Midweek Lent Reflection - Seeking (Week 1)

Ruth 1:1-18

Throughout Lent we are reflecting on what it means to be God-seeking people and asking honest questions to deepen our faith and understanding.

As we thought about these midweek services, we decided to do two things – first, it’s always wise to return to God’s Word, so Pastor Jonathan and I are taking turns looking at God-seeking people who we meet there in Scripture. Second, we always want to remember that we are created for relationship, and one of the ways we build relationship with each other is to listen to our stories, so we are going to take turns telling our own stories of seeking God. And finally, in our last week together, we’re going to invite you to have conversation together and share your own stories of seeking God.

Tonight, we’re going to meet Ruth. And we’ll begin with a reading from the Book of Ruth:

1 In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to live in the country of Moab, he and his wife and two sons. 2 The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion; they were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. 3 But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. When they had lived there about ten years, 5 both Mahlon and Chilion also died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.

6 Then she started to return with her daughters-in-law from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the country of Moab that the Lord had considered his people and given them food. 7 So she set out from the place where she had been living, she and her two daughters-in-law, and they went on their way to go back to the land of Judah. 8 But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back each of you to your mother’s house. May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. 9 The Lord grant that you may find security, each of you in the house of your husband.” Then she kissed them, and they wept aloud. 10 They said to her, “No, we will return with you to your people.” 11 But Naomi said, “Turn back, my daughters, why will you go with me? Do I still have sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? 12 Turn back, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. Even if I thought there was hope for me, even if I should have a husband tonight and bear sons, 13 would you then wait until they were grown? Would you then refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, it has been far more bitter for me than for you, because the hand of the Lord has turned against me.” 14 Then they wept aloud again. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.

15 So she said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” 16 But Ruth said,

“Do not press me to leave you
or to turn back from following you!
Where you go, I will go;
where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people,
and your God my God.
17 Where you die, I will die—
there will I be buried.
May the Lord do thus and so to me,
and more as well,
if even death parts me from you!”

18 When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her.

Word of God, Word of Life. Thanks be to God.

So, what do you know already about Ruth? (accept answers from the congregation)

She was a woman.

She wasn’t an Israelite; she was a Moabite – from Moab, a region across the Dead Sea to the east of Bethlehem and Judah. So, she was a foreigner and even an enemy of Israel.

She didn’t worship the God of Israel. She worshiped a tribal god named Chemosh (Kamōš).

Naomi’s husband took her and their sons to Moab because there was a famine in Israel. The sons married Moabite women. One was Ruth and another was named Orpah. But after ten years the sons also died. So Ruth was a widow. And at that time, she was childless, too.

But she’s one of the five women named in the genealogy or family tree of Jesus that Matthew includes in his gospel. Ruth becomes the great-grandmother of King David.

Tonight, we heard the first part of her story.

Of the famine.

Of her becoming a widow.

And of her decision to leave her homeland, to leave her god, and to follow her Israelite mother-in-law into a strange land.

These verses also tell the story of Ruth’s confession:

Where you go, I will go;
Where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people, and your God my God.
One of the questions we are asking this season is, “Who will you listen to?”

The Benedictine author Joan Chittister (chi·tuh·str) writing about Ruth, Orpha and Naomi describes Ruth as one who “seek[s] God beyond the boundaries of the past.”[i] She did not listen only to voices of tradition and culture, but she listened to God who is a “God of becomings” – a God of possibility.

As I reflected on Ruth’s story, I thought of another young woman from the Middle East who sought a life unbounded by the past – Malala Yusafzai (yoo·suhf·zai). Malala was born in Pakistan in the part of what would have been known as the Persian empire in the ancient world.

Malala’s father was a schoolteacher who wanted his daughter to have access to education the same as boys in their country. But when the Taliban (ta·luh·ban) took control of her town in 2008, when she was 11, they said that girls could no longer go to school.

Malala spoke out against the discrimination, and four years later, in 2012, she was shot in the head by a masked gunman who wanted to silence her. Thankfully, she survived, and Malala went on to create a nonprofit that works to gain access to education for all girls. In 2014 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and in 2020 she graduated from Oxford University in England. [ii]

Both Ruth and Malala – young women of different faiths– sought lives beyond the boundaries of the past, of their cultures and what was familiar.

In her story about Ruth, Chittister writes about the difference between willed change and unwilled change, saying that “willed change is what I seek and shape” while “unwilled change is what seeks me and reshapes me”.[iii]

What do we know about change? (accept answers from the congregation)

Scary. Disruptive. Disorienting. Uncomfortable.

But change can be hopeful, too, and change opens us to new experiences and understandings and cracks us open to God in new ways.[iv]

This Lent, may we remain open and curious to how the changes in our lives are helping us encounter God in new ways, and may we center God’s voice in our lives.

[i] Joan D. Chittister, OSB. The Story of Ruth: Twelve Moments in Every Woman’s Life. 25.

