak Instamatic, the kind that used flashcubes. She’d line us up, do her best to get us looking our best, and then carefully squeeze off a picture. Since both film and developing were expensive that one shot would have to make do unless one of us boys had obviously ruined the image. The pictures were precious.
Today we pull out our phones and snap off dozens of pictures a day, for some people hundreds. We have so many pictures on our camera rolls that we almost never look at them. Somehow having that many pictures so available almost makes them less precious.
In ancient days images were powerful icons of power. It took effort and investment to produce them, and they were most often created for a purpose. Caesar’s image in the denarion was a way of broadcasting Caesar’s influence, his power. It was quite literally the “coin of the realm.” Wherever that coin was accepted as legal tender, it was Caesar’s empire. The image on the coin carried the power of the one it represented.
God did not mint coins, or build statues, or fly banners. God created humanity. Remember back in Genesis 1? “God created humanity in God’s own image, in the divine image God created them, male and female God created them.” That “image” we are created in is God’s icon, wherever God’s image is seen - there is the boundary of God’s realm. That’s how far God’s influence is felt.
In Jesus’ day, it would be a grave insult to the empire not to take the coin of the realm as legal tender. That was the trap his opponents were trying to set for Jesus. Jesus turned the trap back on those religious teachers, though, by calling to mind God’s coin of the realm.
The definition of white supremacy is valuing some lives less than others based on skin color or ethnic background. That those of us who have the privilege of being in the dominant culture want our children or grandchildren to go to the best schools but are not scandalized by the atrocious conditions of “urban” schools shows that in some way we have determined that those lives are worth less. Yet if the children in crumblings schools bear just as much of God’s image as any human, are we not defying God’s reach and authority? Jesus asks us “Whose image is on those lives? Then give to God what is God’s.”
Confronting racism is about recognizing the reach of God’s realm, one that we often say has no bounds or limits. But when we behave in ways that mar or diminish God’s image in other humans, any humans, we refuse the coin of the realm. Knowing that Creation began as an act of love, then the bestowing of God’s image is also an act of love. To deny God’s image in another is to deny Divine Love. Racism refuses the image of God for one of our own making. It does violence to God’s Kin-dom. Following Jesus means seeing the loving image of God in all Creation.
What happens when we see ourselves in the image of God?
When we see others that way?
Who do we struggle to see God’s image in?
Where has our society limited the reach of God’s realm? In what ways?
How can we expand the recognition of God’s image in all humanity?
August 2, 2020
Genesis 1:26-28
Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”
So God created humankind in God’s own image,
in the divine image God created them;
male and female God created them.
God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
There is a lot of talk about a “new normal” these days, though often spoken of with a strong dose of nostalgia for the old normal. At least those of us who benefited from the old normal are nostalgic about it. Those for whom the old normal was toxic and diminishing are hoping once again that the new normal will take root and thrive.
Which is why we in the church must continue to confront and oppose racism. Racism is a system that is threaded through every aspect of our society, but it is based on the stories we are told, and the stories we unconsciously or intentionally tell. Institutional racism is based on the story that some people are inherently better than others, particularly because of race or skin color. The way we tell our stories makes a huge difference in the way we see the world.
Back in the ancient days when the Genesis Creation stories were written, there were a lot of Creation stories being told. Most of them said that the earth was created out of the violence of gods at war. But our spiritual ancestors told a story of the earth being created out of love. For love’s sake, our God began Creation.
The world of those days (and all the way along even to our day) likes to say that it is the powerful who reflect God’s image: generals, kings, strong of arm and treasure (no coincidence, either, that most said to carry God’s image are male). But our ancestral storytellers say that every gob of mud created is done so in God’s image - no small statement to specifically say male and female. They knew (and even Jesus said) that not only the Caesars are God’s image, but every human being high and low, white or black, male or female or transgender, of every derivation and expression, are made in the image and likeness of God. Telling the creation story this way creates a new normal.
Sometimes we have to unearth the new normal even in our own stories. One of the most problematic words in this Genesis Creation story is “dominion.” Because our stories are heavily influenced by the world in which they are told, we can be surprised by original connotations that have been covered over. “Dominion” is almost automatically taken to mean “power over.” In a culture where “power over” is seen as god-like, it is not unexpected that we want to grasp god-like authority and power. Western culture loved the proclamation that we were to take dominion.
Rene August, theologian from South Africa, says that the original use of that word had a very different implication. Genesis 1 was written in the midst of the Babylonian exile, when Israel was powerless and literally oppressed. Babylon had laid siege to Jerusalem, destroying the Temple (and with it the whole religious system built around it), and physically dragging a remnant of the people into exile far from home. The Genesis 1 Creation story was written to offer an alternative to their oppressors’ version. So, August says, the dominion Genesis speaks about is the dominion that “breaks the yoke of oppression.” Dominion means taking the actions that bring freedom and justice. Which makes Genesis one more thread in the biblical tapestry that makes justice, righteousness, and freedom major themes of God’s covenant. “Dominion” is not about exercising power over, but restoring power to those from whom it has been stolen.
Genesis may be a surprising place to begin our deeper discussion on racism. Confronting and dismantling racism is remembering that we all were created for love, about honoring the full image of God, about exercising the Godly dominion that frees and restores people (and all Creation).
Do we really believe we were created for love?
When have we been seduced by society’s narrative about God’s image?
Who do we struggle to see God’s image in?
What can we do to exercise the dominion of breaking chains?
How does the Genesis story change how we see and confront racism in our culture?
July 19, 2020 Psalms of New Orientation, Wonder
When life has moved from a time of thriving into desolation (when life falls apart), the testimony of faith tells us that we will get to the other side - we will come through. The psalms we are visiting this week are the psalms written on the other side of trouble.
Psalm 34
I will bless the Lord at all times;
his praise will always be in my mouth.
I praise the Lord--
let the suffering listen and rejoice.
Magnify the Lord with me!
Together let us lift his name up high!
I sought the Lord and he answered me.
He delivered me from all my fears.
Those who look to God will shine;
their faces are never ashamed.
This suffering person cried out:
the Lord listened and saved him from every trouble.
On every side, the Lord’s messenger protects those who honor God; and he delivers them.
Taste and see how good the Lord is!
The one who takes refuge in him is truly happy!
You who are the Lord’s holy ones, honor him,
because those who honor him don’t lack a thing.
Even strong young lions go without and get hungry,
but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.
Come, children, listen to me.
Let me teach you how to honor the Lord:
Do you love life;
do you relish the chance to enjoy good things?
Then you must keep your tongue from evil
and keep your lips from speaking lies!
Turn away from evil! Do good!
Seek peace and go after it!
The Lord’s eyes watch the righteous,
his ears listen to their cries for help.
But the Lord’s face is set against those who do evil,
to eliminate even the memory of them from the earth.
When the righteous cry out, the Lord listens;
he delivers them from all their troubles.
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted;
he saves those whose spirits are crushed.
The righteous have many problems,
but the Lord delivers them from every one.
He protects all their bones;
not even one will be broken.
But just one problem will kill the wicked,
and those who hate the righteous will be held responsible.
The Lord saves his servants’ lives;
all those who take refuge in him
won’t be held responsible for anything.
The author of this psalm knows defeat and rejection, but the tense of the verbs used put it firmly in the past. The choice of word makes it clear that these were real-world events that the psalmist experiences, and not metaphorical or symbolic. This is a person who knows firsthand the crushing weight of life, and knows as well God’s deliverance.
The response to this experience of real world salvation is to work for a better real world. “Turn away from evil! Do good! Seek peace and go after it!” These are not empty words of praise. It is gratitude that prompts the psalmist to create a life where others can experience that kind of life-recreating grace. The character of God that the psalmist sings is to seek out the rejected and oppressed to lift them up and welcome them home. When have you experienced a turnaround in life? Can you sense God’s hand in that?
Psalm 23
The Lord is my shepherd.
I lack nothing.
He lets me rest in grassy meadows;
he leads me to restful waters;
he keeps me alive.
He guides me in proper paths
for the sake of his good name.
Even when I walk through the darkest valley,
I fear no danger because you are with me.
Your rod and your staff--
they protect me.
You set a table for me
right in front of my enemies.
You bathe my head in oil;
my cup is so full it spills over!
