Preaching and Teaching

Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, D.C.
August 29, 2010

Text: Jeremiah 2:4-13

Those of you who know me will not be surprised that I follow the same route to the gym on my pre-sunrise walk through our second hometown in Mexico. I like traveling the same streets at the same time because I see many of the same people. It helps me feel the town’s life-rhythm.

Since San Miguel is a major party place, pre-sunrise is a VERY quiet time. A large portion of the population gets home only hours before I start my walk. Indeed, I sometimes people see people wobbling home. But people with jobs are up and about.

There are people delivering fruits and vegetables to restaurants. Maids come down from the large homes and hotels to the early-opening bakeries to collect fresh bolillos, a type of roll that is a staple in Mexico. The streets and little parks are dotted with street sweepers, cleaning up trash left by the previous night’s revelers. Small groups of men stand around waiting for friends to pick them up and drive to a construction site. And just like here, there are joggers out for a run and people walking their dogs. By the end of the month, I am a regular, one of a small company of spirits who float through last moments of night as the roosters boisterously proclaim the coming of day.

One of the men I pass regularly is an old fellow riding an even older bike with a huge chunk of ice on the back. Even with no sun, the ice is melting. He told me he takes the ice to a town several miles outside of San Miguel. I’ve seen worse. In Mexico’s scorching hot Yucatan Peninsula, I once saw a fellow furiously pedaling down a highway in the middle of the day with what was rapidly becoming a small ice cube. These guys are engaged in a losing battle; one they, nonetheless, fight every day.

I thought of all of these folks when I read the Old Testament lesson from Jeremiah. While they diligently and humbly take of their early morning business, the prophet describes a God who is upset, again, with the faithlessness and misplaced priorities of the people of Israel. In a fabulous line, God says, “(your ancestors) went after worthless things and became worthless themselves.” An astounding insight. We become that which we pursue. Diligently pursue the things of God and we become godly. Ambitiously pursue the things of this world and we become worldly.

Jeremiah ends his rant by comparing his contemporaries to individuals who pour water into a cracked cistern. In an arid climate such as that of Israel/Palestine, it was and is a compelling illustration. In the desert, cisterns are used to collect water for those seasons when there is no water. If a cistern is cracked and leaking rather than collecting and holding water as intended, a person will end up in a life-threatening situation during a time of drought.

Pouring water into cisterns that can’t hold water, fighting wars against the same people generation after generation, people of one religion bashing people of other religions, creating a string of financial bubbles that inevitably blow up in our faces, thinking we can prove our worth to ourselves, these are the ways of humankind. Despite everything history teaches us, we engage in behaviors that are transparently flawed. Despite what God’s Word tells us, we place our faith in things that have as much chance of satisfying us as a block of ice does surviving a trip across a desert.

The death of the delightful Dick DeLouise this week took me back to the days when I was one of his pastors at Bradley Hills Church in Bethesda. I remember my first visit to Bethesda like it was yesterday. Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church was considering calling me as their associate pastor. It was early May, 1976. Bethesda in early May looks like the Garden of Eden itself. Massive walls of azaleas, painting the landscape with brilliant colors. Cherry blossoms floating through the air like a midwinter storm. Enormous trees billowing in the wind. It is astoundingly beautiful.

Tucked into this amazing scene were beautiful homes with expensive cars parked in the driveway; children as well manicured as the lawns on which they played; high school campuses that looked like small colleges. As I rode through this wonderland, I thought to myself, “These must be the happiest people in the world.” Well, a couple of months later as a pastor there, I quickly learned that all that looks sublime is not sublime.

In fact, over the ensuing six years, my office was filled with people who had many of the same problems that a pastor would hear in Biloxi, Boise or Berkeley. From the good people of Bethesda, I heard about troubled marriages, rebellious or disinterested youth, lucrative but unfulfilling work, chronic depression, stress-induced health issues, spouse abuse. To this day, when I drive through Bethesda, I see a totally different world than the one I saw on that first visit.

It isn’t that Bethesda has worse problems than anywhere else. It has the same problems as everywhere else because, despite the impressive veneer, too many people, like too many people everywhere, pour themselves into cracked cisterns. We are inclined to think a Cadillac education will lead to a Cadillac life; a great career will bring us total fulfillment; a perfect spouse and children will deflect attention from our imperfections. Such is not the case.

If I have learned anything over the past 36 years of ministry, it is that we routinely attempt to fill things with more meaning than they can hold. It is like attempting to put 16 ounces of fluid in a cup that holds 12 ounces. It just can’t be done. Things can only hold what they can hold whether the thing be a job, a relationship or money.

Yes, financially secure is a desirable place to be. But it can’t make us secure in any kind of lasting, ultimate sense. Financial security allows us to pay our bills. However, we all know families who have a combined income of $100,000, $200,000 or $300,000 and they still don’t feel secure. They are attempting to fill a cracked cistern. The more money they make, the more money they spend. They get a bigger house, a more expensive car, or take a more costly vacation. Therefore, as their earnings rise, their expenses and debt rise. Consequently, they never feel secure.

Recently, we went up to visit our son and his family for a couple of days. We flew into Albany, New York and rented a car to drive down to New Paltz. Because it only cost $20 extra, I rented a pretty nice car. That was a huge mistake. My Sentra now feels like a total piece of junk even though it is perfectly fine! Such is the way our minds function, leading us to cracked cisterns.

Of course, even people who are making millions of dollars don’t necessarily feel secure. Because financial security never has been and never will be synonymous with spiritual and emotional security. A true sense of security comes from a spiritual centeredness that money, careers and even relationships can’t provide.

In small clips I have read in the newspapers, Elin Nordegren, who recently divorced Tiger Woods, had some interesting things to say. Who could have thought she was more secure—with a seemingly solid marital relationship, two children, and more money than anyone could possibly spend? Over the past year, she says that she has found a new, inner strength that she didn’t possess prior to her personal and family crisis. Asked if the huge amount of money she received in the divorce settlement was helpful, she was refreshingly honest, saying, “”Money doesn’t make you happy, but I have to be honest: It is making some things easier.”

I think that kind of summarizes a lot of things. Money, careers, volunteer work, even interpersonal relationships can make life easier or more fun or more interesting. But they can’t fill our lives with meaning and purpose. Too much leaks out through these cracked cisterns. Only a solid relationship with God can hold the water of our lives.

Many Protestants have problems with the lifestyle of Roman Catholic priests and nuns. Their decision to be celibate and live in community without much in the way of personal, material possessions seems odd, even alien to many. However, while I certainly don’t and don’t want to live their lifestyle, I have tremendous respect for it. They provide a powerful role model as to what matters most in life.

These folks and many others who choose to live very humble, simple lifestyles remind us that one can be perfectly happy without many of the things we tend to think are absolutely essential for happiness. We don’t need most of what we have. We just don’t.

Jeremiah records God as saying, “they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.” Why is it that we walk away from a tried and true source of water and attempt to create our own sources of water? Why can’t we accept God’s statement that we are good? Why do we need to prove to ourselves and others that we are good? It is one of the great puzzles of human history.

Whatever the answer to those questions, the fact is that God offers us everything we need. We have been hearing this message in the Gospel of Luke for a month. During August, we have heard about an insecure farmer who felt the need to store up excessive amounts of grain in his barn, despite God’s promises to care for us like the birds of the air and lilies of the field. We heard Jesus pleading for us to put our treasure where our heart is. And now this morning, we hear Jesus telling us to stop building ourselves up for “those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Maybe those fellows with the ice on the back of their bicycles aren’t as crazy as I was initially inclined to think they are. Perhaps they have figured out something many of us still haven’t figured out. They seem to have great faith that what they are doing is both important and worth the effort. Believing they are validated, justified and cared for by God, they lead much less anxious lives than most of us.

If we study God’s Word and Way, attempt to live it out as best we can, and confess our failures when we don’t, I am absolutely and totally convinced that the fountain of living water of which Jeremiah speaks is there for us. Whether we go through times of plenty or drought, the living waters of faith, hope and love will nourish and sustain us.

In a culture where we are told from a very early age that if we don’t care for ourselves, no one will, it is very challenging to “let go and live” as Jesus, Jeremiah, Mary and so many others have done. It is a bit scary. But when we do “let go and live,” we discover a freedom that sets us free to travel toward our grandest dreams.

As the summer ends and a season of hectic busyness descends upon us, as another school year begins with all the pressures that accompany it, may each of us find ways to live more humble, simple, less anxious lives. As we do so, we will never have to worry about going to the cistern and finding it empty because it was cracked. The well to which Jeremiah directed us is always full.

Let us pray: Gracious God, we invest in things and, at times, they lose their value. When we invest our lives in you, they always gain in value. For your trustworthy presence on the road of life, we are so, so very grateful. Help each of us to be as trusting of you as you are trusting of us. All this we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Western Presbyterian Church

Washington, D.C.

August 22, 2010

Text: Luke 13:10-17

I’m on Twitter. In fact, I engage with it a lot. Maybe it’s a side effect of having a dad who was a rocket scientist, but I love technology and I think it’s a fascinating social phenomenon. It is a place where people write, in 140 characters or less what they are doing. And people talk to each other. The other day, when I was reading the feed, the list of things that people had posted, someone wrote, “If you mix hate with theology, you have religion.”

Hate and theology make religion.

Right there is a reflection of what so many people in our country think. Religion is full of anger. Religion is full of resentments. Religion is full of hate. They look at the different wars that are being waged around the world, and they see how religion often fuels the violence and they want nothing to do with it. There are so many things happening right now when we study American religious life. There are the “non’s,” the SBNRs, and the cafeteria-style religious. Now these are not names that I came up with, and I find that some of them are derogatory, but let me explain who they are.

The fastest growing religious group in our country is the “non’s.” They are the people who, when they are asked what religion they are a part of, and they write down that they are non-religious. I don’t mean that they atheists, agnostic, or godless in any way. They are just not religious.

Many people go further in their designation and say that they are spiritual but not religious. In fact there are a lot of people in our congregation who are spiritual but not religious. This is such a large trend that sociologists study them often, and we even have an acronym for the spiritual but not religious in our business. We call them SBNRs. Spiritual but not religious.

