Advent Calendar 4: Sacred Sunset

         I've always loved sunset and twilight. As I watch the brilliant colors fill the sky, then fade to a pale light that makes everything seem somewhat unreal, it is definitely sacred time for me. It is a moment when glory breaks through into the ordinary, when the veil between the worlds feels thin.

         A few years ago I received a call from a former co-worker of mine in Miami. She and her husband were riding in the car back from her grandmother's funeral. She said she had a religious question to ask me -- surprising to me because from our prior conversations I knew she was not a believer, having given up the Jewish faith in which she was raised. But as they drove west into the setting sun, for a time the sky was spectacular. It was the most glorious sunset she had ever seen, she said. And as she watched it, tears in her eyes, it occurred to her that this could be a message: from her grandmother, from some divine power, telling her that her grandmother was ok; comforting her in her grief. She wanted to know if I thought that was possible. I said absolutely. And I know that for the rest of her life, she will think of that moment as a sacred time. And whenever she sees a beautiful sunset she will think of her grandmother, keeping the memory alive in her heart. 

          A few days ago I was speaking to my daughter who was home for Thanksgiving. Suddenly I noticed that through the window we could see just the barest edge of the sunset and it looked beautiful. I said, "Look," and she was intrigued enough by that little glimpse that we went out in the front of the house to see the whole thing. It was spectacular. The sky was an amazing shade of orange. And as we watched the colors changed -- morphing and changing, but each beautiful in it's own way. We sat and watched, in awe and blessed companionship, open up to the glory of creation. She tried to take a picture -- but couldn't get one that would do it justice. So she said she was trying to imprint that color in her memory. I expect it will show up in her art one day. It was a sacred time for us of wonder shared and love made manifest across the sky.

         As I said, no picture could capture it -- but here is a photograph I found of another glorious sunset. My thanks to the unknown photographer for this gift. I invite you to meditate on it, let it resonate with your own memories of particularly beautiful sunsets. and think about how they too were sacred times. -- Rev. Christine Ng

Advent Calendar 3: Sacred Time is Sacred

          This first week of Advent, we've been looking at "sacred time." We sometimes use the word “sacred” to mean “inviolate,” as in “I hold that as sacred,” or “that’s a sacred cow.” Used in that sense, that which is “sacred” doesn’t necessarily have to do with something hallowed or holy, but just something that cannot be touched or changed.
          But what if we considered “sacred time” as “sacred”? What if we considered the time we spend connecting with the diving, working on our relationship with God, in worship, service and prayer as something so precious we wouldn’t even consider touching it?
          It is so easy to push our “sacred time” aside. Other parts of our lives push themselves to the front burner, make more noise, demand our attention. After all, what’s the harm if we don’t make it to church this Sunday, or spend time this morning in prayer, or don’t take a meditative walk today?
          But this “sacred time” with God is also time for ourselves – time to reconnect, to recharge, to refresh. It is Sabbath time – a sacred gift of time when we have need of only one thing – the peace of God.
          When I was last in New Mexico, I spent a Friday evening with Rabbi Nahum Lev and his wife – self-proclaimed evangelists for the Sabbath. The beauty of commitment to Jewish law which requires observing the Sabbath is that the “sacred time” is set for you – you know when it is (sundown Friday to sundown Saturday), and it is the LAW you must follow – it is inviolate and cannot be touched.
          In Jewish tradition it is also time with family – gathered together in the home to light the Sabbath candle and say Sabbath prayers. Then sharing a meal, stories, and maybe a song. Rabbi Nahum told us that one of the things this does is confirm the worth of all of us – that we are worthy of God’s time. God comes to rest at our home for Sabbath. And we rest in God.
          But for the rest of us, keeping Sabbath, a regular “sacred time” is not a matter of law but of choice – which makes it more difficult. We need to chose when to set time aside, how much time to set aside, what to do with that time.
          Rabbi Nahum suggests that it may be better not to try to observe Sabbath all at once – but to start out small. Maybe start with just 30 minutes a week; or just light a candle on Friday night and say a prayer. But make it a regular habit. And once you begin, consider it “sacred” – something you must do, time that cannot be changed or touched by other events or concerns that come up. Set that sacred time  -- however much it is – aside for you, for your family, and for God. Accept God’s precious gift that is “sacred” time. God is worth it – and so are we.
          -- Rev. Christine Ng

Advent Calendar 2: It is Sacred

IS IT SACRED?

The time 38 years ago when a young Korean student got off an airplane carrying a tiny 6 month, 9 pound baby and placed her in my arms 

and a year later another Korean student placed a frightened 13 month, 12 pound little boy with TB in my arms

.  

Are there words that can describe that?  

IS IT SACRED?

Are there words that can describe that little boy sitting on the plane heading to his new home clutching crumpled pieces of paper,  trying to smile in brave anticipation?

IS IT SACRED?

The first time you set eyes on your child

When you saw those eyes looking up at you

Trusting

Quiet moments of love that need no words

IT IS SACRED.

-- Submitted by Nancy Blatchley

Advent Calendar 1: Sacred Time



“There is no less holiness at this time- as you are reading this- than there was on the day the Red Sea parted, or that day in the 30th year, in the 4th month, on the 5th day of the month as Ezekiel was a captive by the river Cheban, when the heavens opened and he saw visions of god. There is no whit less enlightenment under the tree at the end of your street than there was under Buddha’s bo tree…. In any instant the sacred may wipe you with its finger. In any instant the bush may flare, your feet may rise, or you may see a bunch of souls in trees.” 

― Annie Dillard, For the Time Being

          The very first thing I think of when I hear the phrase "sacred time" is being alone with my infant daughter late at night or the wee hours of the morning. Letting her nurse. The house so quiet and still except for the gentle glide of the chair -- back and forth, back and forth -- and the soft little noises she made as she fed. There is no peace that that. There is nothing that has ever felt more sacred.