Yes, goodness and faithful love
will pursue me all the days of my life,
and I will live in the Lord’s house
as long as I live.
I am sure this is the best known piece of scripture in the entire Bible. Even people who know nothing else know “The Lord is my shepherd.” The King James translation is probably the most loved poem in the English language (sorry, William Shakespeare. And yes, I realize it was originally written in ancient Hebrew). This all makes it a little difficult to rescue the 23rd Psalm from the throes of romanticism.
But while its images are heart-grabbing, this is no pink-clouded dream of a psalm. THe psalmist has been led to green pastures and tables rich with food, but those are all the more treasured because of the existence of shadowy valleys and enemies. It is an intimate poem, for it calls God by name twice, and the middle of the psalm directly addresses God. The “you” we translate in English doesn’t catch the deep ties that the word does in Hebrew. The best we have is the old-fashioned “thou.” This is not a generic conversation, it is deep love spoken between intimates. It is out of that intimacy that the trust in God and this new life grows.
What song can you sing after traversing shadowy valley?
Psalm 150
Praise the Lord!
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty firmament!
Praise him for his mighty deeds;
praise him according to his surpassing greatness!
Praise him with trumpet sound;
praise him with lute and harp!
Praise him with tambourine and dance;
praise him with strings and pipe!
Praise him with clanging cymbals;
praise him with loud clashing cymbals!
Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord!
Throughout all the psalms, the teaching of God (Torah) is proclaimed as the heart and foundation of prosperity, peace, and life itself. It is torah that makes life good. It is torah that is the rope to grasp when the earth crumbles beneath you. It is torah that brings you through into a new life. So the last psalm in the collection is the result of living the torah of God, even though it is not named specifically. All that is named is this overwhelming desire and compulsion to praise God. True praise comes from the love of living torah with God.
This may feel familiar to those of us who have had life put back together. Those of us who have felt the real and emotional earthquakes of life falling apart. Those of us almost can’t trust that the new ground we stand on is firm and fertile. When we look back to what we’ve been through and where we are now, it would be almost impossible not to sing something. For the psalmist, that song is praise.
We have been on a corporate journey now for 10 years as the New Visions Community. While we may not yet feel green pastures under our feet, we know God has been faithful throughout this journey. Especially with the Coronavirus still affecting our lives and our society, it may feel like a funny time to sing unbridled praise. But the example of the psalmists is to do it anyway. What songs of praise can you raise today? We need to write, and to hear, those songs as we embark on the next leg of this spirit journey that is New Visions!
A week from Sunday we will celebrate our 10th Anniversary with a Psalm Pslam. Share your new psalms, psalms of thriving, of desolation, of the wonder at where God has brought us. Here are some suggestions to help you get started:
- write from faith; sing of trusting God until you do!
- try to write a poem, not an essay.
- write with candor and honesty. The psalmists have taught us that pain and struggle can be freely expressed to God.
- Go overboard. The psalmists didn’t hold anything back. Give it a try, both praise and pain.
- Use your imagination, images, and pictures.
- Your own experience is the best place to start.
Remember the words of encouragement we heard from Richard Bruxvoort Colligan last Sunday: “Go overboard. Go overboard like the psalmists do.” These need not be polished, nor do we need to expect that they will be masterpieces on first attempt.But let us lift up our words to the Spirit. This week, write a psalm of assurance, affirming that God’s love is still present in the world. And please share them. If you wish, record yourself reading your psalm. I hope to hear these new psalms in our worship this month.
July 5, 2020 Psalms of Dis-Orientation, Desolation
THere are psalms that are absolutely painful. The poets held nothing back in describing their grief, fear, anger, and despair. All of the stability, dependability, and constancy of the psalms of orientation that we visited last week have been stripped away. These psalms give us naked emotion, the real guts of the negativity that can be a part of being human. THey are an invitation to share even our shadows with God. So hold on, this is going to be a bumpy ride.
Psalm 13
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I bear pain in my soul,
and have sorrow in my heart all day long?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
Consider and answer me, O Lord my God!
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,
and my enemy will say, “I have prevailed”;
my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.
But I trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
because God has dealt bountifully with me.
This song sings out from the agony of defeat. We do not know who the psalmist’s enemy was, or in what way they prevailed. But I think each of us has had those moments when life itself has kicked us down, when we have used every resource we have or can think of, and there is no hope of relief. Yet for all the shadowy pain this psalm expresses, it still lights a candle - it still clings to the idea that even when life is awful, God is good.
The psalmist uses a special term for the way God deals with humanity: steadfast love. In Hebrew, this is a particular kind of love, one for which there is no adequate word in English. It is “hesed,” and in that simple ancient word is wrapped up all the ideas and experiences of unconditional, unwavering, enveloping, unexpiring, advocating, revivifying, guiding, unrelenting love. It is the character of God that upholds us when we are at the end of our rope.
Psalm 137
By the rivers of Babylon--
there we sat down and there we wept
when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there
we hung up our harps.
For there our captors
asked us for songs,
and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
How could we sing the Lord’s song
in a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand wither!
Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
above my highest joy.
Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites
the day of Jerusalem’s fall,
how they said, “Tear it down! Tear it down!
Down to its foundations!”
O daughter Babylon, you devastator!
Happy shall they be who pay you back
what you have done to us!
Happy shall they be who take your little ones
and dash them against the rock!
This psalm contains some of the most poignant and most horrifying imagery in the bible. It was written after Babyon conquered Israel, destroyed the temple, and took many of the Israelites into exile. The opening stanzas drip with the grieving tears of a people torn from their homes. They are taunted by their conquerors to sing their old home songs, now that they have no home left. In a pathos-filled irony, this song sings of that time when the bards hung up their harps on the branches of the trees because their grief was so heavy they could sing no longer.
The middle stanza swells with the love of a Jerusalem that doesn’t exist anymore, that was destroyed by the Babylonian armies. It is a pledge to never forget that which is now gone, and gone forever it seems. The Israelites are in exile because one of Babylon’s strategies for utterly defeating an enemy was to bring them back to Baylon where they would intermingle, marry, and raise families - where they would forget who they were and where they came from. BUt the psalmist vows this will never happen to them.
The third stanza is a gasp of pain and anger that shocks our modern sensibilities. It is an abject call for vengeance on their conquerors, even down to the toddlers and babies. People so devastated would likely have had little time for Jesus’ teaching to “turn the other cheek.” It is shocking, but it is also honest. Anger is always a reaction to pain, and the pain the psalmist feels is deeper than most of us (hopefully) will ever experience. The psalmist lays before God even the ugly, murderous cry of a wounded soul. While I would never advocate nurturing this kind of negativity, I am comforted that there is nothing human that can not be shared with the Divine who will hold our pain for us until we can again speak of love.
Psalm 88
Lord, God of my salvation,
by day I cry out,
even at night, before you--
let my prayer reach you!
Turn your ear to my outcry
because my whole being is filled with distress;
my life is at the very brink of hell.
I am considered as one of those plummeting into the pit.
I am like those who are beyond help,
drifting among the dead,
lying in the grave, like dead bodies--
those you don’t remember anymore,
those who are cut off from your power.
You placed me down in the deepest pit,
in places dark and deep.
Your anger smothers me;
you subdue me with it, wave after wave. Selah
You’ve made my friends distant.
You’ve made me disgusting to them.
I can’t escape. I’m trapped!
My eyes are tired of looking at my suffering.
I’ve been calling out to you every day, Lord--
I’ve had my hands outstretched to you!
Do you work wonders for the dead?
Do ghosts rise up and give you thanks? Selah
Is your faithful love proclaimed in the grave,
your faithfulness in the underworld?
Are your wonders known in the land of darkness,
your righteousness in the land of oblivion?
But I cry out to you, Lord!
My prayer meets you first thing in the morning!
Why do you reject my very being, Lord?
Why do you hide your face from me?
Since I was young I’ve been afflicted, I’ve been dying.
I’ve endured your terrors. I’m lifeless.
Your fiery anger has overwhelmed me;
your terrors have destroyed me.
They surround me all day long like water;
they engulf me completely.
You’ve made my loved ones and companions distant.
My only friend is darkness.
