The Wisdom of Hospitality to the Stranger Preached on October 24th 2021 at Wollaston Congregational Church Scripture: Ruth 1:1-18 When my children were in the 3rd grade at our local elementary school, the class did a “country of origin” project. Each child was required to research the place, or one of the places, where their family had originated before they emigrated to the United States. The students spent many weeks researching their chosen country of origin. They had to find out when and where their first generation family members disembarked to begin a new life in the United States; what method of transportation they used; and whether the circumstances of their immigration were “push” or “pull.” Were they forced out of their homeland by circumstances beyond their control? Or were they drawn to the US because of the hope of a better life? I often wondered what the teacher would have done if a child in the class had been of Indigenous ancestry. At the time my children were in that grade the question had not come up. And, of course, not everyone who arrived on these shores came of their own free will. The teachers would have also dealt with situations where a child’s ancestors were enslaved people. Our son, the eldest, did his project without a problem. He was fortunate enough to have visited his only country of origin on several occasions. He had a detailed history of how his parents had arrived in Boston. At the Open House at the end of the year the children stood up to make their presentations. Every child in the class claimed Irish ancestry. even though we knew there were many other nationalities involved in their parentage. All except for a girl whose father was from Pakistan and our family who are from the United Kingdom. The stories of immigration from Ireland were dramatic. Great, great grandparents who were driven by famine and poverty, survived terrible voyages, were held and inspected on Ellis Island. Some had walked hundreds of miles to find a home and work in this overwhelming new country. When it was our daughter’s turn to do the project, she asked if she could choose a different country of origin from her brother. Maybe she could do Germany? I had to explain that although we did have family members who went to Germany, as far as I knew no one had come from Germany. And so our daughter also did her research on the UK. She was rather disappointed in our uneventful story. When it was her turn to present she stood up and held a picture of a Boeing 747. “My mom and dad came to the United States in 1987 on an airplane, they had a normal amount of money.” She went on “they were not pushed or pulled, they just came here to do some work.” My immigration story is not at all dramatic. It matches that of many British and Western Europeans who have the privilege of education and are offered the chance to study, conduct research or work in the United States. Many of those families enjoy the way of life in the US enough to find a way to stay beyond the usual year or two years. The immigration services have to be navigated. But if you are have an education from one of certain countries, you are in a particular line of work, you already speak English, and you can find the money to pay a decent lawyer, you stand a good chance of getting a Green Card. Having access to the immigration services at one of the esteemed local universities also helps. This week we continue our series on the Wisdom Literature of the Bible as we begin reading from the book of Ruth. Ruth is one of those books of the Bible named for a woman. Some scholars say that the book really ought to be called “Naomi” or at least “Naomi and Ruth.” It actually tells the story of two women: Naomi and Ruth. Ruth is another book that is in conversation with other books of the Old Testament. Ruth argues with the post-exilic books, Nehemiah and Ezra, who advocate ethnic purity among the people of Israel. They blame the misfortune of the Israelites on the fact that they took “foreign wives” and determine that these wives and their children should be cast off (Ezra 10:2-3). Ruth objects: As we discover at the end of the book, there is new hope for Israel because of Moabite Ruth’s immigration to the land of Judah. Ruth is a book that aligns with the in Leviticus to welcome the stranger and the foreigner: “The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.” (Lev 19:34) Naomi is the elder of the two women and mother-in-law to Ruth. Naomi, her husband, Elimelech, and their two sons had originally lived in Bethlehem in Judah. There was a famine in Bethlehem and so Naomi and Elimelech left in search of a place where food was available to them. They moved to Moab. The Moabites and Israelites were enemies, but the family had to move in order to survive. Naomi’s family remained in Moab for about 10 years. In that time, Elimelech died and their boys grew up and married Moabite women: Orpah and Ruth. Then, very tragically, the sons also died. The three women were left alone, without any men provide for them. In their ancient