"Thinking Ahead"
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Church - The New Grindhouse
Luke 12:49-56
It is pretty easy to be a good and faithful Christian
when our lives are all in order and everything is moving ahead just the way we
want it. When everything around us seems
to be in harmony, coming to church is easy, affirming, and it even feels
good. We begin to attribute our success
and joy to our faithfulness. And maybe
this is where you are today.
Content. At ease. Peaceful.
And if you are, we can give great thanks. Enjoy.
Our lectionary however reminds us of the limitations of
this worldview. And undoubtedly this is
our experience at times, but it is not the only experience we will have. The cost of discipleship can be unnerving,
unsettling, pushing us out of comfort zones, and placing us smack down in the
middle of conflict.
This past Wednesday, the church celebrated the feast of
Jonathan Daniels. Daniels was born into
a pretty affluent life in New Hampshire in 1939. Post the Great Depression, I suspect his life
appeared to be somewhat in harmony. He
attended Harvard and began to wrestle with life, death, and calling. On Easter Day, 1962 he had a profound
conversion at Church of the Advent and entered seminary at the Episcopal
Divinity School in Cambridge.
In 1965, he watched Martin Luther King, Jr. on television
and asked to leave seminary to visit Selma, Alabama. He believed he should join the fight for
voter’s rights. He was singing the
Magnificat at Evening Prayer, “He hath put down the mighty from their seat and
hath exalted the humble and meek. He
hath filled the hungry with good things” and he knew his calling. The voice was loud, unsettling, and
unnerving. He left, followed the voice,
and ended up in Selma.
On August 14th he was jailed with others for joining a
picket line, and when unexpectedly released they all walked to a small store,
knowing they were in danger. A sixteen
year named Ruby sales was entering the store when a man with a gun appeared
cursing her. Jonathan pulled her to one
side to shield her from the barrage of the threats. He was killed by a blast from a 12-guage
gun.
In one of Jonathan’s letters where he was justifying his
move to Alabama, he writes, “The doctrine of the creeds, the enacted faith of
the sacraments, were the essential preconditions of the experience itself. The faith with which I went to Selma has not
changed: it has grown... I began to know in my bones and sinews that I had been
truly baptized into the Lord’s death and resurrection… with them, the black men
and white men, with all life, in him whose Name is above all the names that the
races and nations shout… We are indelibly and unspeakably one.”
And Jesus said, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and
how I wish it were already kindled…Do you think that I have come to bring peace
to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather
division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two
and two against three.” I am a little scared because I believe that being a
person of conviction and faith does not make it easier to be in this
world. It does not make life more
comfortable. It does not alleviate
controversy. It does not justify our gains.
Instead our faith, is at first a small voice that calls us deeper and
deeper into the mystery of God. It
pulls at us, challenging us, making us restless, discontent with the reality of
the world because we have faith that God wants a better world, and we are
uneasy with the reality of not yet. As
Jonathan Daniels says, our faith seeps into our bones and sinews. It shakes us up. It makes us uneasy. The Holy Spirit has the power to move us from
serving meals in soup kitchens to hearing the stories of those there and
building relationship to then beginning to wrestle with the structures that get
at the root of the stories. The Holy
Spirit dancing in the world, drawing us out of comfort, compelling us into
radical faith.
The Canon in the diocese of Georgia said last week in his
trending Sharknado sermon, “there is nothing approachable about following
Jesus. Go sell all that you have. Sin no more.
Take up your cross. Give up your
life.” How is that for an Episcopal
Church welcomes you sign? This stuff is
really really hard. It is really
scary. Transformative faith means our
life will never look the same. Following
Jesus sure ain’t easy.
I think we need to pause for just a second. This is heavy stuff. Division.
Fire. Mother against daughter. Father against son. Daughter-in-law against mother-in law. (My wife might be like, no that’s not that
big of deal). Life turned upside
down.
It’s ok.
Everything is alright.
Smile. It is not all doom and
gloom. We believe in Grace. We recognize our need for it. This is our uniquely Christian worldview. A
completely free unconditional gift that reaches us regardless of where we are
on our journey. You can all breathe a
sigh of relief. God’s love reaches
all. No ifs, ands, or buts. It gets there. It is not about our actions or our work, what
we can accomplish, or how many good actions and Karma we can achieve. The very act of being born is good
enough. And our baptism initiates us
into the fold. Done. Sign. Sealed. Delivered.