For me, Psalm 88 is the scariest of the all the psalms. Where most of the other psalms, even the painful ones, have a hopeful (or at least optimistic) hook on the end claiming that God will remember and God will act for justice and salvation - Psalm 88 absolutely does not. Surrounded by terrors and shunned by family, the psalm ends by saying “my only friend is the darkness of a grave. This ancient song heaps desolation upon disaster, each verse affirming that as bad as things are, they can surely get worse. Even God is portrayed as angry and far off.
The Book of Psalms is the songbook for the people of Israel. That means that these particular songs were collected for the people to use corporately in worship. So somewhere in that process somebody felt it was important to include Psalm 88. They (whoever “they” were) thought that the words of Israel needed this agonized expression of pain and grief. This seems extraordinarily odd to us whose culture ties itself in knots to avoid heightened emotions. What are we missing when we self-censor ourselves - especially when we edit out these feelings from our conversations with God?
I invite you all to try your hand at writing a new psalm. We call ourselves New Visions. This may be a way of expressing those new visions to which we are called. Others have done this creative work as well, and the publishers of Reformed Worship magazine offer these guidelines:
- write from the standpoint of faith; trusting God no matter what.
- try to write in poetic form, not prose; verse form, not paragraph.
- write with candor and honesty. The psalmists have taught us that pain and struggle can be freely expressed to God.
- allow our feelings and emotions to show through, because faith is more than knowledge and facts.
- try to use figurative speech, including metaphors and similes like the psalmists used.
- write reflectively after sorting through our own experiences.
Remember the words of encouragement we heard from Richard Bruxvoort Colligan last Sunday: “Go overboard. Go overboard like the psalmists do.” These need not be polished, nor do we need to expect that they will be masterpieces on first attempt.But let us lift up our words to the Spirit. This week, write a psalm of assurance, affirming that God’s love is still present in the world. And please share them. If you wish, record yourself reading your psalm. I hope to hear these new psalms in our worship this month.
June 28, 2020 Pride Month
Luke 15:1-7
Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
So Jesus told them this parable: “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
I knew a young gay man in another community. We got along well because he spoke fluent United Methodist, though I knew he was not a part of any congregation. After getting to know him better, well enough to build up some trust, I asked him about that. Well, I’ve had two phases of church in my life, he responded. The first was growing up when my family went to church every Sunday. It was in phase one I learned that I was an abomination. I learned to fear God and to hide who I truly was. That phase ended when I moved out and went to college. I stopped going to church, and over the next few years I learned not to hide. Phase two began when, after college, I found a church who welcomed me with open arms and taught me that God loves the way I am created, gay and all. I went regularly because I felt at home, and not because anybody made me go. But that phase ended one Sunday morning when I was going into the choir room to get robed for that morning’s service. I heard laughter as I approached, and before I got to the doorway I heard them telling gay jokes, and pretty mean spirited ones at that. I turned around, left the building and I haven’t been back to any church since.
Nobody from that church ever asked him why he quit coming, and he was not inclined to go tell them. I don’t blame him. I don’t doubt that they loved him and counted him as one of their own. But they still hadn’t connected their love for him with the prejudice of so-called jokes told at the expense of LGBTQ people. Their ignorance drove him out.
One of the things that most of us have in common in our phase one experiences of church is that we learned some pretty awful things in Sunday school. I was raised in a pretty rural area and never when we were taught about the parable of the lost sheep did any rancher or farmer tell us that Jesus’ example is the exact opposite of how they handled their own livestock. In the world of economic reality, the 99 sheep in the pen are worth a lot more than one that wanders off. You have to expect some attrition. Jesus’ story is not about the way a real shepherd tends their sheep. It is not about economic reality. It is about soul reality.
In these days when church attendance is eroding like sandy beach cliffs, we tend to guard the 99 pretty closely. Even though we still expect some attrition, the 99 are all we have left. But Jesus’ eyes are not on the sheep safe in the herd. Jesus’ eyes and heart are on the one who wanders off. To be politically provocative in our day. And age, Jesus did not say that all sheep matter. Jesus said the lost sheep matters, the endangered sheep matters. And even today, I believe that is where we will find Christ.
Because of our ignorance and prejudice, the Church has done an excellent job of showing a lot of lone sheep to the gate. The sandy cliffs did not naturally erode. We dug them out. Like modern day Pharisees, we grumble at those who are discovering a rich spirituality without any help from us in the church. But Jesus is quite comfortable in the wilderness that many LGBTQ sheep were driven into. One last thought: My friend that I spoke of earlier likes to say that not all who wander are lost. Maybe it was the one sheep who found Jesus!
Questions to Consider
To recall last week’s scripture, if we are ambassadors of Christ’s reconciliation, where are we searching for those lost sheep?
How are we making our congregation a safe place for every kind of sheep?
What will it take to send us out from the safety of our herd to seek those who seem to be lost?
Luke 15:1-7
Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
So Jesus told them this parable: “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
I knew a young gay man in another community. We got along well because he spoke fluent United Methodist, though I knew he was not a part of any congregation. After getting to know him better, well enough to build up some trust, I asked him about that. Well, I’ve had two phases of church in my life, he responded. The first was growing up when my family went to church every Sunday. It was in phase one I learned that I was an abomination. I learned to fear God and to hide who I truly was. That phase ended when I moved out and went to college. I stopped going to church, and over the next few years I learned not to hide. Phase two began when, after college, I found a church who welcomed me with open arms and taught me that God loves the way I am created, gay and all. I went regularly because I felt at home, and not because anybody made me go. But that phase ended one Sunday morning when I was going into the choir room to get robed for that morning’s service. I heard laughter as I approached, and before I got to the doorway I heard them telling gay jokes, and pretty mean spirited ones at that. I turned around, left the building and I haven’t been back to any church since.
Nobody from that church ever asked him why he quit coming, and he was not inclined to go tell them. I don’t blame him. I don’t doubt that they loved him and counted him as one of their own. But they still hadn’t connected their love for him with the prejudice of so-called jokes told at the expense of LGBTQ people. Their ignorance drove him out.
One of the things that most of us have in common in our phase one experiences of church is that we learned some pretty awful things in Sunday school. I was raised in a pretty rural area and never when we were taught about the parable of the lost sheep did any rancher or farmer tell us that Jesus’ example is the exact opposite of how they handled their own livestock. In the world of economic reality, the 99 sheep in the pen are worth a lot more than one that wanders off. You have to expect some attrition. Jesus’ story is not about the way a real shepherd tends their sheep. It is not about economic reality. It is about soul reality.
In these days when church attendance is eroding like sandy beach cliffs, we tend to guard the 99 pretty closely. Even though we still expect some attrition, the 99 are all we have left. But Jesus’ eyes are not on the sheep safe in the herd. Jesus’ eyes and heart are on the one who wanders off. To be politically provocative in our day. And age, Jesus did not say that all sheep matter. Jesus said the lost sheep matters, the endangered sheep matters. And even today, I believe that is where we will find Christ.
Because of our ignorance and prejudice, the Church has done an excellent job of showing a lot of lone sheep to the gate. The sandy cliffs did not naturally erode. We dug them out. Like modern day Pharisees, we grumble at those who are discovering a rich spirituality without any help from us in the church. But Jesus is quite comfortable in the wilderness that many LGBTQ sheep were driven into. One last thought: My friend that I spoke of earlier likes to say that not all who wander are lost. Maybe it was the one sheep who found Jesus!
Questions to Consider
To recall last week’s scripture, if we are ambassadors of Christ’s reconciliation, where are we searching for those lost sheep?
How are we making our congregation a safe place for every kind of sheep?
What will it take to send us out from the safety of our herd to seek those who seem to be lost?
June 21, 2020 Pride Month
2 Corinthians 5:17-20
So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled with us through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling with the world, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making this appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
It seems that recently popular Christianity has been a powerful force for division in our society. TV preachers unashamedly decry who is, though more often, who is not acceptable to God. Some of their favorite unacceptables (who get blamed for anything from earthquakes to elections) are gays, feminists, and liberals. They preach a bipolar God, who loves us all but whose hair-trigger anger is all set to destroy us. Study after study points to the judgmentalism and hypocrisy such as this as major reasons why people are deserting churches. When allied with political figures, religion has been one of the most divisive forces in our society.
Though the pandemic has given us a time-out, the United Methodist Church is still on the edge of a rancorous divorce. We are splitting over how to read the Bible, who gets to decide how we read the Bible, and certainly homosexuality in the life of the church. We are baldly displaying the divisiveness of religion.
