Category Archives: community

Seeing in Perilous Times

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John 9: 1 – 41

Christ UMC, Rochester

Preached on March 22, 2020

 

Someone asked me an honest and heartfelt question:

Did God send the pandemic?

Are we being punished for some kind of sin or badness?

Why is this happening?

 

Have you asked this question?

The question of why it is bad things happen is as old as human being.

And it is the question that echoes throughout this morning’s scripture reading.

Let me set the stage:

Jesus has been healing and teaching.

He has told those who love him and follow him that he will die.

He has challenged those around them to live their faith and to open themselves to the wonder of how it is in the beginning was the Word and Jesus IS that Word and he is alive in their midst and the response of those listening to him?

 

They pick up stones to throw at him.

They don’t want to have to move out of their convictions and into possibility.

So Jesus leaves the temple and walks along and he encounters a man who was blind form birth and do the disciples want to know how they can help this man?

No.

Their first questions is one we – if we are honest – ask, because asking questions about who is to blame keeps our hearts from being engaged.

Rather than allowing themselves to know that the man was forced to beg for his sustenance in the public square, they begin a conversation that will keep them safe from empathy.

So those disciples ask Jesus:  “Rabbi, who sinned, the man or his parents, that he was born blind.”

In order to really encounter this human thing that the disciples did and that we do, I can think of no finer teacher than Dr. Brene Brown:

https://youtu.be/RZWf2_2L2v8. (Brene Brown on Blame)

So the followers of Jesus do the human thing of wanting to blame rather than risk empathy but Jesus won’t have it.

He tells them that there is no-one to blame for this man’s struggle.

He doesn’t shame them for asking the question but he teaches them that hiding out in such questions is not his way.

Jesus moves into healing action.

He takes the most elemental things at hand – the dirt below his feet and the spit in his mouth – and he created of them a paste and he puts that paste on the man’s eyes and tells him to immerse himself in the pool of Siloam – which means “sent”.

And the man does that and his sight is given him.  A man born blind is made to see because the most elemental things can open the physical and metaphorical eyes of creation is we allow it to be so.

And the response from the neighborhood?

They do not throw a party.  The mutter and sputter and drag that man to the religious authorities and they want to know how he received his sight and they seem to be more worried about Jesus breaking Sabbath rules than about what his compassion made possible.

They interrogate the parents and threaten them with expulsion from community if they don’t back up their outrage.

Imagine!  The most amazing miracle of the parent’s lives happened and they are instantly immersed not in joy but in fear.

The authorities are terrified and spiteful because of the unlimited expanse of God’s healing power.

(Read John 9: 24 – 40

I laughed to myself as I read this text during the past week.

Spit!  Carrier of coronavirus!  Mixed with dirt and put on eyes (which would involve touching of face!) and washing in a communal pool and questions about how this happened and who sinned and who should be held reponsible – the man’s parents or, in our day and age, another country or government or God or ??????

We are rightfully afraid in these days.

I am afraid.

This virus is an unseeable foe and it has the power to change our lives in ways we little want to think about but here is what I want for you and for me and for those who follow the teachings of Jesus.

Of course we want to know why this happened and where God is in the midst of all of this.

From this morning’s story we learn that God is in following the lead of Jesus.

Our call as disciples is to lean into the power of how it is healers are a work day after day after day in this city and across the world, sometimes using the most rudimentary equipment – not spit and mud bu inadequate masks and limited tests and food on the grocery store shelves – to offer compassion and life to others.

Living as we do in the midst of a time we could never have imagined, let us look to what it is God’s people are doing because, like Jesus, we  see need and we do what we can.

We serve meals on Saturdays in a to-go way so that our guests have a hot meal.

We provide excellent child care at Thrive so that parents can do the work our community needs.

We reach out through phone calls and prayer services at eight PM every night on Facebook and this is a time when we live into this power:

Jesus can open our eyes and our hearts.

There is healing work to be done.

