Enough

Salt Shaker 2, Craig Stephens, 2008


Isaiah 58: 1-12; Matthew 5: 13-20
Woodmont United Church of Christ, Milford, CT
February 6, 2011


From when my girls were about 5 or 6 years old to even now, every so often, when we’re eating out at a restaurant, they like to sprinkle a little salt from the shaker into their hands and lick it off. How many of us did that when we were young? Most of us like the taste of salt on our food, but we all know the warnings about too much. We tell ourselves and our children to ‘go easy on the salt’.

Another basic element that Jesus uses in his lengthy sermon in Matthew is light. Our parents would tell us not to look at the sun too long or it would damage our eyes. We have to be careful when we’re out in the sun, making sure we use sunscreen and a hat, perhaps limiting our time outside. And yet we love light: how it causes living things to grow, the way it creates long shadows and colors and warmth. Many people suffer from seasonal affective disorder because of the decreased amount of daylight during the winter months.



Both salt and light are necessary for a good life. Too much or too little of either one can be harmful. Sometimes we wonder how we know how much salt or light is enough. However, in this morning’s gospel lesson Jesus isn’t talking about balance. Jesus is telling the crowd that they can never be too salty or too much light. Eugene Peterson, in his paraphrase The Message, puts it this way:

“Let me tell you why you are here. You're here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You've lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.

“Here's another way to put it: You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand. Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father/Mother in heaven.”

‘Be generous with your lives.’ That can sound daunting on some days. How often do we feel less than equal to our lives, let alone have what it takes to be generous with them? Time and again we feel we’re not enough, that our days are more apt to take the stuff out of us, leaving our lives bland and gray. Salt and light? We wish.





And yet wouldn’t it make sense that God created us with what is not only necessary for our lives but fill us to overflowing? God is extravagant with grace; it’s we who can be cautious with it sometimes. God’s love is unconditional; it’s we who set limits on how far our love and compassion can go.

In her book The Soul of Money, author Lynne Twist speaks to the myth of scarcity that we repeat to ourselves every day. When you wake up in the morning, what are the first thoughts you have? For many folks it goes something like this: “I didn’t get enough sleep. I don’t have enough energy or time to do everything that has to be done today.” She writes that the thought ‘not enough’ occurs to us automatically, without little or no critical thought as to whether it’s true. We tell ourselves things like “I don’t get enough exercise, I don’t have enough work, my company is not making enough profits, I’m not organized enough, I don’t have enough money, I don’t have enough time off”.

Then it gets personal: “I’m not thin enough, pretty, handsome, successful, smart, educated”—add your own to that ever-growing list. Before the day even begins we’re found wanting, unable to rise to whatever challenge that has been set before us. We’re always behind the 8-ball, like Sisyphus pushing that mighty boulder to nowhere.

We do this at church as well: we’re not big enough, we don’t have enough money, we don’t have enough members, we don’t have enough time to do everything. Hence we can’t be generous with the life of the church, the Body of Christ, because we’ve convinced ourselves we don’t have enough to give, let alone have enough for ourselves.

What would happen if we operated from a place of sufficiency, that is to say, what if instead of a mindset of scarcity, we came from a place of faith that declares we are enough? Do we really believe that God could be so cruel as to give us purpose and mission and yet not give us power equal to our tasks? Of course not! Then why do we choose to focus on lack rather than on the many gifts and blessings God has sent our way?



The Extravagant Generosity of God, Ruth Tietjen Councell, 2008


Author Marianne Williamson says that “[joy] is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are.” Some might think of that as a Pollyanna way to live, but I think Pollyanna has gotten a bad rap. Joy and gratitude are what make it possible for us to live through the tough times, to have faith that God does have our best interests at heart, and yes, that things are actually going to be okay.

The prophet Isaiah tells us that God isn’t interested in our wasted spirits, our drawn faces, our souls empty from always being busy yet having enough energy to whine and complain. Curiously enough, when we occupy ourselves and our hearts with the problems and needs of others, rather than our need to look busy or so worn out no one will ask us to do anything—that’s when our light shines. When we feed the hungry, when we put warm clothing on those who need it, when we welcome the homeless into our homes, when we put aside our work, the phone, the computer and we make ourselves fully available to our families, that’s when the light comes on and stays on.

Again, Eugene Peterson, from the prophet Isaiah:

“If you get rid of unfair practices,
quit blaming victims,
quit gossiping about other people's sins,
If you are generous with the hungry
and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,
Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness,
your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.
I will always show you where to go.
I'll give you a full life in the emptiest of places—
firm muscles, strong bones.
You'll be like a well-watered garden,
a gurgling spring that never runs dry.
You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,
rebuild the foundations from out of your past.
You'll be known as those who can fix anything,
restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate,
make the community livable again.”

You are enough, just the way you are. Be generous with your lives. So go ahead and shine! Don’t worry about losing your flavor. With God, there’s plenty more where that came from.

Amen.

A fool's errand

Micah 6: 6-8; Psalm 15
1 Corinthians 1: 25-31; Matthew 5: 1-12
Woodmont United Church of Christ, Milford, CT
January 30, 2011


This past Tuesday evening I did not watch President Obama’s State of the Union speech on TV. Rather I have watched clips of it on the Internet. Though I generally support our president, there was one set of remarks he made that gave me pause:

“We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world. We have to make America the best place on Earth to do business. We need to take responsibility for our deficit and reform our government. That’s how our people will prosper. That’s how we’ll win the future.”

Sadly, the language of empire still manages to find its way into presidential rhetoric. Capitalism is still the bottom line. I know that the president must contend with Tea Party Republicans and blue dog Democrats and all the rest while striving to remain true to his own goals and values. I saw a photo of a protest poster that read “Obama is not a brown-skinned anti-war socialist who gives away free health care. You’re thinking of Jesus.” I know Obama is not Jesus nor should any of us expect him to be.



