The Hope of Possibilities Preached for Wollaston Congregational Church On October 26th, 2020 Scripture: Philippians 3:4b-14 This week we come to the final element of spiritual health in our fall series. This is hope. The Hebrew Seniorlife Spiritual Assessment Tool describes this element as “the need to have hope in looking ahead.” Without hope, a person is left without any motivation even to get up in the morning. The spiritual care focus for hope is to help a person grieve the loss of old hopes and identify new hopes. The goal is for them to “look to the future with a sense that each new day can hold promise and meaning.” Hope can be difficult to come by in times of trouble. And yet real hope, like real gratitude, is only found in challenging times. It is found when it is not easy to imagine the road ahead to a brighter future. Real hope takes into account the reality of the current situation and the likelihood that it can be overcome. Realistic hope opens us up to a spectrum of possibilities. Have you ever heard someone say “Our only hope is (fill in the blank)”? Or perhaps, we say “our only hope for containing COVID-19 is a vaccine by such and such a date.” or “Our only hope for our country is the election of … (name your candidate.)” And finally, when it seems that all other options have been exhausted: our only hope is in divine intervention. Over the past months I have been impressed by the human capacity to find solutions and dismayed by the lack of will to implement them. Many members of our community have been operating on the frontlines of the COVID pandemic. They’ve been providing healthcare, getting food and resources to the people who need them, providing transportation for essential workers, checking in with and providing support for those who are isolated or depressed. Frontline workers have made heroic efforts, but we must remember that kind of effort is not sustainable. They reach the point of exhaustion and frustration due to the stresses of their work, the limitation of supplies, and the increased effort needed for daily tasks. Then there have been those of us who are not serving on the frontline, but who have needed to rapidly adapt and change our ways of doing things. People in practically every line of work have had to adapt, including: educators, pastors and ministers, designers and engineers, college students, athletics directors and coaches, musicians and artists, to name a few. Meanwhile medical professionals, scientists and technologists are working night and day to discover and deliver a COVID vaccine, treatments, and strategies for containment. As human beings, created and gifted with creativity and intelligence, I firmly believe that we can overcome this challenge. God has equipped us with what we need to find solutions. If we learn to pool our resources, work collaboratively and flexibly, and come to rapid consensus on strategies, we will reach our goal. If we can draw on our God-given love and compassion, there is every reason to hope. Now let’s turn to our scripture passage for today, an excerpt from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the early church in Philippi. Writing from prison, Paul offers hope to the Philippian community. A first read of this passage may indicate Paul is referring to the hope of heaven, the hope that when the trials of life are over his readers may rest in God. Or perhaps that he is referring to eschatological hope: the hope at the end of time – God will intervene and make all things right. But a second look, lead us to believe that Paul is also talking about hope in the here and now. He’s talking about hope in the disciple community, hope in the rapid spread of the good news of Christ, and the radical inclusion expressed in Jesus’ life and Paul’s letters. This letter, and others, indicate that the hope and good news is that there is neither Jew nor Gentile, male nor female, slave nor free in God’s kingdom. It is the hope that God’s vision for community upends the tightly imposed social structure of the empire. Perhaps it is this kind of preaching and writing is why Paul is in prison in the first place. This morning we read a fragment of Paul’s letter to the early church in Philippi. Often, when we have texts like this we hone in on the immediate message, not really thinking about who Paul is and whom he is writing to. But, the passage we read today is autobiographical. Paul, named Saul at birth, talks about his background as an exemplary religious leader. He was born in the right family, received the best religious education, and obeyed all the rules. He was a zealous Pharisee, Franciscan writer Richard Rohr writes: “Saul had achieved some status in the Sanhedrin, the governmental board of Judea during the Roman occupation.” Saul zealously persecutes the early church, until one day, riding on the road to Damascus he has a vision of a light from heaven so sudden that he falls off his horse. Then he hears a voice booming “Saul, Saul why do you persecute me?” Saul is bewildered, and so the voice clarifies, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” Saul has met the risen Christ and so he is transformed. He learns that by persecuting the early Christians he is persecuting Christ himself. He is struck speechless and blind by this experience, and has to be led on to the city. Rohr states “After transformation, it’s not about doing it right; it’s about being in right relationship. It’s not about being correct; it’s about being connected.” [1] Saul can forget about doing things “right” and being “correct” according to the rules. He can embrace relationship