Standing in the breach

Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE 
October 12, 2014

          

             Last week I shared with you a difficult piece of news from Andover Newton Theological School, the seminary from which I graduated.  Their newly-elected president, Rev. Martin Copenhaver, confessed to having had an extramarital relationship before he was a candidate for the office of seminary president.  The Board of Trustees has determined that there was no professional misconduct, that is, the relationship was not with a church member, employee, student, or anyone that Martin was mentoring.  The Board refused Martin’s offer to resign.  Instead they went ahead with the inauguration service last Sunday, choosing to model how an institution and its leader can continue in covenant while working on the difficult issues of broken trust, forgiveness, and reconciliation.  In my sermon I spoke about this situation as an example of how to live the Ten Commandments in those times when we break them.

            After I had preached last week’s sermon, a classmate of mine sent me a link to a blogger, also a graduate of Andover Newton and an ordained minister, who had written a post registering her shock at the news and dismay at the decision of the Trustees.  She feels the call to forgiveness has been forced upon us, yet also understanding that it comes from a board exhausted with the task of a presidential search.  She questions Martin Copenhaver’s integrity and ability to lead, wondering how many lies he had to tell to keep this relationship a secret and his “impressive powers of compartmentalization”.   She divulged details that were not in the communications from Andover Newton.  She raised many crucial questions.  She had done her homework.

            When I first read this post, I felt sheepish and naïve for the sermon I had delivered.  While I do not defend Martin Copenhaver in any way, I do still believe that for the most part, human beings are basically good, even though we are capable of great evil at the worst, and at the least, hurting someone we love on any given day.  Reading this pastor’s arguments on her blog made me wonder if my apparent naïveté had gotten the better of my judgment.  I felt foolish about posting my sermon on my blog, there for anyone to tear apart and declare childish.

            But after some prayer and reflection, I say to you that I still stand by that sermon.  My belief about human beings still stands, and it extends not only to Martin but also to the Board of Trustees.  I trust that they know what they are doing.  And if this does turn out to be a sham of grace, I trust that God knows what God is doing.  It is not my place to judge Martin and his fitness for the office of president.  It is not my place to judge the decision of the Board.  To be sure, I can have an opinion and ask questions, and voice them strongly, as did my sister colleague and as many others are doing, I’m sure.  But ultimately I am called, we are all called, to stand in the breach between the wrath, the anger that can consume us and the wrong that has been done and make the hard witness for peace.

            Moses knew this place in the breach quite well.  These past few weeks we’ve been traveling in the wilderness with Moses and the Israelites as they make their way as a people of God.  God heard their cries in Egypt, witnessed the suffering of God’s people, and made a way out of no way for them into freedom.  Food and water have come to them just when they needed it, even when they grumbled and complained, and it came to them in ways that spelled out for them that God was with them and would be with them the whole journey.  They’ve received a covenant; promises have been made by both the Israelites and by God.  They have a great leader in Moses, who stands in the breach between God and God’s people. Yet when Moses spends a protracted amount of time with God on the mountain, Moses’ brother Aaron satisfies the people’s separation anxiety with the making of a golden calf.  It is the story of what it means to be human and to walk with God.

            The psalm for today gives a briefer account of not only the golden calf, but also uses that event as a means of confession.  “Both we and our ancestors have sinned; we have committed iniquity, have done wickedly.”  It is a communal or corporate prayer, recounting the story at Horeb, God’s holy mountain, and in it we can hear the unspoken words “and so have we”.  “They exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass” (and so have we).  “They forgot God, their Savior” (and so have we).

            As Ecclesiastes is famous for saying, there is nothing new under the sun.  It didn’t take long for the Israelites in the desert to break the first commandment but they certainly wouldn’t be the last.  We can understand why God was so hot under the collar.  God and God’s people had just said “I do”.  It was looking a little like that land of milk and honey.  But what’s a honeymoon in the desert?  Moses, in a role that almost looks like marriage broker, spends a little too much time with God on the mountain, and the people start to get jittery and impatient.  They want a God they can hold onto in the absence of Moses, God’s servant and prophet.  They want a party, a celebration, a festival; enough with all this solemn promise making and slogging in the sand.  They know all too well that the desert is a tough place to be.