           And I knew that then. The year was 1993. I had been estranged from the church for more than a decade. My husband and I had started attending worship when we decided to start a family -- it seemed like the thing to do. But at that time I still didn't really think of myself as a Christian. And yet -- in that quiet, sacred time I found myself quietly humming or singing to my daughter not a standard lullaby or children's tune, but songs I had recently learned in worship:  "It's in every one of us to be wise. Find your heart, open up both your eyes. We can all know everything without ever knowing why. It's in every one of us, by and by." And maybe, as I sang, I began to believe it myself.

          The other song I sang was: "Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on, help me stand. I am tired, I am weak, I am worn. In the dark, in the night, lead me on to the light. Take my hand, Precious Lord, lead me home." And in that dark, sacred night I was home. 

-- Rev. Christine Ng

On-Line Advent Calendar

          Advent begins this Sunday, December 1st. This year at Central we are going to spend the Advent Season trying to look at everything through the lens of the sacred. Where is the sacred in your life, in your world? Can we look at this too often over-commercialized season with holy eyes -- like looking at the world through a kaleidoscope -- so that it again is something beautiful, sacred?
          One way to mark this season as sacred is the practice of opening an Advent calendar. One little door for each day from December 1st until Christmas. Each day something different is revealed. Each day a surprise. So again this year, we will offer an on-line Advent calendar here. But we are inviting you to join us not only in reading it, but in building it.
          Each week we will offer a different prompt, and invite any of you who feel called to submit a response. That could be a brief written thought, a poem, a photograph -- however the Spirit prompts you to respond. Feel free to submit more than one. Submit it to our church office at ccchurchdallas@aol.com. We will post what we receive, every day, beginning this Sunday. If no one submits, I and our staff will continue to contribute, but we are hoping you will share your thoughts as well -- as you connect with the sacred in your life this Advent season.
          Here is the prompt for this week, with the theme of "Sacred Time":

“There is no less holiness at this time- as you are reading this- than there was on the day the Red Sea parted, or that day in the 30th year, in the 4th month, on the 5th day of the month as Ezekiel was a captive by the river Cheban, when the heavens opened and he saw visions of god. There is no whit less enlightenment under the tree at the end of your street than there was under Buddha’s bo tree…. In any instant the sacred may wipe you with its finger. In any instant the bush may flare, your feet may rise, or you may see a bunch of souls in trees.”  ― Annie Dillard, For the Time Being

          What are the times in your life you identify or think of as sacred -- as touched by the holy, by God? How do you describe those moments? Why or how do you recognize them as sacred? How do you make time for the sacred, or to experience the sacred in your life? 

Thanksgiving Joy

Text of meditation by Rev. Christine Ng given on November 24, 2013 at Central Congregational church based on Isaiah 12.

There’s an old story about a mother and her young son who get caught outside as a tornado roars past. The mother clung hard to a tree and to her so, but the swirling winds ripped him away and carried him off into the sky.
Distraught, the woman began to weep and pray: “Please, Lord, bring back my boy! He’s all I have. I’d do anything to have him back again. If I can just get him back I’ll give thanks and serve you all of my days.”
Suddenly the boy toppled from the sky, right into a huge pile of leaves that had settled near by that cushioned his fall. He was a little worse for wear, but basically safe and sound.
His mother ran over, helped him up, and brushed him off – her heart bursting with happiness. But then she stopped for a moment, looked at the boy, then looked to the sky, and said, “He had a hat, Lord.”
Some people – right? Actually maybe – most people? Maybe – us.
Let’s talk thanksgiving. In our culture that word has become synonymous with a particular day – a holiday – that it’s meaning has been lost. We might as well call it, “turkey day” as some do – as that’s pretty much what it has come to mean for our culture – a greeting card holiday. Google “thanksgiving” and see how many pictures you come up with that don’t involve a big turkey or pumpkins just ready to be made into pie. Makes me hungry just looking at them.

My Dad had to have the same dinner every Thanksgiving or he was not a happy man. Turkey – cooked a certain way – salt and pepper, maybe a little powdered garlic, put in the oven, absolutely no basting – basting was a sin; pan gravy, giblet stuffing, mashed potatoes, Birdseye peas and pearl onions, cranberry sauce, candied yams, rolls, coleslaw, and pecan pie and pumpkin pie for dessert. Same thing, every year, or it wasn’t Thanksgiving.
How did our national day set aside for the practice of thanksgiving, of giving thanks for what we have, for the blessings in our lives, the practice of gratitude – how did it become more about the wanting, the craving, the hunger for something – something that makes our mouths water in anticipation?
And in recent years, we’ve taken this one step further. Many people now practice thanksgiving by standing in line to buy things. Lord, I’m so grateful for what I have – so let me spend this day buying more. Wonderful.
But how often, do you think, do those things we buy on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday bring the people who buy them joy? I’m not talking about the momentary happiness of getting something you really want or of giving gifts on Christmas Day. I mean real joy.
Adela Rogers St. Johns wrote that “Joy [is] a step beyond happiness. Happiness is a sort of atmosphere you can live in sometimes when you’re lucky. Joy is a light that fills you with hope and faith and love.”
I love the food of Thanksgiving dinner as much as the next person, but my prayer for you is that when you think of thanksgiving, you think not only of turkey dinner, but of joy. Because while we may be hungry and salivating for a turkey dinner, I believe we are starving from a lack of joy.
Some people need the numbers – they need to see things in concrete form – facts and data right there on the page. Researcher Brene Brown was like that. And through her research she discovered what spiritual leaders have been saying for a long time. She went into her research thinking joyful people were grateful people. As she said, why wouldn’t they be? They have all that wonderful stuff in their lives to be grateful for. But she found that, in fact, that the reverse was true: grateful people were joyful people. Or in the words of Benedictine Monk Brother David Steindl-Rast: “It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.”