and become connected with God and with others. This is Saul’s conversion. He adopts the Greek version of his name, Paul, and begins working night and day for Christ. He explains to the Philippians that he now considers his former advantages – he membership of an exclusive religious sect – as rubbish. He transitions from self-made, high achieving religious zealot, to an imparter of the gospel. He turns his life over to God’s purposes and experiences grace upon grace in God’s forgiveness. Revisiting Paul’s background gives us insight into what his message of hope for the Philippians. In the passage we read Paul uses athletic metaphors, concerning pressing on to the goal, focusing on the finish line. He says not to look back, but to strain toward the finish line. Paul does not claim his conversion as “fait accompli”. Even he, the Apostle Paul, evangelist of Asia Minor, is still growing and learning, as he presses on. If you believe that Paul’s goal is a far off heaven, listen to his instructions to that early Christian community. Hear the exhortations to love one another, treat others as equal no matter their status in the wider culture. See his passion in spreading this message throughout Asia Minor. Paul, through his passionate love for Christ, really cares about the here and now. He lives “in Christ.” That is, his care and passion for the world is aligned with Christ. The Christian community isn’t simply waiting for God to intervene. They are realizing the hope of a new world by engaging it in their faith communities. That is the goal. That is the hope. I have not had a conversion experience like Paul’s. I used to feel a little envious when I met Christians who told me the exact day and time they were converted and how their lives had changed dramatically. I thought I might have missed out on something important. And I admit, I’m puzzled when people ask me what happened to me. How did I decide to convert from Software Engineer to Pastor? What major life event changed everything? The short answer is, that not much changed. I’m still the same person I was as a Software Engineer, I have the same thought processes, the same general approach to solving problems. In some ways the journey through seminary, and experiences that prepared me for ministry, simply helped me to become more like the person I had always been. And so I find hope in this heavenly calling because it helps me grow further toward what Richard Rohr calls the “true self.” Paul calls the true self “spirit” as distinguished from “flesh”, which Rohr would call “false self.” What does this all have to do with our hope? As Richard Rohr says in his article on Paul, once you see it you can’t un-see it. This is what you see: “After transformation, it’s not about doing it right; it’s about being in right relationship. It’s not about being correct; it’s about being connected.” And so, perhaps this is my conversion experience. What I can’t un-see today, is that our hope is to be found in the in-between places. And we will need to grow into our true selves to find it. If we remain in a place of dualities, we will only ask binary choices such as: Is this person a Christian or are they not? Will we reopen the sanctuary for worship or will we stay “closed”? Will a vaccine save us or are we doomed? Will my candidate win the election and save the country, or will they not? Seeing our hopes in this way leads us to a place of disengagement. If it is a matter of either/or, we’ll just sit back and wait. Finding hope in the spectrum of possibilities, in the in-between places, leads us to engagement and participation. It is an invitation to press on, playing our part in the community, modeling our hope in the possibilities. A vaccine will not substitute for our continued care and respect for one another, observing health guidelines until we are truly safe. And whichever candidate is elected, we will still need to work together for the healing of our nation and our world. Maybe you had a “falling off your horse” moment, maybe you didn’t. No matter, the present moment is a moment for hope. The hope that God is in the here and now. God is calling us on to the prize, which is right relationship, and being connected. God is calling us to the hope of possibilities we still cannot imagine today. May all God’s people say, Amen [1] https://cac.org/apostle-paul-weekly-summary-2017-05-20/
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Gratitude in the Midst of Tenderness Preached for Wollaston Congregational Church On October 18th, 2020 Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 “Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice!” I would sing this chorus with gusto in my church youth group, our young voices raised to meet the high soprano line, never imagining a day we’d sing it with a break in our voices. This chorus is a direct quotation from the letter written by the Apostle Paul to the Thessalonian church. Paul exhorts or invites the congregation to “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” “Give thanks in all circumstance, rejoice always, pray without ceasing …” is great advice, for living a happy life. When things are going well, all your ducks are in a row, and life is good, why not be grateful? That is, it is good advice until, well, you can’t. Of course gratitude as a spiritual practice, a component of spiritual health, is not only for the good times. It is not only for the sunny days, when we are brimming with youthful energy, full of optimism for a bright future. True gratitude is one of the most important qualities for spiritual resilience. In fact, gratitude