[ii] “Malala’s story”. Malala Fund. https://malala.org/malalas-story?sc=footer, accessed 3/1/2023

[iii] Chittister, 18.

[iv] ibid.

15th Sunday after Pentecost

 Mark 7:24-37

The pandemic has been compared to a foot race that began as a sprint and then turned into a 5K. And then we realized we were in a marathon, and now it has become an Ironman, a race where participants don’t just run of 26 miles but also swim 2.4 miles and then bike another 112. It’s exhausting.

I imagine this is the kind of weariness Jesus was feeling when he left Galilee where he had been arguing with religious leaders. He just wanted to find a place where he could go unnoticed. But Mark tells us that wasn’t possible. Word of the healings and miracles that Jesus had done had reached even the northern region of Tyre on the Mediterranean – the place we know today as Lebanon. And that’s where the Syrian woman, a Gentile not a Jew, found Jesus.

Like the synagogue leader Jairus in Mark 5 who fell at Jesus’ feet and begged repeatedly for his daughter to be made well, this Gentile woman bows down to Jesus and begs him to cast the demon out of her daughter.

But this time we don’t witness Jesus’ compassion. He doesn’t go with the woman; instead, he rebukes her, telling her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs.” (Mark 7:27 NRS)

Anytime we diminish a person and call them names, we are failing to see that person as a wholly beloved child of God, with all the dignity and worth that we each have. Hearing Jesus use this insult and turn his back on someone in need is uncomfortable.

Many have tried to soften his words or find a way to excuse him, but there really isn’t any acceptable explanation. His words are ugly, and he says them to make the woman go away.

Ironically, Jesus has just been teaching about how evil comes from our hearts when he abruptly dismisses this woman. We can’t know why he spoke the way he did –whether it was because she was a woman or a Gentile or if there was some other reason, but he provides a real-life example of what happens when our hearts are left unguarded. Our heartless words and actions inflict pain.

Thankfully the story doesn’t end there. The woman doesn’t leave. She doesn’t let Jesus off the hook.

She has heard about the powerful acts he has done in his ministry and, because she has heard, she believes she and her daughter are included in God’s kingdom. She doesn’t argue that her daughter should come before the Jewish people, but that God’s abundance is great enough for all who are in need. She is willing to receive a smaller portion of God’s mercy and to believe it is enough.

The woman’s humility and willingness demonstrate her faith that God’s gracious actions are for her too.

And something in her words opens Jesus’ heart, and he is able to hear what this woman is saying. After he listens, he tells her that she will find that the demon has left her daughter. (Mark 7:29)

One lesson we learn here is from the woman. Like the psalmists who lament to God, crying out because they are suffering and then calling on God to be the God they have witnessed in history, she has witnessed what God has done in others’ lives, so she calls on Jesus to share the abundance that God has provided because she knows he can. God’s love and mercy is for every one of us.

The second lesson is one we learn from Jesus. Their conversation shows the importance of listening to those we think don’t belong. We all belong to God and we all have value and worth in God’s sight. Jesus shows we can learn from those who come from outside our familiar traditions and places.

Listening well is a spiritual practice.

To listen well to another person’s story, without judgment or commentary, without advice-giving.

To listen for the feelings and themes of life that person is sharing.

To listen for faith, for the words of hope, healing and opportunity.

To listen for the “story of the soul” – for how the pieces fit together.

This spiritual listening is a practice of “listening for our connectedness, our common ground, the deepest realities of which we all are a part.”

When we listen well, we recognize we are all members of one family – regardless of our differences– and one community. [i]

And it is in that listening that we open ourselves to transformation. The obvious transformation in this gospel is that the daughter’s demon is cast out, but Jesus too is changed through this encounter with the woman.

We may be as uncomfortable with a Jesus who can change as with one who slanders, but this gospel witnesses to us how God’s Word works as it reaches people who desperately need to know they are not hopeless. It witnesses to us how we need to guard our hearts so that we won’t harden them against others. It witnesses to us that it is possible to change how we think about people we have dismissed or turned away from, and how God can work in us all to God’s glory.

And that is Good News.

Let us pray…

Good and gracious God,

Thank you for your Son Jesus who although without sin experienced all that we do in life, and shows us the way to new life, full of grace and mercy.

Thank you for showing up in people who are different from us and teaching us to listen well to their stories, recognizing how we are all one human family, created and loved by you.

Forgive us when we are hard hearted.

Transform us by your Spirit that our ears and eyes will be opened to Your presence in our lives.

We pray in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Amen.

---

[i] Craig Rennebohm. Souls in the Hands of a Tender God: Stories of the Search for Home and Healing on the Streets. 78-79.

Holy Spaces - "Gathering & Gospelling" Week 2

Exodus 3:1-6

Our reading today takes place in Midian, which was to the east of the Sinai peninsula, in modern-day Saudi Arabia.

And more particularly, it takes place at Mt. Horeb, a place whose name means “parched place” or “wasteland”.

