Being Noticed

Parton Pyramid

The Parking Lot

Oh My!

Domestics

Everything's better with

Dishes and Lessons Learned

A Pink Mustache

Re-Connecting: Day 2

Re-Connecting

Tomorrow's Sermon Draft

I haven't preached in a couple of weeks. So here is tomorrow's draft. I'll post the final tomorrow. Enjoy.
Have you ever been so consumed with something that you couldn't even think straight? And I don't mean I really want a muffin. I mean so consumed that is fills your every waking and sleeping thought. You can't go to sleep because you can't stop thinking about it. And when you do go to sleep you dream about. The more you think about it the more you want it or the more you have to do it. Let's say it is oh I don't know, George Clooney, just for illustration sake. You love George Clooney. You see every movie. You buy every magazine with him on the cover or that contains an article about him. You scour the internet looking for anything about him, any picture of him, and tid-bit of info even remotely related to him. You join the George Clooney fan club. You name your dog, Clooney. (Not George, it would be ridiculous to name your dog George. You'll save the name George for your first-born child.) You cut out the pictures of George and you paste them on your wall. Or better yet, you create a whole room dedicated to George Clooney. Then you find out where he lives and you set up camp outside his house to watch him come and go. Perhaps you even start rifling through his trash, looking for maybe something of significance something important, like oh I don't know his fingernail clippings. Sound familiar?
I sincerely hope not, because that description is of someone who has gone completely overboard. We might even call them full on crazy. They have lost all sense of what is rational and reasonable. They have lost touch with reality. I mean think about it consumption is what tuberculosis was called in the 19th century. And now it is often used to refer to someone who is consumed by cancer or some other over-taking disease. Consumption does not represent the modicum of good health. It doesn't resemble health at all. And we know that in most cases being consumed by something, being eaten up by it that things are not going to turn out well. There is going to be a terrible toll to be paid for such zealousness.
"Zeal for your house will consume me." Jesus rolls into Jerusalem, like all other observant Jews of his day, to celebrate Passover. He goes into the temple and what he finds he does not like. But why doesn't he like it. It's hard to say, and John doesn't really say why. He just describes what happens. We know that when Jesus arrives in the temple he sees people changing money. Something that would have been absolutely necessary. Think about traveling to another country, the first think you do is get your US money changed to whatever the currency of the country you are in is. Otherwise you can't buy anything, you can't even really get around. Well that is essentially what is happening here. In order to pay their temple dues they need to change their money that has the face of Caesar on it into something that is suitable for use in the temple. The moneychangers were providing a service that was absolutely necessary for any pilgrim traveling to the temple to celebrate the feast. And what about those selling the animals? Well that too was necessary. The offering they made in the temple had to be an unblemished animal. Well have you ever tried to get an animal to Jerusalem while keeping it from any blemish? Alright, well you probably haven't, but suffice it to say it ain't easy if even possible at all. So the people had to be able to acquire an animal that was suitable and the way to do that was to wait until they got to the temple to do that. So what was Jesus so upset about? This stuff was all necessary to be an observant Jew, like himself. To be honest it makes him sound a bit nuts. Right? So why didn't the people who were there just ignore him? You know like we ignore any sort of wing-nut who is hanging out at some public event--the guy who is always holding up the sign that says Jesus Loves You on one side and Elmsford/12 Galaxies/cesjrogrencial ergonomics/nbc:xoxphrozenigul coverage/wasprovrenikil/admonishments minuscule/stratospherical or the guy who got a hold of the microphone at the recent rally on the eve of the supreme court hearing to overturn prop 8. Typically one of two things would happen, either the crazy person would just be ignored or they would get carted off and potentially arrested. But that isn't what happened here in the temple. Jesus was not ignored. He was not carted off and arrested, at least not yet. Instead they listen to him, and they ask him by what authority does he make these demands.
Its as if they knew it was coming. It was only a matter of time until they got caught. Don't get me wrong I don’t think they consciously thought they were doing something completely horrible. I think quite the contrary I think everyone believe that what they were doing was exactly what the institution required. In order for the temple to survive these things were necessary. But at the same time, at the same time, they knew that something had gone wrong. They were just waiting for someone to point it out. Finally someone was pointing out that the balance had shifted. The point was not the preservation of the temple. The temple was just bricks and mortar. It was just an institution that could be destroyed, that could be torn down. The temple wasn't bad; the institution wasn't evil; the practices weren't awful. The people in the temple were doing what it took. They were the ones who you'd want on your capital campaign or your strategic planning committee. If you want the institution to survive then they are the people who you want around. They got it done. And in this case, in this telling in John, Jesus isn't calling them crooks. The money-changers aren't necessarily cheating the people. They are simply doing a job, a job that needed to be done.
It's just that the focus had shifted to something that in the end was fleeting. And in case you didn't get what Jesus was doing, John spells it out for you, albeit in John's somewhat esoteric kind of way. "But he was speaking of the temple of his body." Hey Jesus is not talking about this temple that is a building. Jesus is actually talking about himself. He the human is the temple, the human that is divine, the human that will be killed and then three days later will be alive again. The one who is stronger than death. The one who brings light to the darkness. The one who is right in front of them. That is the focus. He is the place of refuge, the place of peace, the place of sanctuary. And their focus should be on that not on preserving a building or an institution.
I wish that was the end. I wish that the people shifted their focus. But that isn't the case. Nearly every religious organization I'm a part of is so focused on preservation of the institution that they lose site of the true focus. They are holding on so tightly to what is and what used to be that they lose site of the future, of the resurrection. Institutions and organizations are fleeting. Our greater purpose is not the preservation of an institution. And that makes people who are invested in organizations uncomfortable. What will we do without the temple? We have worked our whole lives to build up this beautiful temple or to even rebuild this beautiful temple. We don’t want it to go away. But the answer is that it might. It is merely brick and mortar. The capital campaign isn't the most important thing we do. The good news is not how long we have been around or our images. The good news is not how many people we have. The good news is that life is stronger than death. The light will win out over darkness. The phoenix will rise up out of the ashes. Redemption, renewal, resurrection will come. Even if the walls of the building, even if the church, or even if the church crumbles Jesus will still be there pointing us to the focus, to what is beautiful, to the good news. The good news will not go away.
Lent calls us to shift our focus. To find what is life giving. It is the time when Jesus comes in and flips over all the tables and throws out the marketers. It suggests that we look not at what has been but what will be. I found this song yesterday that points us to this very idea. So I'll end with "The Things I've Gone and Done" by Carrie Newcomer.