Then there are some people who like to pick and choose what they like from different religious practices, and sociologists have likened the way that we think about religion as being in a cafeteria line. We pick up what we like. We pass over the things that we don’t like. We might like yoga, and so we practice it, but we are not interested in  learning about the particular philosophy of Hinduism. Some people appreciate the almsgiving of the Muslim tradition, but they don’t understand why women would wear the burqa. Others like praying in the Christian tradition, but they don’t like going to church, so they will skip that practice. And so they pick and choose from a buffet of practices. I found out this week, that a family member, who cannot bring himself to darken the door of a church and has not gone to church in thirty years, and yet he faithfully gives twenty percent of his income to the church.

We see this buffet-style of belief and practice in the popularity of Eat, Pray, Love. A woman, who is recovering from depression and a divorce, decides to travel the world to eat, to pray, and to love. She grew up Christian, but she decides to go to India to learn to meditate. In the Ashram, she explores her internal landscape, and she learns to find peace from her anxiety.

Because of our pluralistic society, because there is such a rich diversity in our religious life, people admire different practices. We have neighbors who are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and Atheist, and we learn from all of them.

The “non’s”, SBNRs and cafeteria-style religious—I understand the feeling behind these shifts. I mean, in the last couple of decades, our news has been awash with high-profile scandals. Sometimes they make us laugh, and other times they make us cry, or even tremble with horror. Televangelists have been shady with their money and sex lives. Religious politicians set themselves up high, and fell low. There are the pedophile cases. We have heard religious hatred spewed against Muslims for a Community Center in New York City. In our own tradition, as Presbyterians, we are usually in the newspaper because we fight. Right now the struggle is over gays and lesbians becoming ordained. In the past, it has been over women ministers or civil rights. Or theological issues like the virgin birth.

In my own life, as I grew up in the conservative Bible belt, I saw that the church could be very damaging to women. Many Christians have grown up in traditions where women have been subjugated in their homes, told that they need to submit to the authority of their husbands, even to the point that they stay with an abusive spouse. At the same time, people who have had sex outside of marriage were shunned. I grew up in a tradition where sexual purity was supposed to be the norm. But it wasn’t. Young women were often not empowered to say “no.” Young men and women would be too ashamed and embarrassed to get birth control, the woman would become pregnant, and an abortion was not an option. I have watched the young lives of young women—of my friends and family—become doomed to poverty and a lack of education, because of the religious milieu in our country. It’s heartbreaking.

And there are a lot of people who are looking at all of this, yearning for spirituality, longing for a life of prayer, peace, grace, and goodness, but feeling that the bounds of our religious constructs do not promote these things, but keeps us from them. And so they declare that they are “non’s;” they say that they are spiritual but not religious; or they come to appreciate different practices and shun others. When I first started hearing these trends, I thought they were a fad. But now, we know that it is more than that. It seems to be a sure shift in the way that we understand religion.

I had a conversation with Andrew Newberg, a neuroscientist who wrote How God Changes Our Brain, and he suggested that our brains might be evolving away from religions, into something else. He says that it’s fair to estimate that a quarter to a third of Americans believe in a non-traditional view of God. 

It may be true. We are, as a culture, moving away from our religious loyalties, as the particularities of denominations lose importance. I grew up Southern Baptist, but when I got older, I decided that I didn’t agree with much of what my tradition had to say, so I became Presbyterian. Now, I don’t always agree with everything that Presbyterians say, but I do for the most part and so I stay.

I empathize with people who have been hurt by religion. I have been wounded by religion. But I would be a big hypocrite myself if I said the same thing. After all, I’m standing before you, as a woman who has been ordained in a historic tradition. I know people who have begun preaching and started churches, without the confines of religion. But I would have never been bold enough to do that. I needed affirmation from a community and a tradition. I am, by definition, a religious woman. And though I am sometimes embarrassed or ashamed by what religion can do, but I am here.

I appreciate the fact that my practices of prayer and meditation have a coherent system of beliefs behind them. I like the fact that I am stepping into a tradition that has practiced spirituality for two thousand years. I realize that this flowing river has some poisonous waters in it, but for the most part, they have been life-giving. They have preserved the voices of men and women, talking about the internal landscapes of their prayer. I know that our religion has caused people to give up their lives to serve others, to dream that our society might be a better place.

But I also know that we cannot serve religion for religion’s sake. Religion makes us better humans, and when it doesn’t, we need to stop and question.         

It seems that Jesus is saying much of the same thing in this passage. He has just healed a woman on the Sabbath. The Sabbath was a time when men and women were to refrain from all work and commerce. It was a time for everyone to rest. And yet Jesus healed on the Sabbath, which was clearly against the laws. When he was reminded that it was against the laws, Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for people; people were not made for the Sabbath.

Sabbath is made for people. This is so true. This ancient tradition of taking one day off from work and commerce is something that we could all benefit from. The ecologist Bill McKibben often dreams of what we could do as a society to help save the environment. And one of the main points he brings up is that we reach to our Sunday school lessons of keeping the Sabbath. He says that if we all observed the practice of taking one day off completely, it would help preserve our environment. 

It would not only be good for our environment, but for ourselves. I wonder, as our culture becomes more and more anxious and depressed, if much of it is because we have forgotten the importance of taking time off. It’s hard right now. We are not sure about the security of our jobs, we worry about getting laid off, or we have been let go from one job, and we are worried about losing another job, and so we work and work and work. With our smart phones, and our instant emails, we never quite leave the office. And when we’re not working at our jobs, we are working on our back-up plan—what we might do if we lose our job. I heard that productivity has gone slightly down recently, and I wonder if it is because we are working so many hours. A bit of rest can make us more productive. But we have forgotten how to do this.

Yet there is wisdom in not only letting ourselves rest, but also letting our earth rest. This is how we were made. The Sabbath is for us. It is a practice that has been passed down from the ancient wisdom of our tradition. It is a teaching that leads us to wholeness.

I also think that we can understand the changes in our religious landscape in the light of Jesus’ words. Our religious practices are to make us healthier people. They are to make us more whole. We do not serve religion just for the religious institution’s sake. We do not allow religion to keep us bound, but this tradition is alive and moving and breathing and changing. Religion–its teaching, its practices, its thought–shows us how to love God, love ourselves, and love our neighbors. It draws upon thousands of years of wisdom and whispers to us how become better humans. And religious practices are made for us.

Now, I realize that I’m straddling a fine line here and I want to be clear. I am not saying that we should have a selfish religion that only caters to our own particular desires, and upholds our own internal beliefs. I am not saying that we construct a religion for our own comfort, as we ignore the suffering of others. I believe that a community of faith is extremely important. History and tradition are vital for our understandings.

Yet, this is a particular moment in history, when we are confronting the serious damage that religion has caused. How are we, as spiritual people, going to respond? It seems that we will have to do it very carefully. Will we seek out practices of love that lead to wholeness? We will need to draw from our religious traditions, sort out what is damaging to humans, and seek what is good. We will need to have compassion for those who seek healing, instead of upholding religious laws for their own sake. We will need to keep longing for passion and empathy that Christ displayed over and over again as he upheld the rule of love. 

And may we do that this week. As we go out to our workplaces, our schools, and our world, may we do so with that goal in mind. To the glory of God our Creator, God our Liberator, and God our Sustainer. Amen.

Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, D.C.
August 15, 2010

Text: Luke 12:49-56

“Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?” boomed an angry Jesus in this morning’s Gospel lesson. “No,” he continued, “I tell you, but rather division!” Then again, maybe he said it with a very sad tone of voice. “Listen, I don’t want to be a cause for conflict. I really don’t. But it seems inevitable.” Or maybe he said it with a matter-of-fact tone. “Folks, it is what it is. I can’t control the way people respond to me or my message. If they don’t like our ideas, they are going to resist them.”

Whichever you prefer, it doesn’t change the meaning of the passage much, does it? Jesus’ message caused conflict. Trying to live like Jesus will cause conflict.

Ongoing conflict is a spiritual fact of life that struck fear in the heart of Christians in Wisconsin where I grew up in the fifties and early sixties, an area dominated by a Scandinavian approach to reality. Because if my neighbors, friends and classmates were typical, and I think they were, they REALLY didn’t like conflict. They abhorred conflict.

I can’t remember his name but there was a comedian from Minnesota who had an entire routine about the Scandinavian aversion to conflict. One piece of the routine was about a Norwegian-American man whose wife kept making asparagus for dinner. He hated asparagus but never told her, fearing an argument. One morning at breakfast she told him they were going to have asparagus for dinner, he just began to sob uncontrollably. In the upper Midwest, it was a routine that got a huge laugh because we all knew what he was describing. Some people will tolerate almost anything rather than start an argument.

My family wasn’t Scandinavian. But we were pretty reflective of that culture. I don’t ever remember our mother and father raising their voices toward each other. I am sure they had disagreements and arguments outside our hearing. But there must have been a concerted strategy to create a conflict-free family life.

Of course, with me as their son, one part of that strategy was doomed to failure. For reasons I don’t understand, I am very comfortable in the midst of conflict—as long as it doesn’t get too close. I don’t like conflict in my marriage. I don’t like it around here. It happens in both places at times. But when it does, my Midwestern genes take over. Feeling like I have failed in some way or another, I think I should have been able to prevent the conflict.

As a result of such mixed feelings about arguments, hearing Jesus endorse not only the reality of conflict but its necessity is very liberating to many of us. In essence, he tells us that conflict isn’t always the result of bad intentions or mistaken actions. It isn’t because we weren’t sensitive or attentive to other people’s feelings. At times, conflict is both inevitable and required to advance God’s cause.

Jesus realized that, ironically, conflict is resolved by conflict. In the short term, perhaps by intensified conflict. Wholeness comes by looking division right in the eye and taking it on. To confirm this point, a few examples are in order.

Obviously, the Middle East is filled with conflict. However, to create peace in that region will require even more conflict. It needs to be non-violent conflict around a negotiating table. But until healthy, mediated, conflict-filled conversations take place, blood will continue to flow in Palestine and Israel. If we are demanding anything of either party, it should be that they sit down and talk to each other with no pre-conditions.

Many people are tired of the debate over the rights of the LGBT community in the church and society. However, the emotional conflict over various issues has produced enormous progress in a very short period of time. As conflicting viewpoints have clashed and been worked through, much of the conflict has been resolved.

Most families have undiscussed issues that need to be addressed. Fearful of starting an argument with family members we love, we choose not to address problematic issues. It is only when someone has the courage to speak up, to provoke the argument, that things come out into the open where they can be thrashed out in a healthy, healing manner.