Moses is there tending his father-in-law’s flock. There’s a strip of land closer to the Red Sea that is fertile but as you move east, it becomes hotter and more arid, and I’d guess that in that mountain pasture you could hear the ground crunch beneath your feet.

What you don’t hear in today’s reading is how Moses wound up at Mt. Horeb.

Moses, a Hebrew, had been raised by Pharaoh's daughter in Egypt but when he had grown up, he saw an Egyptian man abusing another man and he killed the Egyptian. And then he fled Egypt and went to Midian, and there he met and married Zipporah, one of the daughters of Jethro, the priest of Midian. (Exodus 2)

So now we’re caught up.

In today’s reading we hear how God speaks to the exiled son-in-law, a murderer, while he is hanging out in a wasteland.

That’s probably not how you heard Moses described in Sunday School, but it’s really important

to understand that Moses didn’t do anything to earn God’s favor or promises; and

to recognize that God knew exactly who God was speaking to, and God chose Moses anyway.

Imagine how Moses felt wandering that mountain pasture. This was his everyday routine; he probably knew every tree or bush in that pasture, every hill and valley. So, of course, at first, he is curious when he sees the flaming bush and the bush is not consumed. But then he hears God speaking to him, and the writer tells us Moses was afraid.

Well, of course he was afraid! He knew the wrongs he had done. And he probably imagined that the fire was going to be his destruction.

But instead, God visibly speaks to Moses, calls the ground on which he is standing holy and goes on, in the verses that follow ours, to tell Moses that he will deliver Israel from slavery into freedom. (Exodus 3:10)

God invites Moses into an in-between time or a liminal space. Moses is in this in-between space of knowing both what happened in the past and that God has said God will be with him in whatever comes next.

Liminal spaces or in-between times often occur in the midst of major transitions or times. Catholic author and teacher Richard Rohr writes, “It is a graced time, but often does not feel “graced” in any way. In such space, we are not certain or in control.”[i] He continues:

The very vulnerability and openness of liminal space allows room for something genuinely new to happen. We are empty and receptive—erased tablets waiting for new words. Liminal space is where we are most teachable, often because we are most humbled.[ii]

I have two powerful memories of God’s presence in in-between times. 

In 2006, I left my nonprofit job in Washington, DC to be the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation’s first director of development, but before I started my new job, I went to Biloxi, Mississippi with a team from my congregation in Winston-Salem. It was a little more than one year after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita had swept through the Gulf Coast. We visited a church that opened a crisis center the day after Katrina hit. That was the first time I encountered shower trailers as a ministry opportunity; the congregation had transformed its sanctuary and kitchen and was providing temporary shelter, laundry, showers and sack lunches to their community. And we spent a lot of the week working at Miz Ola’s house. It had been almost entirely gutted and one day, we bleached the bones of the house to get rid of any mold that was still in it. Another day we rebuilt doorways and prepared studs to hold sheetrock. We met some of her family including her sister and mother, celebrated her mother’s birthday over lunch at a local place and went to a high school football game together. In that liminal space, we knew the destruction that had come to the Gulf Coast but we could see God’s fingerprints everywhere.

Six years later, in 2012, a few weeks after I stopped working in Christ School’s advancement office but before I began my pastoral internship at St. Mark’s in Asheville, I returned to the Gulf Coast. This time, I was there as one of the adult leaders who took our youth from our congregation in Asheville to the Youth Gathering that was held, for the second time, in New Orleans. More than thirty thousand youth and leaders descended on the city’s neighborhoods, replanting wetlands, wielding paint brushes to brighten up school hallways and cleaning the grounds and equipment at children’s playgrounds. We worshiped in the coliseum and toured the city where we heard more stories about the destruction wrought by the storms. In that liminal space, we witnessed the slow pace of rebuilding but we also saw God working through the Gathering to build relationships, deepen our faith, and challenge us to serve our neighbors when we returned home.

In these liminal places, we see God speaking, just as Moses saw God speaking in the burning bush.

Mt. Horeb was a wasteland, but God makes it holy by God’s presence and design. God used Moses to bring freedom to Israel, and the mountain where God found Moses will become Mt. Sinai, where Moses receives the gift of the Torah from God during the exodus journey.

The storm battered Gulf Coast had its share of places that were ruined but God used the people who lived there, who had known destruction and loss, to create new ministries and new relationships.

At the beginning of worship, you were invited to pick up a rock and place a silent prayer into it, as a way of marking this as a holy place and time. You may think it’s easy to know we are in a holy space here in the sanctuary because here we can see the pews and altar and we are surrounded by stained glass windows. But the Exodus text reminds us that God is the One who makes places holy.

This sanctuary, as beautiful as it is, is just a building, unless we enter into the activity God calls us to. Unless we embody God’s promises in the world. So I invite you to recognize the holy ground where we gather and hear God speak, and then listen for what God is inviting you to do next.