            But that doesn’t mean they get to break the rules just so they can ease their anxiety.  And yet that also doesn’t mean that God is justified cancelling out God’s promises by wiping out the Israelites and starting over with Moses.  This is where we see great wisdom in Moses.  He talks God down, which is a pretty tall order. 

 

            “But Moses implored the Lord his God, and said, ‘O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, 'It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth'? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, 'I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it for ever.' And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.”  (Exodus 32: 11-14)

 

            There are times when we have been wronged or someone else has, and we put ourselves in the place of God, in the judgment seat.  We too get hot under the collar, and sometimes we are justified in doing so for the evil that has been done.  But as Moses so eloquently observed, wrath does not serve God’s purposes.  And yes, it’s a bit of anthropomorphizing the Holy One, but it’s good news that even God can change God’s mind.  Being made in God’s image, we too can cool our anger and not allow it to consume us.  We can change our minds and remember our hearts.  We can start over.

            But there are also times when we have wronged another, when we have broken a promise, gone against the sacred grain and hurt someone.  And we fear the wrath to come.  But God has already changed the holy mind.  Yet who will stand in the breach between us and the judgment of others?  As Christians we look to Christ to stand in that breach, to offer us that cross of our own making, but also a chance at reconciliation.  Where we would be tempted to burn a bridge, Christ offers us a way through the heat and come out on the other side a new creation, a more humble, less anxious, and yes, obedient version of ourselves.  We begin to see that God’s law is one of love and justice, not only for us but for everyone.

            The hardest calling of all is to be that one in the breach, to be in the gap between the one hurt or oppressed and the one who caused it.  How do we hold accountability, fight for change, offer the grace of the gospel, and speak words of calm?  This is often where the church, our church—the United Church of Christ—has had to stand: in the struggle for civil rights, for women’s rights, for marriage equality.  The United Church of Christ has witnessed in places like Ferguson, MO; filing a lawsuit against the state of North Carolina for its laws concerning clergy and the free exercise of religion; being first to ordain an openly gay man, an African American, and a woman; standing with farm workers and the Wilmington 10 in the early 1970’s; offering a formal apology to the state of Hawai’i for the church’s role in overthrowing the Hawai’ian government and deposing their leader, Queen Lili’uokalani; and now recently a new initiative for literacy and standing against the new Jim Crow.

            But there are ever more gaps and breaches to which the church is called to stand in.  Gaps between liberals and conservatives; between atheists, agnostics, and a whole host of God-followers; gaps between the ultra-rich, the ever-disappearing middle-class and the ever-growing working poor; between Democrat and Republican, Libertarian, Green, and Independent.  We are more ready to hurl insults than work together; more ready to hold others accountable rather than examine our own hearts; more ready to raise our voices in anger rather than in calm and prayer; more ready to blame than to find what is praiseworthy.

            In our own anxiety, for indeed these are anxious times, we often perceive God as occupied and absent, and we want to fill that gap with something, anything that might ease our restlessness.  And yet it is that restlessness, that discontent which stirs us—the church—to our best work, enabling us to hear and heed the call of the Holy Spirit.

            O God, keep us on the edge of our seats, restless and discontent, until there is no gap, no breach between human beings, between what is sacred and what is ordinary, between heaven and earth, between us and you.  Let us not rest until we rest in you.  Amen.

You are what you eat

Exodus 20: 1-4, 7-9, 12-20

New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE

October 5, 2014

           

            Earlier this week I received two letters from Andover Newton Theological School, the likes of which I have never seen before, nor am I likely to see again.  Martin Copenhaver is the newly-elected president of Andover Newton, and today is his inauguration service.  He has written several books on living the life of faith and has been widely published in national periodicals.  Formerly he was senior minister at Wellesley Village Congregational Church, the largest congregation in the Massachusetts Conference.  To me, it looked like they had hired a rock star.

            In his letter to alumni, Rev. Copenhaver confessed to having had an extramarital relationship prior to his candidacy for the office of seminary president.  He has asked forgiveness from his family and from the trustees, faculty, staff and students of Andover Newton.  The purpose of his letter is to ask forgiveness from the wider seminary community.  He writes that he has entered a season of self-examination and repentance that he trusts will make him a better person and a stronger leader.  Our God is a God of redemption, and Martin holds to that belief, now even closer.