The longer conflicts go unaddressed the more challenging it is to deal with them constructively. It is a bit like having a gas leak in our home. If we deal with a gas leak quickly, a problem is averted. If we don’t deal with it promptly and allow the gas to accumulate, any small spark will set off an enormous explosion. In like manner, if we allow conflicts in our lives to sit unresolved over years, when they finally get addressed, they are highly combustible and potentially very damaging.

On a national level, the Social Security program is a case in point. For decades, we have known there is a funding problem on the horizon. Well, the horizon is no longer so far away.

Not wanting to pay a political price, our politicians have avoided this conflict. Not wanting to see our benefits reduced, we have encouraged our politicians to avoid the debate. So now, with a huge and growing federal budget deficit, the potential for a nasty generational conflict has multiplied. It didn’t have to go down this way.

Even at this late date, we are better off having a fight now rather than avoiding it. We have reached a national consensus on issues as difficult as Social Security. If we approach the conflict respecting the positions of all parties, there is absolutely no reason why we can’t work our way to a resolution acceptable to reasonable people.

Some of us avoid conflict because we don’t like conflict. Others of us avoid conflict because we know the conflict can only be resolved by us making change; changes we don’t want to make.

People over the age of 55 don’t want lowered Social Security benefits. Two people in a troubled relationship don’t want to change their individual behaviors to improve the relationship. Members of a congregation don’t want to change their congregational way of being because, well, they will have to change. I think our reluctance to change is why Jesus confidently proclaimed that his ministry would create division—even between parents and children, even between siblings.

Jesus did not come to bless the status quo. Jesus was a change agent. He opened his preaching with a call for repentance. There is no need to repent if we are currently doing the right thing. However, change, even the thought of change, creates conflict. We need to acknowledge that fact.

When I was doing my MBA, we had a guest lecturer come in to talk about change strategies. She said, “Let’s be clear about something. When you stand before a group of employees and say, ‘We need to make some major changes. But don’t worry, you won’t be harmed. Indeed, you will be better off,” please do not think for one second that any of your employees believe you. They don’t. What you are promising them is totally contrary to their life experience. Life has taught them that when change takes place, somebody has to pay a price and it is usually them. They know it and they will always be afraid that they will be the one who suffers the price of change.” I immediately knew the lecturer was correct.

If Social Security changes, no, make that, when Social Security changes, I will be harmed. There is just no way around it. Cost of living increases or other things are going to have to be changed in ways that cost me money.

However, the way to frame this conversation is to think in terms of alternatives. Don’t promise me and others that change won’t impact me and impact me negatively. The issue is what happens if change doesn’t take place. What will happen to the Social Security system if we continue to ignore the problem? The changes I will face then, a bankrupt system, will be worse than the changes I will face if the system is reformed.

That being said, the discussion of tradeoffs of this type is a major reason why we avoid conflict. We know we are going to have to give up something we currently possess. Conflicts end with us giving up something we don’t want to give up so the other party is happier with the situation.

We like to think that contentious situations can end with a win-win scenario. Some can. However, to get to win-win, it usually involves lose-lose. For example, when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved, Palestinian militants will lose their battle to eradicate Israel. Right wing Israelis will lose their claim on East Jerusalem and other lands they believe to be theirs. Everyone will win in the sense that peace will be a reality. However, to get there, most people will have lost/given up something they hold dear.

When Western went through a congregational fiscal crisis during the 2009 global fiscal crisis, everyone lost something: benevolences and program budgets were reduced, the Capital Reserve draw was lowered, and staff lost pay increases. However, we all gained something: fiscal stability. The process of getting to fiscal stability produced some conflict, at times, heated conflict. But it was necessary and healthy.

I have never seen a broken relationship repaired where both individuals didn’t have to lose something they held precious. However, when a person accepts the risks of making personal sacrifices, a relationship can be regained. Not always. But the relationship will most definitely fail if no one is willing to bend, to make a sacrifice, to change.

One of the things we learn from Jesus is how to work through conflicts. Jesus had the ability to be simultaneously tough and respectful. Yes, he lost his temper occasionally. That is part of him being fully human. Calling the Pharisees and Scribes hypocrites is like me losing it occasionally and calling Christian fundamentalists hypocrites. In the heat of conflict, we say stuff we really shouldn’t say, do things we really shouldn’t do.

However, the key is what we do after we lose it. Can we back off, even back down? Can we admit to ourselves and others that we crossed a line? Can we look for places where we can connect emotionally, personally with those with whom we are in conflict?

During a lunch break, perhaps we ask the person on the other side of the conflict how their kids are doing or how their sick spouse’s health is coming along. Perhaps we talk to them about a topic about which we agree. There are a bunch of strategies that work in building personal bridges to people with whom we are in conflict. But work them we must if we are going to find our way through complicated conflicts.

If I have learned anything living in D.C., it is that you don’t have to dislike those with whom you disagree. Watching odd couples like Teddy Kennedy and Orrin Hatch or Tip O’Neil and Ronald Reagan, I have come to realize that it is one thing to disagree. It is another to be disagreeable. It is one thing to prevail in a conflict. It is another to destroy the other party.

Few things are more important than learning the skill of developing positive relationships with those with whom we disagree. Clearly, Glenn Beck didn’t learn it. Actually, Beck is a bad example because he is making millions of dollars playing the angry man. We need to understand that folks such Beck, Limbaugh, and Oberman profit economically from being disrespectful and disagreeable. The more conflict they create or perpetuate, the more money they make. But there are a limited number of slots in life where that approach will make us money or bring us success.

For most of us, what pays off, emotionally if not financially, is finding a way to keep our integrity in contentious, argumentative situations while also remaining a decent, civil person. In some ways, this responsibility is more challenging today than in the past because of the speed with which we can communicate with one another. It is way, way too easy to rip off an instant, angry reply to someone who is pushing all of our buttons.

But our technology has not created the problem. As Jesus rightly notes, conflict is inevitable. Our efforts to do the right thing are going to be contested by malevolent forces. That is conflict we cannot avoid. More challenging, they are going to be opposed by good people who simply don’t agree with our goals, thoughts and/or strategies. That is also conflict we cannot ignore.

In warning us about the inevitability of conflict, Jesus was telling us that we need intense spiritual discipline to do what we are called by God to do. Do we have the self-control, self-restraint to walk into the muddied waters where conflict leads us? Knowing the members of this congregation, I think we do. But to emerge from those muddied waters still headed toward the Promised Land, we need to be spiritually focused and disciplined—totally and deeply. May we study and learn from those who have mastered the skill of living faithfully in the midst of conflict. Most especially, may we learn from Jesus himself.

Let us pray: God of this world, few of us really enjoy conflict. However, a day rarely passes when we are not immersed in some type of conflict. Help us to see conflict for what it is—an opportunity to express and ultimately resolve differences of opinion. As we do so, may we gain confidence in our ability to navigate the waters of contention. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, D.C.
August 8, 2010

Text: Luke 12:32-40 and Isaiah 1:1, 10-20

By the time I left for vacation six weeks ago, I was pretty worn down. In fact, for only the third time in my life, I blew out my back the week before I left. I could hardly stand up straight. I kept thinking, “I am walking around like an old man.” Then I realized, “I am an old man.”

Gratefully, my back doesn’t go out because of spinal problems. It goes out because of stress. I should have seen it coming. Our efforts to get health care to the poorest of the poor in Ethiopia have been exhausting, frustrating albeit very important for those we serve. The work took its toll.

In another challenge, for over a year, I have been working to make sure our denomination doesn’t do what progressives sometimes do—take a stance on an issue that is more emotional than helpful. The issue is Israel and Palestine. Some very well intentioned folks, distraught over the plight of the Palestinians, want to blame the entire situation on Israel, ignoring the political complexities and internecine history of that region. Historically, the Presbyterian Church has taken the position that both sides are wrong, both sides are right.

I spent the first couple of weeks of my vacation continuing to work on the debate remotely from Mexico. Gratefully, an excellent compromise was reached at the General Assembly which met in the first week of July. We basically reaffirmed our historical position with criticisms and affirmations of both sides. But arguing with people with whom you agree on 95% of all other social justice issues is not fun. It wears you down.

On one of those “signs of the times,” I have received a number of emails from friends wondering why they didn’t bump into me at the General Assembly in Minneapolis since they heard I was there. Well, I wasn’t there physically. But with email, Skype and phones, these days you can be somewhere you aren’t.

The longer list of issues I was dealing with last winter and spring isn’t worth mentioning. I only mention any of this because I know each and every one of you has a similar list. Each of you is dealing with frustrating situations at work, in your family systems, and/or on the political front. These things cause your back or something like it to go out on you. Such is life.

In our frustration with problems that won’t disappear, problems that begin to feel unresolvable, we are not alone. God also gets worn down by problems; difficulties created by human beings like you and me. In the Old Testament lesson this morning, we hear fatigue and frustration in God’s voice as relayed by the prophet Isaiah. God complains about human behavior, “I have had enough….I do not delight….I cannot endure” Speaking of our selfish ways, God declares: “They have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them.” And my favorite lament from God: “…who asked for this?”

Indeed, who asked for the Tea Party, vicious anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiments, an out-of-control addict in the family, cancer, a job that doesn’t produce any satisfaction, trouble finding a job, the health problems of our aging parents? Who asked for any of this and how do we cope with it? Reasonable answers to such questions are necessary to lead a healthy, holy life.

There are a number of classic, self-defeating behavioral responses to the multitude of problems that confront us. We can just take care of ourselves and try to forget about everyone and everything else. However, as we discussed last week, it is a futile strategy. We don’t live in a bubble separated from everyone and everything else. And, no matter how hard we try, we can’t create such a bubble. If we attempt to create a bubble, we will just be in worse shape when it pops.

We can become cynical. Over the past decade, the increase in deeply cynical behavior has been disheartening. How cynical was it for the Wall Street community to award itself mind-boggling bonuses when so many Americans can’t even find a job? How cynical is it for politicians to put the welfare of their party over the welfare of the nation in a time of profound economic crisis and our soldiers fighting two wars? How cynical is it for our Mayor to throw juicy government contracts in the direction of his friends and then refuse to answer questions on the subject? Cynicism breeds cynicism. Unlike wealth, cynicism does trickle down fairly rapidly.

We can disengage. Upset that our efforts to create change don’t create enough change or fast enough change, we just quit. It is an adult version of “If you don’t play the game the way I want it played, I will pick up my marbles and go home.” I have observed too many people in my generation take this approach. Upset that our youthful visions of a totally transformed nation weren’t happening rapidly enough, large numbers of folks decided to chase personal wealth rather than pursue social reform; personal peace rather than world peace.