is not really gratitude at all unless it is resilient in challenging times, stormy times. Unless it can withstand seemingly hopeless times, times of grief and loss. And that is why this week is the perfect week to talk about gratitude in our series on spiritual health and resilience. This has been a stormy week in our congregation, as we received the news that our dear church member, Ellie Cleveland, had passed from this life. Ellie, a lifelong member of our congregation: someone who showed interest in every person who came into her sphere, in her apartment building, in the church, in the garden club and beyond. Ellie, who nursed so many elders of this congregation, and the community around. Ellie who never stopped being a carer, to the point that when the hospice nurse and chaplain came to visit, she baked shortbread and made tea. And I admit it, I was the grateful recipient of Ellie’s shortbread and tea, too, when I visited her this past summer. She’d begin with the words “I really need a cup of tea … will you join me?” just to be sure I didn’t think that making tea was too much trouble. And then we’d sit at either end of the 6ft long counter top in her kitchen to take tea together: a sacrament. Ellie gone, in a week when our world stands on the precipice of falling apart at the seams. Democracy seems to be on the line. Our church building is deteriorating in spite of our best efforts. And the Stewards received the news that the hoped for redevelopment of our site is not possible. All this in the midst of a pandemic in which the infection rate is taking an alarming turn in this state and we most certainly should be preparing for a second surge. All this, and then Ellie is gone. And I really wonder, is gratitude even possible at a time such as this? It is rare that I have a glass half-empty read of a situation. This not my usual attitude. Typically I am inclined to be Pollyanna-ish: my glass half full to overflowing. But today I’m discouraged. Perhaps you are feeling that way too. This is a time when gratitude needs to meet the road, and we see if it can be more than “always looking on the bright side of life.” If gratitude was just a concept from pop-psychology or new age spirituality: fluff, as Ellie would say, I would give myself an excuse for not feeling it. And it turns out that “not feeling it” is OK. The thing that is not OK is building a fortress around discouragement, using this as an armor to avoid future disappointment. Protecting ourselves from feeling gratitude and hope, so that we won’t feel the let down on the other side. That is not an option for those of us who are seeking to follow the way of Jesus, says Paul. Gratitude in the midst of tenderness is what is called for. And so, this week I went on a quest to find ways to cultivate gratitude in the midst of it all. I began with “The Book of Joy”, a documented conversation between the Dalai Lama and the Archbishop Desmond Tutu written by Douglas Abrams. The two learned and spiritual men talk about the eight pillars of joy, one of which is gratitude. The chapter on this subject is entitled “Gratitude: I Am Fortunate to Be Alive.” The two elders exude gratitude, especially on the occasion of their meeting to celebrate of the Dalia Lama’s 80th birthday. Both have known deep suffering in their lives, individually and among their people. Still they model lives full of gratitude. They relish each moment of the day, from waking up to one more day of life, spending time in prayer, eating breakfast in world where many go hungry, and enjoying the company of others who come their way. Abrams quotes the Benedictine scholar, Brother David Steindl-Rast “It is not happiness that makes us grateful. It’s gratefulness that makes us happy.” The happiness of these two spiritual leaders shines throughout the book. [1] The Dalai Lama is able to live in gratitude even though he has been in exiled from his home in Tibet for many years. He is not grateful because he denies this reality, but because he accepts it. Abrams says “Gratitude means embracing reality. It means moving from counting your burdens to counting your blessings.” [2] Are we burdened or are we blessed? It depends on what we count. In our times of prayer and worship we are invited to lay down our burdens. This is what we do when we pray. We have much more room for counting blessings when our burdens put down. Another place I stopped in my quest for gratitude in tender times was Brené Brown’s book “Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead.” I’m a little afraid that Ellie might consider this book to be “fluff”, but I’ll take the help where I can find it for now. Brown talks about three lessons she has learned “about joy and light from people who have spent time in sorrow and darkness.” The first lesson is: “Joy comes to us in ordinary moments.” Perhaps this is why Paul says give thanks in all circumstances. When over the past week have you experience joy in an ordinary moment? Maybe biting into a delicious snack, or savoring your morning coffee. For myself joy came when I took the time to eat a sandwich at Wollaston beach on the glorious day we had on Wednesday. Taking in the blue sky and sea, the harbor islands and the Boston skyline replenished my soul and reminded me that gratitude is still attainable. The second lesson of joy is to “Be Grateful for What You Have.” I was reminded this week that ministry can be joy-filled and hard all at the same time. Would we prefer not to have known Ellie, so that we wouldn’t have the pain of losing her? Of course not, we are grateful for the time we had with her. Would I