Step 7: The Judge and the Widow Sit Down for Tea Preached at Wollaston Congregational Church On October 20th, 2019 Scripture: Luke 18:1-8 Each week in worship we read the passages recommended for us by the revised common lectionary. And then the preacher expands on one of them. We reflect on the issues our lives and our world. We consider the scripture while we wonder: how is God calling us into deeper love, for God and for the world? Usually we consider the scriptures just one bite at a time, because there is so much to them. We try to delve deep into the message for the week. This fall we are following a thematic series on the 12 steps of spirituality from the book “Breathing Under Water” by Richard Rohr. It’s amazing that each week one of the weekly scriptures has spoken to the step we were on. One reason this has worked is because we are in a series of Luke readings, as well as texts from the prophet Jeremiah. These scriptures are generally very relatable. They tell tales of real people living real lives in real places. That is all we really need for the 12 steps. As we have worked our way through these steps, we are reminded that the gospel as a whole is always the message. One scripture reading cannot be taken in isolation. There is one particular teaching that is a guiding light for this series. In Luke 6:41-42 Jesus says “… how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Friend, let me take out the speck in your eye,' when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? … first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye.” This our lens for the reading of the 12 step process. It is tempting to look at each step and think of the neighbor, friend, family member, even enemy for whom this step is perfect! We notice the speck in our neighbor’s eye much more easily than the log in our own eye. But that is not what we are doing here. In this series we are looking at our own lives, our own habits and behaviors, our own church and culture. Because, in the end, who and what can we change? Only ourselves … only our own church, only our own community, only our own culture. And so, with these thoughts in mind, let’s consider the gospel message for today. Luke sets the scene, saying that Jesus tells this story so that the disciples will pray always and not lose heart. Though we may not think that this is the first thing that the story is about. Jesus tells this story of the judge and the widow. He talks of an unjust judge. This man has no respect for people and he does not fear God. Hardly the attitude we hope for in our judges. A judge has to take into account the law of the land, and the circumstances of the people who come in front of them. And in the case of a judge, fear of God might be seen as humility in his own power, or reverence for universal moral law. A judge who has no respect for people or fear of God does not make for justice. This judge is plagued by a widow who is on the war-path for justice. This widow is not a meek little old lady. Nor is she a righteous woman seeking justice for herself and other widows in her community. No! “Grant me justice!” she insists. New Testament scholar Amy Jill Levine points out that this term is best interpreted as “avenge me.” The widow is looking for vengeance! [1] She wants to bring down her opponent, for whatever reason. English translations soften the language of this story, which actually uses boxing terms. The judge is afraid that if he does not grant her request she may give him a metaphorical black eye! And so the judge and the widow are not likeable characters, although they may be relatable. Perhaps a little bit too relatable for comfort. Because you see, these characters live inside many of us. The judge’s ego is in the driving seat. He has no compassion for others or reverence for God. He wields power over people. He can casts judgment any way he likes. So far as he is concerned he is in the right, and his opinion is all that matters. Relationships mean nothing to him. He simply gives in to the widow to silence her nagging and to protect himself from possible harm. Her petitions have left him unmoved and unchanged. We all have a little of the judge in us, don’t we? Don’t we all know in our hearts that we are right and others are wrong? Don’t we all get tired, at times, of the gospel Jesus, always calling us to greater mercy and compassion? And, isn’t it true, that sometimes we give in, simply to silence the voices that call us to God’s justice. Being the judge is exhausting and hard. We are constantly on the look out for evidence that we are in the right. And we replay every experience of conflict, until we are certain this is the case. When we see problems in our family, our church, or in our community we look for who to blame. There is always someone. And we love to critique other families and communities too. We like to point the finger, forgetting that whenever we do that there are three other digits pointing back at us. The Apostle Paul cautions the judge in all of us: “In judging others you condemn yourself, since you behave no differently than those you judge.” [2] We use the lens I mentioned earlier, because of this internal judge. And so we remember Jesus’ instruction “… first take the log out of [our] own eye, and then [we] will see clearly to take the speck out of [our] neighbor's eye.” Those of us who have a particularly harsh judge inside know this only too well. As