Controversy and division have been a part of the life of the church since the very beginning. Maybe it’s just human nature. Most if not all of Paul’s letters were written to address a controversy. Paul himself was the epicenter of the first great division in the followers ofJesus. He invited the gentiles, much to the consternation and anger of the Christian leaders in Jerusalem. Yet for all of the tension his ministry embodies, Paul writes that the heart of what we do is reconciliation, bringing together again the things that have been torn apart. Maybe this is the newness that Christ brings to human nature. Where we are inclined to tear apart, Christ living in us gives us a new nature - one that brings us together.
We are a congregation of the Reconciling Ministries Network. United Methodists chose the name “Reconciling” for their LGBTQ-affirming movement precisely because of what Paul wrote. Instead of being those who divide and separate, we celebrate that God has chosen people like us to be ambassadors of Christ’s grace and love.
We are witnessing a great need for reconciliation in American society. THe centuries-old roots of racism have been exposed again. Concurrently, the prejudice and violence inflicted upon the LGBTQ+ community is still raw. There is an ongoing rash of lynchings, particularly of trans people of color. Our role as ambassadors of reconciliation is more important now than it ever has been.
It may be beyond our abilities to reconcile the warring factions within the Church. But those whom the narrow Church has exiled may yet experience the renewing love and welcome of Christ from those of us for whom that love has made room at Christ’s hospitable table.
A final word: This weekend we celebrate Father’s Day. Far too many in the LGBTQ+ community have suffered the lack of a welcoming father. Perhaps part of our ministry of reconciliation is to become the fathers, the family, of embracing love that they are longing to know.
Questions to Consider:
Where are you in need of reconciliation?
When has division caused anger or even harm that you have witnessed?
How might we find the courage to engage the work of reconciliation in this divided world?
2 Corinthians 5:17-20
So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled with us through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling with the world, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making this appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
It seems that recently popular Christianity has been a powerful force for division in our society. TV preachers unashamedly decry who is, though more often, who is not acceptable to God. Some of their favorite unacceptables (who get blamed for anything from earthquakes to elections) are gays, feminists, and liberals. They preach a bipolar God, who loves us all but whose hair-trigger anger is all set to destroy us. Study after study points to the judgmentalism and hypocrisy such as this as major reasons why people are deserting churches. When allied with political figures, religion has been one of the most divisive forces in our society.
Though the pandemic has given us a time-out, the United Methodist Church is still on the edge of a rancorous divorce. We are splitting over how to read the Bible, who gets to decide how we read the Bible, and certainly homosexuality in the life of the church. We are baldly displaying the divisiveness of religion.
Controversy and division have been a part of the life of the church since the very beginning. Maybe it’s just human nature. Most if not all of Paul’s letters were written to address a controversy. Paul himself was the epicenter of the first great division in the followers ofJesus. He invited the gentiles, much to the consternation and anger of the Christian leaders in Jerusalem. Yet for all of the tension his ministry embodies, Paul writes that the heart of what we do is reconciliation, bringing together again the things that have been torn apart. Maybe this is the newness that Christ brings to human nature. Where we are inclined to tear apart, Christ living in us gives us a new nature - one that brings us together.
We are a congregation of the Reconciling Ministries Network. United Methodists chose the name “Reconciling” for their LGBTQ-affirming movement precisely because of what Paul wrote. Instead of being those who divide and separate, we celebrate that God has chosen people like us to be ambassadors of Christ’s grace and love.
We are witnessing a great need for reconciliation in American society. THe centuries-old roots of racism have been exposed again. Concurrently, the prejudice and violence inflicted upon the LGBTQ+ community is still raw. There is an ongoing rash of lynchings, particularly of trans people of color. Our role as ambassadors of reconciliation is more important now than it ever has been.
It may be beyond our abilities to reconcile the warring factions within the Church. But those whom the narrow Church has exiled may yet experience the renewing love and welcome of Christ from those of us for whom that love has made room at Christ’s hospitable table.
A final word: This weekend we celebrate Father’s Day. Far too many in the LGBTQ+ community have suffered the lack of a welcoming father. Perhaps part of our ministry of reconciliation is to become the fathers, the family, of embracing love that they are longing to know.
Questions to Consider:
Where are you in need of reconciliation?
When has division caused anger or even harm that you have witnessed?
How might we find the courage to engage the work of reconciliation in this divided world?
June 14, 2020 Pride Month
Amos 5:21-24
I hate, I despise your festivals,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
I will not look upon.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Amos is a tough book to read. Amos is really, really angry with the people. He evidently had high expectations for his people. The God he writes about is filled with Amos’ own righteous anger. What Amos is angry about is that the people have forgotten the foundations of their covenant with God: caring for the powerless and exiled. They are self-absorbed, pleased with the sounds of their own singing in worship and the eloquence of their own words in their solemn assemblies. For Amos, justice tops every other consideration in the peoples’ relationship with God. I want to remind you that the job of a prophet is not to threaten people with their imminent destruction by an angry God. Really, the job of the prophet is to call the people back into covenant with God. The metaphor of God’s anger is a tool that many of the prophets use in that pursuit.
The Reconciling Ministry Network reminded us in this time of social tension that: “At its core, RMN is a justice organization. LGBTQ justice requires our dedication to racial justice. And LGBTQ freedom requires the abolition of white supremacy.” The prophets’ call for justice is not a competition. It is not an issue of where this one’s need for justice wins over someone else’s. For the prophets, justice is the mode of being in which we faithfully live with God and each other.
The concept of justice often intimidates traditional congregations. Does God expect us all to join the protests? Are we asked to confront racists and fascists with angry chants and scowling faces? Cornel West reminds us to “remember that justice is what love looks like in public.” In other words, justice is an expression of love. The heart of our calling is always love. Not Hallmark card, Carebears kind of sappy love - but the kind of love that makes life better.
In this Pride Month, and when we remember that 2 years ago we chose to become a Reconciling congregation, I hear a resounding call to love strongly, boldly, unconditionally. Both Black Lives Matter and the LGBTQ+ community know the drought in our culture of acceptance and equality. Members of each group have been lynched, arrested, and impugned. Even the Christian church has participated in this oppression, often intentionally and willingly.Maybe not us specifically, but we as Christians have drained the groundwater and the desert has grown and grown. It is more than time to break the drought.
When justice (love in public) shall roll down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream. In this time when we cannot sing together because of the fear of spreading the virus, in this time when we cannot have assemblies (solemn or otherwise) we can still love and love publicly. This is the season to practice justice and love the people too many in our culture want to diminish and destroy. Our unrelenting love will become the everflowing stream that refreshes and restores life. Didn’t Jesus say much the same thing when he told us that we will become fountains of Living Water? Amos is plenty angry already, it is time to let love flow.
Questions to Consider:
What prevents us from loving publicly?
How does the biblical idea of justice differ from how society uses that word?
Describe the drought of love and hope of someone you may know. Describe how you might be a stream of love and justice for them.
Acts 2:1-4
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
Mark 1:10-12
And just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens TORN APART and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
And the Spirit immediately DROVE Jesus out into the wilderness.
“Like the murmur of the dove’s song…” Coo-coo. Pleasant little trill. THat’s not the Holy Spirit I know. Classical painters portrayed the day of Pentecost with these little tea-light flames resting on the heads of the disciples. But I think the Holy Spirit would have set those hairy heads ablaze. When the Spirit shows up, it is impossible to miss her. We have spent thousands of years trying to tame that wild Spirit, calm her down, manage her flame.
The ancient Celts knew the untameable nature of the Holy Spirit. One of their symbols for the Spirit was the Wild Goose. Geese are not lithe and aesthetic like a dove. Geese are ungainly, and if you are not careful they can get cantankerous. Even mean. And they don’t coo. They hiss and they honk. I mean, they HOOONNKKK! If you have ever been honked at by a goose, you know it is not a pleasant experience. It is very different from the ways we tend to describe religious or spiritual experiences.