            Accompanying his letter was a letter from the Board of Trustees, who met recently to decide not only the future of Martin Copenhaver’s presidency but of Andover Newton itself.  Martin offered to resign, but after a thorough investigation, the trustees voted to pursue a way forward with Martin as president.  They felt they owed it to students to provide a model of repentance and reconciliation for their own ministries that includes both accountability and the good news of the gospel.  The trustees did not want to even delay the inauguration but rather to give the sign that indeed the seminary and its new, very human, humbled, not-a-rock-star president were moving forward together.

            This is what it means to live in covenant, in a mutual relationship, even when trust has been broken.  This is what it means to live by the Word, to live by God’s law even when God’s law is disobeyed.  The Ten Commandments were intended to be more than a list of shalt not’s or suggestions.  The Law of Moses, which shaped the faith and life of Jesus, was not merely an external code but an internal way of being, a sign of God’s love for God’s people.

            In Deuteronomy God tells the Israelites that they shall put these words of God, these words of life, in their heart and in their soul.  In Jeremiah when God gives a new covenant we read that God will put the law within the people, write it on their hearts, and remember their sin no more.  In Jesus that law, that Word, was made flesh, and in him we see that God’s law is love.  There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  Or for one’s community.  And so when we break the bread and drink from the cup, we not only remember Jesus’ life and death, but we also eat and drink that Word that gives life, that Word which is love.

            What we eat becomes part of our DNA, makes for healthy cells, strong bones and muscles, flexible minds, and soft hearts.  Our spiritual food, what we ingest from God’s table, from God’s Word, does much the same for our souls.  We are what we eat.  What is the word that you need from this table today?


 
 

            And sometimes we have to eat our words, like Martin, like the Board of Trustees at Andover Newton.  But if those words are founded on loving God first and above all, if they are grounded in accountability but also in the good news of the gospel, those words have the power to transform not only a human life but a whole community.

            How has and how does this meal transform your own life and the life of this church?  How do you experience repentance and forgiveness, and how have they made you a stronger person?  With whom do you need to be reconciled?  If you’re feeling spiritually starved, when was the last time you feasted on God’s Word?  O taste and see that God is good!  Let’s chew on that for a while.  Amen.



 

Water that does not come bottled

(Title borrowed from Walter Bruggemann, in his book Prayers for a Privileged People)

Exodus 17: 1-7

New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE

September 28, 2014

 


             We all know that water is precious, even though it readily comes out of numerous taps inside and outside our homes, flushes away waste, and cleans our clothes and tableware with the push of a button. How many of us have lived through a summer water ban, when outside water usage was restricted? California is living through one of the worst droughts in its history. 14 small communities are on the brink of waterlessness, with dried-up wells and streams and emergency water being trucked in. A friend of mine who moved out to Davis, CA in the middle of July witnessed this past Thursday the first rainfall since he arrived.



             Mission trips have a way of making one keenly aware of how powerful the presence of easy water is in community life. On a Native American reservation in South Dakota, we bathed in the Missouri river. Showers were a luxury in Oaxaca, Mexico, where the water was bought in large barrels and pumped up into storage tanks on the roof. Some of us would shower every other day; only the lucky first handful got a hot shower. I showered every third day to conserve. Water for showers was not potable. We had to close our eyes and mouths if we did not want to possibly get sick. Drinking water was also purchased, but in this case we were told to drink, drink, drink. Oaxaca is about 5,100 feet above sea level and hot and dry in the summer. If we did not want to suffer from altitude sickness or heat exhaustion, we needed to keep hydrated.



             Our bodies are mostly water. Like rivers, lakes, and oceans, water is a major component of the transportation system for nutrients, including oxygen and electrolytes, and the carrying away of toxins and waste products. Staying hydrated keeps our joints more flexible, our immune system healthy, our brains juicy. Water keeps us ready for what’s coming next.

            

            Not drinking enough water can make us depressed, lethargic, and cranky, like those Israelites in the desert. But they weren’t just cranky; they were ready to kill their leader. They were about to drop God like a bad habit. Slavery was looking better than this freedom God was leading them to! When we’re lacking, feeling poorly or sick, when we’re limping along, when we’re suffering , it’s hard to believe God is there, let alone love God, trust God with our neediness. Water is God’s conduit too. These former slaves crossed from captivity into freedom by way of the Red Sea. John the Baptist offered new life by immersing women and men in the Jordan River. Jesus was nurtured and carried in the amniotic waters that bear us all into this world. When we’re dry, our spirits like wanderers in the desert, loving and trusting God can often be the last thing on our list.