Let us pray…

Holy God,

Thank you for choosing us as your children and speaking to us. Thank you for your abundant mercy that you do not give us what we deserve but instead grace us with your mercy and forgiveness. By your Spirit show us the holy places in our world, make us humble and give us courage to share your love with our neighbors.

Amen.

---

[i] “Between Two Worlds.” Center for Contemplation and Action. April 26, 2020. https://cac.org/between-two-worlds-2020-04-26/, accessed 7/17/2021.

[ii] ibid

Day of Pentecost

John 20:19-23

Grace and peace to you.

Today’s Johannine Pentecost is a familiar text, if only because we heard it on the Second Sunday of Easter in a longer passage that included the story of Jesus and Thomas. The Acts passage with its imagery of fiery tongues appearing and everyone hearing God speak in their own languages is always part of our readings on the Day of Pentecost but the gospel varies, sharing different parts of the Farewell Discourse and the earlier promises that Jesus makes to send a paraclete to the disciples and to give them his peace.

On Pentecost we particularly remember that Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit into his disciples and commissions all of us to continue his work of making God known in the world. Particularly this year, when we are being careful to not breathe on one another or be breathed on, we can appreciate the intimacy of that moment, receiving the very breath of God from Jesus.

And then, in verse 23, Jesus tells us what that work looks like, saying

If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.

In John’s gospel sin is isn’t about morality; it isn’t about being a good or bad person or knowing right from wrong. Sin is not recognizing and embracing the revelation of God in Jesus.

Luther teaches in his Small Catechism that the Holy Spirit “abundantly forgives all sins – mine, [yours] and those of all believers.”[i] It is this same Holy Spirit that sanctifies us – or makes us holy – that we may bear witness to God’s love and mercy.

And it is through the Holy Spirit, that we, as Matt Skinner writes, “can set people free from their inability to see or refusal to recognize God in the world.”[ii]

Of course, the other side of this charge is that when we fail to point to Jesus, 

when we fail to bear witness to God’s love and mercy,

we fail our neighbors and community. The world retains its sin of not recognizing God in its midst, or “grasping the knowledge of God.”

Pentecost reminds us that Jesus did not breathe the Holy Spirit on the disciples for their own sake, but for the sake of the world. As God’s people animated by God’s breath and clothed with God’s power, our freedom as Christians is always for the sake of the world.

The Resurrected Christ commissions us and sends us into the world to tend to those who do not believe, not to condemn them but that they may be saved. (Jn. 3:17)

Wherever you are gathered today as the Church, celebrating Pentecost means moving out into the world so that our neighbors will know the God who loves them. While the ways we can physically be present in each other’s lives and in the community remain limited because of COVID-19, we have not stopped being an extension of Christ’s presence in Shelby and Cleveland County.

Sometimes, we use words; we’ve installed a new banner outside the church on Lafayette Street that proclaims to anyone who passes by, “Jesus is always with you.” Other times, we share out of the abundance we’ve been given; this past week outreach volunteers voted to send $500 to the Cleveland County Potato Project which continues its mission to feed hungry neighbors here; CCPP had an opportunity to buy a surplus harvest of potatoes in Washington State and let us know that they needed partners to help fund the project.

Maybe pointing to Jesus, living the life of Jesus today, looks like sewing masks for those who need them, providing transportation for a friend or delivering groceries for a neighbor who is at risk. Maybe it sounds like a phone call to someone you haven’t seen in a long while or inviting someone to evening prayer online. I’m confident it looks like wearing a mask, standing six feet away from other people and washing our hands.

And this week after the death of George Floyd, I believe that living the life of Jesus also means naming the places where I am complicit with the ways that being white means I can run through my neighborhood, drive my car, wear a mask or a hoodie, and never fear for my life because of the color of my skin.

I confess when 17-year old Trayvon Martin was killed in Florida in 2012, I didn’t understand what it had to do with me. That happened in Florida and I was here in North Carolina. What I forgot, or could not yet see, was that we are all God’s beloved children and it doesn’t matter if the deaths happen in Florida or Georgia or Minneapolis. What wounds and kills one of us is lethal to us all. The sin of systemic racism doesn’t only shorten the lives of our black and brown siblings. It diminishes your life and mine, too.  

My prayer this Pentecost is that just as we listen for the rush of wind of the Holy Spirit we will listen to black and brown voices. Not debate, not argue, not analyze, but listen. Tonight at 8 o’clock on Facebook Live, local black pastors Donnie Thurman, Jerret Fite, Chris Gash, Billy Houze, Lamont Littlejohn, Ricky Mcluney and James Smith will be speaking and I invite you to listen with me.

Let us pray…

Come, loving and merciful God, into our lives.

Come, Jesus Christ, breathe on us and send us into the world as your witnesses.

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and kindle in us the fire of your love.

Amen.

[i] Martin Luther. Luther’s Small Catechism. Augsburg Fortress. 31.