Acts describes the day of Pentecost, the day the Spirit showed up, as beginning with a straight-line wind. The kind of wind that uproots old trees and tears the roofs off buildings. It is, in my opinion, a great way to describe the new thing God is doing with the Spirit. Yet she is scary. She will blow away everything I depend on, everything I know. The Gospel of Mark gave us an inkling of the Spirit’s nature, one that Matthew and Luke tried to soften. Those later gospel writers say that after Jesus’ baptism the Spirit “led” him into the wilderness. Mark tells us that she drove Jesus out there. The Greek word is that she actually “cast him out” into the wilderness. This is not a passive figure. This is the Wild Goose.
Last year I (naively) began asking what New Visions would look like if we didn’t have a building. My intent was not to divest ourselves of any more property, but simply to nudge us into thinking a little differently about what ministry can look like. I don’t don’t believe that the Spirit dreamed us this pandemic to make my question more real than I could ever imagine, but that she shows up in the midst of this devastating time to remind us that we are not helpless or abandoned or out of options. In many ways, she has driven us into a whole new wilderness that we would never have ventured into under our own auspices. Lately I’ve been hearing the Wild Goose doing a lot of honking.
Pentecost is often called the birthday of the church. Some people bake cakes and have party hats. But it seems to me that it was much more of a birth day, labor pains and all. These pains we are feeling in these days dictated by Covid-19 may in fact be the pains leading to a new kind of life - for us as individuals and as a community called New Visions. Being exiled from our worship and study spaces may actually be the Spirit driving us out into a new world. What will this lead to? Could the disciples imagine what the Church might become on that day of Pentecost? The wind is blowing hard, and that cranky goose is flapping and honking and moving us into an entirely new way of being the People of Christ.
Questions to Consider:
What has been the most difficult for you to give up these days?
How can we support those whose hopes and lives have been almost blown away by the fearsome winds of these days?
What visions of ministry might be emerging in these crazy times?
Amos 5:21-24
I hate, I despise your festivals,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
I will not look upon.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Amos is a tough book to read. Amos is really, really angry with the people. He evidently had high expectations for his people. The God he writes about is filled with Amos’ own righteous anger. What Amos is angry about is that the people have forgotten the foundations of their covenant with God: caring for the powerless and exiled. They are self-absorbed, pleased with the sounds of their own singing in worship and the eloquence of their own words in their solemn assemblies. For Amos, justice tops every other consideration in the peoples’ relationship with God. I want to remind you that the job of a prophet is not to threaten people with their imminent destruction by an angry God. Really, the job of the prophet is to call the people back into covenant with God. The metaphor of God’s anger is a tool that many of the prophets use in that pursuit.
The Reconciling Ministry Network reminded us in this time of social tension that: “At its core, RMN is a justice organization. LGBTQ justice requires our dedication to racial justice. And LGBTQ freedom requires the abolition of white supremacy.” The prophets’ call for justice is not a competition. It is not an issue of where this one’s need for justice wins over someone else’s. For the prophets, justice is the mode of being in which we faithfully live with God and each other.
The concept of justice often intimidates traditional congregations. Does God expect us all to join the protests? Are we asked to confront racists and fascists with angry chants and scowling faces? Cornel West reminds us to “remember that justice is what love looks like in public.” In other words, justice is an expression of love. The heart of our calling is always love. Not Hallmark card, Carebears kind of sappy love - but the kind of love that makes life better.
In this Pride Month, and when we remember that 2 years ago we chose to become a Reconciling congregation, I hear a resounding call to love strongly, boldly, unconditionally. Both Black Lives Matter and the LGBTQ+ community know the drought in our culture of acceptance and equality. Members of each group have been lynched, arrested, and impugned. Even the Christian church has participated in this oppression, often intentionally and willingly.Maybe not us specifically, but we as Christians have drained the groundwater and the desert has grown and grown. It is more than time to break the drought.
When justice (love in public) shall roll down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream. In this time when we cannot sing together because of the fear of spreading the virus, in this time when we cannot have assemblies (solemn or otherwise) we can still love and love publicly. This is the season to practice justice and love the people too many in our culture want to diminish and destroy. Our unrelenting love will become the everflowing stream that refreshes and restores life. Didn’t Jesus say much the same thing when he told us that we will become fountains of Living Water? Amos is plenty angry already, it is time to let love flow.
Questions to Consider:
What prevents us from loving publicly?
How does the biblical idea of justice differ from how society uses that word?
Describe the drought of love and hope of someone you may know. Describe how you might be a stream of love and justice for them.
Acts 2:1-4
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
Mark 1:10-12
And just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens TORN APART and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
And the Spirit immediately DROVE Jesus out into the wilderness.
“Like the murmur of the dove’s song…” Coo-coo. Pleasant little trill. THat’s not the Holy Spirit I know. Classical painters portrayed the day of Pentecost with these little tea-light flames resting on the heads of the disciples. But I think the Holy Spirit would have set those hairy heads ablaze. When the Spirit shows up, it is impossible to miss her. We have spent thousands of years trying to tame that wild Spirit, calm her down, manage her flame.
The ancient Celts knew the untameable nature of the Holy Spirit. One of their symbols for the Spirit was the Wild Goose. Geese are not lithe and aesthetic like a dove. Geese are ungainly, and if you are not careful they can get cantankerous. Even mean. And they don’t coo. They hiss and they honk. I mean, they HOOONNKKK! If you have ever been honked at by a goose, you know it is not a pleasant experience. It is very different from the ways we tend to describe religious or spiritual experiences.
Acts describes the day of Pentecost, the day the Spirit showed up, as beginning with a straight-line wind. The kind of wind that uproots old trees and tears the roofs off buildings. It is, in my opinion, a great way to describe the new thing God is doing with the Spirit. Yet she is scary. She will blow away everything I depend on, everything I know. The Gospel of Mark gave us an inkling of the Spirit’s nature, one that Matthew and Luke tried to soften. Those later gospel writers say that after Jesus’ baptism the Spirit “led” him into the wilderness. Mark tells us that she drove Jesus out there. The Greek word is that she actually “cast him out” into the wilderness. This is not a passive figure. This is the Wild Goose.
Last year I (naively) began asking what New Visions would look like if we didn’t have a building. My intent was not to divest ourselves of any more property, but simply to nudge us into thinking a little differently about what ministry can look like. I don’t don’t believe that the Spirit dreamed us this pandemic to make my question more real than I could ever imagine, but that she shows up in the midst of this devastating time to remind us that we are not helpless or abandoned or out of options. In many ways, she has driven us into a whole new wilderness that we would never have ventured into under our own auspices. Lately I’ve been hearing the Wild Goose doing a lot of honking.
Pentecost is often called the birthday of the church. Some people bake cakes and have party hats. But it seems to me that it was much more of a birth day, labor pains and all. These pains we are feeling in these days dictated by Covid-19 may in fact be the pains leading to a new kind of life - for us as individuals and as a community called New Visions. Being exiled from our worship and study spaces may actually be the Spirit driving us out into a new world. What will this lead to? Could the disciples imagine what the Church might become on that day of Pentecost? The wind is blowing hard, and that cranky goose is flapping and honking and moving us into an entirely new way of being the People of Christ.
Questions to Consider:
What has been the most difficult for you to give up these days?
How can we support those whose hopes and lives have been almost blown away by the fearsome winds of these days?
What visions of ministry might be emerging in these crazy times?
Joshua 4:1-7
When the entire nation had finished crossing over the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua: “Select twelve men from the people, one from each tribe, and command them, ‘Take twelve stones from here out of the middle of the Jordan, from the place where the priests’ feet stood, carry them over with you, and lay them down in the place where you camp tonight.’” Then Joshua summoned the twelve men from the Israelites, whom he had appointed, one from each tribe. Joshua said to them, “Pass on before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan, and each of you take up a stone on his shoulder, one for each of the tribes of the Israelites, so that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off in front of the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the Israelites a memorial forever.”
One of our favorite TV shows is “FInding Your Roots.” More than digging up the dates and figures of the guests’ ancestors, the show helps them restore these people to their family histories and stories. Many of the guests begin the process feeling unanchored but discover that they are deeply rooted in the passions and commitments of family they never knew. They are “re-membered” into their family story.
Memory is a vital tool for making deep connections. I think that is why MemorialDay has become such a big holiday for oursociety.Originally, and still importantly, Memorial Day was set aside to remember those who had sacrificed their lives in the service of our country. But in recent years that memory has expanded as a day to remember and honor all in our families who have died. We visit their graves, leaving decorations and flowers, and often telling those stories that bring them close.