patriarchal culture, this was a dire situation. Naomi was now a lone Israelite among Moabites, and so she decided that it would be best to return to Bethlehem. The famine was over and she would seek out her nearest male relative for protection. Naomi begins the journey with her daughters-in-law, but she realizes that this is not good for them. They will be foreigners in Israel, probably ostracized and unable to marry. They will be immigrants without any male protection. And so she tells them to turn back and go to their mother’s homes. They can marry new Moabite husbands and survive. Naomi will continue her sad journey home. Who knows what will become of her along the way? Orpah agrees to go home to her mother, but Ruth clings to Naomi, making that bold and loyal declaration: “Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die-- there will I be buried. May the LORD do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!" Naomi cannot change Ruth’s mind, and so the two women travel to Bethlehem together. They walk the fifty miles from Moab to Bethlehem over steep terrain around the Dead Sea, through the desert, crossing the River Jordan, and through Jericho. There are wild animals and bandits waiting for unprotected travelers. Did they hire a “coyote”? Did they attach themselves to a caravan? Did they have places to lodge, gleaning from the fields as they did when they arrived in Bethlehem? We don’t know, but somehow they made it. As a part of my preparation for ministry I applied to do a chaplaincy internship with the Hebrew Seniorlife Organization in eldercare. I liked the idea of working in a facility where I could develop long-term relationships, I also valued the experience of interfaith learning in that setting. The interview process was quite rigorous. Afterwards I hoped I had made a good impression. I was delighted when I received an offer from Hebrew SeniorLife, but puzzled when my future supervisor said: “As an immigrant, you will have something in common with many of our residents and staff.” HSL does have a good number of residents who are immigrants from other lands. Some of the very elderly are Holocaust survivors. Others came from Russia and other Eastern European countries. A great many of the staff are immigrants too, mostly from Haiti. One of the principles of the Hebrew Seniorlife Organization is “hospitality to the stranger.” But, was I an immigrant? The statement took me off guard. I did not think that I had much in common with someone who had struggled to master English and make a home in an alien culture. I did not experience bias when I was out and about because of the color of my skin or my accent. My experiences with the Immigration and Naturalization Service were not great, but I had not been through a terrible process, in which I feared that I had no home in the US and also no home to return to. I wondered if there was something else in my reluctance to admit that I was an immigrant. What came to mind when I heard the word immigrant? The masses from many lands struggling to make their way from Mexico to the United States, by way of the Rio Grande, in the hands of unscrupulous coyotes? The people who could only do casual, backbreaking work, for less than minimum wages, because they have no papers? The numerous tiny, inadequate boats, crossing the Mediterranean and the English Channel, to bring asylum seekers from the Middle East and Northern Africa to the UK? Or, perhaps, the older Russian couple I saw huddled with their lawyer and awaiting interviews in the INS Office in Boston? Friends, we are repeatedly told by our political leaders and media that immigration is a problem. And we often transfer the problem onto the immigrants themselves: Why do they come, when they know they will be turned away? Why do they endanger themselves and their children? Why can’t they go the proper legal routes? Why don’t they learn English? Why do they cling to the customs and habits of their home countries? All questions that the Indigenous peoples may have asked the Pilgrims. We can all remember: we were all once a stranger and a foreigner in this land. And even Jesus, as a child, was asylum seeker in the land of Egypt, where his family found hospitality. We may not be able to influence immigration policy very much, but we can all empathize and seek out ways to welcome the Naomis and the Ruths: in our lives, in our church, in our community. We meet and see immigrants in our neighborhoods every day. The opportunity to welcome the stranger in right in front of us. Recently I learned that Quincy has the highest proportion of Asian residents of any town or city in Massachusetts. And so, even in this place, I propose we embrace the principle of “hospitality to the stranger.” We were once a stranger in the land and we can all say “I am an immigrant.” May all God’s people say, Amen