[ii] Commentary on John 20:19-23.Workingpreacher.org, accessed 5/29/2020.

Fourth Sunday of Advent

Matthew 1:18-25

In this morning’s gospel, Matthew tells us the birth story of Jesus, but he doesn’t include the shepherds, the manger or even Bethlehem. In fact, we don’t get any of the familiar details that are in the Lukan narrative we’ll hear on Christmas Eve or we might remember from Christmas pageants and plays. Instead Matthew just gives us the barest of facts:

Some two thousand years ago, there was a girl engaged or contracted to be married to a man.

And then the man learned that the girl was pregnant — a revelation that could bring shame upon him and could even cost the girl her life.

And then an angel appears to the man and tells him, “Do not be afraid.”

And the man follows the Lord’s instructions; he marries the girl and when the child is born, the man names him Jesus.

There was a plan and then God broke in and everything changed.

But this in-breaking and changing didn’t happen without some chaos and upheaval first as Joseph wrestled with how he would respond, and as he listened for the Lord to speak and show him how to move forward.

Marrying her, Joseph saves Mary from disgrace, likely poverty and possible death, but Matthew doesn’t tell us

how Mary responded or what they weathered from the time they were married until Jesus was born.

Often our images of Mary and the baby Jesus show a serene and peaceful mother gazing at a quiet, content, cherubic infant, but this year on social media there’s been another image, one that shows Mary stretched out, sleeping, behind Joseph who holds the sleeping baby Jesus with arms flung up above his head. Perhaps this image better reflects the sleepless and exhausting reality of the early days of parenthood. It is a precious time, but it’s rarely peaceful and it’s often unpredictable.

And yet, while we cannot know what the Holy Family experienced, what we hear from Matthew is that God was there in the midst of their uncertainty and turmoil. There, God spoke the words, “Do not be afraid” and they listened. And the child was born and he was named Jesus and everything changed.

The gospel shows us that the people God uses here on earth are not perfect, even for something as important as bearing God’s Son into the world.

We don’t have to have everything together and our lives don’t have to always go according to our plans. Those aren’t pre-requisites for God to act or speak through us. In Joseph and Mary we see that God works through ordinary people, like you and me, who are living our everyday lives with our ups and downs and with our fears, questions and uncertainties.

I wonder though, when God breaks in, how do we respond?

Do we even recognize God is at work in those moments?

Joseph at least had a dream where the angel of the Lord appeared to him. Few of us today receive such visible and explicit signs of God’s presence and instruction.

Describing the hiddenness of God, Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann says God may be at work in us in ways we don’t even recognize.[i] He says, when it is positive we may call it a miracle, but we don’t often use that word when we see what is happening as negative.[ii] Imagine if Joseph had gone ahead with his plan and dismissed Mary quietly; Jesus would not have been in the line of David and his birth would not have fulfilled the prophecy from Isaiah that we hear in today’s text. Where would Jesus Emmanuel be found then?

As we wait with Joseph and Mary for the Messiah this Advent, may we be alert to the places where God is breaking into our lives, and instead of insisting on our original plan being the “right” one, may we listen and obey, and get out of the way so that God can act in miraculous ways for the sake of the world.

Amen.

[i] Walter Brueggemann. The Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggemann, Volume 1. 60.
[ii] Walter Brueggemann. “The Prophetic Imagination.” https://onbeing.org/programs/walter-brueggemann-the-prophetic-imagination-dec2018/, accessed 12/21/2019
 -Henri Nouwen

Christ the King Sunday

John 18:33-37

Today in the church year, we are celebrating The Feast of Christ the King, instituted by Pope Pius XI (11th) for the universal church in 1925. At the time, non-Christian dictatorships in Europe, like those of fascism and communism, were rising. Mimicking the ancient Roman emperors who had taken the title Messiah and acted as divine gods over their kingdoms, those dictators attempted to assert their authority over the Church and its people. Pope Pius connected the increasing denial of Christ as king to the rise of secularism; writing that Christ our Lord is given all power in heaven and on earth and therefore, nothing is exempt from his empire, the pope reminded Christians that Christ, not earthly rulers, must reign in our minds, in our wills, in our hearts and in our bodies (paragraph 33, Quas Primas).

Today is also the last Sunday of the church year marking the end of the long green season of Ordinary Time that we have enjoyed since the beginning of the summer. Next Sunday we enter the season of Advent and turn towards Bethlehem as we anticipate the birth of our true Messiah and King at Christmas.

When we name the infant Jesus as King, we assert his kingship and authority over every part of our lives, and we deny it to all other powers and principalities.