give up this opportunity to be here with you, to avoid the hard times? No way. I am profoundly grateful for you all and what I have, being your pastor. The third lesson is “Don’t Squander Joy.” Brown reminds us that “we can’t prepare for tragedy and loss … when we turn every opportunity into a test drive for despair we actually diminish our resilience.” She goes on “Yes, softening into joy is uncomfortable. Yes, it’s scary. Yes, it’s vulnerable.” [3] Yes, it’s uncomfortable. Yes, it’s scary. Yes, it’s vulnerable. And so, with this guidance, I have become convinced that there is no reason to resist gratitude in tender times. Putting on the protective armor around our discouragement and tenderness only keeps out the joy. It doesn’t buy us anything. Risking gratitude buys us everything. I’m not singing “Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice!” with quite the gusto I sang in my youth, but I am still singing. Now Paul’s admonishment to the Thessalonian followers of Jesus sounds more like advice to “fake it till you make it.” Lift your voices in praise and prayer, sing the hymns as loudly as you can. Let your rejoicing chase away discouragement. This is how we can move toward gratitude in tender times. May all God’s people say, Amen [1] His High Holiness, the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Douglas Abrams, The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World (New York: Avery Penguin Random House, 2016), 242 [2] Ibid., 243 [3] Brown, Brené. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (p. 127). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. Making Meaning in a Time of Coronavirus Preached for Wollaston Congregational Church On October 11th, 2020 Scripture: Deuteronomy 34:1-12 Today we come to the fifth element of spiritual health: Meaning Making and Legacy. The Wikipedia entry for meaning making says: “In psychology meaning-making is the process of how people construe, understand, or make sense of life events, relationships, and the self.” [1] Meaning making is important for our spiritual health, we need it to make sense of the sometimes senseless things that happen to us. And we need meaning and purpose in our lives. To quote the seminary professor who taught my preaching class: “meaning is made at the intersection of the sacred story and the story of our lives.” This is my favorite aspect of spiritual health, it is what I work toward for us week after week. I try to preach and lead worship at the intersection of the sacred story and the stories of our lives. As Christians our sacred story is the Bible, those of other religions have different texts. Of course, the sacred is not limited to the Bible. There are many other sources that people hold sacred, including literature, movies, and the foundational stories of our nation, to name a few. Usually when I preach, I hope to have us all engage with the sacred story of our scriptures, using an approach known as “narrative theology.” The theology of story is not moralizing. Stories are not right or wrong. Whether a story is literally true is unimportant, and still we read stories as though they were true. During my first internship in the United Church of Christ, I was mentored by a pastor who is gifted in biblical storytelling. As a visiting preacher, she brings the stories of the Bible to life for many congregations. Whenever I told my mentor that I was stuck with a sermon, and didn’t know how to move forward, she would say “go back to the story, Liz, just go back to the story.” The story from the Hebrew scriptures that we read this morning is part of a BIG story, perhaps THE big story of the Old Testament. The Jewish people have made meaning from this story for generations, as they revisit it each Passover holiday. Christians have also found deep meaning in this story, particularly when going through times of trial and challenge. This story speaks powerfully to the African American experience, as it is a story of hope in dire circumstances, a story of liberation of enslaved people. [2] Civil rights activist John Lewis observed, “Slavery was our Egypt, segregation was our Egypt, and during the height of the civil rights movement it was not unusual for people to be singing ‘Go down Moses way on down in Egypt and tell Pharaoh to let my people go.” [3] The day before he was assassinated Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the rousing “I Have Been to the Mountaintop” speech. He was drawing directly from the episode we read today, at the very end of the life of Moses. This passage is a story of meaning and legacy for the key human character, Moses. According to the biblical books of Exodus and Deuteronomy, Moses is a larger than life character. The narrative begins with the Hebrew baby in the bulrushes, discovered by the Egyptian King Pharaoh’s daughter. She adopts the child as her own, although he is the child of enslaved people in a time of intense persecution. As Moses grows up, he is said to have killed an Egyptian with his bare hands, having seen the man beating a Hebrew slave. At that point Moses flees from Pharaoh, knowing he is in serious trouble. He outgrows his youthful passion, tending sheep in the wilderness land of Midian, until one day God calls on him to become a leader. He is to go to Pharaoh and deliver the message from the Almighty, “Let my people go!” Moses is a reluctant prophet. But God convinces Moses that God’s power will go with him. Moses grows into the role, arguing with Pharaoh, and delivering the news of each of the 10 plagues that will afflict the Egyptians as they continue to refuse to let the