The old certainties are no more.

German political thinker Rudolph Bahro has written an article that contains a line we ought to take to our hearts and ponder.

He says:

“When an old culture is dying, the new culture is created by those people who are not afraid to be insecure.”  (Cited by Pema Chodrun in her book Practicing Peace in Times of War pg. 88)

It seems we are living in a time when an old culture is dying.

We are living into the birth of a culture where we are poignantly and powerfully aware that:

We need each other.

We need to care for each other.

this is an insecure time.

And, in exactly such a time as this,

Jesus has the power to open the eyes of our hearts.

May it be so.

Amen

 

 

 

 

 

Gather Us In

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There is a bit of scripture that pictures God as mother hen gathering her chicks.  (Matthew 23:37)

I have always felt the power of that image.  Chick-gathering is in my wiring in ways fierce and strong.

And I cannot much do that gathering in these days of pandemic living.

You join me in this ache, I know.

My biological chicks have issued the mandate that their “elderly” parents (when did THAT happen) are to stay home.

My church is connecting in ways that don’t involve physical gathering.  My gratitude for a staff that can support this frontier of cyber-connecting is immense.

And, leading worship in an empty sanctuary hurts.

How do we live, we who miss the sense of gathering in our body selves?

I find that I have become connection obsessed.

Our church staff is moving into largely distance work.  We shared a “Last Supper” of pizza and appreciation yesterday.  We will meet via Zoom every day but how to name the grief of not sharing ideas and laughter in the flesh?

My children are reaching out daily.  This I like.  And, the role-reversal of their concern for their vulnerable parents pierces my heart.  After years of being the mother hen I find that my chicks have powerful capacity for tending.

Who will we be when this pandemic loses its power?  How will we connect our hearts and passions for the good of all while we shelter in place?

While I cannot open my wings to embrace, the Holy can and the Holy does.

I pray for us all the creativity and heart to continue to know our connection.

Even as we know the fear, grief and anger of this time, we are profoundly gathered in.

 

 

 

 

 

hunger

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I am far from home.

Today I was keenly hungry for worship in a United Methodist Church. Knowing that in my home church and in all United Methodist Churches across this world those who were struggling with the General Conference decision would be gathering, I wanted to be in solidarity.

And I needed a good word shared in the midst of connection.

Here is what I heard. I heard a brief note during ain’t-life-swell announcements about the General Conference and an acknowledgment that there were lots of opinions about the General Conference vote and, hey, people are always welcome at that church. Those of us gathered were assured that was so.

Really? Welcome?

Do not speak of welcome for all as though it is happening, truly, when baptized and called children of God are not welcome to preach or marry or be fully folded into community and you are not outraged.

There was no naming of pain. There was no seeming awareness that fluffing over injustice is to condone and perpetrate it.

None. Of. That.

I wanted to leave.

But in the front of the sanctuary was a table with the bread and cup on it and I had come so hungry and I was aware that this deep grief I was experiencing is part of the world I love and so I stayed because I so needed to be fed.

I stayed and prayed for Christ UMC and for all the churches who are doing hard soul and heart and advocacy work on this day. I stayed and tried to keep my heart soft toward the pastor who never once addressed the issue in his sermon. I stayed knowing that there are people who come to the church I serve who feel like they want to leave because of what I do or do not say.

I stayed.

And, I left hungry.

May we create communities through which tears and hungers and delights and questions and insistence upon the sacred beauty of each is celebrated.

No one is fully welcomed unless all are fully welcomed.

Truth.

light

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Outside the sanctuary a bitter wind was howling. On this first Sunday of the new year the intrepid gathered to celebrate the power of light to guide us to new life. It was Epiphany Sunday.

We heard the story of how it was three wise men followed the star.

Most enchantingly, we heard the scripture read by young people. Both the prophet Isaiah and the writer of Matthew’s gospel were given voice by children and youth who call our church home. Their moms and dads had cell phones at the handy to record their young wonders and every person in the place leaned in and leant their breath and energy in order that the story might be told. Through the hearts and sounds of our very own beloveds the story was told.