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus has been arrested and is on trial before Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, who is interrogating him. Pilate asks Jesus whether the charge that he is King of the Jews is true or not. “As Rome’s chief authority in Palestine, …Pilate is pressing Rome’s full authority against Jesus when he asks the question.”[i]

But Jesus doesn’t bow to the governor’s pressure or answer his question. In all four gospel accounts, Pilate questions Jesus but it is only here in the gospel of John that we get this extended conversation between the two men where Jesus contrasts His kingdom and truth with the world saying,

“Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”[ii]

The Christian life compels us to submit to the authority of the true God instead of listening to the myriad of competing voices that call out to us from across our lives.

Israel’s prophets had instructed God’s people to listen to the voice of the LORD but we are mistaken if we think God stopped speaking when the last of the prophets died.

In the first chapter of this gospel John the Baptizer shouts in the wilderness, calling us to repentance and baptism;
in the tenth the shepherd calls to her flock to save the ones who are lost; and,
in the twelfth, Lazarus is restored to life when Jesus calls his name.

Listening to Jesus’ voice, we hear the truth of God’s grace and love and the promise of life found in it.

In confession we hear the words, “God, who is rich in mercy, loved us even when we were dead in sin, and made us alive together with Christ.” and we recognize how God pours grace upon us and God’s mercies are given anew to us each day.

Around this Table, we hear how God sent to us the Son, who reached out to heal the sick and suffering, who preached good news to the poor, and who, on the cross, opened his arms to all” and we are wrapped in God’s great love for us all.

And through the bread and the wine that we share here we receive that grace and love in the sacramental elements of bread and wine, nourishing us for this life together.

On this Christ the King Sunday, the Good News of the Gospel is that Christ’s kingdom and rule has not ended and is not thwarted by the powers that we see here on earth.  Every time we gather as people of faith, whether it’s in worship, in Bible study or fellowship, in our homes or on the sidewalks uptown, we are witnesses to the testimony Jesus gives because God continues to speak through God’s people to accomplish God’s purposes.

I know it’s not yet Advent but as I read this text and reflected on this day that asserts God’s authority over that of humankind, and what it means to listen to Jesus’ voice, I recalled the Christmas song “Do you Hear What I Hear?” In each of its verses the question that is asked changes; first, it is “Do you see what I see?” and then “Do you hear what I hear?” and finally, “Do you know what I know?” and then the song’s final verse calls out to hearers, “Listen to what I say.”  My prayer for this season in our lives is that while the world is clamoring for our attention with brightly lit baubles and headlines continue to amplify the harshest rhetoric, we might pay attention to what God sees and hears and knows and listen more carefully to Jesus’ voice in our lives.

Let us pray…
Holy God, the Alpha and the Omega,
Thank you for your Son Jesus Christ,
Our Savior and shepherd and King;
Help us listen for his voice over the cacophony of noise around us,
And send us, strengthened by Your Spirit, into the world as faithful witnesses to the one who reigns forever. Amen.

[i] Bartlett, David L.. Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 4: Season after Pentecost 2 (Propers 17-Reign of Christ) (Feasting on the Word: Year B volume) (Kindle Locations 11946-11947). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition.

[ii] John 18:37, NRSV

Great Things Come in Small Packages

When I was a child, I was one of the smallest kids in my class at school and, because I was the youngest in my family, I was smaller than anyone else in my house, too. Somewhere along the line I had a t-shirt that read” Great Things Come in Small Packages.”

Naming gratitude for the small things in life that make us happy or those things that are comforting, is one way of overcoming the darkness that is the world around us, whether we experience that darkness

through the international headlines that declare Malaysia Flight 370, and all of the people who were its passengers and crew, fell into the South India Ocean, or that tensions appear to be escalating between western countries, Russia and the Ukraine;

or through the local news of another person shot and killed, another Amber Alert for a child missing and endangered, another life lost to addiction;

or through the way in which our lives are woven together so that the loss of one person’s father or brother is the loss of another person’s pastor or mentor; the loss of one mother’s son is the loss of another trusted colleague’s child; the loss of one person’s sister to disease strengthens our resolve to fight harder to find cures and compels us to walk or run in honor of the fallen.

The things we name may be small, but they hold the promise of great things to come. We name what we can recognize as good because the naming sustains our hope that we can, and will overcome the darkness. That darkness and brokenness will not triumph.

I cannot answer, “Why do bad things happen?” beyond acknowledging that we live in a broken world, in a world that is natural and physical and chaotic, and a world where we are very, very good at hurting each other. I find my hope in believing that we are not abandoned to a life limited by what we know. I believe God is greater and we have hope for a world where healing, reconciliation and restoration will reign.

For today, I find my hope in naming the small things:

• the cunning of my cat who watches the aquarium as though it’s her own sushi bar
• the tenacity of my chocolate lab who carries a ball everywhere
• the joy of hearing my daughters laugh
• the luxury of sleeping in when there’s a snow delay
• the blessing of the arrival of a newborn
• the singing of favorite hymns
• the surprise of stories I am hearing for the first time
• the comfort of heat, hot water and electric lights
• the way a good book transports you in time and place
• the gathering of a community to shelter the hurting and comfort the grieving.