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Coming Down to Earth: The Wisdom of the Universe Preached at Wollaston Congregational Church On October 17th, 2021 Scriptures: Job 38:1-11, 34-41 This week our sermon series of three, on the book of Job, comes to a conclusion. On the first week we read from the first two chapters of the book of Job. These chapters are in prose, and tell the story the mischief maker, Hassatan making a wager with the Lord God, to try and lead God’s faithful servant, Job, away from faithfulness. Job is then afflicted by the loss of his family and belongings as well as a terrible skin disease. This is an ancient fable that challenges the assumptions of retributive justice – that is, the idea that God rewards good behavior with good fortune and punishes bad behavior with bad fortune. Later Job’s friends flip this argument, by making the assumption that Job must have sinned because he has been afflicted. The story wraps up neatly in the final few verses of the book. But the middle and largest portion of the book of Job consists of dialogue between Job’s friends and Job, and finally – this week, in chapter 38 – the Lord God enters the conversation. Scholars have concluded that the poetic section of Job was written by a different author and at a different time from the narrative sections: the first two chapters and the very end of the book. The poetry reflects on the problems of Jon’s suffering and God’s response to that suffering. Today, we began to read the text at the moment that the Lord God began to speak. This is momentous. For chapter after chapter, the friends had offered advice and Job had lamented his terrible suffering. Job cried out to God to come and answer his case, that he does not deserve to suffer because he has not done anything wrong. Suddenly, the four men are silenced by what happens next. A great whirlwind sweeps toward them, from across the wilderness, creating vast clouds of dust and sand. The sight and sound of it are overwhelming. Job and his companions, cower in fear, awe and self-protection. Now God speaks. The Lord tells Job, gird up your loins … get ready to answer these questions, mortal. Job has been wishing God would answer him … but as they say “be careful what you wish for.” My Old Testament seminary professor used to say that God takes Job on a “magic carpet ride” across the cosmos. God shows Job the marvelous work of creation. God demands: "I will question you, and you shall declare to me. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements--surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?” (Job 38:3-7) Job might well be trembling in his sandals by now. God’s speech goes on well beyond the verses that we read today: “Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?” (Job 38:18) “Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?” (Job 39:1) “Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars and spreads its wings toward the south?” (Job 39:26) Who does Job think he is, daring to challenge the very creator of the universe? Wisely, Job does not try to answer God’s questions, instead he bows low and says “I have uttered what I did not understand, … therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes." (Job 42:3,6) Even in the midst of his suffering, Job is awed by the majesty of God’s creation. Job is reminded of his position in the order of things. Have you ever experienced the awesomeness of God in creation, in the midst of grief? Do you go to the ocean, or the mountain, or the lake, when things seem too hard, overwhelming, or sad? Recently I’ve been thinking about my earliest memory of a spiritual experience. It was a time of sitting alone, and becoming aware of my place in the world. I was around 9 or 10, maybe a little older. My aunt and uncle had a vacation cottage by the North Sea coast and we sometimes used to go and stay with them there. My cousins, my brother and I had a lot of freedom to go outside and wander. We usually went together to create “dens” in the undergrowth near the cliff path down to the beach. But on this occasion I went to sit on the top of the cliff looking out over the North Sea. It was a windy day, not warm. The waves were not steady, but rough and fierce. The noise of them was powerful. The wind bit my face and whipped my hair. I was mesmerized by the rolling waves, never ceasing. I could see the horizon, and yet I knew that the ocean continued far beyond it, eventually reaching northern Germany or Denmark. I loved the starkness of it all. I can’t remember what was going on for me at that time except a certain kind of melancholy. I don’t think I was particularly upset or sad. I just had a deep well of longing. I don’t know what I was longing for except the assurance that there is something so capacious and intimate, that there is an experience belonging. Alone in the wind on the cliff, I felt part of it all. I felt appropriately small in the midst of it. And in those feelings I also felt held and loved. Since that time, I have often returned to nature for times of prayer or to simply be in the presence of Spirit. Last summer in the midst of pandemic uncertainty, I sat beside a lake and watched a flock of birds swoop over the water. I asked