author Brené Brown writes, in the book “Dare to Lead”, “We judge in areas where we’re most susceptible to shame, and we judge people who [we believe] are doing worse than we are in those areas.” [3] If you are unable to tolerate failings in others, look at how judgmental you are on yourself. For me, this is a painful reminder of the gossipy group I belonged to as a teenager. The targets of our gossip were the girls whose fashions sense, body size and shape and eating habits didn’t match impossible ideals. It doesn’t take too much imagination to guess that my friends and I felt shame because of our own less-than-ideal body shape, size and fashion sense. Besides the judge, though, the widow is also quite likely to be a part of ourselves. The widow wants vengeance because she believes she has been wronged. She is not going to rest until she settles the score. She holds onto the wrongs of the past with a tight and greedy fist. And she wields that fist against the judge. Give me what I want! I am not going to go away! Give me satisfaction! The widow goes after the judge with an angry stick, she is so convinced that she is the victim who has been wronged. I recognize the widow inside of me. I know that if I am honest, my deepest prayer is for healing from past wrongs. The smallest slight from the past can live and grow inside if I let my internal widow wield her angry stick. The blaming and shaming will only continue. And so, we might wonder, with the judge and the widow at their antics inside ourselves, what we can do to help them get along a little better. We all encounter people like the widow, who are angry and feel victimized. Often the best we can do is sit down and have a cup of tea or coffee with them. To listen until their grievances are over, and they get to what is really going on. To say what they are truly longing for. Perhaps we can encourage our judge to do just that, to sit have a cup of tea with our widow. As the judge listens, perhaps he will discover that the widow’s deep longing is actually to be filled with God. Rohr says, those in recovery from addiction learn that their “deep and insatiable desiring came from God all along … [they just] looked for love in all the wrong places.” [4] And this brings us to what Jesus was beginning to say before the parable began. Our invitation is to “pray always and not to lose heart.” It is most difficult to pray about times when we have been in situations of conflict, like the judge and the widow. Years ago I came across a spiritual practice that can help. In this practice, like the Examen, you look back without judgment on the conversations of the day. Was there a time when you were with someone who said harsh and hurtful things to you? Did you say harsh and hurtful things to them? In your time of prayer go back to that situation, and invite Jesus into the midst. Invite him to join you and the person or persons you were in conflict with for a cup of tea. Take the time to imagine what Jesus would say and what Jesus would do. Would he invite you and the other person to set down your differences and apologize? Would he take one of you aside to calm down and regain control? Would he help the judge in you discover empathy and compassion? Would he help the widow let go of the grievances she is holding so tightly? Later in “Breathing Under Water” Richard Rohr talks about ways we can look on our own imperfection without judgment. He says “Don’t judge, just look can be our motto—and now [we look] with the very eyes of God.” [5] And, so, praying always and not losing heart, or humbly asking God to remove out shortcomings could look like this. It could look like making the peace between an unjust judge and an angry widow. May all God’s people say Amen [1] Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi (New York: HarperOne, 2014), 235 [2] Romans 2:1 [3] Brown, Brené. Dare to Lead (p. 145). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition [4] Rohr, Richard. Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps (pp. 65-66). Franciscan Media. Kindle Edition. [5] Rohr, Richard. Breathing Under Water : Spirituality and the Twelve Steps (p. 90). Franciscan Media. Kindle Edition.
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Step 6: Are You Ready? Preached at Wollaston Congregational Church On October 13th, 2019 Scripture: Luke 17:11-19 Today we heard a story of the healing of ten men with leprosy. In the ancient world, the term leprosy covered a range of skin diseases known or thought to be highly contagious. People with leprosy experienced the pain of the disease and also the pain of separation from the community. They could not go to work, or live with their families. They were ostracized and marginalized. Their only company was other people with the same disease. The disease we know as leprosy today has been curable since the 1940’s and vaccinations exist. And still, in some parts of the world there are separate colonies for people with the disease. The men with leprosy we heard of our gospel reading this morning wander the countryside between Galilee and Samaria. They shake bells to warn passersby of the possibility of contagion and to beg for charity. We can imagine food left for the leper community at the boundary of the town, perhaps in a designated safe place. Their clothes are ragged and worn, they sleep rough. No one wants to come into contact with their personal belongings. Jesus