But we do have to think.
We do have to wonder. We have to
ask ourselves, are we too comfortable.
Are we afraid of controversy? Are
we afraid of speaking up for the sake of the Truth of the Gospel? Are we scared of taking risks that demand us
to really get dirty and do some hard, grueling, grinding work?
I think that what stuck with me the most from the book we
studied last week was the concept of Ruach or as we understand it as Holy
Spirit, drawing us forward in life, pulling us along, and our job in life is to
be aware of the spirit and to be in harmony living it out. It is a beautiful sentiment and I believe it
to be true.
Luke however reminds us today, that part harmony with God
can be unsettling. It can cause tension
in relationships. Mother against
daughter, Father against son.
Daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.
It means that sometimes we put in some grit and grind. Stir up the pot. We can’t always be worried about the
controversy that arrives from our convictions.
We’ve got to grind it out. We live in a city that is famous for its Grit
and Grind. Maybe the church is supposed to be the new
GrindHouse. This nickname has
revitalized Memphis’ image and a tough as nails basketball city, that won’t
talk smack from anyone. What if it’s not
the Fedex Forum, but church… the new GrindHouse.
This is where we come to be stirred up, shaken up, and
compelled to go out. And if we find
ourselves butting up against controversy and in dangerous territory, then maybe
today’s Gospel can remind us that we might just be in the right place.
When we run into a little conflict, we might just be
right where we need to be. If our
prayers causes us to be restless as night wanting to more deeply care for all
of God’s creation, and we don’t know how to respond, but it scares the
daylights out of us. Maybe we are in the
right place. If the words of our prayers,
and Collects, the Gloria, the Magnicat, and the ancient hymns we sing each day
are seeping into our bones and sinews, and it is cause not peace, but
unrest. Maybe we are in the right
place. And if each week when we take the
body of Christ, broken for the entire world, and place it on our tongues, and
we give thanks for a gift we are not worthy by any merit of our own to receive,
and it draws us forward, pulling us to a harmony that unsettles our entire
being. Maybe we are in the right place. Amen.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Monday, August 12, 2013
Being a Stranger in this Land and Asking Questions in Community
About
10 years ago I was living on the other side of the pond, studying at the
University of Wales in Swansea. My buddy
Eric and I decided to take the train through the Chunnel and visit Paris. Early Friday morning, we took the train to
London and headed to the famous Waterloo station. We were much younger, more flexible, and didn't abide the typical rules. We had
our backpacks, passports, and nothing else.
Oh and a sense of adventure. We
had no reservations, no ideas where to stay, no books or travel guides. This
was before the era of smart phones. All
we knew is that we wanted to go to Paris.
We
bought our round trip tickets. There was
a special price (which might have been why we chose to go). And we hopped on the train. When we arrived at the Charles de Gaulle
train station, we stepped off with our backpacks and just stood there in the
open rotunda looking lost, taking in the excitement of energy.
“Excuse
me. Excuse me. Hello.
Excuse me,” a little laid said, her voice getting louder with each
word. We found out later that she was
from Korea. “You, you two stay with
me.” “Huh.” Yes, you come live with me. Twenty Euro a
night. Internet. Breakfast. Close to
downtown. Come with me. Now.
Yes. Good deal.” My friend Eric and I just stood looking at
each other silent.
Finally
Eric broke the silence. “10 Euros.”
“Fifteen”
she responded as if she had been waiting for his reply. Eric smiled at me, “It is fine John. I read about it in a book. It will be
fun.” I had stayed in hostels and
hotels, but this idea of a sleepover at a stranger’s house was new to me. I hadn't heard about couch surfing or
ridesharing yet. And so we followed her
to the subway.
And
it didn't take long to realize that she knew just enough English to convince us
to stay with her, but no more. She had
used her entire vocabulary in the exchange in the station. We kept asking her questions. And she was unable to give us the answers we
desired. She smiled blankly, shrugging
her shoulders, and kept offering, “Almost there. Yes.
Almost there.” “Where is a good place to eat?” “Yes almost there.” Are others staying with you? “Almost there. Yes.
Almost.” Where is the Louvre? “Yes, almost there.”
Oh. The crazy things you will do at
twenty-two.
