Category Archives: spirituality

Hey hey!

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Last night was a pastor’s dream.

I went to church to be present for the conclusion of a week long Vacation Bible School program.

There were kids everywhere: Smiling kids and proud kids and happy kids and their glowing parents and all of this accompanied by hot dogs and song.

“Hey hey! We’re living in God’s back yard” (the VBS theme) was proclamation and reality.

Part of the evening treat was seeing a slide show of pictures taken throughout the week. Each child was shown living the joy of back yard fun. The adults who led the program were captured in discipleship action.

Such beauty is almost too much to behold.

I’m peeled back from child sickness and life. As I watched the slide show and experienced the kids sharing the song they had learned (complete with motions like the twist) gratitude leaked out of my eyes and would not be stoppered.

Hey hey! We’re living in God’s back yard.

Hey hey! We’re not alone as we raise children and share the wonder and snargle of life.

Hey hey! There are life songs yet to teach.

Hey hey!

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This past week Minnesota United Methodists gathered for our Annual Conference. It is a reunion and a marathon of meetings and always Annual Conference stokes my desire for fruitful ministry to a fever pitch. I serve a church pregnant with possibility and sometimes being patient is teeth gnash.

This year’s conference, like those preceding it, was marked by a speaking of how it is the larger church is so very wounded.

There are some eighty clergy in the conference (myself included), and over 1,000 across the United States who have signed a document stating that we will joyfully offer services of marriage to same sex couples. In Minnesota, it is now legal! And, this offering of grace routine to heterosexual couples is against the polity of our church. Persons violating said polity can be disciplined for facilitating the speaking of love and covenant.

I feel such grief. I feel grief for the judicatories in our system who are tasked with upholding policies they may not agree with. We are compatriots in the preaching of the good news of the nothing-can-seperate-us-from-the love of God in Christ Jesus. And, there may soon come a day when polity trumps grace and preachers are exiled by their kin in Christ. Surely God weeps.

I feel such grief because the expanse of grace opened to us by Jesus seems so jealously guarded by fear and surely, God weeps.

I feel such grief because this mother is watching her children and their compatriots turn from the Body of Christ known as the United Methodist movement. They cannot understand a denomination that barricades from some the very grace said to be offered to all.

I feel such grief because there is so much work calling to the people of Jesus: poverty and racism and ecological devastation and the people of Jesus are called to respond and heal and bless and while we natter on about who it is who ought be united in marriage by our pastors, the world continues to be wounded and about this I know God weeps.

I’m a United Methodist pastor. While my church is pregnant with possibility it so very challenged by its being as a United Methodist Church. We are a people meant to welcome Spirit breath and life transformation. We want to live in the way of Jesus.

May the God who weeps hold us in this time.

wow

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Yesterday the Governor of Minnesota signed into law a bill making it legal for same-sex couples to celebrate their love through marriage.

The signing of the bill represents the heart longing of legions through decades of cloaked love and hurtful distancing of same-gender loving people from full participation in communal grace.

I am still not able to name my joy around this wild and wonderful thing that happened in Minnesota; it is too big, too long in coming, too beautiful to speak.

I’m a preacher. I shared the sermon below on the Sunday between the House and Senate votes. It is no small thing to lay the power of the gospel over the raw hopes of those longing for justice.

It is a good church I serve.

Ascension of Jesus
Luke 24: 44 – 53
Ephesians 1: 15 – 23
Rev. Elizabeth Macaulay
May 12, 2013

There are emotional strands aplenty to name on this Sunday. I will name three.

First, It is Mother’s Day. Mother’s Day is a jumbly sort of holiday, dense in so many emotions.

The early intent of Mother’s Day is that it be a day set apart to honor mothers.

And, it grew to be a day on which mothers, tired of sending their children to die in war joined together to organize a witness for peace. Sprung from the heart of a belief that God’s vision is that swords would be made into plowshares and that war, and the mangling of children it brings with it, would be no more.

We don’t hear so much about that facet of Mother’s Day. Instead, Mother’s Day has been domesticated and Hallmarked into sweetness and that which can be marketed and consumed.

The second strand present this morning is that this Ascension Sunday. Ascension Sunday is a day when followers of Jesus mark the forevermore movement of God in this world:

We remember the ongoing movement that is Jesus: the heart of God became Flesh through the body of a young mother – Mary, by name. When Mary found she was to bear the holy one, she sang a song of revolution: a song that spoke of how it is God’s vision for the world means that those who have power at the expense of the poor will have it no more.

In Mary’s song, she speaks of the brining down of the powerful from their thrones and the lifting up of the lowly.

Jesus, Mary’s son, nurtured by that justice song, grew and taught and sought out the marginalized and said “come in. God is especially excited to name YOU as beloved and welcome.”