happens to be traveling through the same territory as the lepers, and they call to him from a distance “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” Jesus does not approach, but simply says “go and show yourselves to the priest.” The law requires people who have been healed from an unclean disease to present the priest, in order to re-enter the community. As they turn to go to the priest, they are made clean! Their skin, nerves, and limbs are restored. They are good to go! One of them turns around to Jesus. This one is a Samaritan, a foreigner and an outsider. Ten men were made clean, but this is the only one who thanks Jesus and praises God! And so Jesus proclaims “Get up and go on your way, your faith has made you whole!” Nine are cured, better from the skin disease, but one is made whole. He is restored to a fullness of life he may have never known before. And so we may wonder, what was different about this man? What was it about him and his readiness to give praise and thanksgiving to God? What was it about him that he saw beyond the simple transaction of pleading and cure? We might imagine that out of the ten, this man is the one whose life will be transformed to a new level. The other nine are fine, they’ll go back to business as usual. But this man is truly restored. And so we come to step 6, in our 12 steps from “Breathing Underwater, Spirituality and the 12 Steps” by Richard Rohr . This step says “[That we] were entirely ready to have God remove all of these defects of character …” [1] You might remember the past two steps. In step 4 we made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. And in step 5 we admitted to God and another person the exact nature of our wrongs. These steps might have seemed to be searching enough. But now there’s a change in tone. This is different. This is more than admitting to doing wrong things and vowing not to repeat them. This step means a change! Real change, in us. And that is hard. That is probably why it is all about letting go and letting God. I have to admit, when I came to this step I thought “I understand how this works for addiction groups like Alcoholics Anonymous. Following the process is a matter of survival for them. But will this go over in church? Are we really ready for this step?” The irony is that this step is all about “being entirely ready.” In the Breathing Underwater Richard Rohr talks about the paradoxical nature of God’s grace. And over the centuries, there have been literal battles over the two sides of the coin of grace. At the time of the European Reformation, Pope Leo X emphasized Paul’s statement in the letter to the Philippians instructing Christians to “work for our salvation in fear and trembling.” (Philip 2:12) The Reformer, Martin Luther, insisted that grace is free and undeserved, there is nothing we can do to earn it. and Luther refers to Paul’s letter to the Romans. (Romans 9:11-12, 11:6) [2] The question is: do we do our own work in removing defects in character, or do we simply sit and wait for God to do it? The answer is both/and. It’s an odd thing. We have to do the work of letting go and we have to wait for God to do it. Sometimes I think of letting go as God prying my fingers one by one off my expectations like a stubborn small child. One of the defects of character I have been wrestling with since we began this program is that of perfectionism. In worship it translates into my vision of the service, and what I expect the message of the scripture will be. Once I have a vision in my mind for how things are going to go, anything different is less-than. Over the week, I will choose the scriptures and the hymns and reflect on the sermon topic. Sometimes I’ll have a picture in my mind of the setting here on the table and what I intend to portray. And I’ll imagine the perfect picture of us all gathered around moved by the sights and sounds. And yet, you church have helped me with this defect of character. Marian and I never quite know what we are going to be faced with when we arrived here on Sunday morning. Perhaps it will be cold because heating failed to come on, and you will shiver through the sermon. Perhaps the children who play outside will have accidentally thrown their ball in the wrong direction, and there will be a broken window and scattered glass. And then my time of silent preparation will be spent picking up the shards. You know all the things that can go wrong in a place like this, especially during extreme weather. Fallen masonry; blown over signs; the microphone batteries run down … half the congregation is ill and the other half are away for the weekend … and, worst of all, frozen and burst pipes. And, so I am learning to say “whatever it is, it is OK”. Perhaps you were here last week when the Spirit was mightily present and palpable. All it took was to let go. As Martin Luther said, the true church exists wherever the gospel is rightly taught and the sacraments are rightly administered. That’s all. Or to simplify even more, as Jesus says in Matt 18:20, “… where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them." We can remind ourselves that like the whole church on Earth, Wollaston Congregational Church is “perfectly imperfect.” In the story we heard today, the ten men really did want to get better from leprosy. They hoped that Jesus would have mercy on them and heal them. Once he said the word, they had what they wanted. And so the nine