This
week we hear a commentary on Abraham and Sarah from the author of Hebrews. If you recall from Genesis, Abraham and Sarah
are called by God to leave their land.
Because of their faith, they pick up and move everything. The
author of Hebrews says, by faith, and not just once but three times, imploring
that it is by faith that Abraham moves, lives, and is. He leaves the land he knows, Mesopotamia, to
be heirs of a new land, unseen and unknown, because of faith. He steps out.
He takes an enormous risk.
Do we
ever feel that we are blindly stepping out?
Do we feel we have been promised something in life that is intangible,
unknowable, and unseen? Our adult Sunday
school gathered to talk about a book which acknowledges that we try to talk
about God, but to some extent, we are blindly stepping out, and our language
and experience has certain limitations.
Do we really always know what we are talking about? And is it possible they we are off the mark
sometimes?
Our
reading from Hebrews reminds us that if you are feeling lost, you are not
alone. Abraham and Sarah, our parents of
faith, stepped out and it resulted in a lifelong trial of feeling lost. They were not only pilgrims on a journey, but
strangers and foreigners in their earthly existence. The author pushes this theme of being a
perpetual stranger, suggesting that all of Abraham’s life is as foreigner but
his vision is not strictly earthbound.
He has his eyes on the full reality of what God has promised.
The
promise made by God would imply that Abraham would become the inheritor of much
land, but if you recall, he never owns more land than the burial ground for his
family. He labors as a nomad (we know
this because he lives in ‘tents’) and his heirs follow suit. His son Isaac, his grandson Jacob – continue
to live in tents as well. Abraham and
his offspring’s realization of the homeland is not what we initially imagined,
it is so much more. They still
wander.
Maybe
this is why we never wake up saying I have learned all I have to learn. Or I have all the answers about God. I know just what God is calling me to do, or
I know just where God is leading me. Or
I have figured exactly who God is and how to talk about this God. Three years of seminary education won’t even
give you those answers. Instead, each
step forward leads to more questions, and even more searching. And the experience of being a foreigner on
the quest means we can have a pretty hard time finding those answers in the
world.
“Almost
there. Yes. Almost there.” “Where is a good place to
eat?” “Yes almost there.” Are others
staying with you? “Almost there. Yes.
Almost.” “Where is the
Louvre?” “Yes, almost there.” “Am I going to make it home after this trip
to Paris?” “Yes. Almost.”
Yet
we don’t do it alone. That is the
remarkable thing about our faith. I
wonder if Abraham and Sarah were one of the earliest models being sent out two
by two. The disciples went out two by
two, the animals left the arc two by two (actually we know how many got on, but
I guess some of the animals have less than a forty day gestation period) –
that’s not the point. And when I think
of my trip to Paris – I am sure glad I had my partner in crime.
That is
because our faith wandering is not just an individual quest, but the task of
our community. It is here that we can
ask those difficult questions. It is
here that we can wonder about the nature of God, the pain of life, the joy of
faith, and the need for help, redemption, and salvation. It is hear we can ask the questions, because
as the author of Hebrews reminds us, our faith will mean we are always
strangers and foreigners, unable to understand the voices of what is around us
because we seek something much more.
Which
brings me to my last point. We all need
bread for our journey. We are all
hungry. We need something to do with our
questions, a way of being able to be foreigners. It can be exhausting to wander and wander
without a way of living into the questions.
I shared with the men’s Bible study a few weeks ago the words of Dom
Gregory Dix who captures so eloquently the beautiful rhythm and meaning of the
Holy Eucharist. It is one that has
shaped my formation.
