Living word by word

another lectionary thought; 23A and 24A, Matthew 18

   Our lectionary skips over the beginning of chapter 18, which seems to me to have key relevance whenever we talk about forgiveness:

"Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

Gordon Atkinson wrote beautifully recently in the Christian Century about his experiences on a mission trip, how the dependence of being a guest in a foreign land reminded him of childhood. I can relate, since our trip to China was -- for me as a leader anyway -- largely about relinquishing control and learning to trust my hosts, even when I didn't know what was next on the agenda.

I wonder if there is a connection between the childhood necessity of depending on others and the readiness of children to forgive. My children are certainly as easy to upset or offend as anyone. They get angry with me, with each other, with their father all the time. And yet every offense, even the ones I mull about for days, feeling like a bad parent, is quickly forgiven and forgotten not long after.

Forgiveness gets a lot messier, a lot harder as we get older. We refuse to give people the benefit of the doubt, we remember past disappointments, we worry that we are "giving up too much" of ourselves if we let something go.

Oh to be like a little child again, quick to forgive and ready to embrace.

Lectionary blog: Matthew 18

   In my early ministry days at Spirit Garage, I spent a lot of time with Baptists and other young evangelicals, because they were the only other ones reaching out specifically to Gen X'ers. I quickly learned that Matthew ranked much higher on their "canon-within-the-canon" than in most Lutheran's. Passages like this Sunday's gospel, on the surface, make it clear why. Matthew seems to deal with the practical matters of community life more than, say, John. If you view the Bible more as a manual on church discipline than classic literature about the human condition, Matthew has a certain appeal. On the surface, this gospel  seems to draw black-and-white lines more than the other gospels. In the words of one of my college profs, "Matthew plays hardball."

 I used to not like Matthew so much for this, but the more I read this gospel, the more I find that it's more ambiguous than it appears. What do we do with a gospel that is the favorite of Southern Baptists, but also of Anabaptists? 

I'm increasingly convinced that Thomas Long is right when he says that one of Matthew's core convictions is God's puzzling generosity, and it's here too, in Matthew 18, hidden away in that seemingly hard verse, 18:17:

"If the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector."

The trouble is, Jesus healed Gentiles and regularly ate with tax collectors. In fact, the traditional author of this Gospel was a tax collector. It seems that Jesus is constantly calling the church to reconciliation, even when our first attempts have failed.

lectionary 22A: Exodus 3

I hate it when a set of  really great lectionary texts fall on a holiday weekend. It's hard to gear up a sermon when you know a big hunk of your congregation will be away.

The alternate Old Testament reading from Exodus 3 is so rich, I hate to see it lost amidst the other good texts this week. I love the old translation of 3:3: "I will turn aside and behold this wonder." There is something wonderful about Moses' call following on his simple curiosity about something he beholds in the wilderness, out there watching sheep. The University of Kansas used this image in their official seal to embody the link between curiosity and calling.  (Now the seal has been downplayed in the interest of religious inclusiveness, but it's still a wonderful interpretation). How wonderful would it be if we all trusted that God can speak to us when we are pursuing what draws our attention, those things that demand that we "turn aside."

There's a link here to Romans 12, in which Paul embarks on exhortations about how we are to love one another in community. This is on the heels of his remarks on spiritual gifts. Whether it's Paul or Moses, God seems to have a penchant for calling the passionate, and directing and forming those passions so that they serve God's people. Learning to love in the midst of that is never easy, but when we pay attention to the concrete needs of those around us, God begins to turn our curiosity into calling.

Lectionary blog Proper 15: No exceptions

God bless the world, no exceptions.

I don't have the bumper sticker, but I wish I did, especially in this political season when it feels like every politician wants to claim God's blessing. I'm afraid to put it on my car, however, because as much as I believe that God wishes to bless the whole world, I know I  personally can only pay attention to small corners of it at a time. I've been from Iceland to China in the last 6 weeks, and it's clear to me that there's a whole lot of need in this world -- and I didn't really have to leave town to know that.

Both the gospel and the Isaiah text for this coming Sunday wrestle with the problem of the boundaries of God's mission. In Isaiah, the old definitions of the clean and unclean get smashed as the exiles return and God composes a new people. There, sabbath observance and faithful worship of YHWH become the new guidelines for who's in and who's out.

But there's no evidence that the Canaanite woman in Matthew's Gospel does anything like sabbath observance. She has no ethnic claim on Jesus' ministry, and she makes no argument on the basis of her ritual observance either. All she does is cry out to him, in such a loud and persistent way that she finally gets attention. Jesus uses the same strategies we all use when we're overwhelmed -- he ignores her, then makes a theological argument, then uses an ethnic slur, perhaps hoping she'll just go away.