The wandering of the Hebrews has come to end. The tribes are crossing the Jordan into the land promised to them. But before they settle in, God has one more task for them. Joshua is instructed to choose a representative from each tribe, who will take a stone from the riverbed (the waters of the Jordan being divided just like the Red sea so the people could cross over). These stones are erected as a monument that the children might ask why these stones are standing here. That then gives the elders the opportunity to tell the story of how God delivered them from slavery and guided them safely to this their home. They pass the memory one. They establish the deep connection, knowing they are a people of this liberation story.
A lot of our families are spending more time together than we had imagined a few months ago. Maybe this is a time for telling our stories, where we come from and how that makes us who we are. New Visions has three congregations worth of history, memories and stories. Combined, we have almost three hundred years of ancestors, founders, and faithful disciples. This year we mark 10 years as New Visions. We could do worse with this time than to tell each other those stories.
Questions to Consider:
In your own family, what are your memory stones?
Who are those who in one way or another have guided you in faith?
How do our forebears connect us together today? What good news do we have to tell today?
When the entire nation had finished crossing over the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua: “Select twelve men from the people, one from each tribe, and command them, ‘Take twelve stones from here out of the middle of the Jordan, from the place where the priests’ feet stood, carry them over with you, and lay them down in the place where you camp tonight.’” Then Joshua summoned the twelve men from the Israelites, whom he had appointed, one from each tribe. Joshua said to them, “Pass on before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan, and each of you take up a stone on his shoulder, one for each of the tribes of the Israelites, so that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off in front of the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the Israelites a memorial forever.”
One of our favorite TV shows is “FInding Your Roots.” More than digging up the dates and figures of the guests’ ancestors, the show helps them restore these people to their family histories and stories. Many of the guests begin the process feeling unanchored but discover that they are deeply rooted in the passions and commitments of family they never knew. They are “re-membered” into their family story.
Memory is a vital tool for making deep connections. I think that is why MemorialDay has become such a big holiday for oursociety.Originally, and still importantly, Memorial Day was set aside to remember those who had sacrificed their lives in the service of our country. But in recent years that memory has expanded as a day to remember and honor all in our families who have died. We visit their graves, leaving decorations and flowers, and often telling those stories that bring them close.
The wandering of the Hebrews has come to end. The tribes are crossing the Jordan into the land promised to them. But before they settle in, God has one more task for them. Joshua is instructed to choose a representative from each tribe, who will take a stone from the riverbed (the waters of the Jordan being divided just like the Red sea so the people could cross over). These stones are erected as a monument that the children might ask why these stones are standing here. That then gives the elders the opportunity to tell the story of how God delivered them from slavery and guided them safely to this their home. They pass the memory one. They establish the deep connection, knowing they are a people of this liberation story.
A lot of our families are spending more time together than we had imagined a few months ago. Maybe this is a time for telling our stories, where we come from and how that makes us who we are. New Visions has three congregations worth of history, memories and stories. Combined, we have almost three hundred years of ancestors, founders, and faithful disciples. This year we mark 10 years as New Visions. We could do worse with this time than to tell each other those stories.
Questions to Consider:
In your own family, what are your memory stones?
Who are those who in one way or another have guided you in faith?
How do our forebears connect us together today? What good news do we have to tell today?
1 Kings 17:2-6
The word of God came to Elijah, saying, ‘Go from here and turn eastwards, and hide yourself by the Wadi Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. You shall drink from the wadi, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.’ So he went and did according to the word ofGod; he went and lived by the Wadi Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the wadi.
Elijah the prophet spent as much time social distancing as anybody in the Bible. And, no, he mostly didn’t choose to do it on his own. Jesus withdrew from the crowds to rest and recharge and spend time with God. Elijah simply made himself unpopular with the powers that be and they put a price on his head. So God implements a Directed Health Measure for Elijah and tells him to self-quarantine in the cutbanks of Cherith Creek. I love that the NRSV translates that as a “wadi.” A wadi by definition is a gully that is dry except in the rainy season. So in Elijah’s quarinte the creek was running, at least for the time being. I get the sense that even calling the Cherith a “creek” may have been an overestimation. It seems to me that the Cherith was more of a “crick,” as we used to call them. The picture painted here is that Elijah was not reclining in the lap of luxury. And his food was delivered not by some grocery service. He ate the scraps the crows left him. Crows and ravens are not known for their discerning palettes. They will eat anything they get access to, dead or alive, kosher or decaying. If you feel that staying at home has inconvenienced you these days, be grateful you aren’t Elijah at the Cherith.
One of the vagaries of translating from ancient Hebrew into English gives us a little subtext of what may have been going on in this story. Ahab son of Omri becomes the latest in a long line of rotten kings of Israel. His predessors commit all sorts of crimes from theft to arson to murder, and then the narrator of the book simply says: “Ahab son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him.” Elijah, faithful to God, takes on Ahab and pays the price for it. He becomes an enemy of the state. It is at this point that God enacts the DHM for Elijah. You’ve heard that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”? The word that is translated in English most often as “ravens” in this text may also refer to the Philistines, the enemies of Israel (as in “those Philistines are vultures). So this passage may imply that it was the Philistines who fed and cared for Elijah. Regardless, we are told that God will provide what is needed, even in unexpected and surprising ways.
Many of us have been discovering in these set apart days that a lot of what we thought were necessities have really been overstated preferences. Most of us are lucky enough to be worry-free about the true necessities: food, shelter, even toilet paper. And we are discovering that there are deep, interior necessities that we have been neglecting. I believe that even before the advent of the virus, we were hungry for deep connection and affirmation. Now in the midst of this time of isolation and distance, we are finding the crow-scraps of connection, of the bread that keeps us alive. As we hunker down in the wadi of fear, the ravens are flapping and fluttering down from God to meet our real needs.
Questions to Consider:
In order to really be alive, what is a true necessity for you?
When have you been unexpectedly fed? What was it you received?
How might we be feeding (materially or otherwise) those in New Visions, or in our community?
The word of God came to Elijah, saying, ‘Go from here and turn eastwards, and hide yourself by the Wadi Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. You shall drink from the wadi, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.’ So he went and did according to the word ofGod; he went and lived by the Wadi Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the wadi.
Elijah the prophet spent as much time social distancing as anybody in the Bible. And, no, he mostly didn’t choose to do it on his own. Jesus withdrew from the crowds to rest and recharge and spend time with God. Elijah simply made himself unpopular with the powers that be and they put a price on his head. So God implements a Directed Health Measure for Elijah and tells him to self-quarantine in the cutbanks of Cherith Creek. I love that the NRSV translates that as a “wadi.” A wadi by definition is a gully that is dry except in the rainy season. So in Elijah’s quarinte the creek was running, at least for the time being. I get the sense that even calling the Cherith a “creek” may have been an overestimation. It seems to me that the Cherith was more of a “crick,” as we used to call them. The picture painted here is that Elijah was not reclining in the lap of luxury. And his food was delivered not by some grocery service. He ate the scraps the crows left him. Crows and ravens are not known for their discerning palettes. They will eat anything they get access to, dead or alive, kosher or decaying. If you feel that staying at home has inconvenienced you these days, be grateful you aren’t Elijah at the Cherith.
One of the vagaries of translating from ancient Hebrew into English gives us a little subtext of what may have been going on in this story. Ahab son of Omri becomes the latest in a long line of rotten kings of Israel. His predessors commit all sorts of crimes from theft to arson to murder, and then the narrator of the book simply says: “Ahab son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him.” Elijah, faithful to God, takes on Ahab and pays the price for it. He becomes an enemy of the state. It is at this point that God enacts the DHM for Elijah. You’ve heard that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”? The word that is translated in English most often as “ravens” in this text may also refer to the Philistines, the enemies of Israel (as in “those Philistines are vultures). So this passage may imply that it was the Philistines who fed and cared for Elijah. Regardless, we are told that God will provide what is needed, even in unexpected and surprising ways.