In my studies, I’ve heard that over and over – and I believed in what is sometimes called an “attitude of gratitude.” But let me share what I have learned – it’s not about the attitude – it’s about the practice. Having a particular “attitude” or orientation if fine, but it doesn’t always translate into behavior or action. Gratitude is a spiritual practice. And there is a big difference between feeling grateful and practicing gratitude, practicing thanks-giving. And the practice of gratitude is the way to joy.
Let me unpack that a little. Often the good stuff in our lives, the blessings, are the simple, ordinary things. Like the hot coffee you may have had this morning, warming you on a cold day. Or the cereal you ate for breakfast. The fact that your car started, and you didn’t have to shovel snow to get here and that you arrived safely. Normal.
Do you know what Brene Brown says grief is? It’s the loss of normal. Any of you who have suffered a great loss in your life, think back to the time of that grief. Or talk to anyone one who has been there, in that dark place. How often do you hear: “If only . . .” If only I could have had one more breakfast with him, sitting in our kitchen, reading the paper. If only I could get one more silly text message from her.
My Dad was a doctor, and I would tell him anytime I was sick or hurt, no matter how minor it was. It became almost a ritual with us. He wasn’t much of a “kiss it and make it better” kind of a father when I was growing up, more of a practical advice kind of a guy. And that carried over into my adulthood. Still today, years after his death, when I have a medical question I think, if only I could call my Dad and talk to him about it.
And this time of year it really comes home for me, as I think, "I wish I could share Birdseye peas and pearl onions with my Dad one more time."
Normal. Everyday things. It turns out that when we lose them, it’s what we miss the most. Not the great highs, the little things. But when we’re in normal we see it as drudgery, as a chore – I hated Birdseye peas and pearl onions. We see it as drudgery, until it’s gone.
Brene Brown says that when she interviewed people for her study, many of who had gone through almost unimaginable loss or trauma, she asked them what others, what we could do to help them in their grief. She got the same answer over and over:  “If you can be grateful for what you have, it will honor what I have lost.”
Marianne Williamson writes that “Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are.” And the practice of gratitude is the way to that joy, to living life from a place of hope and peace.
What do I mean by the practice of gratitude? I mean the intentional noticing, and bearing witness, to the blessings in your life, no matter how small. And there is no one right way to do this.
One traditional way is the regular practice of saying grace before meals – particularly if you also take time to give thanks for other blessings of the day, not just food. Another way is to keep a gratitude journal. To write down, every day, 3 to 5 things that you are grateful for that day. Knowing that you are going to write them down, or say them at the dinner table, makes you look for them. And the more you look for things to be grateful for, the more you find, and the more joyful you can be.
If you are more visually inclined, you could take pictures of things you are grateful for, or draw them, and keep a visual journal.
I encourage you to do this over the next week – Thanksgiving Week. Every day, do something that makes you stop and take notice of what you have to be grateful for. Keep a journal, write or draw it on a little piece of paper and stick it in a dedicated jar everyday – the whole family can do that.
For those of you who are on Facebook, I’m going to help you out. Everyday, beginning today, I will post the question on our Central Congregational Facebook page: “What are you grateful for today?” And I invite you to post a comment with words or pictures of what you are grateful for that day. It’s okay if you are grateful for some of the same things every day – like family and home. But I challenge you to look more closely, and I suspect you will find more – no matter how small. What’s the normal stuff you would miss if it wasn’t there? Share that. Because joy is additive, and another important aspect of this practice is sharing it – with others and with God. That spreads and multiplies the joy.

I know that many of us are not in good places in our lives right now. Times are hard for many, and others are dealing with grief and loss or serious illness. No one feels joyful or happy all the time. Both experiences come and go. But it is in those times, times when you may not feel grateful, you may not feel very joyful, that the practice of gratitude is even more important.
This doesn’t mean we can’t feel bad, or that we can’t complain – but if we practice gratitude, then we have a context. Ok – so this thing didn’t go so well today, but look at what I have to be grateful for. It’s not Pollyanna – it’s perspective. It’s focusing on the safely returned boy, and not on the missing hat.
     This is why we take time in most congregational meetings, in the announcements and in prayer time in worship, and in our newsletters to celebrate the good things happening here at Central and in the lives of the people here at Central. It's part if our corporate practice of gratitude.
And if we, individually and as a community, practice gratitude regularly, when things are going okay, it builds our joy reserves to help see us through the more difficult times.
I think this is exactly what the prophet Isaiah was teaching us in today’s passage. Remember, he was speaking to people who had been through hell, in many cases were still going through hell. He had told them that God would bring them through, and he was teaching them a song to sing “in that day” – the day of their salvation. But he in teaching it, he was telling them to sing, to practice singing it, today. Today.
Today, I will give thanks to the Lord. Today, God has become my salvation. Today I will tell this to all the earth. Today I will shout aloud and sing, because this leads us to joy. And in this song of gratitude, “with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.”
Whatever day we sing thanksgiving, it is “that day.” The day of our salvation. Thanks be to God. Amen.

That They All May Be One

Transcript of Sermon October 27, 2013 by Rev. Anna Humble

I want to start out this morning by reading to you the United Church of Christ's Still Speaking Devotional from August 30, 2011, a post that went absolutely viral on the internet and ended in a book deal.  It's written by Rev. Lillian Daniel and is entitled,"Spiritual but not religious? Stop boring me."  Here goes:

 On airplanes, I dread the conversation with the person who finds out I am a minister and wants to use the flight time to explain to me that he is "spiritual but not religious." Such a person will always share this as if it is some kind of daring insight, unique to him, bold in its rebellion against the religious status quo.

Next thing you know, he's telling me that he finds God in the sunsets. These people always find God in the sunsets. And in walks on the beach. Sometimes I think these people never leave the beach or the mountains, what with all the communing with God they do on hilltops, hiking trails and ... did I mention the beach at sunset yet?