my spiritual director “why is nature so settling at times like this?” Then I answered my own question: the birds, the fish, the animals, the water, the trees and the grasses are unaware of human suffering. They go on doing their thing, swooping, swimming, running. The wind goes on blowing. The ocean goes on rolling in. I find reassurance in their ongoing life. We are comforted by the lack of impact of our troubles on their lives. As I prepared for this week’s reflection, I was reminded of a poem that Scott Cleveland read during Ellie’s Memorial Service last year: “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver. [1] I wish I had known that Ellie enjoyed Mary Oliver’s poetry, it’s something we could have talked about. During Ellie’s Memorial Service we remembered her passion for nature and her deep interest in learning more about the created world. We were comforted by the images of Ellie in all stages of life. Most of all I will remember the Bluegrass song “I’ll Fly Away” and the image of Ellie bending to pet the enormous sculpture of a dragonfly. Her delicate frame showed that she was almost ready to fly away too. Like Job, and every other human who lived before and has lived since, we all return to the dust to the earth. And in doing so, we fly away to God. God’s interruption to Job’s lamentation is expressed in the form of poetry. Some aspects of God can only be expressed in poetry, music, or visual art. Words are inadequate, the hard and brilliant truth too overpowering for human thought. “Wild Geese” tells the timeless truth using different imagery: Wild Geese You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -- over and over announcing your place in the family of things. [2] May all God’s people say, Amen [1] https://www.vanderbilt.edu/olli/class-materials/2017Summer.MindfulnessWk1.pdf [2] Ibid. Help Me! The Wisdom of Lament Preached at Wollaston Congregational Church on October 10th, 2021 Scripture: Job 23:1-9, 16-17 Last week we began to read from the book of Job, and this week we continue this study. The scripture reading we heard today comes from much later in the book. And so we need to review what has happened since the day when the Lord struck down Job’s animals, possessions and children, and then inflicted Job with terrible skin sores all over his body. As Job sat in the ashes, three friends came to be with him. At first the friends did the thing that friends do. They sat down with him in the ashes and silently joined Job in his suffering. They sit for seven days, like the Jewish Shivah in which friends and family members of a deceased person sit and mourn together. When the seven days are over, Job begins to lament his suffering, cursing the day his was born. This seems to stir something up in the friends, who begin to analyze Job’s suffering. They conclude that he must have committed some egregious sin that caused the Lord to inflict suffering on him. They recommend that he tries to do better and tries to make amends for his sin. This does not go down well with Job who insists he is blameless. And so, in the passage we read today, Job laments. The usual way to make a lament, in religious terms, is to direct a complaint to God. But Job’s main complaint is that God is absent. If only Job could find God, then he could make his case to God. The silence and absence of God is unbearable. Judaism has a long tradition of Lament, which we Christians have inherited. The Wisdom Literature, that includes the psalms, contains many lamentations. There is even a book in this genre named Lamentations. In the Hebrew scriptures there are many communal lamentations over the destruction of the first Jerusalem temple by the Babylonians. The lamentation of the destruction of the second temple by the Romans continues to this day, as Jewish people gather at the one remaining temple wall in Jerusalem – the Western Wall – and cry out to God. The scriptures also include personal lamentations: cries of people who feel lost and abandoned. They are grieving the death of loved ones, or suffering from painful and terrible diseases. They have lost their livelihoods, their homes, or they have been ostracized from their communities. Our reading for today from the book of Job is paired with Psalm 22. This is formulated in the traditional structure of lament. The psalm begins “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Perhaps you remember this verse from the Good Friday readings. Jesus cries out on the cross "my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matt 27:46) Theologians have wrestled and argued about why Jesus, the Son of God, would cry out using this verse. How could Jesus feel forsaken by God, when he is God? Jürgen Moltmann, argues that “Jesus was indeed abandoned by God … [and at the same time] was never closer to God than in this absolute abandonment.” [1] According to the gospel of Matthew, Jesus had been betrayed, abandoned by his friends, condemned by the crowd, flogged, stripped, and condemned to die on the cross. His feeling of abandonment may