went quickly to complete the requirements and get on with life. But the one, the Samaritan, the outsider among them, turned back and waited. He prostrated himself before Jesus, giving thanks and praise to God. Because he did, he was not only made better from leprosy, he was made whole. Perhaps he had less to lose than the others, by letting go and letting God. Ten were cleansed but only one was made whole. Unfortunately, many Christians today are like the nine who were satisfied with the cure without the transformation. Rohr points out that the problem with Luther’s insistence on “grace alone” it that it has “devolved into the modern private and personal ‘decision for Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior’ vocabulary.” This approach to salvation means there is “no real transformation of consciousness or social critique” for many Christians. [3] They see no need to keep on opening up their vulnerability before God and one another. They see no need to critique the culture, calling society to a greater wisdom and compassion. They remain satisfied with themselves and the water in which they swim. Perhaps someone has told you the exact date that they “accepted Jesus as personal Lord and Savior.” If that’s where the transformation ended, then they’re a little like the nine cured lepers, who skipped off to show themselves to the priest. Jesus’ word was a sufficient cure for them. They didn’t need to remain with him and express a desire to go deeper in discipleship. On the other hand, we may meet some people whose authentic spirituality shines through. On one occasion I met a woman who volunteered to care for the most vulnerable residents in a facility where I was visiting a congregant. Her energy was non-anxious. She was serious but light. And she was honest about herself and her feelings. There was nothing fake about her at all. I wanted to know her story. And so, she told me of a time when she had decided her life needed to change. She told me she spent a whole year eliminating the things, the habits, and the relationships that were not making her whole. She was like the Samaritan leper who stayed to complete the process of transformation, to become who God had created her to be. In short she did step 6. She knew she was ready to have God remove her defects of character. The Facebook page “Begin with Yes” has the following post: “Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe it’s unbecoming everything that isn’t really you, so that you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.” [4] The 12 Step process and Step 6 in particular is all about becoming who we were really are. We simply have to be entirely ready. And so I say, let’s get ready to let go of our character defects, like trees shedding their dead leaves in the fall. … Let’s get ready to be changed. And then may we pray “please change me, oh God!” Amen [1] Rohr, Richard. Breathing Under Water : Spirituality and the Twelve Steps. Franciscan Media. Kindle Edition. [2] Ibid., p. 52 [3] Ibid., p. 55 [4] https://www.facebook.com/beginwithyes/ True Confession Preached at Wollaston Congregational Church On October 6th 2019 Scripture: Lamentations 1:1-6, 3:19-26 This past summer I have been meditating on a question: what is a right response to the tragic events that come up in our news all too often? I’m thinking specifically of gun violence, and the frequent mass shootings in our nation. This is on my mind as we approach the first anniversary of the shooting in the Pittsburgh Tree of Life Synagogue. I’ve seen two responses, and I confess I have tended to one of them. The first response I’ve noticed is to offer “thoughts and prayers.” They say when lives have been taken, and victims are grieving and in shock, it is “too soon” to think about solutions to gun violence. Instead, we should be praying for those who are suffering. The problem with this response is that it (often) leads to no change. And gun violence remains a problem. The second response, the place I go, is to demand change especially to gun laws. It is an insistence that the status quo isn’t working and so we must do something about it. Of course, people who adopt this response care about the victims’ grief and suffering. But they see the solution as doing something about the situation, according to their own analysis. The problem with this response is that angers the people who believe strongly in current gun laws. It does not invite a meaningful conversation for those who care deeply about the situation but who have different perspectives. And so, gun violence remains a problem. And so, my meditations have led me to a different place. Now I believe that an appropriate response means beginning with deep communal lamentation and repentance. That is to say the community would enter the same grief as victims of the shooting. We would identify with the victims, crying out to God, lamenting the great tragedy that has come upon us. And then, we would throw ourselves on God’s mercy, because we know in our hearts we are culpable. These tragedies come upon us because we have failed in our calling to create loving community. We have built walls of defensiveness and fear around ourselves, our nuclear families and our small groups. We have raised damaged children who see no solution to their pain, but to inflict pain on others. Oh God have mercy upon us! This is the place I see the writer of our passages from the book of