“Was
ever another command so obeyed? For century after century, spreading slowly to
every continent and country and among every race on earth, this action has been
done, in every conceivable human circumstance, for every conceivable human need
from infancy and before it to extreme old age and after it, from the pinnacle
of earthly greatness to the refuge of fugitives in the caves and dens of the
earth. Men [and women] have found no better thing than this to do for kings at
their crowning and for criminals going to the scaffold; for armies in triumph
or for a bride and bridegroom in a little country church; for the proclamation
of a dogma or for a good crop of wheat; for the wisdom of the Parliament of a
mighty nation or for a sick old woman afraid to die; for a schoolboy sitting an
examination or for Columbus setting out to discover America; for the famine of
whole provinces or for the soul of a dead lover; in thankfulness because my
father did not die of pneumonia; for a village headman much tempted to return
to fetich because the yams had failed; because the Turk was at the gates of
Vienna; for the repentance of Margaret; for the settlement of a strike; for a
son for a barren woman; for Captain so-and-so wounded and prisoner of war;
while the lions roared in the nearby amphitheatre; on the beach at Dunkirk;
while the hiss of scythes in the thick June grass came faintly through the
windows of the church; tremulously, by an old monk on the fiftieth anniversary
of his vows; furtively, by an exiled bishop who had hewn timber all day in a prison
camp near Murmansk; gorgeously, for the canonization of S. Joan of Arc—one
could fill many pages with the reasons why [people] have done this, and not
tell a hundredth part of them. And best of all, week by week and month by
month, on a hundred thousand successive Sundays, faithfully, unfailingly,
across all the parishes of Christendom, the pastors have done this just to make
the plebs sancta Dei—the holy common people of God.”
Yet
there is something else that is not captured in this text which I believe our
Epistle can offer us. At each
celebration of the Eucharist, 100,000 successive Sunday’s, we have marched
forward with our questions, with our doubts, with our concerns, lost in the
world, yet taking a step of faith. Our
faith does not mean that we lack questions or answers, but our convictions (the
convictions of things not seen) drive us forward to open our hands. Joining with the communion of saints, we
stand to offer up a mystery. Each
successive Sunday, the act of Eucharist becomes more of a mystery, but it also
becomes more central and foundational in our own lives and our life as a
church. We feast together on what we
cannot truly understand. We have faith
of what is not seen. Just bread and wine
to the outside world, but with our faith something much, much more. A taste of a better country, of a better city,
that is a heavenly one. A taste prepared
by the master architect alone, and intended for us. A taste to carry us forward. Bread for our journey. Awareness that we are foreigners and strangers
destined for someplace else. Amen. Are we
there yet? “Yes, Almost there.” Will we have our question answered? “Yes.
Almost there.”
Sermon Preached on August 11, 2013
Thursday, August 8, 2013
More is not Better than Less, And our Life as a Gift
There is a cute AT&T commercial where a man in a suit is
sitting around some little kids. “Who thinks more is better than
less?” All four children throw their hands up. A little girl
responds. “More is better than less because if you have less you might
want some more stuff and your parents won’t let you because there is only a
little bit. We want more, we want more, you really like it. We want
more. We want more.” The commercial ends, “More is
better than less – AT&T.”
AT&T has a brilliant marketing team. And I
guess it is somewhat comforting that for at least 2000 years, people have
struggled with this concept. The man we encounter today in Luke is a rich
farmer. He has been a good steward of his land and has been so successful
that he suggests that he needs to tear down his barns, build larger barns so
that he can retire… Eat drink and be merry. Life will be well.
Certainly Jesus wants us to enjoy life. The Jesus who celebrated at
Cana, who sat with Mary, who broke bread with the disciples. Certainly
this Jesus understands. More is better than less.
There is a book by George Orwell written in the early 20th
century about Burma called Burmese Days. It is about the ills of
British Colonialism. A few years ago, I was fortunate to be able to
travel to Burma. Burma or as we know call it Myanmar, is a small country
nestled between India, China, and Thailand. It is also one of the most
corrupt places in the world, and only recently has the people’s voice and
political dissident in Aung San Suu Kyi been released from house arrest.
The country is overwhelmingly Buddhist and on any one day you can see many
Buddhist monks walking around collecting alms in the distinct crimson robes
which are unique to the Burmese monks.
At the end of my trip, we visited Bagan, the ancient city
where over 10,000 temples which are called pagodas were built. Over 2200
still exists which paint the landscape with shimmers of gold. It is
absolutely breathtaking to climb a Buddhist temple and watch the sunset and see
thousands of other temples emerging from the ground. These temples have an
interesting purpose. In Bagan, many where built as a way of doing
something good as a form of atonement in life. Similar to
indulgences of the earlier Catholic Church, you could build a pagoda as a way
of giving back.
In Orwell’s novel, there is a despicable and corrupt Burmese
police officer named U Po Kyin. He is disgusting in every conceivable
way, consistently oppressing his people, attacking, destroying, and even
killing the people who get in his way and he does all of this so that one day
he can join the British Country Club, feeling like he has finally made it in
life. If he can join the club, he will have status. He wife
is frightened by him and is always asking him to changes his evil ways. U
Po Kyin insists that all will be well, and promises that before he dies he will
repent and spend all of his money to construct glorious pagodas in order to
prepare for the next world. Orwell says, “But unfortunately, this
was the very point at which his plans went wrong. Only three days after
the Governor’s durbar, before so much as a brick of those atoning pagodas had
been laid, U Po Kyin was stricken with apoplexy and died without speaking again.