have been very much like that of Job. In all the accounts of Jesus on the cross there is no reply to his prayers and cries. God says nothing. I’m sure that we have all also felt abandoned, like Job, as some time or another. Perhaps we were dialing 911 for a loved one and felt a moment of panic and aloneness in such a frightening situation. Or perhaps we were receiving a devastating diagnosis, of terminal cancer or another incurable disease, for ourselves or a loved one. Perhaps we were terrified by impending danger: such as an active shooter in our school or workplace; our car about to crash; or there was an earthquake, hurricane or fire threatening our safety. I had a professor in seminary who used to say “the only prayer you have is the prayer you say when you haven’t got a prayer.” Or like the first of Anne Lammot’s three essential prayers “Help!” [2] Have you ever cried to God “help me, help me, help me”? In these days, we also experience the need for communal lament. In our church, we might lament the loss of the ways of the past. We lament the fact that we now have no choirs, or children, Sunday school, or youth events. The passing of these things is inescapable. We cannot turn things around. The culture has moved on and, for the most part, churches have not been able to keep up. We have been weighed down by facilities like ours. Here at Wollaston Congregational Church we lament what will probably be the loss of a large part of our building and all the memories that go with it. And yet, it is what is needed for this time and place. In our culture today we might well lament the deaths of more than 700,000 Americans due to COVID 19. This is now a greater loss that that of the 1918 flu pandemic. And we must mourn, grieve and lament the 645 children who have died in the US due to COVID. Theologian N.T. Wright wrote about the Christian tradition of lament for Time magazine at the beginning of the pandemic. He encouraged readers to avoid looking for an explanation for the crisis saying: “It is no part of the Christian vocation, then, to be able to explain what’s happening and why. In fact, it is part of the Christian vocation not to be able to explain—and to lament instead. As the Spirit laments within us, so we become, even in our self-isolation, small shrines where the presence and healing love of God can dwell. And out of that there can emerge new possibilities, new acts of kindness, new scientific understanding, new hope.” [3] Lament can come quite naturally and viscerally, from the gut. And there are also ways to create lamentations, so that we can share our cries, our hopes, our dreams with one another. Amy Rowe of the Incarnational Anglican Church writes, "In a lament, people pour out their complaints to God in an effort to persuade [God] to act on their behalf, all the while stating their trust in [God]. Laments can have seven parts:
Over the course of my life, I have been invited to write a Psalm of Lament on a number of occasions. One of those times was on a clergy retreat in November 2018. Looking back I notice that our culture had a great need to lament in 2018. Our community was polarized, isolated, separated. Many people were struggling with mental health and addictions. Ministry felt hard even then. Since the beginning of the pandemic, many of these problems have grown worse. Friends, we can remind ourselves that we have a deep need to lament even now. The suffering and struggle of our church and our culture goes on. These things have not yet been repaired. It is more healing to be truthful than to put on a “happy face.” And, most important of all lamenting provides an appropriate outlet for anger. God invites our anger by providing us with the practice of lament. God would rather take our anger, than have us direct it at one another. That is what God does on the cross: absorbs the anger, violence and pain of the world. I have discovered that a Psalm of Lament can pour out quite naturally, at least for me. Writing, drawing, singing, or speaking a lament is like a “good cry.” It gets things out. Generally, in scripture and in my own experience, God does not speak in response to lament. But, like Jesus on the cross, we can be the closest to God we’ve ever been when we dare to lament. And so, we do not hear from God in today’s passage from Job. Job’s lament does not even move on from the complaint to praise. As we leave him, Job is still searching for God, wondering where God is in all his suffering. Next week God will appear, but for now we leave Job praying the only true prayer he can utter, “help!” May all God’s people say, Amen [1] Bartlett, David L.; Taylor, Barbara Brown. Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 4: Season after Pentecost 2 (Propers 17-Reign of Christ) (Feasting on the Word: Year B volume) (Kindle Locations 5474-5475). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition. [2] Anne Lammot, Help Thanks Wow: Three Essential Prayers, (New York, Riverhead Book, 2012) [3] https://time.com/5808495/coronavirus-christianity/ [4] https://www.incarnationanglican.org/post/writing-a-lament #Blessed? Wisdom for the Hard Times Preached at Wollaston Congregational Church On October 3rd, 2021 Scripture: Job 1:1, 2:1-10 This week we begin a three-week journey with the book of Job. You may wonder if I’ve taken leave of my senses. Job is not the most popular book in the Bible: it is a story of very bad things happening to very good person. But … I did promise a sermon series on the wisdom literature of the Bible. The Revised Common Lectionary gives us Job, which is a part of that wisdom tradition, for these three weeks. Job deserves a deep dive, it is not a book that can be summarized in just one sermon. In our quest for God’s wisdom we need to tackle the perennial question: if God is all powerful and all just, why do bad things happen to good people? The name given to this theme by academics is theodicy or “God’s justice.” Rabbi and author Harold Kushner phrases the question differently, in his popular book, “When Bad things Happen to Good People” first published in 1981. That is, there is no point in asking why, because it is a fact. In this world, bad things do happen to good people. The book of Job is that it is a book “in conversation” with other books of the Bible. Job is most likely an ancient fable that had been circulating in the ancient world long before it was written down. When the Hebrew scriptures and the collection of “wisdom writings” were compiled, Job was included. Job offers a counter to the fundamental understanding the book of Deuteronomy: “If you will only obey the Lord your God, by diligently observing all his commandments that I am commanding you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth; all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the Lord your God…” (Deut 29:1-2). Many blessings are listed as a reward for obedience to God: prosperity, children, protection from enemies. The story of Job argues a sound “no!” In ancient times, the God was imagined as presiding over a Divine Council of lesser deities. The book of Job starts out with this Divine Council deciding to play some tricks. There is a mischievous character, Hassatan, who goes to and fro on the earth creating problems for the Lord. In later stories Hassatan will become Satan, the personification of evil. Hassatan presents himself at the council. For some reason the Lord asks Hassatan, “have you considered my servant, Job?” Job is righteous and obeys the Lord his God. He makes sacrifices for the sins of his children. And he is indeed blessed with prosperity, health and a large family. Perhaps the Lord wants to show off Job as an exemplary man of faith. But Hassatan wants the Lord to test Job and find out whether he will remain faithful if his fortunes change. The Lord agrees to the test. Lo and behold, one day Job learns that all his oxen and donkeys have been taken away, his servants have been killed by the thieves, his sheep have been burned, and a storm blew up and collapsed the house of his adult children, and they have all died. Job simply responds “naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return there; the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21) In the episode we heard this week, Job is also been cursed by a painful skin disease all over his body. And so he has picked up a piece of broken pot to scratch his sores, and sits forlorn among the ashes of the fire. His wife is outraged that he continues to be faithful to the Lord who has given him these afflictions and admonishes him to “Curse God and die!” But Job only responds saying “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?" He insists that he will remain faithful. Over the coming weeks we will hear the story unfold. Modern Christians, like ourselves, may push back on taking a lesson from the book of Job. We may argue that the covenant in Deuteronomy is not for us. We have a new covenant, in Jesus Christ who died and rose again for our sins. We think that makes us more advanced than those ancient people. Jesus revealed a better God to us, the God of the New Testament, not the Old. However, there is a school of thought not much different from the covenant in Deuteronomy that is alive and well in Christian circles today. It is known as the Prosperity Gospel. The Prosperity Gospel preaches that God will reward faithful Christians with health, wealth and happiness. “Nothing is impossible if you believe.” [1] Practitioners of this gospel pray bolding for healing from all kinds of physical ailments. If the suffering patient isn’t cured, it’s because they didn’t believe strongly enough. Material wealth is seen as a blessing from God. And during the pandemic Prosperity Gospel preachers, some of whom are televangelists, have proposed rejecting scientifically researched vaccines and treatments in favor of faith healing. They have done great harm, persuading their followers to avoid common sense protection from COVID and simply to have faith that God will protect them in some other way. Kate Bowler is a professor at the Duke school of