Jesus, whose message of love got him killed. Jesus, who could not be silenced. The love of God in Christ bursts any bond – even death. Jesus rose and appeared to his disciples and reminded them that his teachings were ALL about taking up and sharing and living his teachings: together they were called to building an ongoing movement for justice and communal grace.

Jesus taught his disciples that discipleship must be shared and when he knew he was to complete his time on earth he took the opportunity to open the minds of his followers in order that they understand that God’s heart desires this:

that they – that God’s people throughout time – would give to the Holy our brokenness – our fears, our addictions, our inability to see the pain of others, our unwillingness to welcome all to fullness of life. Jesus taught that we are to open to our God those places that cause us so much pain.

We are to name those places – some call those places “sin” – and ask God to help us with them in order that we might move into the expanse of wholeness and grace God longs for us to live – what we in the church call “forgiveness”.

On Ascension Day, Jesus calls his disciples to witness to that kind of revolutionary love – a love in which the poor are fed and the vulnerable tended and the wounded made whole.

Jesus calls his disciples to organize a witness of justice and love lived by all of God’s people.

But like the original intent for Mother’s Day, the world often doesn’t much associate Ascension Sunday (or Christianity writ large, for that matter) with witnessing for peace and grace because Christianity, like Mother’s Day, has all too often been Hallmarked into sweetness and that which can be marketed and consumed.

Heaven knows I savor the sweetness of honoring the many women who have stood as mother to me – including my own mom. And I love the ways my kids mark this day with me.

And, Mother’s Day is made even more meaningful to me when I remember the heart-wail that led to a movement of women using Mother’s Day to demand peace.

And, heaven knows I savor the sweetness of sharing Sunday worship and life with beloved community.

And, being a Christian is even more meaningful to me when I remember the Holy heart-wail that led the Word to become Flesh and dwell among us in order that we might live peace, one with the other.

There is a third emotional strand that needs to be named on this day. On Thursday of this last week, Minnesota lived communally caught breath.

The House of Representatives voted on whether all couples – same sex or heterosexual couples – be accorded equal rights through legal marriage.

The result of the vote was that the House passed the bill and it will go to the Senate on Monday where it is assumed it will be passed and then it will be sent to the governor to sign into law – something he has already said he will do.

The vote taken Thursday raised the roof of the state capitol and that vote has the state resonating yet.

A number of the Representatives named their faith as a reason for voting against the measure. Their understanding of scripture holds that God’s word is static and must be interpreted literally and immovably throughout time.

And, a number of Representatives named their faith as a reason for voting for the measure. One quoted the prophet Micah about God’s most passionate requirement being that we would do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.

Their understanding of God’s vision as voiced in scripture is that God’s word is alive and especially directed to the plight of those marginalized and oppressed.

They see the denial of marriage to same-sex couples as the sort of oppression their faith calls them to challenge and work to overturn.

In today’s scripture, Jesus tells the disciples that they are to be witnesses to the vision of God.

Paul tells the church in Ephesus that they are called to “open the eyes of their hearts” in order to know the powerful working of God in their lives.

In today’s world, we are called at just such a time as this to consider what it is we witness to with our words. our lives, our actions.

What does it matter?

I have heard horrible things said in the past week. People naming their faith on both sides of the issue have bashed each other with hate speak.

We all have endured this toxic wash. But for some, the collateral damage is heart-wail.

I share with you the the words of a past parishioner, a man who anchored the church band with his amazing talent. A man whose heart speaks in this way, after encountering yet more hate speak shared this past week in the name of Christ Jesus:

IN MY 50 YEARS, EVERY DAY I HAVE ENDURED INTOLERANCE PURELY DUE TO ONE ELEMENT OF MY BEING… of being gay.

I am a spiritual being… do not think that violating my spirit is ordained by God. Nor is the silence of our family, friends, and colleagues. Silence is a passive embracing of every day attacks on my spiritual being.

For my hundreds of friends and family… take a stand. Speak up… and don’t tolerate spiritual attacks in your name. None of us owns the market on faith, love, prayer, or belief in Christ. As Christians, and as my loved ones… take a stand. Will you continue your silence because you think it keeps ‘peace in the family’? Is that justice?

For those of you who have spoken up, thank you from the bottom of my heart. For those of you who will publicly speak up for the first time, there is not better time to do so than now. For those of you who continue to speak against my being, or equally so through silence, know that it hurts every time it’s done.

Take a stand. Speak up.
Timothy M Robinson, Christian

As Jesus was ascending into heaven he reminded his disciples:

You are witnesses to the healing power of God.

Share that good news.