Like people who go to church don't see God in the sunset! Like we are these monastic little hermits who never leave the church building. How lucky we are to have these geniuses inform us that God is in nature. As if we don't hear that in the psalms, the creation stories, and throughout our deep tradition.

Being privately spiritual but not religious just doesn't interest me. There is nothing challenging about having deep thoughts all by oneself. What is interesting is doing this work in community, where other people might call you on stuff, or heaven forbid, disagree with you. Where life with God gets rich and provocative is when you dig deeply into a tradition that you did not invent all for yourself.

Thank you for sharing, spiritual-but-not-religious sunset person. You are now comfortably in the norm for self-centered American culture, right smack in the bland majority of people who find ancient religions dull but find themselves uniquely fascinating. Can I switch seats now and sit next to someone who has been shaped by a mighty cloud of witnesses instead? Can I spend my time talking to someone brave enough to encounter God in a real human community? Because when this flight gets choppy, that's who I want by my side, holding my hand, saying a prayer and simply putting up with me, just like we try to do in church.

Now while I think the tone of Rev. Daniel's rant is a bit harsh, I totally understand her annoyance with spiritual-but-not-religious sunset person. 

It's frustrating that we live in a self-centered culture that finds rich, ancient religions and traditions dull, but finds themselves – and Duck Dynasty I might add – uniquely interesting. It's sad that rather than bravely taking up the challenge of living and growing in real human community, on Sunday mornings most people would rather go jogging solo or read the New York Times at Starbucks by themselves.

But I would like to respond to Rev. Daniel by saying, it's not just spiritual-but-not-religious sunset person who needs a refresher course on the importance of religious community. Many of our Christian brothers and sisters who attend a megachurch or watch church on TV will tell you the ONLY thing that REALLY matters is your PERSONAL relationship with your PERSONAL Lord and Savior Jesus Christ… and that community is a nonessential side, like gravy on Thanksgiving.  

And still many of us here in the mainline church have our confidential top-secret relationship with our Creator God down pat... but our relationships with the Body of Christ sitting next to us in the pews…. Now that’s a bit messier, isn't that right? Because you see, grand Creator God in the clouds, he’s easy to love. She's all-perfect and all-loving and all-knowing... and strangely seems to agree with me about pretty much everything.  The Body of Christ sitting next to you on the other hand – now he ain't so all-perfect and all-loving! Sometimes these people here – they’ll disagree with you, sometimes they annoy you with their incessant demands on your time and money, sometimes they call you out on your stuff, sometimes they hurt your feelings, and sometimes they let you down.  Christ’s Church has so many stories of human failure, that sometimes it seems downright embarrassing just to be associated with it.

So I feel you spiritual-but-not-religious sunset person.  And I get you anonymous-megachurch-watcher.  It’s so much easier to love God vertically, up in the clouds, than to love God horizontally, in the community of people around us.  Not to mention that it’s way more exciting – and not to mention less demanding on your time and money – to just stay home and watch “real housewives of xyz” duke it out on your tivo, than to listen to someone like me drone on and on about an ancient book on your day off.

And while I’m talking about that big exciting book called the Bible, let me read it to you again. In our scripture reading this morning, Jesus prays at the last supper: “”I ask not only on behalf of these,but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word (that’s you and me), that they may all be one.” Jesus is praying for you and me there, praying that we may be one.

Now if you ask anyone in the UCC what our motto is, they’ll probably tell you it’s “God is Still Speaking” right?  Now that is a wonderful line that our denomination has come up to market who we are, but when our denomination was formed by uniting the Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Churches in 1957, they chose THIS scripture passage, “that they all be one,” as our motto.  This verse is so important to us in our denomination that it is inscribed on our very logo. The vision was that we would all just keep uniting and uniting until the whole world became one, just like Jesus prayed in this scripture passage.  And here in the UCC, we’re still dreaming the dream of unity, today striving to be a more inclusive church, uniting all people no matter who they are or where they are on life’s journey.

But what does unity mean in our church? If you hang on with me, now that I’ve thrown a little history at you, I’m going to throw a little theology your way: in the United Church of Christ, we believe that the UNITY in COMmunity is defined by two things: autonomy and covenant. 

First, autonomy means that you and I are free to read the Bible and decide what we believe for ourselves.  No one is going to tell you what you have to believe here.  We believe that each person – not just pastors – are endowed by their creator with free will and with an ability to hear for themselves a god who is still speaking.  And because we value autonomy, we have no creeds, no authoritative denominational hierarchy telling each church what to do, rather each congregation democratically votes on their minister and any other matters of substance -- like we do at our quarterly meetings.  Our decisions, therefore, are guided by the Holy Spirit, rather than dictated by human authorities.  The only thing that we must agree upon is our common commitment to follow Christ together.

At the same time we believe in autonomy, we also believe in covenant.   Covenant is what binds us together as a church. Covenant means that we commit to live together despite the differences autonomy brings out – to support each other with our prayers and gifts, to work together, and to hold each other accountable.  When I first joined the UCC, a lot of people were quick to highlight the principle of autonomy, saying “you can believe whatever you want in the UCC!”  Maybe.  Covenant, however, has always held a higher rung.  For every time autonomy is mentioned in our constitution, covenant is mentioned 18 times more. 

So every time someone walks out of a UCC church because of a disagreement, every time a church leaves our fold because Synod doesn’t exactly mirror their own beliefs, every time someone pulls their money out of their church because they’ve been offended, they’ve misunderstood what unity really means.  Or as our friend Paul Nickerson likes to say, "That's not covenantal behavior!"  You see Christ didn’t pray for us all to be the same; Christ prayed for us to be one in Him.  So that doesn’t mean that we always agree, but it does mean that we commit to live together in covenant despite the differences autonomy allows.  In most churches, there are creeds or tests of faith and dissenters are sent away. We in this church have the freedom to disagree under the safe umbrella of knowing we’re here for each other, for better or worse, through thick and thin.  And this life together, where we can be true to our authentic selves and beliefs without the fear of rejection, is where the Kingdom of God is revealed on this earth.