Divinity. She was researching churches that practice the Prosperity Gospel, when her own world fell apart. After years of infertility and miscarriages, Kate and her High School sweetheart husband conceived a son. Her career was a success and she had her dream: a beautiful family. But, when her son was a one year old, Bowler was diagnosed with stage IV cancer. Her response to the doctor who called to tell her the news was to say “but I have a baby.” The diagnosis was just not fair. Bowler had thought that she was not a believer of the Prosperity Gospel. As she observed mega-churches and miracle healings, she’d say to herself “I’m just studying this stuff … I’m nothing like them.” But she goes on to say “if you live I this culture, whether you are religious or not, it is extremely difficult to avoid falling into the trap that virtue and success go hand in hand.” Bowler observes that the Prosperity Gospel has become a new kind of Civil Religion in the United States. This is illustrated all over social media by shiny photos of immaculately dressed, photogenic families on pristine beaches accompanied with the hashtag “Blessed.” It is important to be grateful for what we have. It would be worse to take the good things in life for granted. But, do those families really lead the shiny #Blessed lives the pictures portray? Are those who don’t feel shiny and positive ashamed of their hurt or fear or pain? In recent weeks we have learned about the harm done to teenaged girls by “perfect” pictures on Instagram, which make the girls feel worse about their own bodies, often leading to eating disorders. [2] For myself, I’ve been attracted to the #blessed lifestyle and community. I’ve stood on the edge awkwardly, like a shy child on the first day of kindergarten. I’ve tried a few carefully curated family pictures on social media. Yes, I’m grateful and I’m blessed. But to attribute my privilege, health and material wealth to God’s blessing is just wrong. And to say I haven’t suffered with the rest of the world is a lie. I have been blessed by the people in my life who won’t let me get away with that kind of self-deception. They are people who’ve shown me their real selves and their real suffering. They’ve demonstrated, for me the need to cry out to God in the darkest hours. And, incredibly, I’ve noticed time and again that those who suffer, and are honest about their suffering, are often the most faithful to God. They are the ones who care for people in hospice, or minister to families whose loved ones suffer from cancer or dementia. They are the ones who have a parent or a child at home who demands their daily care and attention. They are the ones who have confessed their own addictions and support others on the same awful journey. These are the not-so-shiny people who stand close to God, and will draw us closer too if are ready to show our own less than shininess. Kate Bowler admits that when she received her devastating diagnosis she thought: “Good things happen to good people … am I not good? Am I not special? Why is this happening to me? Be good and good things will come to you … my own personal prosperity gospel had failed me.” As she went through treatments, though, she received what she calls “a gift.” In all the suffering, pain and trauma, she experienced love in the suffering, saying “when I was sure I was going to die I didn’t feel angry, I felt love.” She came to the conclusion that “Life is beautiful … And life is hard” and that there are no guarantees … “Life will break your heart, and life will take everything you have. Even in the darkness, there will be beauty and there will be love.” [3] Even in the darkness, there will be beauty and there will be love. Here is a meditation by Steve Garnaas-Holmes Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad? —Job 2.10 What if love does not hand out stuff, good or bad, but is simply present in all things? Without judging, can I receive it? What if nothing happens “at the hand of God,” but everything is in the hand of God? Without judging, can I receive it all? What if things, like rain, are both good and bad, and neither, but simply are? Without judging, can I receive them? What if good and bad are so wrapped up in pleasant and unpleasant that we can't tell very well? Without judging, can I receive everything? What if my life is neither good nor bad but wondrously full of pain and pleasure, and the presence of God? Without judging, can I receive it? I open my hands. [4] [1] Kate Bowler, "Everything happens for a reason" YouTube, uploaded by TED, 2 July 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTcJmIbn5nw&t=176s [2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-knows-instagram-is-toxic-for-teen-girls-company-documents-show-11631620739 [3] Kate Bowler, "Everything happens for a reason" YouTube, uploaded by TED, 2 July 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTcJmIbn5nw&t=176s [4] https://www.unfoldinglight.net/reflections/8fmtmbfnm2jlxy2jm548lb52tfd2ts |
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