When things don’t change fast enough to suit them, we oftentimes see people disengage from their church, family, job or a relationship. They just drop out, run away, punt. It is an incredibly childish response.

In the days of Isaiah, as enraged as God was at the people of Judah, God did not disengage, act cynically, or decide to focus on things in heaven and leave earth to its own devices. God definitely vented about the myriad of problems flowing from Judah. But God did not punt. Indeed, God doubled down on the demand for reform in Judah, sending Isaiah to the people with a scathing message.

Of course, this begs the question as to why so many of our problems seem intractable. Why can’t they be solved? Why are the poor always with us? Why do people continue to resort to violence? Why doesn’t a catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf produce one iota of change in our government or our lifestyles?

The best answer I have heard comes from Paul when he reminds us that we don’t do the good we want to do and we do bad things we don’t want to do. Members of the Taliban were doing some very evil stuff in Afghanistan at the beginning of this millennium. They needed to go. 9/11 created a rationale for us to be the ones to remove them. However, in our desire to do good, we ended up creating a whole set of new problems for the people of Afghanistan and ourselves.

A family has a teenager who is struggling in school. Her parents want her to perform better so she will have a good future. However, as the parents begin to lay down the law, the young person rebels and engages in some self-destructive behavior.

A non-profit organization has financial problems. As the organization presses its faithful contributors to give more, some of the contributors begin to resent being approached for money all the time and stop giving. Given its problems, others begin to question whether investing in the organization is wise. The financial problems are exacerbated by the effort to solve them.

So some of our problems are intractable because the very effort to address them sets off the law of unintended consequences. The more we try to solve something, the more we venture into unknown areas with new problems. Stress builds. Backs go out.

To de-stress our efforts to change the world, ourselves or our relationships, we need to stop thinking we have to or can solve all our problems. Has God been able to end war, eliminate poverty or protect the environment? Well, why do we think we will have some kind of instant, magical success in these and other areas? God does not expect us to solve problems God hasn’t been able to solve.

A spiritually mature person isn’t successful in solving every problem. God calls on us to work on problems, not eliminate them. Do what we can…while we can.

As we heard in the Gospel lessons last week and today, Jesus oftentimes recommends a “one day at a time” approach to life. Last week, we heard him warning us against devoting all of our time and effort to saving up for a day that may never come. Today, he is doing more of the same. He tells people, “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit.”

Miriam’s Kitchen hasn’t solved the homelessness or hunger problems in D.C. However, for 27 years, we have been helping two to three hundred folks get through the day. Our Clinic operation in Addis Ababa isn’t solving the extreme poverty situation in which our patients live. However, we are solving some immediate health problems that make their days and nights living hells. Our advocacy for the full inclusion of LGBT folks in the life of Presbyterian congregations hasn’t been totally successful. But we get closer to our goal every year. On many different fronts, we are doing what we can, where we can, while we can.

As many of you know, when I came to Western in 1983, our membership was overwhelmingly folks in the retirement phase of their lives. They had watched Western’s membership decline from 600 to around 100 active members. Walking into this environment as a newcomer, what struck me was how little anxiety and stress there was in the place, despite the decline in membership. I was stressed. But everyone else was pretty much relaxed.

As I got to know our members, they shared their hopes for the congregation. Most viewed the primary purpose of the church as keeping them spiritually strong. They also believed that if Western could hang on—for another day, week, or year—something good would happen. Basically it was a survival strategy. Slowly, we changed to a growth strategy. But undergirding the growth was a profound sense that God was going to take care of us here at Western.

One of the great gifts of our faith is the blessed assurance that all will be well. According to many Biblical accounts, even God, at times, has difficulty believing that everything will work out. However, it is true. Things, in their own way, do work out. Sometimes they work out because of us. Sometimes they work out despite us. Sometimes they work out without us. But they work out.

Our problems are not new problems. They are recurring problems. We coped with them in the past. We will cope with them today.

Any student of American history knows that the Tea Party is not an aberration. Fringe groups challenging the American Way appear repeatedly throughout our history. The battle to protect immigrants in this country isn’t new. The Irish, Italian, Jews and many others faced the same kind of hostility some Mexicans are facing today. A family having problems isn’t new. Read about England’s royalty some time.

If we see our problems as what they are, challenges we need to address faithfully, courageously and persistently, they will not overwhelm us. If we see them as a test of our personal faithfulness, competency or intrinsic value, they may very well overwhelm us. They aren’t personal fitness tests. They are problems.

“Who asked for this?” wondered a God who was clearly feeling disheartened and perhaps even resentful about the endless problems the people of Judah created. No one. No one asks for problems. But God has to deal with problems and so do we.

So let us not succumb to the temptation to disengage, become self-absorbed or cynical. Rather, let us take a deep breath, maybe a vacation and then go back to work. As Jesus said, we need to get “dressed for action and keep our lamps lit.” As we do so, we will work our way through our problems in surprising, serendipitous ways that ruin neither our health or relationships.

Let us pray: Gracious God, life is challenging. The problems we face can overwhelm us. Help us to maintain a calm and steady approach toward life, doing what we can, making a difference—sometimes small, sometimes large. As we do so, we will slowly grow the mustard seed you have planted inside each of us and inside human history itself. Amen.

Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, D.C.
August 1, 2010

Text: Luke 12:13-21

A year or so out of seminary, I had a question for the head of staff of the congregation I was serving as an assistant pastor. “How do you manage to come up with a new sermon every week?” I inquired. Maynard responded, “As you’ll discover, the more you preach, the more you have to preach about.” It has turned out to be absolutely true, in part, because life regularly serves us up incredible fodder for sermons. The times in which we live are as fertile for preaching the Word of God as any in history.

At first glance, this morning’s Gospel lesson is nothing earth-shattering. Jesus tells a parable about a man who devoted himself diligently to storing up grain and goods so, later in life, he could “relax, eat, drink and be merry.” While the man’s efforts seem like a reasonable, even prudent strategy, Jesus raises a profound question about them. He asks his listeners, “What happens if the future for which you all are saving never arrives? What happens if everything changes in the blink of an eye? Then where will you be? Put your faith in God, not in the riches you store up for yourself.”

Given the economic turmoil of the past three years, Jesus’ parable is anything but routine for our generation. It describes perfectly why we are in the fix we are in economically. In today’s world, Jesus would alter the parable slightly. Instead of a farmer storing up crops in a barn, he would describe people diligently saving money in their 401k or working for years to earn pension credits so they can retire, relax, eat drink and be merry. And Jesus’ response to this behavior might go something like this: “What happens if the tech bubble pops, the real estate bubble pops, the stock market drops 20% or the financial industry almost shuts down? Indeed, what happens if all of those things take place within the same decade? What value will all your savings and investments have then? Put your faith in God, not in the riches you are storing up for the future.”

This summer I read a fairly dense economic analysis of all the major financial crises that have taken place since the 19^th century. If you like tables, statistical standards of deviation and graphs, you will adore this book. It is entitled This Time Is Different. Looking at economic behavior over centuries, not just decades, the authors see some clear trends that lead to a wisdom we all need to hear. In summary, the authors conclude that behind every major financial crisis lies the firm conviction that everything is different than it was in the past. Every generation thinks it has learned the lessons from its ancestor’s failures, figured out things its ancestors didn’t know, found natural resources or inventions that have changed the economic playing field forever, or created laws and regulations to make sure abuses aren’t repeated.

However, in each and every generation, far from things being different, everything remains very much the same. Greed undermines all the supposed advancements in learning, production or technology. Hubris overrides common sense.

The data about our current economic crisis is clear: the still open economic wounds that weaken our nation today are self-inflicted. In ways small or large, we have all participated in the making of this crisis. Until we confess that fact, we will have a difficult time putting it behind us.

In urging people to trust God in this parable, Jesus certainly wasn’t criticizing the important discipline of saving for a rainy day. One of the reasons we are in the jam we are in today is because we stopped being a nation of savers. Instead we became a nation of spenders, obsessive compulsive consumers. We bought homes, cars, and many other things we couldn’t afford. As a result, we became and remain a debtor nation.

No, Jesus wasn’t questioning savings. He was calling our attention to the inordinate faith we place in our personal planning. No matter how much life smacks us around, we always think we can control the future by planning for it. Having been knocked down once, we say to ourselves, “The next time will be different. I will do a better job of preparing for the future.”

It is as if we simply don’t believe Jesus’ assertion when he said, “If God cares for the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, will not God also care for us?” Our behavior on a variety of levels reveals that we are absolutely convinced that if we don’t care for ourselves, no on else will. We don’t trust our future to God or anyone else. We trust only ourselves. Given our pathetic track record caring for ourselves, that is really quite an astonishing conclusion.

Our lack of trust in God manifests itself in things personal and global. On a personal level, for example, many of us spend a lot of time exercising, eating the correct foods and otherwise taking care of our physical health. Again, just like saving for the future, this is a good discipline.

However, no matter how well we manage our health, there are too many wild cards involved, especially in terms of genetic and environmental factors, for us to have any kind of ultimate control over our health. As examples, we read about the highly disciplined marathoner who dies of a heart attack in his forties or the person who happened to be on a plane that crashed. If we place our trust in things such as the well being of our bodies or some airplane maintenance company, occasionally we are going to be horribly surprised.

On a global level, it is absolutely clear that, no matter what they say, nations do not trust in God. Here in the U.S. we have the chutzpah to put “in God we trust” on our money. Nonsense. It is propaganda. Like the farmer in the parable, as a nation, we, in the United States, put our trust in earthly things we can stockpile—especially weapons. Guns in our homes. Nuclear weapons on our arsenal of rockets. Special operations forces at the ready. We don’t trust God. We trust our weapons.

Somebody can wound us, as they did on 9/11. However, we say to ourselves, “We will hunt them down and kill them (as well as anybody who gets between them and us) before they get the chance to wound us again.” Where is the trust in God and God’s Way in such an approach to life?

The ultimate sign that we lack trust in God is evident when things go wrong in our lives. Too often, we turn on God, thinking God is out to get us or even worse, we begin to believe that God is indifferent to our plight. No longer willing to rely on God, we intensify our efforts to take care of ourselves, to become totally self-sufficient, as though a self-sufficient person ever existed on earth.