And yet I ache inside when the counterculture language of the Bible is overshadowed by our country’s nationalism and our longing for the so-called glory days when the United States was a superpower in every way. What a contrast to phrases such as ‘blessed are the meek’, ‘walk humbly’, and ‘God’s weakness is stronger than human strength’! Yet these words can seem hollow and empty as we human beings continue to grasp for possessions, power and financial security.

All of these lectionary passages speak of how to live in this world—with open vulnerability and authenticity. So much of our culture is about coping with or covering up or protecting or numbing or denying our weaknesses. As I’ve said before, none of us wants to be taken for a fool. And yet we who follow Jesus up that small hill to hear that in our lowest moments we are blessed, against the megaphone of this world and even our own experiences, on some days all our faithfulness can seem like foolishness.

We follow a man who preached love in the face of fear and death, who threatened those in power by eating and drinking with prostitutes and tax collectors and raising the dead, who died on the Roman Empire’s version of the electric chair. In the eyes of the world we are fools. Suckers for Jesus. But the more I preach that story, the more rebellious and subversive I want to become. And that’s the transformation, the life-changing moment that Jesus is after in each one of us; that the story becomes so compelling that it releases our grip on our fear, lifts us out of the narrow view of our own story, and puts us smack dab in the middle of someone else’s story. Like this one.



Every night Julio Diaz, a thirtysomething social worker, ends his hour-long subway commute to the Bronx one stop early, just so he can eat at his favorite diner. One night in March of 2008, as Diaz stepped off the train and onto a nearly empty platform, he was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy came up to him and pulled out a knife.

The kid wanted his wallet, so Diaz just handed it over. As the boy began to walk away, Diaz said to him, “Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you're going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm.”

The kid looked at Diaz, “like what's going on here?” He asked Diaz, “Why are you doing this?”

Diaz replied, “If you're willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me ... hey, you're more than welcome.” Being a social worker, Diaz thought he could help the guy. They went into the diner and sat in a booth.

Since Diaz is a regular, pretty soon the manager, the dishwashers, the waiters all come by to say hi. The kid said to Diaz, “You know everybody here. Do you own this place?”

“No, I just eat here a lot,” Diaz told him. The kid replied, “But you're even nice to the dishwasher.”

Diaz replied, “Well, haven't you been taught you should be nice to everybody?”

“Yeah, but I didn't think people actually behaved that way,” the boy said.

Diaz asked him what he wanted out of life. The kid sat there with almost a sad face. He couldn't answer Diaz — or he didn't want to.

When the bill arrived, Diaz said to his would-be robber, “Look, I guess you're going to have to pay for this bill 'cause you have my money and I can't pay for this. So if you give me my wallet back, I'll gladly treat you.”

The kid didn’t think twice and returned the wallet to Diaz, who gave the boy $20, figuring who knows? Maybe it would help. Diaz then asked for something in return — the young man’s knife —and he gave it to Diaz.

Afterward, when Diaz told his mother what happened, she said, “You're the type of kid that if someone asked you for the time, you gave them your watch.” The way Diaz figures it, “if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It's as simple as it gets in this complicated world.” [1]





What was the last foolish, makes-no-sense, upside-down thing you did for Jesus? If the cross is foolishness, why are you still here? If serving at this church can sometimes be one of the hardest things you do, what keeps you coming back?


“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.



“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Amen.


1. http://www.npr.org/2008/03/28/89164759/a-victim-treats-his-mugger-right

Snowrise

Another January morning, another snowstorm (10"), another snow day for my girls.

Now the sun is shining through our east-facing window--bright and gold through the icicles.



The moon is setting and the snow is rising!

Trust me

Calling Disciples, He Qi


Isaiah 9: 1-4; Matthew 4: 12-23
Woodmont United Church of Christ, Milford, CT
January 23, 2011


Boyd Packer, a prominent leader in the Mormon Church, tells the story of Dr. Faun Hunsaker, who was visiting their Southern States mission. Dr. Hunsaker was invited to stay at the home of a member, arriving after the children had gone to bed. He was given the parents’ bedroom to stay in.

During the night he heard the door open and the sound of little feet. A little boy frightened by a bad dream had come to his parents' bed for comfort. Sensing that something was different, the little boy felt Brother Hunsaker's face. So he spoke quietly to the child. The startled youngster said, “You're not my daddy!”

“No, I'm not your daddy.”

“Did my daddy say you could sleep here?”

“Yes, your daddy said I could sleep here.”

With that the little youngster crawled into bed with Brother Hunsaker and was soon asleep. [1]

We are soft-wired for connection and trust. We come into this world trusting that the people around us will take care of, love, feed, and comfort us. Through our relationships with our families and later on, with other adults and peers, our ability to trust becomes more complex. We adapt what we’ve learned, gauge what we can say and do with new people based on previous experiences, and choose whether to renew trust with someone who has broken it. If we’ve experienced any kind of abuse, it can be very difficult for us to form connections, to feel like we belong, or to trust ourselves, let alone anyone else.


I Will Make You Fishers of Men, Joey Velasco

Interestingly enough, we are hard-wired for caution and fear, and with good reason. These innate characteristics have saved human beings from becoming the next meal of a grizzly bear or African lion all the way to keeping us from making friends with every person on the street. Caution and fear are what keep us alive some days. They wise us up, saving us in our foolish and reckless youth to living to be older and levelheaded adults.

In fact, we’re so hard-wired for fear and caution that it’s possible to be born without these qualities. It’s called Williams syndrome. Children born with this disorder are biologically incapable of distrust. Yes, most children are friendly, conversing with strangers in public, waving, smiling, mimicking others’ faces, mannerisms, and words. Imagine, though, if during the course of an innocent conversation, your child then said to an unknown adult, “Will you take me? Can I come home with you?”

Children with Williams syndrome are unconditionally trusting and loving. They have no social fear whatsoever. The boy in the previous story was startled, scared to find someone else sleeping in his parents’ bed. He asked questions. He wanted to know if this unknown person had permission from the person he trusted the most, his father. Children with Williams syndrome must be taught these behavioral lessons over and over again, often living very sheltered lives.