Lamentations we read today. He stands in the midst of ruins in the city of Jerusalem. The streets are deserted. Judah has gone into exile, her children have been taken away. People lie slaughtered on the ground, children and babies are starving in the streets. This writer laments the affliction of his people. The Babylonians have come in and ransacked the city. And they have taken almost all the people to exile in Babylon. The only explanation he has for this devastation is that God has brought this upon them. It is a punishment for their sins: failing to meet their covenant with their God. Even though he sees the people as culpable, he throws himself, with them, on God’s mercy. Surely this punishment is too great! Of course, the Judah-ites did not sack their own city. This was done by their enemies. And yet they had warnings. They did not listen to the prophet Jeremiah’s words of wisdom from God. They were proud, relying on their own power. They kept their God for themselves, seeing God as resident in their city and their temple. Something that God never asked for. Instead of building community with the enemy, they tried resist the greater external power. It didn’t work out. And so here the writer stands in the desolate city. And, still, there is a glimmer of hope, as he perceives God’s great mercy for the people. He perceives God’s longing to forgive the people and restore them as God’s beloved. In chapter 5 of Breathing Underwater, Richard Rohr talks about step 5 of the 12 step process. This step says: [we have] admitted to God and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Rohr writes: “When human beings ‘admit’ to one another ‘the exact nature of their wrongs,’ we invariably have a human and humanizing encounter that deeply enriches both sides … It is no longer an exercise to achieve moral purity, or regain God’s love, but in fact a direct encounter with God’s love. It is not about punishing one side but liberating both sides.” [1] Rohr notes almost all religions and cultures through history have practiced retributive justice. We have tended to believe that sin and evil must be punished. We have distanced ourselves from our own shadow sides, by focusing on the wrongs of others. We think of good guys and bad guys and we know which we want to be. God’s justice is not retributive, but restorative. God wishes for those who sin to be transformed and restored to the way God has made them. God’s promise to restore the exiled people to Jerusalem is the metaphor for this outcome. The pathway to this restoration is found in God’s mercy. As Rohr says, God resists our evil and conquers it with good. In the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Roman Christians, we too are invited to forgive others as a pathway for their transformation. Paul says “‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”(Romans 12:20-21) [2] I’ve heard it said that “God loves us just the way we are, and yet God loves us too much to let us stay that way.” God means for us to always be open to transformation, to becoming who we truly are. And, for Christians, this means true confession, repentance and forgiveness. Rohr talks about the red faced look of shame, when we are forgiven gratuitously and loved anyway. And I know this red faced experience only too well …especially from a time when a friend held me accountable for something I had done. I was leading a group from my former church. In one exercise I had members to share their passions. And then for some reason, for cheap laughs, I made a hurtful joke about my friend’s share. After the group was over, he confronted me. He told me he was “gob-smacked” by my remark. I realized what I had done and I felt ashamed. Because he held me accountable I was able to apologize to him. Not only that, I was able to admit this falling down to the whole group in our next session. This was genuinely humbling for me, but it also felt true and right. There was grace in the moment of receiving my friend’s forgiveness. Sadly, we are not always willing or ready to confess, or even to receive God’s mercy as a pathway to restoration. I had two conversations about confession and forgiveness in a church where I sometimes used to lead worship. The first involved an older woman, who did not like the corporate prayer of confession we said every week. “I am a good and kind person” she said, “I don’t need that kind of negativity.” I had to admit she was a good and kind person. She did a lot to help others. But confession is not only about whether we do enough, or whether we are kind enough. It is admitting that we all fall short of the mark from time to time in our thoughts, our words or deeds. It is our route to becoming the best version of ourselves. And it is also admitting that we cannot escape the sin of our community and our world. We are bound together in sins that simply are: the destruction of the environment, gun violence in our communities, the oppression of invisible people in the supply chain of our food and other goods. The prayers of confession in worship allow us to admit our culpability in these sins. The second person I talked with was a man who thought he was unworthy to receive communion. He did not tell me why. Perhaps he could not bring himself to confess, yet. Or perhaps he was confessed, and still could not believe he was forgiven. I was reminded of an introduction to the communion table I sometimes use. I talk of