My favorite theologian – yes I have a favorite theologian because I’m a nerd – my favorite theologian Deitrich Bonhoeffer says that the Christian community most of us expect from church is not only impossible, it’s a wish-dream.  I love the translation of that word: a wish-dream. And if we are lucky, by God’s grace, that wish-dream will be shattered.  Let me say that again, if we’re LUCKY, by GOD’S GRACE, our wish-dream of Christian community will be SHATTERED.  And on the day it is shattered, when we stand before God utterly disillusioned about ourselves and others, we finally see clearly our complete and utter dependence upon God’s grace.  Bonhoeffer says God injects imperfection among our communities so that we can be stretched and can grow in forgiveness, love, patience, and fidelity, thereby revealing God’s Kingdom on Earth.

So I want to thank you this morning. I especially want to thank our new members this morning Who have covenanted to walk together with us in love. I pray that you stick with us, even if your wish-dream is shattered.

And for our longer standing members: I’m sure you haven’t agreed with everything that I’ve said from this pulpit, and that’s great – that means you’re listening and thinking!  I’m sure you haven’t agreed with every decision that’s been made at this church, and that’s great – it shows you care.  I’m sure someone here in these pews today has ticked you off or let you down at some point, and that’s great – because it means you’re putting yourself out there! And I’m SURE someone here this morning would rather be reading the New York Times at Starbucks, rather than hearing me drone on about covenant and autonomy, but you’re here.  You’re here!  We’re so glad you’re here.  Thank you for showing up.  Thank you for giving of yourself, your time, and in this very important season, your tithes.  Thank you for pitching in and being part of this family.  Because you belong here,

here in God’s house, with us.  We’re the flawed folk who love you exactly as God created you, who will take care of you when times get hard, who will grow alongside you, who will pray for you, and who will put up with you when you’re being a pill.  And THAT is what unity’s all about.  Amen.

Building Houses

This is a meditation given on October 13th based on Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7.