However, in this morning’s gospel lesson, we see Jesus’ first disciples behaving as though they are unconditionally trusting as well. They ask no questions. Jesus does not say by what authority or training they will be doing this ‘fishing for people’. Thus far he hasn’t preached any sermons, healed any people, or performed any kind of miracle. Yet Peter and Andrew, James and John immediately leave their nets and boats, their families and community to follow Jesus. What would induce them to trust this unknown and as yet, untested rabbi?


Calling of St. Peter and St. Andrew, James Tissot (1886 - 1894)

The author of Matthew himself gives Jesus some geographical credentials by quoting from the prophet Isaiah: “He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles— the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.”

The territories of Zebulun and Naphtali, two of the lost tribes of Israel, to listeners in both Isaiah’s time and in Jesus’ would be like us hearing about places like Mogadishu, Afghanistan, the Sudan, Vietnam—places where war and its atrocities had made a living hell for those who live there.

So when Jesus moves into this neighborhood, he is saying in no uncertain terms that he has come for the lost, for those who live in the shadow of death, for those who have been forgotten. Jesus and his disciples would not be fishing for converts but for those the world has left behind. They would be doing God’s work of gathering in those still in exile: the poor, the outcast, those considered unclean. For this reason, these first few disciples trusted Jesus with their lives.



Think of the people you trust, with whom you can be your most vulnerable self. What is it that makes them so trustworthy? What qualities do they possess? Usually these are folks we can believe in, that is to say, they have integrity, their insides match their outside—they are authentic.

When we say we believe in Jesus, what we mean is that we believe, we trust that he is the authentic, utterly faithful image of the fullness of God. For some Christians that means Jesus is the Son of God, born of a virgin, who came to take away our sins. For others this is not necessary in order to believe in Jesus; rather there are Christians who look to Jesus, his actions, his teachings, his authenticity as one who fully embodies God’s law and love.

Because of the Enlightenment in the 18th century, the words ‘trust’,’ believe’, and ‘faith’ have come more to mean to ascribe to a creed or doctrine or religious code. Actually, these words have more to do with loyalty and relationship than with any kind of test. The word ‘believe’ comes from an old English word which means ‘to belove’. When we say we believe in Jesus, we believe in God, we believe in the Holy Spirit, what we’re really saying is that we belove them. We have a relationship with them. We trust them. We trust that when a promise is made, that it will be fulfilled; that we are unconditionally loved; that when we are lost, we will be found; that the kingdom of God truly indeed dwells within us and amongst us.

We could quote Bible verses, the Nicene and Apostles’ creeds, and the Ten Commandments until the cows come home. We could agree with every set of statements that exist about the Christian faith. But this is not what it means to be faithful, to trust God, to believe in Jesus. The opposite of faith and trust is not doubt but anxiety, worry, fear. Think about how often during the course of the day you are worried, anxious, fearful. Think about those times you have felt those feelings at church. Are there people here with whom you can share your anxiety, your worries, your fears? Is this a church where these feelings are talked about openly and authentically or with only a few?



Keeping our anxiety, worry and fear to ourselves is what makes us feel lost, is what drives apart community and gets us feeling purposeless, wandering—as though we are in the dark. When a community, a church operates from within the shadows, all of the decisions made, even with the best of intentions, contain within them an undercurrent of anxiety and worry. Being open and honest about these feelings takes away their power over us, bringing the light of God into that shadowy place. Believing in one another, being faithful in our commitment to each other, trusting that everyone is doing the best they can with what they’ve got—this is how we are found, it’s what brings us together, and gives our life together meaning. This is what makes a church feel like home.

Jesus said, “Love one another as I have loved you.” Said another way, “Belove one another as I have beloved you. Believe in one another as I have believed in you.” Jesus trusted these disciples, not because they were exemplary people, not because they had proved themselves in some way, not even because they might have been good fishermen. He trusted them because they said ‘yes’ to him when he hadn’t promised a thing except that they would be catching people.

At some point you said ‘yes’ to Jesus and to each other. You say it each time you come to worship, when you serve on a committee, when you put money in an envelope, when you teach Sunday School, when you bring food and help out at a mission meal and any other number of ways. But as in any relationship, when was the last time you said it out loud and really meant it? Jesus trusts you to do God’s work of gathering in the lost. If Jesus has called each and every one of us, who are we to be anxious?

Amen.


1. http://lds.org/ensign/1986/11/little-children?lang=eng

The antidote

Isaiah 42: 1-9; Matthew 3: 1-2, 11-17
Woodmont United Church of Christ, Milford, CT
January 9, 2011


None of us likes to be fooled nor do we want to miss the boat on anything either. It seems that most of us are persuaded that there must be one right way to do things; usually our way or the way of the mob, the majority or those in the resistance camp. We want to know who and what is right so we won’t have to be wrong. For many folks certainty is the unconscious drive behind religious faith. Or the rejection of religious faith. As I said, none of us likes to be hoodwinked.

Recently a group of folks volunteered for a study to not only be hoodwinked but told openly by researchers that they would be. The study was conducted by Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. 80 patients with irritable bowel syndrome were divided into two groups: one group was given a placebo to be taken twice a day, the other was given nothing. The hitch was that those who took the placebo knew they were taking sugar pills. Some of the patients and a few of the doctors conducting the study were skeptical as to whether or not the pills would have any effect on symptoms. Placebo studies that had been carried out in the past concealed the fact that patients were taking sugar pills. Though the placebos in many cases worked, hence the term ‘the placebo effect’, the secrecy surrounding the pills made it unethical for doctors to prescribe them.

Surprisingly, 59% of those who knowingly took sugar pills had adequate relief of symptoms compared to 35% of the group who took nothing. And of course, there were no side effects. Researchers theorized that it was the ritual of taking a pill that did the trick. Usually when we take aspirin or something for a headache, we of course expect relief more so than when we don’t take anything.