Israelites go. Eventually the most terrible plague provides them with the opportunity to flee. Moses leads the people through the Red Sea, into the wilderness. The goal is to arrive in the land promised by God to Abraham and Sarah generations before. And yet the people wander for 40 years in the wilderness, complaining to Moses that they wish they were back in Egypt. At the end of his life, Moses finally leads the people to the Promised Land. He has led the Exodus, received the ten commandments and the law from God, and still he will not live to see the fruition of his dreams. As he surveys the land from Mount Nebo, he hears God saying that he will not pass over there. He will die before the people enter the land. At the end he has done what he was called to do. His legacy is complete. This is a larger than life story. We don’t learn much about the details of Moses’ private life. We don’t know whether he got irritable with his family, or cursed his own unique relationship with God. Perhaps he, like the other Israelites, sometimes wished to go back from the wilderness to the relative comfort of Egypt. The story of Moses is mainly myth. By that, I don’t mean “a pleasant story that is untrue.” Today we’re using the word “myth” as meaning a story that refers mostly to mediation and reconciliation. [4] The story of Moses is foundational for our faith. It is not a story of stark truth, so much as it is a story of reconciliation of God with God’s people. The message is: God sees the oppressed, God redeems the suffering. Myth is a polarity on the spectrum of narrative. The other polarity is parable. In the context we are using today, parable “is not about mediation but contradiction.” [5] The story of Jesus is mostly parable. The synoptic gospels, that is Matthew, Mark and Luke, are generally not other-worldly or fantastical. We see Jesus in danger and in pain, we see him tempted, we even hear of a couple of times when he gets irritable with his family. In the end he does not triumph over the ones who want to kill him. Instead he goes to the cross, and dies the death intended for a criminal and insurrectionist. Parables portray the cruel and unjust aspects of life, the perversity of human behavior, and our dire need of redemption. Parables make no sense in our understanding of fairness. Jesus’ death is on the cross is in no way mythical. But myth makes meaning of parables. It redeems unbearable stories, setting them in the context of God’s love. We begin to make meaning of Jesus’ story on Easter, when we meet the risen Christ. It takes the disciples a symbolic 40 days to process what that meaning is. Then they receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and begin preaching in Jerusalem on Pentecost. Writings after the gospels, such as Paul’s letters to the early church make powerful meaning of the painful story: Love triumphs over death. In these COVID times, I wonder if it is “too soon” for meaning making. The coming of this pandemic makes no sense, in our understanding of fairness. It most afflicts those who are already struggling and in no way deserve it: the elderly, the poor, frontline workers, and black and brown communities. In the early months of the pandemic I noticed that TV shows, movies, musical recordings, and novels that I read, existed in a different reality. Everything was pre-COVID. It was a while before storytellers, producers and artists could find ways to gather and pivot to a new reality. I found the contrast jarring: people in movies eating in crowded restaurants, hugging and kissing in the streets, all mask-less of course. I really needed to read stories and see productions that reflected the current reality. I thought that it would help us all to normalize the situation and find our way forward. And so, I was drawn to the carefully recorded virtual choirs, to encourage us through the difficult times. Songs like the Priestly Blessing sung by 100’s of church members from around the UK, or the Quaker song “How Can I Keep from Singing” gave me a sense of solidarity and encouragement through the summer. I also participated in an educational program over summer in which students shared beautifully crafted story maps, timelines, of their individual COVID stories. One student imagined herself as “Rosie the Riveter” with the little red headscarf illustrating her journey as she juggled child care, home schooling and her work, in the midst of COVID. In our local parks, the city displayed posters of superheroes in facemasks, which read “No matter what universe you’re from, we’re in this together.” This is meaning making at its best. There will be more stories: COVID weddings, COVID births, COVID baptisms, confirmations, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. And of course there are COVID funerals, for those who die of COVID-19 and other causes. Making meaning of the deceased’s life with God is the primary function of a funeral. For now we have a little more flexibility to hold ceremonies and events, whether online, outdoor, or limited in-person and indoors. And just as we made meaning for a very different Easter, we will make new meaning when Advent and Christmas come around. Friends, we are beginning to make meaning of our COVID times, transforming the parable to myth. This is an ongoing process, as we discern the meaning of these times for our culture, our church and our individual lives. In an article on psychology, Crystal L Park, says “meaning making processes are central to recovery and resilience after a range of disasters.” [6] In this series of sermons we are discovering the elements of spiritual