They were homesick and heartsick, the Jews in Babylon. They had been taken from Jerusalem. They could not go home. They were in exile. And we can hear their lament echoing in the Hebrew Bible – particularly the Psalms. “By the rivers of Babylon—there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion.” And “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” They asked.
It wasn’t an idle question. For the Jews of the time, God lived in the temple built by Solomon in Jerusalem. But now in exile, the temple destroyed, and without even the ark of the covenant that their nomadic ancestors had carried so they would know God had a home with them, where was God? How could they sing? How could they worship? It just wasn’t right. It wasn’t like it used to be.
They were surrounded by people who weren’t their people, who didn’t believe as they did, who didn’t talk like they did, who didn’t worship their God.
So they camped out in Babylon and waited for God to save them, to answer their prayers and put things back the way they were. Their God was a powerful God – it could happen. And they loved to listen to those who told them soon, “anytime now,” they would be going home.
Time passed, but the lament went on. Long enough for Jeremiah, who was back in the land of Judah, to hear. Now Jeremiah wasn’t the most popular prophet with the Jews. He kept telling them things they did not want to hear. But he also kept being right.
So Jeremiah writes a letter to these homesick exiles. And his letter contained God’s words of salvation – just not the words the exiles longed to hear. Shockingly blunt, the prophet told them that God said, “Your old life is gone. Your new life is in Babylon. Suck it up. Deal with it. Stop living out of your suitcases and camping out in tents. Build houses to live in, grow your own food, marry, raise families. Work for the welfare of the city and all who live in it, because their welfare is your welfare. Stop living in the past. You’re going to be here a while. Settle in. This is your home now – act like it.” Harsh, right?
And yet, these were words of salvation and hope in more ways than one.
As I read this passage, I keep coming back to that moment in seminary where I learned about the Greek word for “tradition.” I’ve mentioned this before. What I learned that struck me so forcibly, and which I’ve been trying to process ever since, is that depending on the context, the same Greek word can mean either “tradition” or “betrayal.” And so the question that keeps running through my mind – and my life – is when does holding onto what was, to something from the past, cross the line and become a betrayal?
This text provides some clues. Perhaps the line is crossed when holding onto the past keeps us from living as God’s people in the present. The exiles were in a holding pattern. Stuck in a kind of warp bubble – neither in the Jerusalem of the past nor a part of Babylon in the present. They were surviving – but their lives were on hold – less like living and more like the living dead.
But mere survival isn’t enough. God wants us to thrive – to build homes for ourselves in the present where we and our families can grow. To plant gardens to provide nourishment for today and for the future. To live with love and create new life. And through our lives to witness to God’s greatness and God’s love.
But when the Israelites remained stuck in survival mode, the God seen through their lives looked small and ineffectual, and maybe a little bitter.
Tradition – betrayal. Perhaps that line is also crossed when we spend so much time and energy focusing on what the present situation lacks – comparing it to what used to be in the past – that we miss or reject the abundant gifts God gives us today. All the Jews could see was that Babylon was not Jerusalem, it’s people were not Jews, their ways were not their ways, things were not the way they used to be, not the way they wanted. But God, through Jeremiah, told them they had all they needed to live and live abundantly – what they needed to build houses, what they needed to plant gardens, what they needed to grow families. But they couldn’t see it because their eyes were trained on the past, on what they lacked, not what they had.
The reason we remember the past, the reason for tradition, is not so we can look at the present and judge it wanting, but so we can know that the God who provided in the past will also provide for us today and tomorrow. God was with the Israelites back in Jerusalem, but God was also with them in Babylon – as God is with us today.
The text also suggests that perhaps the line is also crossed when our yearning for what used to be leads us to pray only for what we want, a return to the past, instead of praying for what is needed not only by us but by our neighbors here and now.
       The Israelites had expectations, assumptions of what their lives were supposed to be. Led by the false prophets, they prayed and prayed for God to send them back to Jerusalem, and waited for it to happen – like ordering something on-line and waiting for it to arrive in the mail. And when you don’t get it you assume there’s something wrong – something wrong with you, like you didn’t have enough money in your account – something wrong with the method of communication, like your order got lost (maybe you didn’t pray enough) – or worse, in your disappointment your come to feel there’s something wrong with God. The store is closed; there’s no one there.
But God doesn’t work like that – and prayer doesn’t work like that. Prayer is about connection – opening ourselves up to God and to those we pray for – and trusting God. Prayer is one way we train our eyes to see God working in us and our world now – today. So even when we find ourselves in a place we didn’t want to be – like Babylon – if we can let go of our expectations and learn to thrive in surprising places – we may learn what those who have come before us have learned over and over again – that we can count on God never to forsake us, to see us through whatever comes our way. No matter where we are – we belong to God – and God is with us.
The Israelites wanted and prayed to go home. Through Jeremiah, God tells them they are home – and tells them how to live there. Their prayer was answered – they were home – just not in the way they wanted.
So then Jeremiah refocuses the Israelites’ prayer life not on themselves but on the world around them – on the city of Babylon, their new home. “Seek the welfare of the city where you are in exile,” he says, “and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”  Welfare. When we hear the same word repeated over and over, we need to sit up and take notice.
The word translated here as “welfare” is the Hebrew word shalom. It’s a word often translated “peace.” It’s a word of healing, of wholeness, of thriving and flourishing in God. If the Israelites were existing like the living dead, what God, through Jeremiah, was offering them was nothing less than resurrection. But – and this is a big “but” – their salvation, their welfare, their shalom, was integrally connected to the salvation, the welfare, the shalom of those foreigners and that foreign city. The Israelites needed not only to build their own houses, but to work for the benefit of the whole neighborhood – the whole city that was now their home. To be blessed with shalom they needed to be a blessing. And the more they are involved and connected to the wider community, the more it will feel like home.
This is a powerful scripture for our times. We live in a country full of exiles. If you think about it, our country was built by exiles. And then we took the native people who were already at home here, and made them exiles in their own land. And over and over again each group of exiles has eventually learned to build houses in this foreign land, to find nourishment, to make connections, to find their place and work together with their new neighbors to make it better.
But today, there are many in our country who feel like exiles – they didn’t move, but the world has changed and shifted around them leaving them alienated, strangers in a strange land – longing to return home – but don’t know where it is. So they band together, listen to false prophets trashing the “Babylonians” all around them, and promising them that soon, “anytime now,” they will be able to return to the way it was before – if they just hold on to tradition, stand firm, keep their eyes on the past. And they want and they pray so hard for that dream, that when it doesn’t come to pass in the way they want and expect their anger and bitterness spills over and scorches everyone and everything. We can see it in our society, we can see it in our country’s politics, we can see it in modern Christianity. The modern church in the West is, after all, really a church in exile.
But there is a way forward; there is the possibility of healing, of wholeness, of shalom. And it begins, says Jeremiah, by recognizing that we are already home, and begin to act that way. To build houses in which God can be seen here and now, and God’s family can thrive.
I read a story in the Dallas Morning News this year (August 5, 2013; Dinesh Ramde, AP) about two men building such a house. Arno Michaelis is a 42-year-old white male from Wisconsin who came of age in the white supremacist movement. He was the lead singer in the white power band called Centurion. He tattooed his body with hate messages and swastikas. Like most white supremacists, he likely longed to return to a time when white men reigned supreme. And he hated – all those who were not white, Christian by his definition, hated all that was foreign to him.
And that hating was exhausting, and kept him isolated and alienated from the community around him. He couldn’t watch pro football games, including the local Green Bay Packers, because blacks and whites were playing together. He couldn’t watch TV because Hollywood was a Jewish conspiracy. He loved Seinfeld but he had to record it on a videotape labeled “Amber’s second birthday party” so his white-supremacist friends wouldn’t know he liked a Jewish comedian.
Then a couple of things happened to him. A friend of his died in a street fight, bringing the cost of hate close to home. And his daughter was born, and that new life, his new role as father, opened his eyes, and he knew he had to change his life. And he took steps to make it that way, including getting new tattoos to cover the old racist messages.
In 2012, he heard about how a gunman walked into a Sikh temple in Milwaukee and killed six people. He saw how the gunman’s white supremacist background was nearly identical to his own, and he lay awake agonizing that the gunman might have been someone he’d recruited into the white power movement or inspired when he was the lead singer of a hate band.
So with love for his daughter in his heart, Arno reached out to a different child, a son whose father died in the Sikh temple that day, and Arno invited him to dinner. Pardeep Kaleka is a 37-year-old, clean-cut American of Indian heritage who teaches high school social studies.  And yet, he was part from mainstream America, separated by his ethnicity, his religion, the color of his skin. It wasn’t easy for Pardeep to meet Arno, but he wanted his father’s death to be a catalyst for peace, and he saw in Arno someone who could help him carry a message that it’s possible to turn hate into love.
They formed an organization, serve2Unite, a community group that forges relationships, that seeks the welfare of the city, that works to counter violence with peace, and hate by sowing seeds of understanding and love.
       Singer Martina McBride has a song with the line, “Love’s the only house big enough for all the pain in the world.” Arno and Pardeep are building a big house. A big house indeed.
And in the building, and the planting, and the raising and remembering of family, and the forging of relationships – there is healing, there is wholeness, there is shalom – and there is God. And the exile white man and the exile Indian man are exiles no longer – but neighbors and brothers.
      “And thus says the Lord . . . to all the exiles . . . Build houses and live in them,” thrive and help those around you to thrive. Build houses of love, not hate – of hope, not bitterness – of life, not death. Houses of love – that’s our real tradition. Build houses – and come home. Amen.