Many more studies need to be done before doctors could prescribe placebos. So far sugar pills have only been effective on maladies due to an overactive nervous system, that is, stress and anxiety. However, it does beg the question if an honest placebo would work with more serious illnesses like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, cancer and others. If the cure to what ails us is in our minds, wouldn’t it be miraculous not to have to poison our bodies in order to be well and whole?

The word ‘placebo’ is actually a 13th c. name given to the rite Vespers of the Office of the Dead, which comes from the opening of the first antiphon or responsive song, taken from Psalm 116.9: “I will please the Lord in the land of the living”. ‘Placebo’ means ‘I will please’, the future tense of the Latin placere. In the late 17th c. the word placebo gained its medical meaning: a medicine taken to please rather than to benefit the patient.

In this morning’s gospel lesson we read that after Jesus is baptized by John, God is well-pleased; that somehow Jesus submitting to John for baptism pleases God. Through the centuries many have been puzzled as to why Jesus would require baptism. It’s not as though he was a sinful person needing repentance, to turn toward God. We’ve heard at least six weeks’ worth of readings that Jesus is God-with-us. What benefit would there be to Jesus receiving John’s baptism of repentance?

In fact, John and his message of repentance were seen as an insidious poison by the powers that be. He challenged the status quo, calling the people out from the cities and towns, declaring that God was not in the seat of power but in the homeless wilderness of our lives. He hurled insults and levied charges against both the Pharisees and Sadducees, the religious authorities of his time. He was loud and obnoxious, clothed in animal skins, his diet that of a wild bear.

So when Jesus wades into the Jordan in front of God and everybody, asking John to baptize him, Jesus aligns himself with this apparent poisonous personality. Even though Jesus is both physician and medicine to our souls, to sin and evil, Jesus looks like poison.

We all know or have known people who have toxic personalities. They spread chaos in their wake, they hurt and destroy, they shame and blame others. Perhaps we’ve even been a member of a church where one or more of these bullies was a leader or a behind-the-scenes-wrecker. It’s not easy being in community with the person we least want to be there. When Jesus said ‘love your enemies’, I would bet this is the kind of person who would be the most difficult to love.

And though it may be easy to identify such persons, it’s not as simple as that. Often what irks, angers or frustrates us in other people are traits that we ourselves possess. Rather than examine the health of our own psyche, it’s much easier to diagnose someone else’s problems. All of us are capable of wreaking havoc, large or small, in our communal lives.

Before worship began, I gave two small containers to two different people.

(Here is where the manuscript of my sermon ended, and the extemporaneous began. I had given the two containers pictured to two different worshipers before service. I gave no instruction, except that they may do with them as they wished and that I needed them back at the conclusion of worship. I did not think ahead of time who I would ask; rather I followed the Spirit's leading. What follows is a paraphrase of the rest of my sermon.)

Interesting! The person I gave the button to now has both the prescription bottle and the button pinned to his shirt. The prescription bottle took a trip around the room but the button stayed in one place.

(Incidentally, the bottle had a label on it that said "DAMITOL - Warning: Contents may be hazardous to community life. Keep out of reach of children." Inside the bottle was a slip of paper that read "Active ingredients: Fear, anxiety, self-absorption, anger, non-communicated expectations, assumptions about others. Possible side effects: Conflict, bruised egos. If taken with a dose of grace, there is increased likelihood for spiritual growth.")

Now I could make all kinds of allusions to why one object traveled and one stayed in one place, but I think you can guess those yourself. The thing of it is, is that too often our tradition treats baptism as if it was the antidote to fear and sin, as if the waters of baptism had the power to turn us away from ourselves toward God.

Baptism is the outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible reality, that we have made a choice to follow Jesus, to recognize others as a child of God and to treat them that way. Sure, it would be nice to wear a button that says that we are a child of God and I hope you'll treat me that way, but that's not what it means to follow Jesus. To follow Jesus means to take the focus off of ourselves and instead look at others with clear and compassionate eyes. It means making this decision each and every day, that we will follow Jesus.

Jesus is the antidote, taken through the waters of baptism. In Jesus, God says to us, "You are my child and I will treat you that way."




(The idea for this sermon came to me in a dream. I was little nervous: one, because of the source of the idea, and two, because it was open-ended. I didn't have a clue what would happen.)

The word for this year is...

Jan over at Yearning for God is trying to discern a word for the New Year. Rather than formulating some useless resolution that will only be broken just in time for guilt-inducing Lent (now I really do have to give up whatever it is), why not instead have a word to remember for the year? A word to challenge, to guide, to comfort, to focus and bring me round again.

Last night as I was falling asleep, I prayed for a word; that it might come to me in a dream or be wandering in the fog as I wake up. My subconscious seemed to be lying in wait, because right on the heels of my request came the word: Forgive.

Forgive myself every time I make a mistake or fall off the pedestal of other people's expectations that I've put myself on.

Forgive all the drivers who cut me off, won't let me in, tailgate me, all of us in our own little auto-worlds.

Forgive folks for who they are not and love them for who they are.

Forgive the Church for the same reason as the one above. Love the Church for what it is.

Forgive my former stepmother and how our relationship ended but never had closure.

Forgive my father for smoking until the day he died of a heart attack.

Some of this forgiving work I thought I had already done and finished with it. But forgiveness is like an onion - there are many layers and as each one gets peeled away, sometimes it can make you cry.



And of course, the biggie....forgive God. For all the things I've ascribed to her and all the ways I've blamed him. Like most who receive my blame, God hasn't deserved it. Forgive me.