The woman who directs the Little Angels children’s choirs – preschoolers who sing open-hearted beauty – shared a solo. Witnessing her singers watch their teacher bear witness with shine and beauty broke my heart open with wonder.

What is this glory that we share? What is this light we seek to follow?

On a wretchedly cold Minnesota morning the light of Christ drew us near and we bowed and offered our gifts. We offered the gifts of our presence and our intentions and our longings and our shine and we were warmed in the doing of it.

And the winter did not overcome it.

this year

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I am United Methodist by choice. I wasn’t born into the tribe called Methodist. I found my way into the denomination through a church that lived piety and practice. It got my attention.

First United Methodist Church in Pittsburgh took my family in when we were far from home with two young children. They helped me learn a living faith.

It wasn’t because their choir was the best or their preacher the most eloquent. They taught me incarnational church because in a time when AIDS was becoming scourge they were willing to stand in solidarity with those physically and spiritually devastated by loss upon loss. The church was unwilling to practice willful disregard.

I want to unpack that. By “willful disregard” I mean churches who see pain or disruption of creation around them and do nothing to reach into that pain with compassion and care; even the elemental care of naming and noticing.

I became a United Methodist because I saw what church can be and always I long for institutional United Methodism to recall its roots and grounding. The Wesleys taught, among other things, that faith is a practice meant to be lived and willful disregard is not the way of the gospel and not the way of the people called Methodist.

This year I want the church be a place where we will name the ache of racism and generational poverty grounded in racism. I’m praying for a movement that names the despoiling of creation and the devastation that results from the pillage of the sacred in the bodies of women and children and men and the earth. I’m desirous of leaders who choose to use their gifts to work with their faith kin to build low income housing and feed hungry children and provide access to education.

I can’t give much more energy to the soul-sucking debate over full inclusion of GLBT folk. Really, Jesus and the grace offered through him are sullied by the pitched slug-fest over a paltry number of lines in scripture. To squander the gift of the gospel through the barricading of grace is willful disregard.

I want to lead a discipling center where people know that we are not there to play church.

Rather, we are mindfully grounded in the teachings and practices and wonderings of faith and because we trust the invitation of our God and our own foibled and hopeful selves, indeed all things are possible.

All things.

All things.

light shine

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People are so good.

Getting into my car yesterday after a major snow dump, I knew I was in trouble. We live in the city and the city had not plowed the alley behind our house. By the looks of it one or two cars had made it through, but the snow was deep and my Honda poorly equipped.

But of course I tried.

And got stuck.

Wedged into my neighbor’s snow bank, I couldn’t get my car door open so after clambering over seats I freed myself and went in search of a shovel.

I heard a lovely and hopeful sound. A neighbor was out shoveling and chose to see my plight. He came over and while we shared wonder at the volume of snow that had come our way, we dug and threw and freed my car for a time. I almost made it through the alley before it got stuck again and this time the original fine friend was joined by another who made it possible for me to get out.

They set aside their own time and agendas, did these men.

I watched the same sort of light shine throughout the day. A different neighbor worked at the end of the alley clearing away the snow. Pushers and shovelers and commiserators and wonderers all, we were.

We had come through another storm. The world was bright and beautiful and we had kindness to spare.

People are so good.

A Kind of Hush

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People want to feel sorry for me this time of year.

Yes, Advent and the run-up to Christmas is a busy time for church pastors.

And, it is so real, this remembering of promises of peace and the gifting of hope. People come to church leaning in to hear the song of the angels.

We do a lot this time of year. This Sunday we will treat our hearts to a service of Lessons and Carols. The following Sunday the children will lead us in a telling of the Christmas miracle. The next Sunday we will expand into a Taize service meant to help us make space in our souls for the Word Made Flesh.