The myth of the self-made person is one of the most seductive and misguided myths in history. Even Jesus wasn’t self-sufficient. The first thing he did was gather a group around him to support and give him advice, a group of friends to love and love him.

At this point, it would be fair for any or all of you to ask, “Well, John, you have described a distrustful life. What would a life look like that was built on trusting God?” Indeed, we can’t just define what a distrustful life looks like. We need to visualize a trustful life.

We don’t have to look far for real life examples of individuals who possessed a remarkable trust in God. We can look at Sarah or Jesus, Sojourner Truth or Desmond Tutu, Aung San Suu Kyi or Oscar Romero. All chose to live their lives depending not on things of this world but on God. As a result, they were or are fearless. Nothing and no one could or can intimidate them.

None of these people led problem free lives. Indeed, each of them suffered mightily and, in some cases, died martyrs deaths. However, they knew that, as Paul wrote to the Romans, “…neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” With such a trust in God, they dealt faithfully with the problems life thrust in front of them, the problems life inevitably thrusts in front of all of us.

When we trust in God, many of our actions will, in fact, resemble those of people who trust only in themselves. We will save money, take care of our bodies and minds, and develop long term strategies just as they do. However, we do so because it makes sense, not because we think it will save us; because it is an appropriate strategy, not a redemptive strategy.

Trusting in God rather than our own strength, we will not get sucked into the trap of thinking we are safe because we kill others before they can kill us or because we have more money in the bank than we will most likely use. No, we are safe because God has assured us that we are safe. Because of God’s love and those God sends to love us, we will persevere no matter what happens to our savings, jobs, or health.

As one studies economics, the only thing really surprising is that, throughout history, people repeatedly think they have taken the surprise out of economic behavior. As we study the history of nations and visit the ruins of great empires from Rome to China to Ethiopia to Peru, the only thing bizarre is that we walk away thinking our empire will last forever; that somehow we will avoid what every empire before us has failed to avoid. This time will be different.

However, studying history, we realize that the more the world changes, the more the world remains the same. And gratefully, part of that sameness is the trustworthiness of our God. No matter what happens to us, no matter what we do or others do to us, God loves us and will make sure we get through whatever we need to get through. “Lean on me,” says God, “Depend on me. We’ll get through this together.”

The way beyond our problems, both personal and collective, is not to save more, eat better food or stop being an empire—as wise as it would be to do all of those things. The Way is rooted in a profound trust in the only reality that has proven totally and absolutely trustworthy since the creation of this universe—a loving and providential God.

Let us pray: Gracious God, we thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for your steadfast love. You are always present for and to us. May we be wise enough to put our trust in you. All this we pray in the name of One who did just that, Jesus of Nazareth. Amen.

Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, DC
25 July 2010

Text: Matthew 6:9-15

The rainbow scarves fascinated Libby Shannon. Throughout the Assembly, she saw them, hanging proudly over the necks of men, women, and teenagers. People over the age of seventy wore them, as well as those in their twenties, as a witness to their support of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender men and women in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Libby was attending the 219^th General Assembly of the PC(USA) in Minneapolis, a biennial gathering of pastors and lay people, who make decisions on behalf of our two million-member church, which took place a couple of weeks ago. They pray and study together, seeking guidance for their work together and making declarations about social justice issues that will focus our energy and mission. 

I also noticed the scarves, even though I was not in Minneapolis. I first saw them hanging from the crochet needles in our Wednesday night dinner and coffee time, as Jean Ackor and other women knitted them at our church. Then I saw them at the General Assembly. I was in my living room, watching the Assembly as it was livestreamed over the Internet. There were many issues discussed and brought before the gathering—motions on gun violence, discussions on Israel and Palestine, initiatives on the environment, and changes to our church government. In all of this, the ones that always garner great attention are around the inclusion of LGBT people. Would our insurance begin to cover gay or lesbian partners? Would we redefine marriage from “a man and a woman” to “two people”? Would the church allow people who are open about their same-gender relationships become ordained?

Our denomination works a bit differently than other denominations. We do not have powerful bishops who decide the will of God and the people. It’s a much more democratic system, with laypeople and clergy represented in our decisions. At the heart of many of these decisions, we would be pointing to a deep cultural shift, one that not only acknowledges same-gender relationships but says that God blesses them.

It ended up that the Assembly approved the insurance coverage of same-gender spouses. They tabled the discussion to redefining marriage. And they removed an amendment to our constitution that would restrict gays and lesbians from being ordained. But since the last action was a change to our church constitution, it needs to be voted on by the Presbyteries (our local bodies) before it becomes ratified. And so the struggle begins again. The amendment will go out to the Presbyteries, and the Presbyteries will vote. In the last years, the vote has failed when it’s gone to the Presbyteries. But every year, we gain a few more Presbyteries than we did before. 

Libby Shannon is a student who graduated from seminary. She’s young, she’s in her twenties, and she believes strongly that LGBT people should be ordained and that they should be able to marry. Many studies have been done on the religious habits of people in their twenties and thirties, and a lot of us have difficulty filling out the religion section on our Facebook page. There are not many who are committed to a denominational church. So I asked Libby, if we’re people who believe in inclusion of LGBT people, why do we stick around? Why don’t we just leave?

In response, Libby pointed in two directions. She directed my attention backwards and reminded me of all of the women and men who fought this very same battle so that women could be ordained. “What would I be saying to the legacy of those women, if I just gave up? What would I be saying to them, if I didn’t fight for what I thought was right in our church, and just took the easy way out?”

And then she pointed the other direction. She looked to the future and told me about the about the youth group that she worked with. “I’m doing it for them. I’m doing this so that they can have a church that loves everyone, no matter what his or her sexual orientation might be.” I was inspired by Libby’s words. She knew that we are imperfect, earthbound people, but she still had a longing for the ideal and a hope for something better.

I do not want to characterize the struggle in our denomination in terms that are too simplistic. But to quickly explain what is happening, I will say that there are those in our denomination who point to the six passages in Scripture that condemn same-sex relationships, and see those passages as so important that they feel as if we back off from them, then we are no longer seeing the Bible as a guide for our lives. It is very important for them

Then there are those, like me, who read about love, marriage, and sex in the Scriptures and we see that relationships have evolved dramatically with culture. As a woman, I cannot point to the authority of the Bible when it comes to marital relationships. I cannot look at the Scriptures and say “Ahhh. That is what marriage ought to be like.” Because when I read about marriage from a women’s perspective (frankly) it’s filled with horror stories. Women are bought and sold like property. There are many wives for every husband. Men have sex with their slaves if they cannot bear children with their wives. Marriages are arranged for political alliances. Kings keep harems of women. There does seem to be one loving relationship in the Song of Songs, but the lovers are sneaking around in that book, and they’re clearly not married. And so, as someone who takes the Bible very seriously, I can’t see it as an ideal authority on love and marriage, between one man and one woman, because I just don’t see it in the Scriptures.

When I point out how oppressive and abusive marriage is for women in the Bible, people can be quick to defend. They say, “Those were cultural practices, so we cannot take modern our view of marriage and superimpose it on an ancient view.”

And I agree. Our cultural definition of marriage has changed since biblical times. So if we cannot take our view of marriage and expect for biblical marriages to live up to our standards, then we should not be taking the biblical standards and imposing them on our culture. Culturally, we believe that loving relationships are between two people who commit themselves to one another. We know that no marriage is perfect, people are earth-bound, but we still hope for the ideal. We know how the world is, but we long for the world as it ought to be.

The struggle reminds me of the time I was reading Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, a story that took place in Savannah, Georgia. In the book, they were going to trial and they were trying to weed out those who might be prejudice against a gay man, and so they asked a series of questions, trying to detect any homophobia. And the last question they asked–the very last litmus test that they pulled out was, “Would you mind if your pastor was gay?” The lawyer determined that if they said no to that question, then the final barrier was removed.

I wonder if that’s true. And if it is, it puts this struggle into a bit more perspective. Are we trying to remove the last barrier for the next generation? I know that gays and lesbians face discrimination all over our culture. I’m not saying that the struggle is over when LGBT people can be ordained. But I wonder, is that the reason we stay in this historic denomination, even when we know it’s not right? Is it because we know that people are earth-bound, but we still dream and strive for the ideal, the heavenly? 

In a strange way, Libby’s words reminded me of Jesus’ prayer, the one that we say every Sunday morning. We read the context for it this morning. Jesus is teaching the disciples how to pray, and he gave them these words. And I always pause at that bit about “On Earth as it is in Heaven,” because I do not know what heaven is like. None of us do. We have ideas of it from the Bible, but really, we don’t even have that many of those. And the authors never experienced it, except through visions. I believe in heaven, and not just because it gives people incredible comfort when their loved ones come to the end of their lives. I believe that in our birth we emanated from God’s love, and in our death we return to God’s love. And there is a very real sense in which heaven is what we wish for and long for, where suffering will melt away.

And so I wonder, as disciples of Jesus, when Jesus invites us to pray, “On earth as it is in heaven,” if we are not being invited to dream a bit. It is as if we are being told, “pray for the perfect world. Even when what is surrounding you is far from perfect, keep hoping and keep dreaming for a world that is.”

Prayer is an incredibly powerful exercise. And one of the most important parts of prayer, is that we verbalize what we want. If you are like me, this doesn’t always come naturally. You know, often times we are taught to be happy with what we have, rather than dreaming of what we want. And it is extremely important to be satisfied with the things that we have, but in the last few years, I have just discovered how important it is to imagine what I want. It is important that we write it down carefully, and ask God for it.

A business is typically not going to be successful if that business does not have a plan. A non-profit organization may not be effective if they do not have a vision statement. A church will flounder if the congregation does not have a mission. As citizens, we will need keep imagining what a just society looks like, and work for that end. And as humans, we may never understand what our purpose is in this life, if we never ask ourselves what we want out of it. Some people have no problem with this at all, but there are many, many people in this world who do not know what they want. They feel as if they are at the mercy of everyone’s desires, and they do not know how to fight for their own vision of what might be good and right.