Camped out

The Christ Child by Mike Chapman, 1999
"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us..." (John 1: 14)


Sirach 24: 1-12; John 1: 1-18
Woodmont United Church of Christ, Milford, CT
January 2, 2011

My mother has never really liked camping, and now that I’m an adult I can understand why. Basically, it’s like living at home, only more work. Cooking was done over an open fire or a charcoal hibachi or on a propane stove. Pots and pans, plates, cups and silverware were washed in a single, small wash basin. The fridge was essentially a cooler with a bottom container for a block of ice, which also had a spigot for water as the ice melted. The bathroom could be a few yards or a short bike ride away. In summer we could usually count on a dozen or more mosquito bites and what you might call ‘traveling sickness’. In May and October the nights were almost always cold.

Of course my younger brother and I loved it. We got to sleep in our clothes, eat cook-out food every night, roast marshmallows, and sleep in the back of the station wagon, then a tent, and finally a pop-up trailer. Our family could not afford any other kind of vacation, but in all we visited 19 states including the entire eastern seaboard and four of the Maritime Provinces in Canada.

Sometimes when visiting family long-distance we would stay in the trailer especially if we had brought the dog and the cat with us. At a family reunion in Mississippi we set up the trailer in the backyard so there would be more room in my grandparents’ house for aunts and uncles and cousins. In 1976 we went to General Synod in Washington, D.C. but camped in Fairfax, VA because it was much more affordable than the Hilton hosting the meeting. Camping became a way for my family to go anywhere we wanted, to have a home, a familiar dwelling in a strange place.



When Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt on their long journey to the promised land, God went before them. When the law, the ten commandments, were given, they were then contained in the ark of the covenant, an ornamental chest that was carried on two long poles shouldered by Levite priests. As God’s people journeyed through the desert, they would make camp and the ark of the covenant would be placed in a tabernacle—a tent-like dwelling where God promised to meet with Israel. It was a sanctuary, a temple of the Most High God that could go wherever the people went—a home, a familiar dwelling in a strange place. You could say that God camped out with the people of God.

From the apocryphal book Sirach we heard that Wisdom pitched her tent with Jacob and the people of Israel; that in the holy tent Wisdom ministered before the Creator and in Jerusalem Wisdom took root and was given a resting place, presumably the great temple built by Solomon.

Though revelation and salvation have come in particular times and locations throughout human history, God’s dwelling place was never meant to become permanent, was never intended to become prime real estate or a reason for war. Rather, like Jesus’ ancestor Ruth, God goes where we go, God dwells we dwell. As was said by the Lakota holy man Black Elk, the holy land is everywhere.

Model of the tabernacle that housed the Ark of the Covenant

It has been the practice of humankind since before recorded history to mark a holy site, a place where God’s presence was unmistakable, with what the Celts call a cairn or a makeshift altar—a simple pile of stones. Some of these can still be seen all over the world. These markers point the way along the path rather than assert the privileged claim that God can only be found here.

As Christians we believe that God pitched a tent with us in the life of Jesus, the kingdom of God dwelling within us and within all creation. Over the centuries our hubris has led us to make exclusive claims that God-with-us is more like God-is-with-us. God-with-us, God living in the human tabernacle says more about God than it does about us. In his first letter to the Corinthians Paul uses tabernacle as a metaphor for the human body, that our bodies are temple-tents for the living God, reminding us not only of the temporary nature of our lives but also that God is deeply and intimately connected to us.

And we know from the life of Jesus that God goes with us even into the most terrifying, messiest, loneliest places of our lives. So we shouldn’t be so surprised when Jesus invites us to make camp in the most terrifying, messiest, loneliest places in other people’s lives. As my good friend Larry Wood once said, because [Jesus the] Christ is spacious and gracious, the fit can be a little baggy. I’ve never known a tent that wasn’t a little baggy—which is reassuring when we are trying to make some room within us and in our lives for this newborn Jesus.

Nativity icon - in many of these Mary is depicted as being in a womb

And the mystery of it all is that through the birth of Jesus God lives in us and we live and move and have our being in God as well. We dwell within each other, going where the other goes, setting up camp, a sanctuary, a home, a temple for the Most High God, a familiar dwelling in all those strange places we are compelled and called to go.

The question is, how attached are we to the way things are and what we think we know? What are we carrying that needs to be left behind or given away? How far are we willing to go on this camping trip with Jesus? Yes, it’s more work but it’s work that will bring all of us home.

Advent gave us time to prepare for the birth; Epiphany is our time to experience God’s presence as unmistakable. In Epiphany we get ready for the journey, one that eventually leads to the cross. In the words of the poet: “…but Love has pitched his mansion in the place of excrement; for nothing can be sole or whole that has not been rent.” We are being made into a sanctuary, a holy tabernacle, a temple-tent, one that can make itself at home in a stable with homeless shepherds yet take us all the way to the foot of the cross.


Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary
Pure and holy
Tried and true
With thanksgiving I’ll be a living
Sanctuary
For you

Regalo abbracci - Felice anno nuovo!

For all whose 2010 requires an embrace. My love and friendship to you in 2011.

Incarnation = Vulnerable

Vulnerable (c) 2005 Linda Huber

Genesis 3; Luke 2
Woodmont United Church of Christ, Milford, CT
Christmas Eve – 2010

(Much of this meditation is due the work of Professor Brené Brown, a researcher/storyteller at the University Of Houston Graduate College Of Social Work. I am profoundly thankful that there are academics studying what makes for joy in human living.)


Tonight we celebrate the incarnation, the embodiment of the sacred, that mystery of God-with-us in the birth of Jesus. What does that mean, the embodiment of the sacred? What does it mean that God is with us in Jesus? How does a mystery like that make any difference after we’ve taken down the Christmas tree and put away the ornaments and the nativity set? What are we really celebrating?

We call this a holy night, a holy birth because God came into this world and into our lives in a way we had not experienced before. And yet God has always been coming into this world, seeking a connection, a relationship with the creation, with every living thing. All through the salvation story we can see how God reaches out, human beings reject. God allows human beings to suffer the consequences of their disconnection, human beings repent. God then opens the way to return to connection and relationship. Sounds like any normal interaction between a parent and a child. Or between any two people who have made themselves vulnerable to one another through love.