I hope you will name the things in your life that sustain your hope, and if you are struggling to name them, find hope in one of the ones I have named.

Week 2 of Lent

Week 2 of the "Photo-a-Day" challenge created by Rethink Church challenged us to look at these words:

Evil
Defined for many by the events of September 11, 2001, evil was made visible in the events of that day, as well as others before it and since, whenever we have cried "never again". This photo is from TIME Pictures:

Love
While, undoubtedly, the context for speaking of love during Lent is the inexhaustible love of God for us, the picture was what still comes to mind first for me: one from our wedding day in 1993.

Spirit
The Spirit of God is ever in the wind or the whisper. Many images I saw on the day of this word were of cemeteries, recalling the spirits of all the saints who have gone before us. This glass sculpture was in my grandparents' dining room during their lifetimes, and if you squint, you can almost see the branches sway.

Live
Daily, we're reminded to live life fully because it is a gift. With my family, I try to live with laughter and joy.

Cover
Last Sunday's Gospel text (Luke 13:31-35) spoke of the mother hen covering her brood, protecting them from the assault of the world around them. This image is from a chapel above Jerusalem that tradition says is where Jesus proclaimed his lament over the city. (Mt. 23:37)

For the rest of the week's reflections on "Vision" and "Lift", I have to rely on the Pinterest images collected by the folks at Rethink Church. The daily text and blog post give a short introduction to where they've drawn the word from, and sometimes, I read that before I find an image, while other times, I don't read it until later, and it's fun to see where our thoughts diverged.

What are you seeing differently this Lent?

Opening My Eyes During Lent

For Lent, part of my practice is participating in a "Photo-a-Day" challenge created by Rethink Church, sponsored by the United Methodist Church.  Rethink Church posts a blog every day with a longer narrative and Scripture to fully explain the theme, and, with lots of other folks, I take a photo that, for me, reflects the theme for the day. Using the lens of the day's word, I am asking every day, "Where do I see God in my life today? 

Here are the ones I posted during the first week:

Who Am I
A child of God, a wife, mother, student.

Return
Does returning to God mean returning to God through the red doors? What are alternatives?

See         Injustice
No image for these two days because the days' work got in the way, but  the reflection of where I "see injustice" is found in the bus stops on the south end of town, where the jobs are, but the buses don't run on Sundays. Can we open our eyes to see the ways people with less privilege than we have experience life?

Settle
To where have I followed God (Va., Pa., W.Va., NC, MN) and to where is God calling me next?

World
We cannot experience the world through packages; we have to meet living, breathing people.

Wonder
I expressed wonder that "What you see depends largely on where you sit." The axiom is true in life, as well as in art. This photo of a window in Duke Chapel was posted on their Facebook page.

Want to try it? Visit Rethink Church. You can get daily reminders via email, share on Twitter with #rethinkchurch and #40days, post photos on their Facebook wall or on their Pinterest. There are lots of ways to connect, and more importantly, to be in conversation with others who are listening for God in their lives every day, too.

Ordinary Time in the Preacher's Corner

I once heard a preacher say he appreciated this long, green season after Pentecost, called "Ordinary Time" because when you come down to it, most of us live in "ordinary" times.  While festivals are wonderful, rich celebrations, for much of the year we are learning to find ways to connect to God, to each other and to the world around us in our "ordinary" day-to-day lives.

In this Preacher's Corner, I post recordings of the sermons I've preached.I am a candidate for rostered ministry in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America  (ELCA) and a full-time intern at St. Mark's Lutheran Church in Asheville, NC. St. Mark's follows the Revised Common Lectionary for the lessons. The sermon text is in bold.

While I've been taught to preach for a particular people at a particular time and in a particular place, I hope that in these recordings you will hear God's promise of relationship, grace and forgiveness and God's call for you in your life wherever you are.

I welcome your comments. Thanks for listening.

September 30, 2012
18th Sunday after Pentecost (Year B)
Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29
Psalm 19:7-14
James 5:13-20
Mark 9:38-50

Listen Now


September 2, 2012
14th Sunday after Pentecost (Year B)
Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9
Psalm 15
James 1:17-27
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Listen Now


August 12, 2012
11th Sunday after Pentecost (Year B)
1 Kings 19:4-8
Psalm 34:1-8
Ephesians 4:25-5:2
John 6:35, 41-51 
(Audio has been archived. Post a comment if you want to listen.)

Listen to earlier sermons.

Asking

Friday’s Five at RevGalBlogPals asked us to  list four ways you have been helped when you didn't want to ask for it and one way you had a chance to help that meant a lot to you.

Only Four? I really hate admitting I cannot do everything on my own, or even my husband and I cannot do everything on our own, and I probably hate the phone, almost as much, so asking for help is a struggle. But without people willing to share their lives with ours, even for a short while, we wouldn’t be the people and family we are today.

I easily can rattle off a half-dozen times when other moms and dads have pitched in to help my husband and me because we haven’t mastered the art of being in more than two places at one time, and with a family of four, often that means being in four places simultaneously.