Many of us have been discovering in these set apart days that a lot of what we thought were necessities have really been overstated preferences. Most of us are lucky enough to be worry-free about the true necessities: food, shelter, even toilet paper. And we are discovering that there are deep, interior necessities that we have been neglecting. I believe that even before the advent of the virus, we were hungry for deep connection and affirmation. Now in the midst of this time of isolation and distance, we are finding the crow-scraps of connection, of the bread that keeps us alive. As we hunker down in the wadi of fear, the ravens are flapping and fluttering down from God to meet our real needs.
Questions to Consider:
In order to really be alive, what is a true necessity for you?
When have you been unexpectedly fed? What was it you received?
How might we be feeding (materially or otherwise) those in New Visions, or in our community?
1 Kings 17:2-6
The word of God came to Elijah, saying, ‘Go from here and turn eastwards, and hide yourself by the Wadi Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. You shall drink from the wadi, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.’ So he went and did according to the word ofGod; he went and lived by the Wadi Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the wadi.
Elijah the prophet spent as much time social distancing as anybody in the Bible. And, no, he mostly didn’t choose to do it on his own. Jesus withdrew from the crowds to rest and recharge and spend time with God. Elijah simply made himself unpopular with the powers that be and they put a price on his head. So God implements a Directed Health Measure for Elijah and tells him to self-quarantine in the cutbanks of Cherith Creek. I love that the NRSV translates that as a “wadi.” A wadi by definition is a gully that is dry except in the rainy season. So in Elijah’s quarinte the creek was running, at least for the time being. I get the sense that even calling the Cherith a “creek” may have been an overestimation. It seems to me that the Cherith was more of a “crick,” as we used to call them. The picture painted here is that Elijah was not reclining in the lap of luxury. And his food was delivered not by some grocery service. He ate the scraps the crows left him. Crows and ravens are not known for their discerning palettes. They will eat anything they get access to, dead or alive, kosher or decaying. If you feel that staying at home has inconvenienced you these days, be grateful you aren’t Elijah at the Cherith.
One of the vagaries of translating from ancient Hebrew into English gives us a little subtext of what may have been going on in this story. Ahab son of Omri becomes the latest in a long line of rotten kings of Israel. His predessors commit all sorts of crimes from theft to arson to murder, and then the narrator of the book simply says: “Ahab son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him.” Elijah, faithful to God, takes on Ahab and pays the price for it. He becomes an enemy of the state. It is at this point that God enacts the DHM for Elijah. You’ve heard that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”? The word that is translated in English most often as “ravens” in this text may also refer to the Philistines, the enemies of Israel (as in “those Philistines are vultures). So this passage may imply that it was the Philistines who fed and cared for Elijah. Regardless, we are told that God will provide what is needed, even in unexpected and surprising ways.
Many of us have been discovering in these set apart days that a lot of what we thought were necessities have really been overstated preferences. Most of us are lucky enough to be worry-free about the true necessities: food, shelter, even toilet paper. And we are discovering that there are deep, interior necessities that we have been neglecting. I believe that even before the advent of the virus, we were hungry for deep connection and affirmation. Now in the midst of this time of isolation and distance, we are finding the crow-scraps of connection, of the bread that keeps us alive. As we hunker down in the wadi of fear, the ravens are flapping and fluttering down from God to meet our real needs.
Questions to Consider:
In order to really be alive, what is a true necessity for you?
When have you been unexpectedly fed? What was it you received?
How might we be feeding (materially or otherwise) those in New Visions, or in our community?
The word of God came to Elijah, saying, ‘Go from here and turn eastwards, and hide yourself by the Wadi Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. You shall drink from the wadi, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.’ So he went and did according to the word ofGod; he went and lived by the Wadi Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the wadi.
Elijah the prophet spent as much time social distancing as anybody in the Bible. And, no, he mostly didn’t choose to do it on his own. Jesus withdrew from the crowds to rest and recharge and spend time with God. Elijah simply made himself unpopular with the powers that be and they put a price on his head. So God implements a Directed Health Measure for Elijah and tells him to self-quarantine in the cutbanks of Cherith Creek. I love that the NRSV translates that as a “wadi.” A wadi by definition is a gully that is dry except in the rainy season. So in Elijah’s quarinte the creek was running, at least for the time being. I get the sense that even calling the Cherith a “creek” may have been an overestimation. It seems to me that the Cherith was more of a “crick,” as we used to call them. The picture painted here is that Elijah was not reclining in the lap of luxury. And his food was delivered not by some grocery service. He ate the scraps the crows left him. Crows and ravens are not known for their discerning palettes. They will eat anything they get access to, dead or alive, kosher or decaying. If you feel that staying at home has inconvenienced you these days, be grateful you aren’t Elijah at the Cherith.
One of the vagaries of translating from ancient Hebrew into English gives us a little subtext of what may have been going on in this story. Ahab son of Omri becomes the latest in a long line of rotten kings of Israel. His predessors commit all sorts of crimes from theft to arson to murder, and then the narrator of the book simply says: “Ahab son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him.” Elijah, faithful to God, takes on Ahab and pays the price for it. He becomes an enemy of the state. It is at this point that God enacts the DHM for Elijah. You’ve heard that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”? The word that is translated in English most often as “ravens” in this text may also refer to the Philistines, the enemies of Israel (as in “those Philistines are vultures). So this passage may imply that it was the Philistines who fed and cared for Elijah. Regardless, we are told that God will provide what is needed, even in unexpected and surprising ways.
Many of us have been discovering in these set apart days that a lot of what we thought were necessities have really been overstated preferences. Most of us are lucky enough to be worry-free about the true necessities: food, shelter, even toilet paper. And we are discovering that there are deep, interior necessities that we have been neglecting. I believe that even before the advent of the virus, we were hungry for deep connection and affirmation. Now in the midst of this time of isolation and distance, we are finding the crow-scraps of connection, of the bread that keeps us alive. As we hunker down in the wadi of fear, the ravens are flapping and fluttering down from God to meet our real needs.
Questions to Consider:
In order to really be alive, what is a true necessity for you?
When have you been unexpectedly fed? What was it you received?
How might we be feeding (materially or otherwise) those in New Visions, or in our community?
John 4:5-15
So Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
The Gospel of John doesn’t give us much backstory on the woman at the well. We don’t know the circumstances of her marriages or even her current living arrangement. We assume that something in her choices or her situation means that she spends a lot of time alone. Coming to the well in the heat of the day seems like a choice to avoid the crowds. For whatever reason, this woman preferred solitude.
One of the things about solitude, voluntary or otherwise, is that you have a lot of conversations with yourself. I know that before I do my work, I tend to do my work inside my head. I ponder, I mull, I worry, I dream. It seems that my creativity starts inside my head and gestates there until something is ready to come out into the real world. It makes me wonder how much time this woman spent inside her own head.
I’m guessing that this social distancing is causing some people to spend more time inside their own heads, too. And that some of those people might not have been really prepared for it. Our culture provides a lot of ways to silence to mask our interior voices. But it is pretty evident that people are missing social contact and uncomfortable with this kind of solitude.
We don’t know the conversations the woman at the well was having with herself, but the way John tells the story makes it clear that she was thirsty. Thirsty enough to hold a conversation with a strange man. What John tells us is that this stranger was able to give to her exactly what she was thirsty for - Living Water. Our time of isolation is not yet over, and I fear that we may be rushing to end it far too soon (as far as public health and safety are concerned). But I think this virus and our society’s response to it actually brings out the thirst and fear that were already in place but disguised and covered over. We are thirsty for meaningful contact, for forgiveness of all the things we think about in the privacy of our own heads that we fear are unforgivable, for a love that like water can cover us completely and unconditionally. The woman at the well didn’t need the approval of the crowds in her hometown. She needed the love and grace of Jesus. As we continue to practice social distancing (and I urge you to remain vigilant!), it is not just the crowds we crave. Really, it is to taste that love and self-acceptance that makes us comfortable in our own company. It is the Living Water of welcome that Christ offers.
Questions to Consider:
When you are by yourself, what do you crave?
Who has offered you welcome and acceptance? Was it easy to receive?
How can we share Christ’s Water of Welcoming Love with others, especially in this isolated time?
So Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
The Gospel of John doesn’t give us much backstory on the woman at the well. We don’t know the circumstances of her marriages or even her current living arrangement. We assume that something in her choices or her situation means that she spends a lot of time alone. Coming to the well in the heat of the day seems like a choice to avoid the crowds. For whatever reason, this woman preferred solitude.