When we say that in Christmas we celebrate the incarnation, what we are really celebrating is vulnerability. Being vulnerable is when we say ‘I love you’ first, without thought to a response. Being vulnerable is allowing ourselves to be fully seen, to risk ourselves with no guarantees. Being vulnerable is investing ourselves in a relationship that may not work and doing it anyway.

Being vulnerable is messy. It’s a messy way to live. When we open ourselves like that, when we love, we expose ourselves to the possibility of rejection and pain. We all know what that’s like, to love and to not be loved in return. We can become guarded, careful, fearful, shamed by our experience, wondering if we are even worthy of love. Some of us may have learned from those experiences not to open ourselves like that ever again.

However, when we guard our hearts from pain and rejection, we also close the way to joy and creativity and the ability to give. Professor Brené Brown says that adults today are the most in-debt, obese, addicted and medicated in U.S. history. We find ways to numb ourselves, to keep this feeling of being vulnerable under lock and key. We all do this. If we think we are exempt, we are fooling no one but us. Perhaps we are not in debt but we still buy more than we need and save not nearly enough. We may not be obese but we still indulge ourselves at the table or between meals and we lead less-than-active lives. We may not be addicted to drugs or alcohol or tobacco; we may not be on medication but we still have to have that coffee or soda or some kind of treat; we engage in too much screen time of any kind.

All of this serves to soften the cliff-like edge between us and that open chasm of our feelings. But feelings are feelings and they travel the same pathway whether they be sorrow or joy, hope or despair, anxiety or calm, fear or love. When we numb ourselves to the bad stuff, we also blunt our ability to feel the good stuff. We then become miserable, which leads us to feeling vulnerable, which then leads us to engage in our numbing behaviors and the cycle begins all over again.

And the shocking thing of it is our culture has given us permission to do this: it’s called rewarding ourselves, treating ourselves, giving ourselves a little comfort; after all, we say, we deserve it considering all we put up with. This is how our culture makes money, it’s Madison Avenue at its finest; this is how an empire is made and recessions are born: with human misery, out of our inability to deal with the fact that life is vulnerable and messy.

From the very beginning life on this earth has been that way. The only instance when there was no mess, no risk was in that formless void. When God spoke, when energy became matter, mess and risk entered in and hunkered down for the duration. In the creation of the heavens and the earth and especially in human beings, God not only created vulnerability but also became vulnerable to the creation. In reaching out and desiring a connection with those made in the divine image, God became willing to the possibility of being a jilted lover. And our history with God has been one of the messiest love stories ever since.

In the birth of Jesus, God became completely and utterly vulnerable. In both the Matthew and Luke nativity stories, Jesus is born into a mess of some sort, whether it be under the rule of a vengeful king, the Roman occupation or laid in a feeding trough for animals. His parents were peasants, his hometown full of coarse, minimally-educated folks who worked hard and lived simple lives. His birth was witnessed by homeless shepherds or a few magi wanted for questioning, depending on which story you read.

When we are born and when we die we are at our most vulnerable and dependent. As children we love with our whole hearts, we immerse ourselves in joy and in play. It is only as we grow that we learn that the world may not and sometimes does not love us as we love ourselves. And so we begin the cycle of shame and fear that can plague us all through our adult lives.

In Jesus, God shows us how to live a vulnerable, open, wholehearted, joyful life. From Jesus we learn the risk, the price of a wholehearted love but we also learn courage, hope, and the knowledge that not only are others worthy of love and compassion but that we are too. Jesus teaches us through his vulnerable life and messy death that the practice of gratitude, joy and love are possible even in the face of great terror so that we might be able to face our own fears and be healed.

The Vulnerable Happiness of a Cherry Tree, Trine Wejp-Olsen, 2007

In Jesus we celebrate that God is fully known; God allows God’s self to be fully and deeply seen, granting us the trust we need to allow ourselves to be fully and deeply seen by others. Only in this way can we truly and deeply see others as they are. Yes, we are imperfect; yes, our lives and our life together are often quite messy. We are also worthy, just as we are.

So, baby Jesus, welcome to this messy, imperfect world! We’re glad you’re here. A weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Merry Christmas, Church! Amen.

Least likely

Saint John the Baptist, Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (1591 - 1666)


Isaiah 35: 1-10; Matthew 11: 2-11
Woodmont United Church of Christ, Milford, CT
December 12, 2010 – Advent 3


I am a fan of the underdog, the supposed losers of this world. I cheered for the New Orleans Saints in last year’s Super Bowl. I grew up south of Boston, with a baseball team that long-suffered under a curse. I work for a guy who was homeless, poor, talked about loving one’s enemies and being blessed for meekness, who died a horrible death, convicted of a crime he didn’t commit.

I’m a soft touch when it comes to Salvation Army volunteers, a street person asking for a few bucks, or the many causes that fill my mailbox and ask for my time on the phone. I invite those wet-behind-the-ears, young Mormon men into my home for something to eat or hot to drink as they pass through our neighborhood every few years. When someone comes to my front door to ask for support I sign the petition and write letters to folks in Congress to abolish the death penalty or to save Long Island Sound.

I love stories about individuals and communities facing incredible odds, and maybe they don’t win the battle, they don’t save the day, but they get back up again the next day and try once more. I appreciate the courage it takes when someone is willing to step out on a limb, try their best, and though it may be far from perfect, it is enough. I love the rich, sumptuous, crowded list of those ‘least likely’.

In this morning’s reading from Isaiah we have a rather strange neighborhood: God’s ‘least-likelihood’: wilderness and desert are singing, flowers are blooming on the dry, barren land, weary hands are given strength, wobbly knees are made firm; the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame leap like deer, the voiceless break into song; springs of water spout forth in the desert and streams flow, like a wadi or a dry riverbed after a heavy rain; the hot sand will become a quenching pool, the thirsty ground will spout like a water fountain; even where jackals and coyotes hang out will be like a soaking swamp, and the dry grass will become lush and glossy.