health that will lead us to resilience. And so, may we keep on making meaning together, week after week. May all God’s people say, Amen [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning-making [2] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/godinamerica-black-church/ [3] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/godinamerica-black-church/ [4] Herbert Anderson and Edward Foley, Might Stories, Dangerous Rituals: Weaving Together the Human and the Divine (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998), 13. [5] Ibid., 14 [6] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/295685264_Meaning_Making_in_the_Context_of_Disasters Whom Do We Trust? Preached on October 4th, 2020 At Wollaston Congregational Church Scripture: Matthew 21:23-32 Today we come to the fourth element of Spiritual Health: Trust. So far we have talked about Love and Belonging, Identity, Forgiveness and Reconciliation. Now we talk about trust. Ideally we begin to develop trust in infancy. Young babies know they can trust their parents and their care providers if they respond to their cries. Over time a child learns whom they can trust. Trust develops properly, if they are led in the way of careful discernment. Teaching a child they must trust everyone in authority is misleading and can become problematic. You may remember how difficult it was for religious families to believe that clergy were abusing children right under their noses. Both parents and children had been taught to respect their religious leaders implicitly. It’s really important that children learn to trust their own judgment, to be reminded that when something feels wrong it probably is wrong. At the same time, it is harmful to teach children to trust no one, or to impose adult prejudices on them. A child will rapidly learn from their parents’ or caregivers’ examples. They take their lead from our actions much more than our words. Put another way, it’s not what you say but what you do. Will a child instinctively mistrust someone who is telling them a lie? Or will they be taught to mistrust people of a different skin color or style of clothing? A parent who encourages curiosity and openness will make all the difference. In a healthy learning and growing environment children will develop their innate ability to detect truth tellers from phonies. Children who are neglected or abused as infants really struggle with issues of trust. They find it difficult to establish relationships and may grow up to have an attachment disorder. Those children who have loving parents may also suffer, perhaps because of their parent’s own trust issues, or perhaps because events intervene to damage a sense of trust. Older adults who were victims of the Holocaust as children suffer to this day. I cannot imagine how children who are separated from their parents in these times, whether through imprisonment or by immigration control, will suffer as they grow up. Discerning whom is trustworthy is not always easy even for adults. In these times, trust is becoming a major issue for many of us. Trust in news organizations, medical professionals and scientists, our political and religious leaders, the electoral process and even democracy itself are being called into question. Do you think, as I do, that we have a spiritual crisis on our hands, and that a major factor in that crisis is the issue of trust? In order to live our lives with any kind of peace and calm, we really need to know whom to trust. And since seeds of distrust are being sown all over the place, we will need to make judgments for ourselves. We must learn from Jesus’ admonishment to the disciples, in the gospel of Matthew, to “be wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matt 10:16). This morning we heard a familiar story in Matthew’s gospel. The scene picks up a storyline we visited, back in the spring, during Lent. Today we are reading this passage, through a lens of “trust.” It’s a surprisingly fitting lens. It is the day after Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey for the feast of the Passover. That was the first “Palm Sunday”: the raucous parade flying in the face of the Roman rulers. After the parade, Jesus proceeded directly to the temple, where he disturbed the peace yet again. He overthrew the money changers tables and drove out the merchants who were selling doves for sacrifice. Seeing this display, the blind and the lame came forward to Jesus for healing. The children in the temple cheered him on, even as the religious leaders tried to shush them. We knew, back in the spring, that this performance drew the attention of the chief priests and elders of the temple: the religious leaders. These are the people who have maintain a delicate peace between the Roman Empire and the Jewish temple. They cooperate with Rome by collecting oppressive taxes from the people. Their authority keeps an uneasy peace among the people, but it does not engender trust. They fear zealots who would try to overthrow Rome by force, and as we have read this morning they also fear the “crowd” in Jerusalem for the Passover. The religious leaders approach Jesus and confront him right away. They ask “By what authority are you doing these things?” they are referring to his actions the previous day. Jesus comes back, equally argumentative. He answers their question with a question: he is beginning a rabbinical debate. He is contentious but respectful, asking “What do you think?” Jesus questions the leaders about John the Baptist’s authority. John had preached a message of repentance and had many followers. His life was cut short