Seeing is Believing -- a Meditation on the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus

The following is the text of a sermon on Luke 16:19-31 given on September 29th by Rev. Christine Ng.

I love the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, that series of books from the 1980’s by Douglas Adams. I love the BBC radio play and tv series too. The more recent movie – eh – not so much. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s the extraordinary story of one extremely ordinary Englishman named Arthur Dent. But it’s also the story of a book, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – which is kind of like the space traveler’s bible – full of all sorts of information, stories and advice written by travelers over time to help other travelers on their way. It has the words “Don’t Panic” written in large, friendly letters on the cover.

One of the things that you can learn about in the Guide is the SEP – which stands for “Somebody Else’s Problem,” and refers to the natural tendency of people to ignore things they don’t like, don’t understand, don’t accept or which would cause them too much trouble if they were to recognize it.
According to the Guide, true invisibility is almost impossible to achieve – Star Trek’s cloaking device and Harry Potter’s cloak notwithstanding. So instead someone came up with a device that creates an SEP field, which encourages this tendency. Apparently, there’s been a spaceship covered by an SEP field sitting in a cricket field in England for years and no one has noticed. It’s somebody else’s problem, so it becomes functionally invisible because of the blindness of those refusing to see. It was possible to see it, but just be catching glimpses out of the corner of your eye.
       Our own Bible is kind of like the Hitchhiker’s Guide to a Life of Faith, with information, stories and advice written by travelers over time to help us in our own lives. Our guidebook doesn’t have the words “Don’t Panic” on the cover but perhaps it should.
        In today’s parable, our book describes same thing an SEP. The rich man passed by Lazarus everyday, without ever really “seeing” him. Oh, he knew Lazarus was there – he even knew his name. But he never let the evidence of his eyes really connect with his brain, he never let it impact him or his life. And the result of his willful blindness is a widening chasm between him and Lazarus – a chasm that eventually become impassible. It’s like the two live in different realities, and eventually they become so different there are no places where they can connect, can find common ground.
And when the rich man finally understands, too late, he wants to send a message back to save his family from his fate. We wants evidence that will open their eyes, so they can see. He wants a sign so clear, so unambiguous, so miraculous that no one could possibly misunderstand or doubt that this was God’s own truth.
But Abraham tells him, “no.” That message has been given, over and over, in the words of the prophets. It’s right there in the book. The evidence has been in front of them all the time. If they have chosen to ignore it before, they will continue to ignore it no matter what new facts, signs, or miracles are sent. The fault is not with the message or the messengers – it is also the responsibility of the listener to hear, to accept, to believe the message and to act accordingly. You know the phrase, “seeing is believing” – well you have to see first – and they don’t or won’t.
The warning of this story, though, is that too often we open our eyes and see the truth – too late. Too late. By telling this story, Jesus, and the author of Luke, puts us in the position of the 5 brothers – the ones still alive – the one’s for whom it is not too late – if we but open our eyes and see.
We all have a tendency toward what one writer calls “ignore – ance” – not just “ignorance” but “ignore – ance” – a kind of willful blindness or deafness. It’s not just a passive thing – but is, at some level of our consciousness, a deliberate choice – a choice not to see, not to hear, not to know – because of what it would mean for us if we did. But it would disrupt our carefully balanced lives – it would blow our reality apart.
       We say we just want to be sure – we want “better evidence” – clearer facts. But our search for certainty becomes an excuse for not acting. There is no evidence, no signs, no miracles that can overcome our own choice to turn our heads the other way, plug up our ears or hear what we want to hear and go on with our lives as they are.
And our culture doesn’t help – but instead tends to desensitize us – like a global or cultural SEP field. Studies have shown that violent media – like violent movies, video games, and even television coverage of actual war – makes people numb to the pain and suffering of others, and therefore less likely to offer help to people in pain or need.
       In one stunning study in 2009, participants played video games – some violent, others not – for 20 minutes. After that, while they were filling out a questionnaire, there was a loud fight outside the door of the lab. It was clear from the sounds that one person was badly injured in the fight. People who played the violent games took much longer to help the injured victim, rated the fight less serious, and were less likely to even admit to hearing the fight, compared to those who played the non-violent games. It became an SEP -- and that was after only 20 minutes!
       We can also become desensitized by the magnitude of a problem. Some problems seem so overwhelming that we can’t see how anything we, ourselves, can do can make any difference. The size of the problem becomes another excuse for inaction.
       Perhaps something like this happened to the rich man. Perhaps he saw so many poor people, begging, everyday, that he had become desensitized to their pain. There is nothing in the story that suggests the rich man was evil – just that he never really saw Lazarus – and went on with his life as if Lazarus wasn’t even there. Lazarus was someone else’s problem.
       One of my favorite poems is by W.H. Auden. It’s based on a 16th century painting by Pieter Breughels, called The Fall of Icarus, which Auden saw in the Museum of Fine Arts in Belgium. Auden names his poem after the Museum. If you haven’t seen this painting before, take a moment, and see if you can find Icarus. In the story of Icarus, Icarus was the boy who took the wings his father made to help them escape imprisonment, and instead of simply flying to freedom he flew too close to the sun. His wing’s melted and he fell to his death. It was a tragedy.