Know that the movement of Jesus is not Hallmarky sweetness:

The movement of Jesus is:

working for justice.

It is organizing for peace.

It is speaking out.

It is choosing love.

It is using the power God gives us each to witness to the movement of Christ Jesus; among us yet.

Amen

home

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Carole King’s Tapestry album was the soundtrack for my teens.  The album somehow found each part of me and gave it voice.

One of the songs that has been sounding in my being this past week is the song “Home Again”.  It begins: “Sometimes I wonder if I’m ever going to make it home again, it’s so far and out of sight.  I really need someone to talk to and nobody else knows how to comfort me tonight.”

Besides the fact that the song is soul-woven, it has sung in my heart because of the power of the story of the Prodigal.  Jesus tells a story about a man who loses himself in the so-many distractions that can lead us to groundlessness.  Jesus tells us that the man “came to himself” and decided that he wanted to return home to the place where he is known and taken in, stupendous stumbles and all.

It is our story in so many ways, is the story of the Prodigal.  We sing the song of “Home Again” so many times in our lives.

We wander seeking home throughout our lives.  We convince ourselves that home can be found in chemicals or time fritters or shopping or something someplace someway that will take away the great lonely of living.  We wander and long and wonder and then, oh then, we come to ourselves and remember Home.

Home in the great expanse of the Holy whose song dances through us yet.  Home in the wrap of claiming and welcome that awaits us if we would but cease our scurry.

Home in the heart of God;  taken in, welcomed and fussed over are we.

Home.

time and rivers

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Of time and rivers flowing
The seasons make a song
And we who live beside her
Still try to sing along
Of rivers, fish, and men
And the season still a-coming
When she’ll run clear again.

So many homeless sailors,
So many winds that blow
I asked the half blind scholars
Which way the currents flow
So cast your nets below
And the gods of moving waters
Will tell us all they know.

The circles of the planets
The circles of the moon
The circles of the atoms
All play a marching tune
And we who would join in
Can stand aside no longer
Now let us all begin.
                Pete Seeger

How is it we are given this gift of life?

Having returned from vacation a scant 24 hours ago, I officiated this morning at the funeral of a woman who blessed.  She blessed through laughter and quick humor.  She blessed through a willingness to “join in” as Seeger sings in the lyrics above.

She lived a singular life; unrepeatable and precious.

And so it is for each who join in.

I don’t know what tomorrow holds.  My prayers for my loves and the real clamor of my longings sound relentlessly in my soul.

Sometimes the “I want” is a gong noisy and clanging and that gong has the power to create such cacophony within that the still small assurances of the Holy are near overwhelmed.

And then I remember.

Mine is to cast my nets below; deep into the moving waters of grace that will tell me all I need to know.

Still.  Small.  Powerful.  Deep.

Let us all begin.

 

 

dust

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It is so elemental:

A thumb-full of ash traced on forehead.  Eyes that meet as words are spoken about inevitable death.  The deep knowing and willingness to name the beauty and vulnerability of living and the sometimes elusiveness of surety.  The breath of the Holy inspiring being.

We gather each Ash Wednesday and share such intimacy.

And we are changed.

 

Advent 20

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Bulletins are printed, folded, and stuffed.

Candles are put into holders – new ones this year!!! – and set.

Sugar has taken up a seemingly permanent place on our staff table.

All is in readiness for worship on Sunday and Christmas Eve worship (4:00 PM and 11:00 PM) on Monday.

And now we wait.

For preachers, this is a time of fervent mulching and prayer.  Yes, we pray for the perfect sermon on Christmas Eve, but really, that isn’t the point.

The point for this preacher is that there is an almost physical desire that hope would be named as more important than fear in this world.  My hope is that those who come in out of the cold might find welcome in this house.  My hope is that the power of Christ Jesus might take up the places of empty and despair that sound such clang in the souls of the walking wounded who include our very selves.

Oh, I have such hopes.

And those hopes are perhaps made more strong by the wash of violence and snarl that seem to be dominating our collective consciousness.

We cannot afford to be a people of hate.  We cannot afford to allow it any purchase in our being.  We cannot afford to be cavalier about our faith and our witness because it takes enormous and conscious effort to be a voice crying out in the wilderness of this time:  Prepare the way of our God.  The wounded will be made whole.  All flesh shall see it together.  For the mouth and the heart of our God have spoken it.

We are ready. We are ready we are ready we are ready.

We are ready for peace to speak and soak into the rough places.

We are ready.

 

 

Advent 18

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My mom is coming for Christmas.

It’s a seemingly simple sentence dense in power.

We are, we two, not unlike lots of moms and daughters.  We have spent the 55 years of my life clashing wills and life views.