Her only prayer is "Lord, help," and her only argument is that there is plenty of God's power to go around.  "Great is your faith," Jesus says, the only time he utters such a compliment.

There still is plenty of power to go around. I may not be able to help the whole world, no exceptions, but like this woman I can continuously and consistently pray, on behalf of others, "Lord, help." Jesus' own life showed that not even death could get in the way of God's intention to bless the whole world, no exceptions.

Lectionary blog: Proper 14: walking on water

I had been warned that the Protestant churches in China  (there is only one legal Protestant denomination in the People’s Republic) are a little conservative. As a result I was surprised the first Sunday in Beijing when not one but two women pastors were presider and preacher at Chongwenmen congregation. The next Sunday in Xinyang, the gathering of at least 800 Christians was again presided over by a woman.

    “Is this unusual?” I asked our host, the program director for China Service Ventures.

   “No,” he said. “The women are the reason there’s any Christianity left at all in China. They were the ones who kept the faith during the Cultural Revolution, meeting secretly in homes.” 

It’s still illegal to meet in house churches in China, and how much religious freedom there is still depends very much on the largesse of local government officials, but the existing congregations are by all appearances thriving. Both services we attended were in large buildings, and both were full to the brim.

As I looked around me, I couldn’t help but see all these older Chinese women and think about what they have witnessed in their lives. Certainly not all of them took the risk of practicing their faith during those dark years, but it is clear some of them did.  What storms they endured in their little dinghies of the church so that their children and grandchildren might worship as they now do!

      One monk was asked how he survived the Cultural Revolution. “ I went for a long walk,” he replied. No doubt for most of China’s women, that was not an option. And yet, they kept the faith.

 I think about this when I read the story of Jesus walking on the water. The disciples are certain they are fish food. They see only with the eyes of seasoned fishermen and assume that they have been abandoned by God, until Jesus identifies himself: “Do not be afraid. It is I.”

American Christians have a lot to learn from the rest of the world: like what real faith means.

 

Easter lectionary 3A -- Acts 2

 It’s unfortunate that the Acts pericopes for this week (Acts 2:36-41)  and next (Acts 2:42-47) disconnect the repentance and baptism of 3000 on Pentecost and what follows – the entry of this new community into a pattern of breaking bread (v. 41) and sharing all things in common (v. 44). These two things – repentance, turning around and the breaking of bread with a forgiving Savior – are core elements of Luke-Acts, and with this Sunday’s Gospel.

We tend to bracket the incredible number of converts at the end of Peter’s sermon into the category of "Biblical statements that can't possibly translate into today's context". But which is more incredible in today’s context– that 3000 were added in one day, or that they shared all things in common? Or that more were added to their number daily (47), even though people knew that this was a community in which people sold their possessions in order to share them with the poor?

Sara Miles (who I’m very happy to announce will be preaching and speaking at ECLC next February) has written powerfully in her memoir Eat This Bread: A Radical Conversion about this connection between conversion and communion, and between Jesus’ feeding us with himself and our call to feed others. At her church, St. Gregory of Nyssa, the communion table is cleared at the end of the Eucharist and quite literally becomes the table of fellowship with coffee and treats. And the gifts of the community to others are gathered there as well.

The experience of being fed at Jesus’ table converted Miles to Christianity, and in that feeding she also found her own call within St. Gregory’s – starting a food pantry where, weekly, anyone who came to the church doors was offered a bag of groceries, no questions asked.

 Miles has said in a PBS interview that after years of thinking that Christianity was about rules and strict creeds and unlikely beliefs in creationism, she discovered that “faith is about hunger -- a hunger I had always had --  and a willingness to be fed by something you don’t understand.”

 

In this week’s Gospel, and in the Emmaus text, Jesus comes as an unfamiliar figure to the disciples. They still don’t know what his presence means, but as they eat with him their eyes are opened. As they are willing to be fed by this stranger among them, they find their Lord.

favorite clips on John 20

    John 20 must be one of the most-preached Gospel texts in the lectionary. Why Thomas gets to appear each and every lectionary year, I don't know. Fortunately, it is a rich text.