how we, here in church, strive to break down any barriers to communion. We provide gluten free bread for those who need it. We use non-alcoholic juice in the cup, so that the table is open to those in recovery for alcoholism. Then I say “if you believe that there is some spiritual barrier to your receiving communion … if you believe there is something you have done that excludes you from this table … remember this: at that Last Supper, when Jesus gathered with the disciples, Jesus knew that one of them would hurry away from the table after supper to betray him. And he knew that before the night was over, all the disciples would abandon him in fear. And still, he served them all.” Friends, let us review and admit our sins. Let us confess to what we have done individually and what we have done as a community, with lamentation and grief. Let us repent honestly and wholeheartedly. And then, may we come to the communion table to receive God’s great mercy and grace, because as the writer of Lamentations says: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end. Amen [1] Rohr, Richard. Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps (pp. 39-40). Franciscan Media. Kindle Edition. [2] Rohr, Richard. Breathing Under Water : Spirituality and the Twelve Steps (p. 41). Franciscan Media. Kindle Edition. Step 4: Shining Light in the Shadows Preached on September 29th, 2019 At Wollaston Congregational Church Scripture: Luke 16:19-31 Step 4: [That we have] Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. This is the 4th step in our 12 step sermon series. And today, it’s beginning to get real, and perhaps a little uncomfortable. I don’t know about you, but this step feels intimidating to me. I don’t feel particularly “fearless” about making a searching moral inventory. This sounds suspiciously like making a list of all my sins, past and present. Richard Rohr observes that “those raised with a strict religious upbringing will usually recoil at this step.” They are tired of judging themselves to be found wanting. In fact, many are driven back to their addiction to “quiet the constant inner critic.” This might be the voice of a “demanding parent, rigid culture, or finger-waving church.” These voices echo long after the parent has died, or the individual has left culture or church behind. And so confession and addiction may become a vicious cycle. [1] However, Rohr does not see Step 4 as a way to find out how good or bad we are compared with other people. Instead he sees it as a way of illumination: and so this chapter is titled “A Good Lamp.” Rohr invites us all to begin some “shadow boxing.” He is talking about what psychologist Carl Jung called the parts of ourselves that we deny or hide, “the shadow-self.” Confession involves bringing a light to those hidden places, the shadows. As Rohr writes, Jung certainly did not lead a perfect life, but his mistakes led him to “recognize and heal the shadow self that lurks in our personal unconscious and is then projected outward onto others. Rohr says “The face we turn toward our own unconscious is the face we turn toward the world.” That is “People who accept themselves accept others. People who hate themselves hate others. Only Divine Light gives us permission, freedom, and courage to go all the way down into our depths and meet our shadow.” [2] Our gospel reading for this week tells of a time when Jesus shone a light onto certain shadows many of us prefer to ignore. Each week this season, before we hear our gospel reading we sing “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet.” In singing this refrain we are summoning the courage to ask God to shine a light not only on the gospel word, but also on our own shadow-selves. The story we hard today is spoken to the Pharisees and scribes yet again. In Luke’s gospel these groups represent the rigid religious, the finger-wavers, who think they are righteous. Jesus tells the story of a rich man. He is obscenely wealthy, he feasts daily, and dresses in the clothing of royalty. Meanwhile there is a poor man, named Lazarus, who sits at the rich man’s gate. Lazarus’s poverty is as extreme as the other man’s wealth. He is covered in sores from inadequate nutrition, lack of sanitation, and sleeping rough. It would be quite simple for the rich man to help Lazarus. He would not even miss the resources it would take to give him a meal, or provide him with a simple dwelling. The problem is that the rich man does not even see Lazarus. He is safely protected inside his gate, free from the uncomfortable sight of the dogs licking Lazarus’s sores. The story goes on. Both men die. Lazarus goes to be with Father Abraham in a kind of heaven. And the rich man descends to Hades, a fire-y hell. By means of some special portal to heaven the man can see Abraham with Lazarus at his side. The rich man is so accustomed to having people like Lazarus at his service he doesn’t understand the seriousness of his situation. And so he implores Abraham to “send Lazarus” with a drop of water to cool his lips. Abraham reminds him that the poor man is no longer conveniently at his gate. Now there is a huge chasm between them and there is no way Lazarus can cross over. Still the man doesn’t get it. Perhaps Lazarus could be sent to warn his five equally wealthy brothers about the torment to come. And again, Abraham tells him that since they haven’t listened to the teachings of the prophets they will