by Herod, the unpredictable puppet king of the Jews. Herod is one authority the religious leaders need to appease. The leaders are not even comfortable answering the question about John the Baptist, since they fear the crowd. And so Jesus tells a parable. It’s an easy parable, not difficult to understand at all. A man who owns a vineyard has two sons, he asks them to go and work in the vineyard. Picture lazy teenagers who’ve been spending too much time in their rooms. One is rebellious and disrespectful, and replies “No, I won’t go!” The other seems to be obedient, “Of course, father, I’ll go right away.” But then he doesn’t go. The first son feels sorry he was so rude and does in fact go to work in the vineyard. Which one did the will of the father? The first one of course. It’s not what you say, it’s what you do. Then Jesus tells the religious leaders that the despised tax collectors and the prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God ahead of them. John the Baptist was righteous, and trusted by the least powerful among them. Jesus, likewise, is righteous and to be trusted. Today’s crisis in trust has a lot to do with our human need to trust institutions like the state and the church, our medical and criminal justice systems. As people of faith, though, our ultimate trust is in God. That means that we trust God over institutions and individuals. We trust in the way of God over the way of the world: love over hate; non-violence over violence; forgiveness over vengeance. Or at least we are supposed to. In the end, whomever or whatever we trust is our God. To say we trust something else over God simply means we have substituted that thing for God. That thing becomes our idol. Our trust in God will depend on how our faith has matured over our lifetime. Like the other elements of spiritual health, trust is our life’s work. In the western church our understanding of God is generally formed through imagery, from scriptures and other places. Children are taught to think of God as “Heavenly Father” or “Protective Mother Bear.” These images can be very comforting, we may draw on them throughout our lives. Still, they may fail us in times of crisis. On the other hand, in the tradition of the eastern church God is seen as all-mysterious. It is understood that we can never fully comprehend God. When we learn what God is not, we grow in faith according to this tradition. Christian author, Barbara Brown Taylor describes this as a process of “disillusionment.” That is, we lose our illusions. Sadly, many people never move beyond their disillusionment. They simply lose their trust in God. Still others learn and grow. Brown Taylor says, “Did God fail to punish my adversary? Then perhaps God is not a policemen … Did God fail to make everything turn out all right? Then perhaps God is not a fixer … Over and over” she says, “my disappointments draw me deeper into the mystery of God’s being and doing. Every time God declines to meet my expectations another of my idols is exposed.” [1] It took mid-life crises in my life to push me in the process of disillusionment. These were crises like the loss of family members and friends, the terminal illness and loss of our beloved pastor, and divorce in my extended family. I’m embarrassed to admit that there have been times when I thought that God would protect me from pain. My life experiences tell me otherwise. The disappointments and crises of life have helped me go deeper in trust. I’ve learned that God does not offer protection from all suffering. But I trust in God’s companionship and compassion: that is God’s suffering with us. Like many generations of western Christians, as a child I was instructed that God is like this and not like that. Parables were presented to us as stories of morality, with only one interpretation. The great narratives of the Bible were taught as historical fact, with little room for wondering or questioning. The western church is moving on, though. Movements in Christian education, or faith formation, like the Godly Play curriculum trust that “Children have an innate sense of the presence of God.” These approaches, “[help children] to explore their faith through story, to gain religious language and to enhance their spiritual experience though wonder and play.” [2] The students are assured that all their questions and wonderings are valid. The child’s innate spirituality and sense of wonder is affirmed. Not only that, they are led to a deeper faith, in which the child can really trust in God’s love. The people, the crowd, of our story in the temple, had lost trust in their religious and political leadership. The blind and the lame, the children, the despised tax collectors, and the prostitutes, needed someone they could trust. Someone who didn’t just say, they did. Jesus was the one who they could trust. He wouldn’t protect them from pain or the great upheaval that was soon to come in Jerusalem. He was simply someone who lived a life that they could trust. Someone who would show compassion – suffering with them – even to the point of death on the Roman cross. May we, like them, remain alert and engaged, trusting our own innate ability to discern. May we, like them, discern truth tellers from phonies. And may we, like them, place our ultimate trust in God made known in Jesus. May all God’s people say, Amen [1] Barbara Brown Taylor, The Preaching Life (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1993), 8 [2] https://www.godlyplayfoundation.org/ |
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April 2022
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