One of the things about solitude, voluntary or otherwise, is that you have a lot of conversations with yourself. I know that before I do my work, I tend to do my work inside my head. I ponder, I mull, I worry, I dream. It seems that my creativity starts inside my head and gestates there until something is ready to come out into the real world. It makes me wonder how much time this woman spent inside her own head.
I’m guessing that this social distancing is causing some people to spend more time inside their own heads, too. And that some of those people might not have been really prepared for it. Our culture provides a lot of ways to silence to mask our interior voices. But it is pretty evident that people are missing social contact and uncomfortable with this kind of solitude.
We don’t know the conversations the woman at the well was having with herself, but the way John tells the story makes it clear that she was thirsty. Thirsty enough to hold a conversation with a strange man. What John tells us is that this stranger was able to give to her exactly what she was thirsty for - Living Water. Our time of isolation is not yet over, and I fear that we may be rushing to end it far too soon (as far as public health and safety are concerned). But I think this virus and our society’s response to it actually brings out the thirst and fear that were already in place but disguised and covered over. We are thirsty for meaningful contact, for forgiveness of all the things we think about in the privacy of our own heads that we fear are unforgivable, for a love that like water can cover us completely and unconditionally. The woman at the well didn’t need the approval of the crowds in her hometown. She needed the love and grace of Jesus. As we continue to practice social distancing (and I urge you to remain vigilant!), it is not just the crowds we crave. Really, it is to taste that love and self-acceptance that makes us comfortable in our own company. It is the Living Water of welcome that Christ offers.
Questions to Consider:
When you are by yourself, what do you crave?
Who has offered you welcome and acceptance? Was it easy to receive?
How can we share Christ’s Water of Welcoming Love with others, especially in this isolated time?
April 26
John 20:19-23
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
An acquaintance of mine, an avid runner, described tearing a ligament in his knee. “I depended on my knees every day. Every run I took, they carried me faithfully. But that one time I didn’t see the rock or the hole - I still don’t know what did it - but my lower leg twisted under me and I went right down on the trail. When I tried to get back up (denying that I was in excruciating pain), my faithful knee wouldn’t hold me. It was like it had fallen apart. Which it had. The ligament holding it all together was ripped to shreds.”
I imagine that the disciples felt like Jesus was the ligament holding them all together. They had seen him die and it probably seemed like the whole enterprise was falling apart. Sure, Mary told them this fanciful story about seeing Jesus in the garden, but that had to be a wishful dream, didn’t it? Surely now, when things cooled off, they’d all go their separate ways and all this Kin-dom of God talk would be forgotten. Jesus was the cord that bound them together but it had been sliced through like the Gordian knot.
Scared silly, they locked the door behind them and quarantined themselves in the upper room. Though they were in the same place, they could almost feel the distance growing between them. And what should happen? This very Jesus who was the torn ligament whose death ripped them apart, showed up (locked doors be damned!) and put them back together!
The risen Christ says 3 things to them, and all three have to do with reconnecting: In the midst of fear and anxiety, receive peace. In the face of death (Jesus’ death, the death of their hopes, the death of their movement, etc.) receive the Spirit of Life. And in all you do, remember that you are all connected - forgive and be free, or hold a grudge and be bound up. One way or the other, you are all in this together.
I fully support our efforts at social distancing. I really believe that it makes a difference, especially in protecting those who are most vulnerable. But it does leave us feeling disconnected and sometimes isolated. How do we continue to be the church when we can’t get together? How can we still be United Methodists when we can’t have a potluck dinner?
I think our words hold a hidden secret. Did you know that etymologically the “lig” in ligament is the same “lig” in religion? The root of both words has to do with binding things together. Our ligaments bind our joints together so they can function. Religion is the way we bind ourselves together as a spiritual people. Now religion in many ways has lost sight of this, and has become more divisive than binding in the world. Certainly organized religion has become anathema for a lot of folk, especially in younger generations. But I feel that we can reclaim and renew that original sense of religion, that which binds us together in love.
In these days of distancing and isolation, in this Easter season, we who have read these old, old stories should open ourselves to the possibility that somehow the risen Christ will visit us again. Christ still offers those same 3 gifts in our current situation: peace, life, and connection. It will take some extra on our part to live into these gifts, but they are there for us. Our phones, gadgets, and screens allow us to connect with each other but we have to remember to reach out. All it takes is a little bit of intention. We can reassure each other when we are anxious. We can offer peace instead of fear. We can re-establish and strengthen our connections with each other even if we find ourselves sequestered in an upper room. Let the love of Christ be the ligament that holds New Visions together, and allows us to keep moving!
Questions to Consider:
What doors have we locked, intentionally or otherwise, trying to keep the world out?
When have we been offered the gifts of peace, or new life, or connection, maybe without realizing it?
Who around needs to know they are not locked away, but deeply connected to us?
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
An acquaintance of mine, an avid runner, described tearing a ligament in his knee. “I depended on my knees every day. Every run I took, they carried me faithfully. But that one time I didn’t see the rock or the hole - I still don’t know what did it - but my lower leg twisted under me and I went right down on the trail. When I tried to get back up (denying that I was in excruciating pain), my faithful knee wouldn’t hold me. It was like it had fallen apart. Which it had. The ligament holding it all together was ripped to shreds.”
I imagine that the disciples felt like Jesus was the ligament holding them all together. They had seen him die and it probably seemed like the whole enterprise was falling apart. Sure, Mary told them this fanciful story about seeing Jesus in the garden, but that had to be a wishful dream, didn’t it? Surely now, when things cooled off, they’d all go their separate ways and all this Kin-dom of God talk would be forgotten. Jesus was the cord that bound them together but it had been sliced through like the Gordian knot.
Scared silly, they locked the door behind them and quarantined themselves in the upper room. Though they were in the same place, they could almost feel the distance growing between them. And what should happen? This very Jesus who was the torn ligament whose death ripped them apart, showed up (locked doors be damned!) and put them back together!
The risen Christ says 3 things to them, and all three have to do with reconnecting: In the midst of fear and anxiety, receive peace. In the face of death (Jesus’ death, the death of their hopes, the death of their movement, etc.) receive the Spirit of Life. And in all you do, remember that you are all connected - forgive and be free, or hold a grudge and be bound up. One way or the other, you are all in this together.
I fully support our efforts at social distancing. I really believe that it makes a difference, especially in protecting those who are most vulnerable. But it does leave us feeling disconnected and sometimes isolated. How do we continue to be the church when we can’t get together? How can we still be United Methodists when we can’t have a potluck dinner?
I think our words hold a hidden secret. Did you know that etymologically the “lig” in ligament is the same “lig” in religion? The root of both words has to do with binding things together. Our ligaments bind our joints together so they can function. Religion is the way we bind ourselves together as a spiritual people. Now religion in many ways has lost sight of this, and has become more divisive than binding in the world. Certainly organized religion has become anathema for a lot of folk, especially in younger generations. But I feel that we can reclaim and renew that original sense of religion, that which binds us together in love.
In these days of distancing and isolation, in this Easter season, we who have read these old, old stories should open ourselves to the possibility that somehow the risen Christ will visit us again. Christ still offers those same 3 gifts in our current situation: peace, life, and connection. It will take some extra on our part to live into these gifts, but they are there for us. Our phones, gadgets, and screens allow us to connect with each other but we have to remember to reach out. All it takes is a little bit of intention. We can reassure each other when we are anxious. We can offer peace instead of fear. We can re-establish and strengthen our connections with each other even if we find ourselves sequestered in an upper room. Let the love of Christ be the ligament that holds New Visions together, and allows us to keep moving!
Questions to Consider:
What doors have we locked, intentionally or otherwise, trying to keep the world out?
When have we been offered the gifts of peace, or new life, or connection, maybe without realizing it?
Who around needs to know they are not locked away, but deeply connected to us?
New Visions United Methodist Church
1610 S 11th Street
Lincoln, NE 68502
402-474-5513
office@newvisionsumc.org
Worship - 10:00 am, Sundays
1610 S 11th Street
Lincoln, NE 68502
402-474-5513
office@newvisionsumc.org
Worship - 10:00 am, Sundays
Administrative Office
1610 S 11th Street Lincoln NE 68502 | 402-474-5513
1610 S 11th Street Lincoln NE 68502 | 402-474-5513