There is no armour against fate.”[1]
In our Gospel today, we hear quite the critique. Luke,
says, “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being
demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, who will they be?’ So
it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward
God.” Life is being demanded from the rich farmer. He has lived his
life acquiring, building wealth, preparing for the next chapter of his life,
for retirement, and he has failed to be rich toward God. This
person has saved and saved, but he has not been rich to God.
The editorials of most major news sources indicate America
is currently engaging in a much needed conversation about privilege, who is
privileged in society and who is not. We know that although God creates
all people equal, because of location in society, not all people are given
equal opportunity. In the parable of the rich farmer, there is an
understood privilege of the farmer. First, he is a farmer. The story
already assumes he is a male by his occupation. He is a landowner.
We can conclude that he has been given this land, probably the inheritance from
his ancestors. It is also almost certain that this farmer has help, hired
hands or slaves that care for his farm. And nowhere does the parable
acknowledge the climate, the favorable conditions, or this history of the land
that would make it more fertile than other land. Instead, we hear, “I
have worked hard, and I have reaped what I deserve.” Really? Could
there be another side of the story. Was it really his hard work alone and
nothing else that resulted in his profits this year? ? Could
the farmer have exploited the land, the plentiful returns stripping the land of
its nutrients and making it unfarmable for years? Or could his harvest
have come at the cost of exploited labor?
It all comes down to stewardship. The scary S
word. Don’t worry; we are not going to have that stewardship conversation
quite yet… Whether the farmer full exploited the land, as we understand
exploitation to be now, I don’t know. But I would like to suggest that
the farmer failed to recognize his privilege, and therefore he failed to
recognize the interconnectedness of human life. The farmer saw the
land as something to use, a view opposed to seeing his own life as the real
gift. The farmer placed more value in his crop than the people
around him and ways they could work together.
Privilege is not inherently wrong. It is just
something that exists, albeit sometimes unfairly. However, it must be
acknowledged because it does have the power to obstruct our view of the
world. If we fail to acknowledge our privilege, we can think that it is
our hard work and our hard work alone that results in all that we achieve.
It gets in the way of what is most important. If we acknowledge it, we
can begin to see our lives as gifts which transform how we function as humans
in the world. This is scary stuff because we can feel powerless.
Which brings me to what I think our text can teach us.
Life is not about what we can receive from it. It is not about what we
can accomplish, what we can harvest, or what we can reap. And I think
this can be great news. In our lives, it does not matter the value of our
home, the amount we have saved for retirement, the kind of cars we drive, the
vacations we have had, or the stock pile of material goods that flood our
attics and garages. And death can have a way of clarifying this. I heard
a minister say once, “I have heard many different regrets expressed by people
nearing the end of life, but there is one regret I have never heard expressed.
I have never heard anyone say, ‘I wish I hadn't given so much away. I
wish I had kept more for myself.’” [2]
Life is not about what we can acquire. It is not about
how much we can produce. We believe in a God that gave his life for each
of us, not based on our success, not based on our riches, but on our
poverty. We believe in a God who says that one human life, broken, full
of sin, is worth dying for. This means just being is the greatest gift we
have been given in the world. And the biggest mistake we can make is when
we fail to see our life as a gift, and we think the gifts in the world are all
the things we can produce because of our merit alone. If we can find
ultimate value in our personhood, we will be less likely to need to acquire
goods, and more likely to be advocates for reconciliation and
transformation. If we see our lives as a gift we will be more likely to
see the lives of others we encounter as gifts. And imagine the difference
we could make in the world, if we had enough time to sit down with each person,
and tell them, your life matters, you are a precious gift from God.
Life does not consist in the abundance of possessions. But it does in the
abundance of life we see in each other. Amen.
[1] George Orwell, Burmese
Days, (New York: Penguin Books, 1944), 299.
[2] Elisabeth Johnson, Commentary
on Luke 12:13-21, http://www.workingpreacher.org
Sunday, August 4, 2013
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