This may seem like a completely selfish venture, and it can be. Often it is. I mean, the “prosperity gospel” is unique in our country and history, and it is often born out of selfishness and greed. And I don’t think that the American prosperity gospel is what Jesus had in mind… but it is a wonderful thing to imagine, “What if earth was like heaven? What would that look like? What would a just society look like? What would the world look like if every barrier to God’s love was lifted?” We can imagine it on a global scale and a local scale, and even in a personal sense. What would the ideal state of things, where there is no separation from God’s love, look like? It reminds me of the words of Walter Rauschenbusch, a wonderful pastor and writer from the turn of the twentieth century, who worked with the poor in New York City. He said that our struggles as Christians is “a great revolutionary moment, pledged to change the world as-it-is into the world as-it-ought-to-be.”

The world as-it-is into the world as-it-ought-to-be.

On earth as it is in heaven.

I wonder if that is what keep Libby from giving up on our historic denomination, not content with allowing it to look anything less than God’s unbounded love. I wonder if “on earth as it is in heaven” is the prayer that worked through each stitch, as women and men crocheted rainbow scarves, in the hopes that the next generation will have a church and country that is free from discrimination. Even though they know what the world is, they will continue to work and hope for a world as it ought to be. They will continue to be a witness to Gods love.

It is a prayer of great power, when we begin to pray it. There can be a great humility if we ask God to bless our hopes. Let us go out, with that prayer on our lips. To the glory of God our Creator, God our Sustainer, and God our Liberator. Amen.

Western Presbyterian Church

Washington, DC

July 18, 2010

Text: Luke 10:38-42

I have a friend who is a stay-at-home mother. Her husband makes a lot of money, so she was able to have a choice about whether she worked or not, and she decided that she wanted to be home. She puts a hundred percent of herself into her children and she is happy and satisfied doing it. But there was one day where she hit the breaking point (as I often do as a working mom). She was trying to decorate her house for a party, and so she bought a Martha Stewart book. She fell in love with this garland in those shiny pages. It was made out of nuts, and it was photographed, strung across a fireplace mantle. She looked at the clean, pastel pictures of happy Martha with a drill, creating the garland, and she was sure that she could pull it off.

She bought the nuts and fancy ribbon, she got her drill from the basement. And she tried, and tried, and tried. Then she bought more nuts. And it was one of those crafts that the more she failed, the more determined she became about it. Until after the day was wasted, she was exhausted, she had a few nuts on her garland, and a pile of cracked and discarded ones. By the time the actual party came around, she was a wreck from trying to make everything perfect.

It’s strange how our society works. We are a culture that longs for hospitality. We yearn for a comfortable place where we can listen and tell the stories of our lives. We want to sit with good food, drink, and friends. We long for a community where we can breathe deeply. Yet we end up stressed out and busy. We work hard so that we can keep our homes, in the hopes of being hospitable some day.

As I open my mailbox, I realize how consumer-driven our hospitality has become. We have to have just the right plates, napkins, and silverware. Everything must match everything else. Plus, it all needs to match the season. We shop until everything looks perfect, we growl at our family as we put the event together, and then we are exhausted by the time the guests arrive. Hospitality has grown into a major industry in our country—from annual Christmas gatherings, to sweet sixteen birthday parties, to weddings, it’s like we have a national longing for the perfect party. There’s something good at the heart of it. It is a human yearning to share our lives with friends.

Since I’m one of those people who gets completely stressed out in order to host, so I take comfort in this Mary and Martha story. When Martha’s worrying about the nut garland and the matching plates, Mary’s enjoying the company. I like that. It also seems that there is something that grows deeper in our Christian tradition when it comes to hospitality. When we stop and listen to the words of Jesus, we can hear a vein that has pulsed throughout our tradition.

Perhaps it came from Jesus’ life; he seemed to be a perpetual stranger. He was born out of town. His mother couldn’t find a decent room, so he was born in the hay and paced in the feeding trough. Soon after that, they found out that Herod had a plot to kill the baby, so they began to flee for their lives. We don’t hear much about Jesus for a while, but as soon as we do, we hear about how he is traveling again.  “The birds of the air have nests, but the son of humanity has no place to put his head.” As he walks, he teaches and heals. And many of his words have to do with how to treat a stranger, or how to react when you are a stranger and you’re treated poorly. Jesus identified with that person who had needed food, shelter, or clothing. He didn’t just teach about the stranger, we was the stranger.

There is a lot in our Christian tradition that teaches us about hospitality. I began to delve deeper in the subject as I read a book by Diana Butler Bass entitled, A People’s History of Christianity, a wonderful book that reveals the historical roots of many of our progressive beliefs and practices. At the heart of hospitality in our tradition, is what John Chrysostom preached, that hospitality is “not merely a friendly reception, but one given with zeal and alacrity. [It is] this idea that we are receiving Christ himself.” For us, as Christians, hospitality grows a whole lot deeper than the dishes and accessories. It means sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening to his words. It means a deep community, where people share what they have. They divide their resources and property, giving to those who are in need, because they have the conviction that Jesus Christ was in need.

We have a tradition in which wealthy widows opened their homes for poor people on the street, and created communities of prayer. We have a history where working men and women could get a coffee and some soup in Houses of Hospitality. In the heart of who we are as a people, we know that we should welcome the stranger, care for the needy.

In this moment in time, this is a pressing issue for American Christians. We know the economy is difficult, and all sorts of people are having difficulty finding a job. We also know that when the poor face hardships, it is particularly difficult. There is a fear that undocumented workers are taking jobs away from US citizens. And perhaps that is why our sense of hospitality is strained right now in our country.  

Arizona passed Arizona Senate Bill 1070. The Bill says that people who are from other countries must have registration documents in their possession at all times. The Act additionally makes it a state misdemeanor crime for an alien to be in Arizona without carrying the required documents, bars state or local officials or agencies from restricting enforcement of federal immigration laws, and cracks down on those sheltering, hiring and transporting illegal aliens. This law demands that anyone who doesn’t look like a citizen needs to provide proof of citizenship or they will be deported. Which is amazing to me. There is no template for what an US citizen looks like. That’s what makes our country great! In my daughter’s generation, Caucasians are the minority, and her friends come from all over the world. How can we possible identify someone who does not “look” like a US citizen?

In parts of the country, men and women are gathering the names of undocumented workers, and reporting them to the police, expecting that law enforcement officials to round them up. Other states are now considering immigration laws that look like Arizona’s.  

The religious community is responding, upholding our tradition of hospitality. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops denounced the Arizona law, characterizing it as draconian and saying it “could lead to the wrongful questioning and arrest of U.S. citizens.” The National Council of Churches also criticized the law, saying that it ran counter to centuries of biblical teachings regarding justice and neighborliness.

United Methodist Church Bishop Minerva Carcaño who serves in Arizona’s Desert Southwest Conference opposed it as “unwise, short sighted and mean spirited.” Our General Assembly (2010) that met a couple of weeks ago agreed to refrain from holding national meetings in states where travel by immigrant Presbyterians or Presbyterians of color might subject them to harassment due to legislation.

In this crucial time, we need to stop, as Christians, and reach back to our heritage of hospitality. We need to understand the true meaning of it. Because hospitality does not simply mean nut garlands, fancy dishes, and beautiful tablecloths, but it means that we share what we have. It means that we see each individual that comes in our midst as Jesus Christ. We sit at the feet of Christ’s teachings as he proclaims a radical hospitality that reminds us “I was hungry and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” It is the type of hospitality that is written in stone in our courtyard room, that encourages us always show hospitality to others because you just might be entertaining angels. It is written there to remind us that this is not just a place where we eat refreshments and drink lemonade, but we serve the homeless, we provide medical care in Ethiopia. It means that we hold fast to the traditions of our faith. 

A friend of mine, Delle McCormick, is a pastor and she was the Executive Director of BorderLinks, an educational organization in Arizona that helps people understand issues of immigration. Some of you have been to BorderLinks. Our church has taken trips there. She said that one Christmas, she got a message saying, “Baby Jesus needs you at the hospital.”

When she received the message, she laughed and thought well, that’s an interesting way to get a minister to work on Christmas day. She went to the hospital and met Baby Jesus and his mother. The mother explained her story, how she was in Mexico and there was no work for her husband, so he crossed the border to get a job. She didn’t hear from him again, and she was sure that he died. Then she realized that she was pregnant. She was facing a terrible dilemma, because she was also sure that she and her baby would die if they stayed in Mexico. So she figured out a way that she could get to the United States through the border of Arizona. At nine months pregnant, she traveled. Going onto a train cart, she found herself so packed in with other humans, that her belly and arms hung out of the sides of the cart.

She gave birth in the desert. The border patrol found her and even though she gave birth in Arizona, the men refused to pick up her placenta—the only accepted proof that would give her child US Citizenship.

Jesus and his mother spent a couple of days in the hospital, until the mother was sure that her baby was not dehydrated. Then she left, slipping out with her child, escaping so that she might find work, so that her baby might have some sort of future.

It is hard not to make some parallel to this baby’s namesake—especially as we understand that he is traveling through the desert, afraid for his life.

This is the sort of story that is playing out over and over again on the border. And in this time, we need to become aware of our tradition of radical hospitality. It is a time when we need to begin looking at a comprehensive immigration reform that protects human dignity, keeps families together. This is the moment when we need to think about our deep tradition that calls us to invite the stranger into our midst, to feed and shelter them. This is a moment when we can realize that our longings for love and community will not be fulfilled when we buy matching dishes and napkins, but when we welcome one another in the name of Christ.

To the glory of God our Creator, God our Liberator, and God our Sustainer. Amen.

Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, D.C.
11 July 2010

Text: Colossians 1:1-14

I had to find a new doctor a couple of weeks ago, so I did a Google search. I typed in my zip code and the kind of doctor I needed into the computer and a list came up. I looked at a few of them near our home, and came up with a name, and by the name was a starred review. It was a two star review. Two out of five. That would be like a D. I started to read the reviews, and as I scrolled down, I stopped myself. I decided to make the estimation on my own.

So, I made an appointment (she was really easy to get into), and met the doctor. She was wonderful. She spent a lot of time with us. She was thorough, thoughtful, and funny. And as I was leaving, I remembered that Google review. I was sure that I would go back on the Internet, and give her five stars and write up what a good experience I had. But, I didn’t. I went about my day and I forgot.

A man wrote a book. It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime books–the kind that takes decades to write. He put his heart and soul into it. When he had it published, he proudly watched as it went up on Amazon. Then a few weeks after the book was out, he got scathing reviews on it. He had poured his life into this book, he fully expected that it would become the great American novel. And he watched as it was torn apart in a public fashion by anonymous commenters. It drove him into a deep depression, which in turn ripped apart his family.