not listen to anyone else. It is too late. This is certainly not a comfortable tale for the obscenely wealthy who ignore the poor. We here are not obscenely wealthy. But this is still a tale for us, to stir us when we begin to feel comfortable. If we are truthful, often times we live in an uneasy kind of comfort with situations like this. There are times when I see a person who is in need and I reason “oh well, I can’t help everyone”, and then forget to actually reach out to someone. Or there are times when we justify the gates and barriers we make as “security” so that we can forget about the poor for a while. There are times when we decide not to do a ministry here at the church because “the neighbors would object.” Or there are times when we decide that last time we gave to the poor, they were scamming us. The story sheds light on the poor man, even giving him a name: Lazarus. It also sheds light on our fears, our insecurities, our justifications. It sheds light on our shadows. This story reminds us that ongoing shadow boxing is necessary. We don’t just go to the gym one time to become physically fit. In the same way we don’t just examine ourselves once to become spiritually conscious. The daily Examen is one way of doing this shadow boxing. We tried it today during our prayers of confession. Another way might be to belong to a group like Alcoholics Anonymous, in which others are willing to hear our confession. Sometimes we need the light of others’ eyes on our shadows. And this requires us to be willing to give and receive feedback. I admit I do not always relish feedback. For much of my life I have been painfully aware of my shortcomings. I’m sensitive when I make a mistake, scolding myself for not thinking of every outcome. This painful awareness sometimes meant that I was unwilling to look back on events reflectively, instead I feel shamed by mistakes. I prefer to bury those memories in the shadows. While I was in seminary, I was required to do a training program called “Clinical Pastoral Education” or CPE. I took my CPE in a long-term care facility for the elderly in the Boston area. This program combined providing spiritual care for residents of the facility with a process of self-examination, one or one with my supervisor, and also in a group setting. I made learning goals for the program, and one of these was: “decreasing my fear of getting things wrong, of saying or doing the wrong thing” and “decreasing my anxiety of being supervised in my work.” During the course of my time at the care facility my heart was broken open many times by the patients that I visited. Most had some form of dementia, and also other challenges, such as hearing loss, macular degeneration, and lack of mobility. I was moved by their physical, mental and spiritual challenges. I realized that to serve these dear people I needed to learn and grow. Each week I wrote self-reflections, examining each resident interaction in detail. I worked with my supervisor to imagine how I might grow in my work. I invited critique from my fellow students, who guided me gently and lovingly. And at the end of the program I was better able to provide spiritual care. I had grown in my practice of self-reflection and receiving feedback from others. At times it was uncomfortable, but I look back on that time as a true blessing for myself and my relationships with others. Each week, so far, we have applied the step we are working on to three things: our culture, our church, and our own lives. And so today, may we summon the courage to imagine doing a searching moral inventory … in our culture, in our church, and in our own lives. I wonder what it would look like, if we took a searching and fearless moral inventory as a culture. In this young nation founded on high ideals, we are so intent on patriotism and loyalty, it is hard to imagine. What would it mean to admit that, like all others, our nation is not perfect? What would it mean for the United States to do a searching and fearless moral inventory concerning issues like slavery and the genocide of the Native American population? And how about in the Church? The “church growth consultants” encourage us to present a shiny image. We say “all are welcome” in our loving family-sized congregation. What would it mean to invite those who have been hurt by church in the past to come in and sit with us in this 12 step process. Together we could remember that we have spiritual growth to do, as well as numerical growth, as we examine both our shadows and our triumphs. And, most of all, in our own lives: Let’s remember, our goal is not to be perfect. It is to see ourselves as we are, illuminated by the Divine Light. Rohr points to the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Roman Christians: “the law was given to multiply the opportunities of falling!” to which he adds “so that grace can even be greater” (Romans 5:20–21) That is to say “God actually relishes the vacuum, which God knows God alone can fill.” [3] May all God’s people say, Amen [1] Rohr, Richard. Breathing Under Water : Spirituality and the Twelve Steps (p. 30). Franciscan Media. Kindle Edition. [2] https://cac.org/becoming-who-you-are-2019-09-09/ [3] Rohr, Richard. Breathing Under Water : Spirituality and the Twelve Steps (p. 31). Franciscan Media. Kindle Edition. |
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April 2022
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