              But this water that poured forth and saved the lives of the children of Israel—Moses and a few elders traveled ahead to get to it, to the rock at Horeb, a mountain in the Sinai, in the same area where the people would receive not only the Ten Commandments but a new way of living. No longer would they be searching for God, trusting on their own impoverished wisdom as to whether God was present and working for their good. Now there would be a covenant between God and the people, and by keeping this covenant, by keeping God first, enjoying God’s blessings on the Sabbath, honoring their parents, not bearing false witness, not killing, not being envious of one another, they would know that indeed God is present in human lives and is working through them.



              This water was a sign of their future with God. Rather than being sustained only by stories of the past, God gave water from the rock where the people were going but had not yet arrived: it was a foretaste of God’s goodness. When God acts today, we are reminded of how God upheld us in the past, but God is also giving us a taste of the wholeness that awaits us. When we taste a sauce made from garden tomatoes, we taste the soil, the sun, and the water that brought those tomatoes into being. But we also taste the sumptuous feast yet to be, and our appetite is sharpened.



             

             It is the same with our thirst for God. We may be looking for God in all the wrong places, in the places that don’t satisfy, in the past, pursuing God all around us in the present, and yet God will show up with a cool drink from our future. We’re looking for a big gulp, supersize me, cold and refreshing, with free refills. God shows up with a sip. We say, “Hey, that’s not God!” But God doesn’t want us to stay where we are, be satisfied with what is. God is leading us toward the future. God sharpens our thirst for this future with a sip, a taste of what could be, almost tempting us forward with promise.



             Here is yet another God lives on Main Street story. This past Wednesday I was on my way to visit someone, having just come from a meeting, but I was early, about half an hour or so. I was feeling a bit peaked so I thought I’d stop at the coffee shop in the Barnes and Noble. I had a gift card with a little over $3 left on it and coffee is about the only thing you can buy with three dollars in a Barnes and Noble.



             I parked in front of what used to be the Stone Balloon, across from the old post office. I put my money in the meter and was just about to set off when I heard, “Is that Cynthia?” I turned around and saw Mike sitting with his guitar on the stone wall in front of the post office.



             Some of you may know Mike. He comes to Hope Dining Room and Code Purple. He often hangs out at the Empowerment Center. Sometimes you might see him on his motorcycle. The last time I had seen him he asked after Olivia and how she was doing at school but then quickly apologized, saying maybe he was being too personal. I said, “No, remembering something about my life and then asking about it is a kindness.” He told me that sometimes he hangs out in front of the post office playing his guitar. So I went over to say “hi”.



             We talked about this and that, about the meter guy Alex who lets him park his motorcycle free of charge, about the police officers he knows who don’t chase him off when he’s busking with his guitar. Then Mike started playing some chords, just strumming along, meandering his way with the music. I joined in. I sang “la la la” or “do do do”, finding notes and rhythms that harmonized with the music Mike was making. In the half hour or so that I was there we did that three times. 

              

            I didn’t know where Mike was going; he didn’t know where I was going, but together we went somewhere we didn’t know was possible and improvised a composition. And it was better than any cup of coffee I could have found. I didn’t need it anymore. So I gave Mike my three dollars and change gift card. At first he wouldn’t take it, but I knew I had been given, we both had been given, a gift; a gift that begged to be shared. It was a sip, a taste of the wholeness, the harmony, the music yet to come. And though my thirst had been quenched, it definitely left me wanting more.

            The water that God gives doesn’t come in a bottle or a form that we expect. It’s unexpected, surprising, and in it is a taste of God’s future, leading us forward. The water that God gives keeps our spirits hydrated, our hearts juicy, ready for what’s coming next. The water that God gives not only liberates us from our slavery to what was but summons us forward into God’s future. The water that God gives is 400,000 thousand people marching for awareness and action with regard to climate change. The water that God gives is a crowd of 500 marching to end gun violence in the city of Wilmington. The water that God gives is this church, right now, a taste of what we could become.

Photo: Robert Craig/The News Journal

            How has God surprised you lately?  The water that God gives doesn’t come in a bottle.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.