The professor begins teaching a college class for the first year, finds that she is being graded by her students on an Internet site. And she realizes the ugly things that they are saying about her are not only about the kind of gr she gives, but it’s demeaning. They’re talking about how “hot” she is.

This is the kind of world that we live in. There are exciting things about it. A couple months ago, I preached a sermon about how people now have the ability to talk back and question, how people in our culture no longer blindly accept things without wrestling with it. I presented most of that transition in a fairly positive light. But I didn’t have time to delve into the negative aspects of this shift. I wonder what all of this is doing to our self-worth. I wonder, when so many things can be picked apart and criticized, what makes a worthy life?

An artist can no longer create publicly without being criticized—sometimes in an extremely harsh manner. Men and women go about their jobs, and they can become skewered by an on-line evaluation. People can put everything that they have into starting a new restaurant, and they not only have to worry about the Post’s reviewers, but now everyone is a critic, reporting on the slight indignities that they might have endured during their dining experience. And the worst part about it is that most of the time the critiques are made by anonymous people, so while they can easily ruin the reputation of the professional, they do not even have to soil their own reputation at all.

Someone in our congregation told me once that reviews, polls, and customer service feedback is almost always skewed toward the negative. When someone is angry about something, they are much more compelled to speak out about it. When people are content about an experience, they are less likely to put the energy into commenting on it. That’s pretty much how life works, doesn’t it? It’s the wheel that needs oil that squeaks. It’s the man who endured a bad experience who ends up at the customer service desk. It’s the woman who’s annoyed by the waitstaff who has the energy to write the negative review on Yelp. It’s the one customer out of thousands who felt like he was treated poorly who complains about an employee. It’s the party that’s not in office who protests on the mall.

So I wonder, how do we determine a worthy life now, in this time of constant critiques? It is not only the reviews and critiques that are reflected in a new way. We can also build our identities and reputations in a new way now.

It was about five years ago when a man told me about his wife and confided, “She is a very important person. If you google her name, you’ll come up with thousands of hits.” Sure enough, I tried it. I put her name into the Internet search engine, and found thousands of articles, written by her and about her. 

It’s affected the way we form romantic relationships. In that short time, while working with college students, journeying with my pastor colleagues, and mentoring seminarians, I have become very aware of how an online presence can hurt or help a person’s chances of getting a job.

I have been with a lot of people who have found their spouse on Internet dating sites. (Dating sites really handy for single clergy who can’t date members of their church or synagogue and don’t want to troll the bars.) People of all ages are using the Internet to find romance. Sometimes men and women have re-connected with loved ones from high school. Other times they have met someone new. In each case, we seem to be constructing our selves in this virtual manner.

I read an article in Wired magazine about etiquette in a new day and age. They asked if you should Google your date before going out with them. They determined that you should not. After all, part of the dating process is the joy of discovery, and you take a lot of that away if you know everything before you go out. The article reminded me of how much has changed.

In our congregation, as we have a group of kids who are going into junior high, I start to wonder about what it will be like as our personalities take shape and are formed in our particular culture. My daughter learned to type her name before she learned to write it. Her stuffed animals come with identical avatars so that she can play with them in virtual worlds. In other words, when she buys a pink poodle from the store, the poodle has a tag with a code on it. She can take the poodle home, register the code on a website, and manipulate the character to eat, drink, or play games in an animated world on the screen. She has been setting up anonymous profiles of herself on the computer since she was three years old. I have encouraged this, and closely watched it. She needs to understand what she’s doing. There’s a bit of education that’s important for her development. Depending on what field she goes into, she probably won’t be able to manage without knowing something about computers, but I wonder about how people are being formed. How will all of this affect a child’s self-worth as she develops?

When I was in Junior High, I remember the painful reality of knowing who was popular and who was not. It was painful, because like most kids in Junior High, I was never as popular as I wanted to be. Now teenagers have sites where they can literally count the number of friends that they have. I wonder how it will affect them.

Some people are not affected by these on-line developments at all, but many of us are. How we work, how we socialize, how we build our professional reputations, how we meet our lovers, and how our children construct their social lives can be affected by these developments. And all of this happened in just a decade or so. I wonder if we have had adequate time to sit back and wonder how this affects us. Have we been able to think about these developments theologically? When our work is judged and criticized constantly, when the proof of a worthy life is shifting and changing so rapidly, how do we have any bearings? How do we know that our lives have value, meaning, and worth?

In our scripture this morning, the author of this letter to the Colossians is praying for the Christians in that seedling church. He is praying that they might have a worthy life. There are things in this letter that are bound to a particular cultural context, but there are also things that hold true–even with all the changes in technology around us and the rapidly evolving nature of our culture. There are reasons why we gather in this place week after week, and this question is at the heart of them: How can we live lives that have true value, meaning and worth?

In these Scriptures the author points out some ingredients of a worthy life: to be wise, strong, and thankful. And it seems that in our context these three ingredients to a worthy life still make a lot of sense.

Wisdom is something that flows throughout our Scriptures. And it takes so many different forms. Sometimes personified as a woman who calls out to us on the street corner, beckoning us, to take heed. And she reminds us that gaining wisdom is an active process. Wisdom can come to us through words—as we consume and read and gain as much knowledge as we can.

And other times wisdom calls us into stillness. It also comes to us just a strength comes to a tree that grows next to flowing waters. Wisdom can come as we sit, pray, meditate. As we invite the Spirit into our lives. It takes root when we can stop and open ourselves up to how we might be used by God. When the noise of conflict and struggle and despair dins all around us. When we feel eaten up by criticism, when we can be led around by everyone else’s opinion, wisdom is what calls to us to be still and know that God is God. Wisdom is what whispers to us in those small moments of the morning, telling us the solution to the problem that has been plaguing us.

And then there is strength. Strength is the courage to speak out, no matter what our people are saying. It is that God-given boldness that calls us to do the right thing, even if it is not the most popular thing or the most profitable avenue. Courage is that fruit that grows when we blow the whistle on corruption. When we stand up for those who are suffering, and when we defend the earth and its resources. Strength helps us to speak as the prophets spoke, even when everything is against us. Even when we are tired and worn, we know that we will not stop looking for those who are in need.

And there is thankfulness. In this world, where we are constantly told that we are not enough unless we have this product, and then the moment we buy the product, it becomes obsolete, we are taught to be thankful. This often helps with anxiety and depression. When we feel overloaded, go for a walk, and with each step name something for which you are thankful. Keep a steady rhythm, listing those things. If you cannot think of anything, begin with the ground that is supporting you and the air that you are breathing, and work from there. Creating gratitude lists can change your life. Your worth becomes hinged upon what you have and who you are, even while everything around you is reminding you of what you do not have.

There are so many things that have changed since this letter was written—so many ways that technology has formed. So many cultural changes. But it remains that three things are so often keys to those times when we feel overwhelmed and we are just longing to live a worthy life. These things have not changed. They teach us some of the ingredients—wisdom that comes from learning as much as we can, and it also comes from sitting in stillness and silence, waiting for that still small voice to bubble up within us; strength to speak out for those who are vulnerable and needy; and thankfulness.

It is my prayer for our church this morning. For each one of you, as you go out into this world that can be so harsh and so critical. When your value is often determined by what you do not have. I pray that God will give all of us wisdom, strength, and thankfulness.  

To the glory of God our Creator, God our Liberator, and God our Sustainer. Amen.

Western Presbyterian Church

Washington, DC

July 4, 2010

Text: Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

One of my first years as a pastor, I was coming out of a nursing home room, wearing my collar, and the person at the desk yelled, “Hey! Reverend!” I turned and found a woman who was about my age, working as an attendant. She stood up and I saw her swollen belly. She looked like she was about nine months pregnant, and she was eagerly waving me over. “Yes?” I responded as I walked to the desk.

“Will you give me a blessing? Will you bless my baby?” she asked.

I was startled, for a short second. I realized that I often blessed congregations after the service. I often received blessings from homeless people. And when it happens I try to receive it. And sometimes it can be the most welcome blessing. We blessed people when they sneezed. But I had never been asked for a blessing. I said, “Of course.” Even though it felt weird, I asked her if I could touch her belly, because that seemed to be what she expected.

She answered, “Yes! Please!”

And so I did. And I prayed a blessing upon this stranger and her baby, one that was a lot like what I would say at the end of a service. She thanked me and it was over. But since that day, it’s happened several times—especially when I’m wearing a collar, and I’m around a pregnant stranger. And I’m a lot more comfortable with it now than I was the first time it happened.

I bring up these blessings, because there has been this interesting string of blessing and cursing in the last few lectionary Sundays that we have picked up and dropped and picked up again, and my ears have perked up each time we have read it, or when I thought about the story in its fullness, I knew that it was there, even if it was not in the passage that we read aloud. In the Old Testament, as we have listened to the stories of Abraham and Sarah, God blessed Abraham and said that he would have the power to bless and to curse. In the Gospels, as we have heard Jesus’ instructions to the disciples, and in the epistle readings, when we have heard the instructions to the churches, there has been this idea that not only God can bless or curse, but that God’s followers can as well. It seems to be the case in the New Testament, that the disciples and the apostles are being sent out to spread the good news

I don’t like this idea. I know how nasty Christians can be, and I don’t like the thought that they have the ability to bless and curse. But, if we think about it, we all have the ability.

Scripture reminds us that we have the power to bless and to curse (Gen. 12:3). This may seem like a foreign concept, but any father who hears the words “I love you” from his child knows the power of a blessing. The words create a reality. And when we remind each other of our love, the power of those words makes it so that we live, move, and breathe in that love.

Parents also often have the power to bless and curse, and indeed we are typically the first ones to create our children’s realities. Many times in a child’s actions, he or she is asking over and over again, “Who do you say that I am?” And our answers to him or her have a lasting effect on them, for better or worse. When children are formed under the constant drone of disparaging words, it can damage them for their entire lives. Men have been told by their mothers that they are failures, and they live with that, trying to prove their mom wrong. Women who were abused by their fathers can create lives in which they are victims, and they relive that victimization in every relationship that they have. It is like both are living under a curse, one that has to be broken in order for us to move forward.

Whether disparaging or affirming, others’ words form our attitudes, shape our ability to trust, and model for us how to give and receive love. Our lives are often formed by the truths and lies we’ve been told throughout our years. When a mother tells her daughter she needs to lose weight, even when the daughter is completely healthy, that story that sticks with her, and often haunts her as she looks in the mirror. When a father tells her she’s just like her great aunt in her ability to make everyone feel at ease with her humor, it connects her to a long tradition. Even if it is not a mother or a father. Even if it is a neighbor or a friend, we realize that what we say to one another is important.