Can you find him? He’s down in the bottom right hand corner of the painting, and all you can see are his legs as he enters the water. Here’s the poem, “Musee des Beaux Arts” by W.H. Auden:

About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating
or opening a window
or just walking dully along.
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood;
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run it’s course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life
And the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance:
How everything turns away
Quite leasurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship
That must have seen something amazing,
A boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

It was not an important failure. Didn’t affect their lives. It would cause too much of a disruption to turn the ship around and try to save him. They didn’t know him. His suffering, his father’s suffering, didn’t touch them. It was someone else’s problem.
       To what are we blind? Where are the invisible people, the invisible problems, the invisible pain in our world? Where are the chasms growing wider – dividing us from each other? Once you start looking you can see them all over – like cracks that form during earthquakes – breaking up the foundations of the world all around us.
       Since our scripture story today was about the rich and the poor lets begin there – with income inequality and the widening gap between the rich and everyone else. I just saw the new movie Inequality for All this weekend and recommend it if you want to understand what is happening in our economy and our country.
       But there are other blind spots. Like global warming – which many still deny even though scientists have been sounding the warning for decades, and even though it has now long been the scientific consensus – born out but new data everyday.
       Like racial inequality – as studies show that a majority of white people think they are more likely to suffer racism than those of color despite voluminous evidence to the contrary.
       Like those who continue to believe that homosexuality is a “lifestyle choice,” a matter of preference or disease. Like our wounded warriors and first responders – heroes for the moment, then all but forgotten later.
       There are plenty of blind spots for us as individuals and as a society. Plenty of SEPs. Make your own list – but check other people’s lists too – because remember, you don’t know what you don’t know.
        Sometimes those blind spots or SEPs can be closer to home. Ariel Castro held three women hostage for years in a house in Ohio, and no one in the neighborhood noticed. It’s not unusual for people to notice strange behavior in those who would later commit mass murder – but shrug it off: it was someone else’s problem.
       “Ignore – ance.” SEP. It’s not new. Perhaps that’s why Jesus kept saying things like “those with ears to hear listen.” But this the story of The Rich Man and Lazarus suggests that regardless of the causes of our blindness, it can have devastating consequences – for all of us. The worst outcome they could image in the first century was to suffer the fires of hell after death, with no chance at redemption. But the story works just as well without a literal heaven and hell – because the consequences of the kind of blind spots I mentioned are dire indeed – torture, death, suffering, revolution, the end of the world. Our ignore-ance can be fatal.
Our parable for today is an apocalypse – which literally means “to uncover” or “to reveal.” It’s not foretelling of the future – but a story designed to help us to see – to see before it’s too late.
       Because seeing is the first step to action, to making a change. If you really see, you cannot sit idly by and do nothing. And it begins with seeing what is right outside your door – in your home, in your neighborhood, in your community. The rich man wasn’t condemned for his failure to save “the poor” – but for not seeing, and therefore helping, this one specific man – Lazarus. For letting the gap between them grow. For not recognizing him as neighbor, brother. The problems may be huge – but our response begins one step at a time.
       Who or what is your Lazarus? Who or what situation has been given to you to help? What do you pigeon-hole or dismiss as “someone else’s problem.” Guess what. It’s your problem too. Pay attention –your Lazarus is there. If you look carefully you may just be able to glimpse him out of the corner of your eye.
       And when you do, don’t panic – just see. Because to see is to believe. And to believe is to do. Amen.

On that which divides us . . .

Abraham said . . . “between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.” – Luke 16:26

I’ve been thinking a lot about chasms – or gaps. Big gaping holes or gashes in the fabric of the world separating us from each other. Partly because I preached on Luke 16:19-31 last Sunday – the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. [I’ve been asked to post that sermon and I will post it separately.] And I saw the movie Inequality for All this week, which made income inequality, the gap between the rich and the poor, the 1% and everyone else, starkly visible – and just as scary in it’s way as the chasm between the Rich Man and Lazarus in the parable – in this life and the next.
But today, it’s a different (though in some ways not unrelated) gap that is on my mind. Whatever you think about the government shut down – whether you think it is cool as cream cheese and are rubbing your hands in glee or it makes you angry about our leaders’ inability to act as reasonable responsible adults or it makes you afraid for the future of our economy and democracy or it simply makes you sad. Whatever you think about it – it is clearly an apocalypse in the traditional sense of the word. It is a revelation, a revealing or uncovering of the chasm that divides our country.
We are (at least) two different Americas – we see things differently, we get our information from different sources, we watch different tv channels, we live in two different realities. We demonize those on the other side, those who disagree with us, painting them as somehow less than us – less American, sometimes less human. And there seems to be no point of connection, no way for one to cross over the divide. We are separate and apart – just as the Rich Man and Lazarus are in the parable. One in “heaven” and one in “hell.” But we even disagree on who is in which.
The image of a chasm separating us is very graphic for me. If it were a wall dividing us, there might be chinks or holes in the wall through which one might see, or pass notes to those on the other side. Walls can be knocked down with the right tools by someone on either side.
But what has been going on in Washington recently is more like people running full out and having to pull up short because suddenly in front of them is the edge of a cliff – with a huge chasm or gorge between them and the other side. So there they are – on the edge of a cliff. Stuck. While exactly the same thing is happening on the other side of the chasm to a different group of people. If they had known the chasm was there, they could have run in different directions. But now it is too late. So the two groups stare at each other across the chasm and have nowhere to go. No good choices. Nowhere but down, off the cliff, into the abyss.
And yet – with people on both sides of the chasm there is another way. A rope can be thrown by the people on one side and caught by the people on the other side. Tied off and secured on both ends it becomes the beginning of a bridge. But that takes people on both sides, working together to bridge the gap. It takes a willingness to look at the faces on the other side of the chasm and see our own reflection.
In the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, the Rich Man begs Abraham to send a message from beyond the grave to his still living brothers to warn them not to make the same mistakes so they don’t end up in hell too. Abraham says, “No.” He says they have been warned – it is now up to them. And yet the parable itself is such a message to us. A warning. Turn back. Change your ways. Before it is too late.
Events like the government shut down, and the upcoming debt ceiling fight, are warnings too – as they highlight the looming cliffs ahead, and the chasms that divide us.
Chasms that are like gaping wounds in our country, with America’s lifeblood flowing out with each day they remain unhealed. But the process of healing begins with each of us. Throw enough ropes back and forth across the gorge and they become not just a bridge, but sutures to stitch our wounded country back together again – drawing the edges carefully back together into wholeness.
Anyone got some rope?