• three moms who rotated driving my daughters to children’s choir and Wednesday night fellowship because I was embedded in my teaching parish at another congregation;
• another mom (whose own child was not in tae kwon do) who took my daughter to and from her tae kwon do class because I was away at seminary for a winter intensive;
• another dad who brought my daughter home in a downpour because her bus lets her off at his family’s driveway, a mile from our house;
• another mom who took my older daughter to her gymnastic competition and texted me her scores because I was away at winter intensive;
• yet another mom took my oldest daughter home to their house between school and practice, giving her a break from walking in the heat;
• dear friends with grandchildren of their own drove my daughters to my internship congregation to hear me preach...

I thank God that we are not alone…we are part of the Body of Christ, joined together inextricably.

While these recent examples of help received are those times when people stood in for one or both my husband and me, other times help was provided in crisis and we are grateful for the people who made those experiences more bearable.

More than fifteen years ago, at 26, I was diagnosed with cancer and underwent chemotherapy and radiation treatment. No one knew what to say. You’re not supposed to be sick that young, and you’re certainly not supposed to be bald! But people overcame their uneasiness and poured out love and support on our family, even though we’d lived in the town just two months.

One of the more enduring memories is of the women who drove me to and from radiation treatments. A similarly strong image remains of the women who would babysit my daughter so that I could sleep when the chemo hit my system about 36 hours after treatments. And the third powerful memory of those months is of the oncology nurse whose college-age daughter babysat my daughter overnight when she had a cold so that my immune system wasn’t compromised and I could stay on schedule. Angels among us, or as someone has taught me recently, “love with skin on it.” 

After I was in remission, the nurses invited me to speak on a survivors’ panel. Then, a few years later, a colleague’s sister was diagnosed with the same cancer, and I discovered I could answer some of her questions. Almost ten years after my cancer went into remission, a colleague and peer was diagnosed with a  much more aggressive cancer, and during his illness, he recorded posts on Live Journal, which allowed us to hear his experiences in his own voice. I transcribed the audio files into text, giving me a way to support him from three thousand miles away.

We can never know what experiences we have and share with others, and how our presence, as well as our help and our prayers, support them. My prayer is that we will be open enough to people around us to see when they are hurting and be present for them, even as we are vulnerable enough ourselves to accept their loved pour out on us.

Sermon Series Starters

Last Friday’s Five laid out kindling to spark our imaginations, asking

• What are two texts or topics you wish you could hear a sermon about?
• What are two texts or topics you wish you could preach a sermon about?
• What's your favorite sermon you've ever heard or preached? What makes it your favorite?

I’m not sure I won’t blur the lines between Sunday learning and sermons in this conversation, and I am wrestling with what kinds of sermons I might wish I could hear. Sure, I’d like to have more conversations about how we are called into the world and I’d like to talk more with people about death and resurrection and heaven, and I like the idea of more pointed teaching about things like the Lord’s Prayer, praying with the Psalms and the Creeds, but, in my understanding, the Word we hear on Sunday isn’t really meant to be about what we want to hear, but how God is speaking to us where we are ─ what we need to hear that day.

It’s easier for me to think what I might preach.  First off, I think I’d like to preach on all those stories in the Bible that seminary professors reference, saying, “Everyone knows this story….”  (The same can be said of hymns.) Every congregation is filled with people who bring their own unique and different story into worship that day. Often, even if you have been raised in a Christian and church-going tradition, your experience of faith formation may look very different from the person sitting beside you. And then there are those of us who didn’t go to church weekly from birth to eighteen, or even fourteen. We can’t talk about sharing a common narrative unless more of us know the family characters and their stories.

Similarly, I’d like to preach on the women of the Bible like Ruth and Sarah and Esther, and invite other women to preach on them also. I wouldn’t be in seminary and preparing for ordained ministry if I hadn’t stumbled into the paths of women vicars, pastors and preachers during the past fifteen years. It’s kind of like being in elementary school or even high school, and being asked, “What career do you want?” How can you imagine, even with Google, that you might want to be involved in a ministry for refuge settlement, or a food bank, or be involved in micro loans unless you meet people and hear stories about people who are doing those things? How can we lives as disciples without learning the stories of the people before us?

And when those knowledge gaps yawn in front of me, I'm grateful for the reminder from a recent sermon that regardless of whether we remember the meat of the weekly preaching we hear, we are fed, nourished and nurtured by it. One especially memorable sermon was preached in Advent by a school chaplain where he told the story of the Christmas truce in 1914 during World War I. The chaplain's storytelling had a way of transporting us back to that night, helping us imagine the loneliness or isolation of the soldiers and the poignant gratitude we feel for being together and safe. My memory of our hymn selections isn't a lot better, but I believe we closed the service singing, “In Christ, there is no East or West.” Thanks be to God for meeting us where we are.