Words matter. And this biblical idea of blessing and cursing reminds us that our words even have a bit of power over us. And as people who are made in the image of God, we understand that we have power over one another with these words.

In the same way, as people of the Word, we are connected through words to a larger history and tradition. In the story of creation, we recall how God created out of nothing, through the use of words: “Let there be light.” And there was light. The words formed and created us, separated the dry land from the crashing oceans. The Word then became the history of a people. As the story unfolds, we read of the fiery and comforting words of the prophets. Words are eaten. Words blacken the mouth. Words become as sweet as honey. Words are set in stone, and carried around in a dramatic covenantal ark. They are lost and they are found.

Jesus Christ is understood as the Word made flesh, who dwelt among us. Over the centuries, as the church formed and continues to form, the Word becomes central to our lives. We read the Scriptures and its stories form our lives. We say and hear, “This cup is the new covenant,” and we know these words signify a new reality, a new relationship of promise, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Through those words, we learn we are children of God, and we grow into deeper community with one another. Through sharing the cup, through our words and our teachings, we come to understand we are the body of Christ—and learn to live out of that reality.

When we pour the water of baptism over a sweet infant and promise to guide that child in the faith of Jesus Christ, we know we have entered into a new relationship with her. We have become a part of her, and she a part of us through those waters that connect us also to a long history of saints who have gone before us.

All of these words bind us to a story, a purpose, a community; they form us as they inform us. Most of us never grow out of that longing to listen and be shaped. One of the reasons that we come together in this place is to form a new reality with our words. In a time when we are told that our self-worth is based on what kind of job we have, how powerful we are, or how much money we make, we can step into this place where we can discern that we might want to give up our high-paying job, and become a non-profit worker. In this world where prestige is built on how many people we boss around in a week, we enter this place where we are encouraged to serve and be served. In this world where we are taught to evaluate and criticize each other, we stop to build up, love, and bless one another. May we go out, remembering to do just that.

To the glory of God our Creator, God our Liberator, and God our Sustainer. Amen.

Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, DC
27 June 2010

Text: 2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14

When I was in Cajun Louisiana, serving as a pastor, I learned about traiteurs. When people would get sick, they would go to the doctor and to the traiteur, just to make sure all of their bases were covered. Many of my neighbors, friends, and members of my congregation would say, “I was suffering from arthritis. I went to the doctor and I went to the traiteur, and now I’m healed. You can decide which one made me better.” And as they said it, I always got the feeling that I was voting for the doctor, and they were voting for the traiteur. The traiteurs were healers who lived in the swamps. I tried to research them, but there was very little written on them. They have a few pages in Cajun history books, and now there’s a wikipedia article on them. I never went to one, but I was pretty fascinated by them, so I was always asking people for stories.

They seemed to have combined some of the religious voodoo practices that are common in New Orleans with the liturgies of the Catholic Church. Some of the herbal treatments reminded me of the medicine men in Uganda. And then there were some interesting practices that seemed more magical. Like if you came to be healed from a wart, they would rub a dime over the wart, then they would tell you that when you spent the dime, then the wart would be transferred from your hand to the person you gave the dime to.

Their hands often radiated heat. When they were healing a dislocated shoulder, the patient could feel the burning coming from the palms of the traiteur’s hand. For the most part, traiteurs were men and women of prayer. They had a book of prayers that they would whisper, hardly audible for the person who came for healing. People didn’t pay them with money very often. They paid with food–chicken, shrimp, fish, or vegetables from the their gardens.

And one of the most interesting things that I learned about the traiteurs is they had an intricate system of passing down their magical knowledge. According to wikipedia, if the traiteur was a man, he would teach a woman. If the healer was a woman, she would pass down her knowledge to a man. One by one, the healer would teach the prayers to the apprentice, and when the apprentice would learn the prayer completely, then the teacher would lose power over that particular prayer. The prayer became the student’s, and no longer the teacher’s. Through many years, they would go through this ritual, until all of the prayers belonged to the apprentice. For almost 250 years, since the Acadians settled Louisiana, this ancient tradition has been kept alive through this process.

The magic tied to this process reminds me of the idea of legacies and inheritance in our Scriptures. There were two offices in the Old Testament, two kinds of religious jobs. One was that of a priest—and the priest would maintain the temple or the synagogue. He would keep the offerings burning on time and made sure that the rituals were followed correctly.

Then there was a prophet, a person who often caused chaos. When everyone was fat and happy, the prophets were there, reminding them that God’s punishment was just around the corner. When people were lamenting and in anguish, prophets were there, tearing their clothes, sitting in ashes, telling people about the mercy, grace and love of God.

In the Old Testament, there was a system of identifying and training prophets, usually within a family. They would look for the next generation of leadership, and they would anoint their predecessor. When a prophet found another prophet, he or she (there were women prophets. We know about Deborah, the judge and prophet, so there were probably more) would take a horn of oil, and pour it over the head of the predecessor to mark them. Often when a holy person died, he or she handed down their “mantle.” Or there was a blessing that was passed on. There was a sense that something miraculous was exchanged between the two people. And this is what we are reading about in our lesson this morning—the exchange of power between Elijah and Elisha.

Elijah and Elisha are incredibly fascinating characters. Elijah was a prophet, and Elisha was his apprentice. They’re kind of funny, kind of magical, and kind of scary.

In many ways I was lucky to start my ministry in South Louisiana, because this idea of apprenticeship was not only alive in the Cajun culture, but also in the African American culture. And so as I began my first years as a minister, several Methodist pastors took me under their wing. I was a 26-year-old feisty feminist, and these men who had been pastors for fifty years. And yet they took time with me, once a week, for an entire afternoon, to study Scriptures and give me advice. I was, at first, infuriated by what was happening. I thought it was pure patriarchy! I was always respectful to the men, but every week after we met, I told my husband that I wasn’t going back. I felt like just because I was a young woman, they were going to sit around and tell me what to do all day long. As if I had nothing to contribute to the conversation. But I kept going back.

Then I really started needing their help, and they were there, teaching me how to navigate the difficult terrain of a small church. Telling me when to take sides in a congregational conflict, and when to act as the mediator. Pretty soon, I became less angry about the injustices that I had to endure as a woman, and I began to empathize with my colleagues who served faithfully in communities where segregation and abuse was still very much alive. And, I’m not sure how to explain it, but they put recordings in my head that I’ve played back for a dozen years as I’ve served as a pastor. They established a foundation for me that I walk on every day. And I’m incredibly thankful that they took the time to drink thick black coffee, and teach me how to be a pastor.

I don’t know what I would have done if I started out here, in D.C. It is a sink or swim place, in our profession. There is rarely the expectation or vision among colleagues that we mentor each other. And, our schedules are so packed that it takes weeks to get a lunch appointment. It seems that it is not just in this particular religious community, but it can be all over.

We have lost the sense that something magical happens when we share our knowledge with someone who is starting out. We have lost this sense that we have a mantle, a legacy that we can pass on. Sometimes we do not know how to look at the next generation, not as a threat or competition, but as a hope that they will achieve greater things than we will. That they will make the world a better place. Sometimes I worry that we have lost the art of teaching the next generation in our country.

I am not sure why, but maybe it’s because we used to be an agrarian based culture, where the hard labor had to be shared—especially with those who were younger and stronger. Therefore, knowledge needed to be passed down as well, or we could not eat. There were family farms and family businesses, and so it was important for each generation to entrust their knowledge to their sons. Then, as the industrial revolution replaced the agrarian culture, and the tech and service industry replaced that, we entered into a time of competition. Instead of sharing the work so that all might be fed, we entered an economy that realized that keeping secrets was much more important than sharing them. Professions were not passed down from one generation to the next in the same way. People began to go to college to become trained. And sometimes, the academic pursuit of a profession was removed from the practical implementation. It seems that apprenticeships were replaced by internships.

This city is run with interns. We’ve had interns at our church. It seems that internship are highly competitive to get into. But they are too often about young, college graduates who have way too much student loan debt, are yet they expected to work for free without health insurance, paying rent in expensive cities, and going into more debt. Often it sets up a system of privilege so that people who have parents who can afford the internships, can do them. Many times internships are about doing the grunt work, and not learning the important skills and knowledge that the organization has to offer.

Don’t get me wrong. A good internship is a wonderful thing. Yet, for many college students in our country, they are expected to work for free for at least one year in order to get a decent job. Imagine if you had to live in DC, when you’re just starting out, without any income, for at least one year. (I’m sure many of you don’t have to tax your imagination too much, because you’ve already been through an internship, or you’re in one now.) This system is putting students into debt, and it’s eating away their parent’s retirement savings.

Now, I know that our city would probably shut down if there were no interns, but in this difficult economy, could it be time to start thinking about what we are doing to people in these situations? They’re in no place to complain, because they typically need to get a job out of it. But in this time when recent graduates face rising school debt, stagnant salaries, high rents, and lack of jobs, should we be expecting that they work without pay for so long? Often, it seems like an undue burden for those who desperately need a lighter load. We may need to ask some questions. If an intern is, in essence, contributing to the politician, office, church, or NGO a year’s salary, are we giving them more than just a foot in the door? Are we training them, mentoring them, and spending time with them? Are we setting up a system where people who do not have families with means are getting that much farther behind than those with means?

It’s not just in D.C. When I was teaching at a conference for campus ministers this week, we started talking about internships, many of the pastors agreed that this has become very damaging to young adults in our country. One campus minister even compared it to slavery.

Too often, we have lost the sense of building up new leaders, of leaving a legacy to the next generation. And I don’t just mean money, but I mean investing the time, the wisdom, and the secrets. I mean taking that metaphorical bull’s horn of oil, and seeking out that particular person. The one who will become greater than you are. And when you look back at your career, you can point to that person and know that a double portion of your blessing is still living in them.

The idea of anointing, of passing down our knowledge from one generation to the next, is very much alive in the church. As we baptized Max, we surround him with promises. He is part of a community where we will tell him the stories of our faith, encourage him to question, and teach him about the love and mercy of God be being loving and merciful to him.

And may that Spirit of blessing that runs from one generation to the next, pour out upon every area of our lives, to the glory of God our Creator, God our Liberator, and God our Sustainer. Amen.