    My favorite clips from the surfing so far:

• See Dan Deffenbaugh's (another Vandy-ite) lovely reflection on the Spirit at Seeds of Shalom
• Mary Hinkle Shore's old but powerful piece about Thomas at Pilgrim Preaching
• And, for everyone burnt out on theological treatises about the meaning of the passion and resurrection, don't miss the Ironic Catholic

More of my own thoughts to come.

deep church, occasional church

    Make no mistake, I'm a church geek. Long before I was ordained I went to every Holy Week service available. Easter Vigil was not part of my childhood church life, but once I discovered it as an adult, it became indispensable.
    Vigil is wonderful for a lot of reasons. It engages all the senses and both the sacraments. It moves one physically from a womb-like darkness to the bright loudness of resurrection joy. It rehearses some of the most dramatic stories of the Old Testament, including  my all-time favorite, the farcical tale of Shadrach Meschach and Abednego. (Try reading it some time with the rhythms of Dr. Seuss.)
    I've wished for years that we could get more people engaged in this service, but, of course, it's usually just church geeks like myself who show up. This year, however, Easter's early arrival gave us an opportunity to draw in our Sunday School families in a new way. Hardly anyone was on spring break yet, so every class was given a story to tell, and no one was exempt since it was just part of the Sunday School time during Lent. And, in deference to small children, we started at 6 and kept the service short. We had 133 people there on Saturday night -- easily three times our average.
    A good Easter Vigil is really all the Easter I need. (I made a point of telling families that Saturday night "counted" as Easter church). I have long admired the Holy Week practice of  St. Gregory of Nyssa in  San Francisco. Easter Vigil is unquestionably the year's highlight, and the next morning there is no liturgy -- only a community picnic. (They also make the eminently practical move of having "Maundy Tuesday," partly to spread out the liturgical commitments of the week.)
    After gathering with the most involved members of the community around the most central part of our faith for a few hours at Vigil, Easter morning often feels almost a letdown to me. Sure, there are 500 people through the doors, but many of them are people I don't see very often the rest of the year. It's hard not to be cynical about the ratio of energy put out to community return. I'd much rather have a picnic with the folks who just helped make Holy Week happen.
    But, of course, the hospitality of Easter morning is undeniably a resurrection practice -- maybe an indispensable one. All those people who only show up two or three times a year are not going to come to Easter Vigil. They come Easter morning, and the Gospel is for them, even if they do see it as an obligation to be done before brunch. In fact, one could argue that Jesus' resurrection appearances focus on those whose faith is most at risk -- Thomas and his doubts, Peter after his denials, and the two leaving  the disciples in Jerusalem and heading to Emmaus. Jesus spends his limited post-resurrection time on them.  It makes sense for the church to do the same.

Zen cross

One of our favorite picture books, Zen Shorts, offers a zen master in the form of a panda bear named Stillwater. He befriends three children and tells each one an appropriate Zen tale as they deal with questions of fate and forgiveness. Jon Muth’s watercolors and ink drawings are a delight.

The story of the “Farmer’s Luck” has been running through my head as I contemplate Good Friday coming up. In this tale, a series of events befall a farmer, and after each one, his neighbors respond with sympathy or joy.

 “What good luck!” they say when wild horses appear on his land.

“Maybe,” he replies.

“What horrible luck!” they murmur when his son breaks his leg trying to ride one of said horses.

“Maybe” the farmer replies.

“What good luck!” they say, as the army shows up to conscript young men into war, and the son with the broken leg remains free.

“Maybe,” the farmer replies, and Muth’s lovely ink illustration shows the son ensconced in a La-Z-Boy in front of the TV.

 The story captures for me the uncertainty that the cross casts across all our assessments of what is really going on in the world. As far as I know, the English language is the only one that calls this Friday “Good.” In German, French and Spanish it is simply called "holy."

To me, “holy” seems a better fit with the mystery that is the cross. Is it “good” that Jesus died? Maybe. Yes, we can say, God accomplished our salvation on the cross. But no, to call such torture and injustice ‘good’ is a bit of a stretch.

 As a lens for looking at our own suffering, the cross puts a great big “maybe” on all those things we simply declare bad, unfortunate, outside the pale. If God can be at work on the cross, then maybe even those moments when God seems most distant to us are not what they appear.  Maybe – maybe – they are where God is at work most profoundly, most powerfully.

Lent 5A

    Because I split preaching pretty much evenly with my colleague here at ECLC, I often don't repeat the same texts every three years. But for some reason every time the Lazarus story has come around here, it's been my turn to preach, it seems. And so it is again this year.
    The sermon I won't be preaching, because I'm getting tired of it: Lazarus dies twice, and so do we. It's one of those sadly ironic pieces in John that no sooner has Lazarus been raised from the dead, people are ready to kill Jesus, and Lazarus again too. Of course, as far as we know Lazarus isn't killed off, but we have to assume that, at some point, he does die again.
    What would it be like to die twice? We have to hope that Lazarus' first experience with dying and being called again to new life would give him confidence as he faces his second death. He's done it once. He knows that's not the end of the story. He knows that Jesus will call him forth.
    And so it is for us. We are baptized into Jesus' death. We've already died once in those waters, so we can face our second death with more confidence. Yes, we will die, but we know that is not the end of the story. Christ will call us forth again.