My mother is a woman who knows with certainty what is seemly and what is not and her surety has extended to the needful state of cupboards (pristine!) and planned menus for each meal.

Her daughter?  Not so much.  For some reason my mother was presented with a girl-child who resisted blacks and whites and rebelled against imposed order.

We have lived, we two, a challenge.

I don’t know what it is about mothers and daughters.  The desire to protect, the temptation to create in our own image or the image of what we wish we had been able to able to call our own; so many things swirl beneath the surface of this elemental heart dance.

What I know is that my relationship with my mother affects my daughters and will affect their daughters.  If there is work to do, running from it robs not only me and my mom but the generations that follow.

So we have worked.  When it might have made sense to let it go and play it safe, we have engaged with each other and risked the hurt and vulnerability of letting each other know that it matters.  Our honest hearts won’t let go of each other.

My mom is coming for Christmas.  She will be in the midst of the feasting and the laughter and I know full well that she will bite back comments about how things might be better organized and I know full well that sometimes those comments will slip their way out of her mouth and into my ear.

But they don’t have to take up space in my heart.

What takes up space in my heart is profound admiration for the mighty mite that is my mom.  She has endured much, lived much, and loved much.  She has not let go of me.

Gathering for Christmas means readying our hearts.  We will mourn those absent, mark in our hearts the shifts and losses and remember years gone past when things were different.

But oh, the chance to be present to the wonder of the Word Made Flesh in our midst is stunning gift.  We get to learn what it is to love.

My mom is coming for Christmas.

Thanks be to God.

 

Advent 11

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Tonight at 6:00 PM we gather for worship.  The service is one of the most powerful we offer at Richfield UMC.
We call it an Advent Service of Hope and Healing.
While around us the culture seems intent upon denying and sidestepping places of loneliness and loss in this season, we pause as faith community and mark the wisdom of our heart aches.
There is something about the Advent season of purposeful waiting for the light of hope that stirs in us awareness of loss.  We miss the physical presence of people in our lives who have blessed and vexed us.  We miss the ways we used to encounter life in a way that felt simpler and less tentacled.  We miss our children’s footie-jammied presence in our daily life.  We miss, we mark, we name, and we are present to all of the major and minor losses that make for honest living.
Tonight during worship we bow before those losses and ask for them to lead us into wholeness and wisdom.
We will savor scripture and silence.  We will allow the singing of Silent Night to move us.  We will light candles to mark our questions and we will know the power of giving over to God the burdens and beauty of our souls.
I hope you will join us.  If you cannot, I hope you will pause at some point on this day and listen to the wisdom of your heart.
Folded into the power of community or sitting in a moment of mindfulness, may we each name the power of stumble and question, healing and hope.

The Healing Time

                                                Finally on my way to yes
                                                I bump into
                                                all the places
                                                where I said no
                                                to my life
                                                all the untended wounds
                                                the red and purple scars
                                                those hieroglyphs of pain
                                                carved into my skin, my bones,
                                                those coded messages
                                                that send me down
                                                the wrong street
                                                again and again
                                                where I find them
                                                the old wounds
                                                the old misdirections
                                                and I lift them
                                                one by one
                                                close to my heart
                                                and I say    holy
                                                holy.

                                                   © Pesha Joyce Gertler

Advent Day Three

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O Come, O Come Emmanuel,

and ransom captive Israel,

that mourns in lowly exile here

until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice!  Rejoice!

Emmanuel shall come to thee,

O Israel.

 Somehow my soul has always leaned into the mournful power of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”.  Even as a child growing up, I felt the shiver of mystery whenever the above song of longing was sung.

The hymn begins with a prayer so deep we seldom name its power:  O Come, hope.  O Come, deliverance.  O Come, Dayspring from on high.

To begin the season of Advent, we name our soul longings.  Surrounded by the many stuffs of our lives, we name the places of echo and want.

We name the longings for peace in our world.

We name the loneliness that sounds in our soul.

We name the hunger we feel for compassion made food for the hungry.

We name the near desperate sense we have that the antidote for all the brokenness in creation seems so long in the coming.

O Come, thou Dayspring, come and cheer

our spirits by thy justice here;

disperse the gloomy clouds of night,

and death’s dark shadows put to flight.

Rejoice, Rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee

O Israel.

 In the midst of the bustle of this holiday preparation marathon there is melancholy.

There ought be melancholy.

The promise and the gifting that is Christ Jesus is light and witness to answered prayers and gut sung entreaties.

And we know him not; not really.

O Come, O Come Emmanuel.

On this day give to God these questions:

 

For what does my soul long?

 

Who will I pray for during this Advent season?

 

How will I know my own call to live the vision of Jesus?

 

 

Rev. Elizabeth Macaulay