We’ll have a special service of Hope and Healing where we’ll name our losses and allow tears to be. There are teas and gatherings and Christmas toy drives and gift wrapping offered at our Thrift Store.

While all these things are going on, people will be hospitalized and will welcome a church pastor. Families will gather and dissolve. Gifts will be pursued and purchased and children’s wishes will be heard and all of what we do happens because in Jesus flesh became the living place of God.

That’s church in these days.

For me, it is one of the best seasons of the year. On the 25th I will rest. But in the meantime, church is a stable offering warmth in the sometimes bitter cold of life.

This innkeeper gives thanks.

midnight

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Last night Cooper and I were welcomed into magic.

Our music director for Living Waters is Victor Zupanc. He is an amazing musician with the kind of soul that invites people to join him in making beauty.

He is also the music director and composer at the Children’s Theatre here in Minneapolis.

He invited us to see his new show “Cinderella”.

We found our seats in the midst of kid-zapped energy. It was a Friday night after a long week and often such nights find us home seeking to remember who we are.

What we discovered is that we are children longing for magic.

We found it.

We were invited into a world where mice speak and longings are heard and dreams do come true.

Tears were near the surface throughout. We both missed the days of innocence we shared with our children. We both cheered as the whacky wickedness of the stepsisters and their mother was undone by kindness. We laughed and we wept and we left reminded that beauty and goodness cannot be undone by cruelty.

And, I was again reminded of the needful place of story. The telling and the sharing of story created in that theatre a people only too willing to be led.

Mice turn into coachmen. Cinders are replaced by wand work. Kindness trumps all.

Midnight looms. It comes.

It is not the end of the story.

reunion

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It has been a season of reunion gatherings at our church.

Through reunions called “funerals” lives are remembered, strands of relationship and being are celebrated, and gratitude and grief are named.

As pastor, I am able to feel the coming-home of children raised in the church. For perhaps the first time they sit in a pew without their father or their mother by their side. The jarring is so real. Powerfully, the sanctuary holds their beloved yet; it always will.

Picture boards showing big fish and wide grins bear witness to a singular life. The innocent hope shining through wedding photos and the rascally delights of play bear witness to the unfolding of story and heart.

Friends and co-workers, long-lost relatives and church companions share sugar and coffee and a need to bear witness.

The mystery that is life, death, and resurrection. Together we bow before the enormity of it all.

The church writ large flops about in a scramble for relevance. We sometimes chase after the latest gimmick that will settle our anxieties about decline.

Would that we would cease the scramble and remember that the center of our being is reunion: reunion with the beating heart of the Holy, reunion with the ongoing presence, power and guide that is Christ Jesus, reunion with the promise that in the midst of life God longs love for each and all.

The church exists in order to facilitate reunion.

Through baptisms and funerals, faith groups and worship, we exist to host reunion.

Holy work, that.

all saints

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dad paver

Every year the church pauses to name the saints who are no longer physically with us.

This year we will be shepherded into and out of worship by bagpipes. The blast of sound will serve as a musical rupture of the thin veil separating the living from the dead.

The service is so very alive. We name church members who have died in the previous year and project their faces onto our screen as we savor the ways they have blessed and changed us.

This year our church has been changed by 20 deaths. While the grief around their passing is so very real so too is the pleasure of saying their names and remembering their being.

The seminary that I attended offered an opportunity to memorialize beloveds through buying a paver for a newly finished chapel courtyard. Since my father was for a time adjunct faculty at UTS and since my heart longs for places and times where his name can be in the hearts of the now, it felt so good to create a reminder that once he was, even as he still is in the hearts of many.

And of course during this thin veil time, I wonder about my own death and the day when it will be my face on the screen, my name on the lips, my being bookended with birth and death dates.

Poet Mary Oliver asks : “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Tomorrow we name those who answered that question every day they were given.

And so it comes to us.

How is it we plan to enter fully the wild and precious gift that is life?

Mindfully or no, we live our answer.