Blue Reeds, a glass sculpture by Dale Chihuly, Phoenix Desert Botanical Garden

And in this least likely oasis there will be a highway, a holy road that will lead God’s people out of exile. The least likely possibility will happen, that God’s people who had been taken captive will now be welcomed home. Even those who usually lose their way will be able to find this road and follow it. For so very long God’s people could not sing their songs of home; now they shall find their voices. The seemingly endless sorrow and grieving will give way to everlasting joy. It is a dream that belongs to all of us, for we all long for home and wholeness.

By the time of John the Baptist, a time of house arrest for God’s people with the Roman occupation, the collective memory of this ‘least likely’ dream had faded. It had been some time since a prophet had been seen in Judah. Given the circumstances, many had expectations that the Messiah would come soon. Some thought he would lead a revolution to oust the Romans and establish King David’s dynastic throne once more.

So when John appeared on the scene, the very voice crying out in the wilderness, many thought he was Elijah come again to herald the advent of the Messiah, who would be the stream flowing in the desert. John’s call to repentance reminded God’s people of that least likely oasis, that peace where one expects strife, that hope where one expects despair. The people flooded the wilderness with the anticipation that now it would be God who would travel that holy road to them, that the Messiah would be their rescuer.

John also had his own expectations, someone with more fire, who would put things right, overturn the oppressive regime; someone with more power than one who talks about turning the other cheek. This Jesus didn’t seem like a very likely messiah. As John sat in prison thinking about what he was hearing from his followers, he might have been wondering if losing his life was worth it. And it sounds as if John’s disciples may have come to the same conclusion: “Are you the One we’ve been expecting, or are we waiting for another?”

Can you hear the guardedness in that question, the desire to not misplace their hopes: “You sound like the least likely candidate for the Messiah. Are you sure we can trust you, follow you?” After all, Jesus’ curriculum vita wasn’t exactly top drawer. The prophet Micah wrote about the place of his birth: “And you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.” Or as Eugene Peterson puts it in The Message: “But you, Bethlehem, David's country, the runt of the litter—from you will come the leader who will shepherd-rule Israel.” And before you form in your mind a lovely pastoral image of green pastures and still waters, let me remind you that shepherds were one of the lowest-caste occupations in the Middle East. They were poor, uneducated, sometimes criminal. From the most hick-town will come a bandit to lead a ragtag, often rebellious people. Yup, it’s got success written all over it.

Even Jesus’ hometown where he grew up had a rotten reputation. In the gospel of John, as Jesus is collecting disciples, one of them says to another, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Nazarenes, like other Galileans, spoke in a coarse dialect, sounding not quite as refined and educated as those in Judea. So here we have a coarse-speaking itinerant rabbi, the son of a carpenter and a peasant girl who descends from the none-too-perfect King David. Again, Jesus is not exactly what was hoped for.

All of us know what it is like to have our hopes dashed. Christmas is the one holiday charged with more expectations than any other and can set us up to be disappointed in any number of ways. Some of us may have hard feelings attached to this season or at least know someone who does. We’re raised on stories of magic, yet the magic does not come so easily when one grows up poor. Those of us who grew up in an alcoholic or abusive home know that Christmas was most likely the worst day, week, or month of the year. And if a loved one has died in the month of December, Christmas is never the same again.

Trouble is, we all know how this story ends, with Jesus on the cross dying a death no one deserves, least of all him. An ignominious death isn’t exactly a selling point or an obvious source of redemption. Which is what prompts John’s question: what am I here in prison for? What am I dying for? Did I proclaim the right person? Did I get the message right? Are you the one?

So Jesus reminds John’s disciples of that ancient dream, that the least likely things to happen are indeed happening: the blind see, the deaf hear, the lepers are cleansed, the lame walk, and he adds a couple of the very least likely to happen to up the ante: the dead are raised and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense that Jesus hasn’t lived up to their expectations of him.

Jesus came not to satisfy our expectations but God’s expectations for the kingdom. And in God’s kingdom everything is upside-down, backwards, from the bottom up, from last to first, for the least and lost. In God’s kingdom what is least likely is most likely to happen, to bear fruit, to be true.

What expectations do you have about Christmas, about yourself, about this church that are unrealistic or least likely to happen? Can you appreciate the difference between unrealistic and least likely? When have you been surprised, or uncertain, like John, about how God was at work in your life, and in the life of this community? In what ways do you long for streams to break forth in your own desert wilderness? And in our longing, how can we praise God?

And you, O Woodmont United Church of Christ, though you may be one of the littlest UCC churches in the Connecticut conference, from you shall come forth, for God, leaders who will be like springs in the desert, the Hail Mary pass in the fourth quarter, those who have the courage to step out on a limb, try their best, and though it may be far from perfect, it will be enough. A small church with no steeple that sometimes worries about its financial solvency, that can often feel chaotic and disorganized yet feeds the poor and hungry and makes everyone feel loved who comes through their doors. The dead are raised and the poor have good news brought to them. Yup, it’s got success written all over it.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Five Christmas markers

from Jan at Yearning for God:

Name five things that mark the Christmas season for you:


1. Salvation Army volunteers ringing their bells in front of the Stop and Shop.

One of my Advent devotions is whenever I see the red bucket and hear the bell ringing, I put a dollar in the bucket and shake hands with the volunteer, wish them a Merry Christmas, and thank them for their work.


2. Buying presents not only for my family and friends but for co-workers and for folks in town for whom the town social worker has posted a wish gift.

I love being creative and generous with gift-giving.


3. Christmas movies.

I like the classics like It's a Wonderful Life but I also like any movie that illustrates the power of the incarnation, unusual ones like Temple Grandin, about a brilliant autistic woman in the 1960's and '70's who's now a professor at the University of Colorado; or Seabiscuit, about a horse who was not only healed by those who loved and understood him but who also gave healing to those around him and to a country in the middle of a depression.


4. Thinking about my Christmas Eve meditation so I have some idea what I'm going to say.

You'll have to wait for this one.


5. Getting the Christmas tree and decorating it with my family.

We went this afternoon, to a tree farm we've never been to before but whose price seems reasonable for the quality of trees - $49. I've been looking at it as I've been writing this post. And if you've been reading this blog for a few years, you'll also know I'm looking forward my lifetime Christmas Eve tree tradition.

Vulnerable = Incarnation

Big thanks to Nina from Woodmont UCC, who shared this with me.

Church blocks

Isaiah 11: 1-10; Matthew 3: 1-12
Woodmont United Church of Christ, Milford, CT
December 5, 2010 – Advent 2


First, I want to thank everyone who participated in our Advent congregational art project by painting a pair of wooden blocks, which have been and will continue to be arranged differently each Sunday in Advent. On each of the blocks are words and images illustrating God’s dream for the kingdom and those things which thwart it. Participants were asked to think of something that needs to change in the world or in the Church or in ourselves and to paint that on one block. On the other block I asked folks to paint what would need to happen in order for that change to take place. For example, ‘greed’ and ‘share’, ‘confusion’ and ‘focus’, ‘war’ and ‘peace’.

As the blocks are arranged in different configurations each week, the pairs we painted are juxtaposed with other words, other images we may not have imagined. Just as in the reading from Isaiah, where we see the wolf with the lamb, the leopard with the kid, the calf, the lion and the fatling together, and a little child leading them, so now we see ‘fear’ and ‘give more’; ‘racism’ and ‘let go, let God’; ‘let it go’ and ‘forgive’; ‘gossip’ and ‘respect’; ‘working together’ and ‘homeless'.



And we begin to realize that God’s kingdom is built with not only with the just but with the unjust as well; that in God’s vision of the world, predators, those who tear apart, come together with innocent prey, not to hurt or to destroy but to live in the fullness of the knowledge of God.

In the reading from the gospel of Matthew we see John the Baptist in the wilderness of Judea, by the shores of the Jordan, proclaiming a message of repentance. People poured out from the city of Jerusalem and from the Judean countryside and came to John for baptism, to be made whole. They turned not only from their sin but also from the persons and places of power toward someone who by all appearances was homeless, poor, and a bit on the crazy side. John was all these things out of his radical love for the Lord and so that the way of the Lord would be not only obvious but in your face.



Perhaps those who were coming to John had an inkling of some of what was wrong in the world or in their religious structure or in themselves and they recognized that this baptism, this cleansing was something that could make change possible. Certainly the poor were there and those considered easy prey by those in power: widows, orphans, the blind, the lame, the deaf and mute, ordinary folks who had to work hard to earn a living, maybe a few prostitutes and tax collectors—the folks that would soon be Jesus’ closest companions. John being who he was would have attracted the least of God’s people: those who were hungry and thirsty for God’s realm.

But then some Pharisees and Sadducees arrive for baptism as well, those with religious authority whom John viewed as predators, calling them vipers—vicious snakes with long fangs and deadly venom. John had not wasted his breath in warning them that the kingdom of God had come near. John, who was an Essene, one who rejected the religious authorities and the power they held over human souls and lives, knew that God spoke from the wilderness, not from the seat of power.

Pharisees and Sadducees were natural enemies—both spiritually and politically, yet when they had seen the crowds of people heading toward the river they joined forces to protect their status and resist the coming change in Jesus. I’d like to think they might have been motivated by a sense of guilt or shame about their past actions. After all, it was this ragtag prophet leading the people to greater devotion and not them.



But guilt and shame have a way of stopping us from changing. Though there are such things as healthy guilt and shame, more often than not, these feelings can paralyze and wound us to the point that we judge ourselves flawed and defective or it is the world around us that is to blame. Sometimes we can take our guilt too far by taking too much responsibility for others, convinced that we are good only if we can be perfect or perform tasks perfectly.

Strangely enough, the emotion that we need more of, and that John the Baptist is seeking in those Pharisees and Sadducees, is remorse. Remorse is the capability of feeling the pain we have caused others. It is the flip side of empathy, that ability to put oneself in someone else’s shoes, for predator to know what it is to be prey and vice versa.

Remorse is more than just the consumer regret we hear about. It comes from the Latin remordere which means to torment or to vex, or literally, to bite back. It is as if with our words or actions we sink a predator’s teeth, long fangs into someone, knowingly or unknowingly; yet also bite ourselves at the same time. With remorse the pain we cause another is our pain. When we feel that pain, it is then that we can be made whole, for we realize that we—human beings, animals, plants, the very earth, the whole of creation—are one.



It seems every day we witness those in power as lacking in remorse. To be sure, there is plenty of shaming and fists beating the chest but very little in the way of remorse. As human beings we are pain-avoidant, to the point of often taking little responsibility for the pain we cause. But we know from experience that at some point it will come back to bite us.

The irony is that what appears to block our way to the kingdom of God makes the very pathway to the wholeness God intends for us. Greed, war, guilt, shame show us the need for generosity, peace, forgiveness and respect. The pain of remorse leads to wholeness. In Advent we focus on hope, peace, joy and love, for we know the world and we ourselves can be tempted to believe that despair, strife, sorrow, and hatred are normal and even to be expected.

Where are the places in your own life and in the life of this church where you feel remorseful? With whom do you feel juxtaposed, like polar opposites, oil and water, day and night, where there is unresolved tension and the need for reconciliation? What do you do to cope with pain or to avoid it altogether? How have guilt and shame paralyzed and wounded you in your life and in your life together as the Body of Christ? In what areas of your life and your life as a congregation have you come to expect the worst? What is it that you really hope for?

What would this church, this world, what would you look like if none would hurt nor destroy anymore, if the need for remorse was no more? As God’s Advent rearranges us and puts us with people and situations that seem like natural enemies, like polar opposites, let us watch for the unexpected, for God’s surprising love to lead us to healing and to wholeness. Amen.