March 1 Sermon

Today is the first Sunday in Lent, and as is the case with every Lenten season the first Gospel text we come to recounts the story of Jesus' time in the wilderness. But most of what we know of it actually does not appear in Mark. In Mark there is no description of the temptations--it merely says that Jesus was tempted in the wilderness. The story is quickly inserted in between a very quick description of Jesus' baptism and a trip to Galilee after John is arrested. All of this is done in six verses.
But Mark's description is fairly accurate to how Lent often feels. It arrives quick on the heels of Christmas and Epiphany and before we know it Easter will be right in front of us. Six weeks fly by just like these six verses. But we also know that Lent isn't always confined to just six weeks, not just Ash Wednesday to Good Friday. We can't so easily and quickly pack away our times in the wilderness. Instead sometimes Easter comes and goes and we are still wandering. Many of you know that the week of Ash Wednesday in 2007 my brother was diagnosed with cancer. And on Good Friday of 2008, last year, he died. And even then my lent didn't end. Our wilderness doesn’t wrap up neatly with a trip to Galilee. Mark gets that too, despite the shortness of his account. Jesus arrives in Galilee only after John is arrested. His cousin and the one who had just baptized him has been arrested and would eventually be killed. The wilderness is not always just a place nor is it just a time.
So the wilderness isn't a time and place--it ca. n't be neatly packed into 40 days, then why even celebrate Lent at all? Many churches and Christians would prefer that we didn't. There are too many churches and preachers who gloss over Lent and the wilderness. Who would insist that the whole Christian life should just be about celebration and praise. But the problem is we all know that the world we live in is not all about joy and happiness. We spend a lot of time in the wilderness. We observe Lent so that when our wilderness arrives we might be prepared. And I really think that Mark has something to teach us, a tool to pack into our belt so that we might be prepared when we are hit with the wilderness of life.
That comes with the phrase "he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him." So much of our time in the wilderness feels lonely and isolated. It seems as if no one understands and no one could ever have experienced anything as horrible or awful as what we are experiencing. I know that is what I was experiencing after my brother died. (And for those of you who are regulars don’t worry I'm not going to spend the next six weeks talking about my brother's death. But today I am, and I'm even about to tell a story that I'm fairly certain many of you have heard before but I think it really fits today.) About a month after the funeral I arrived on the Scottish Island of Iona to spend a week living in community with other pilgrims like me. The others were from all over the world and together we covered a wide array of ages and backgrounds. They were delightful and interesting people. But over the course of the week I realized I didn't want to really have anything to do with them. I went through the motions of getting to know these folks, but my heart wasn't in it. I didn't feel as if I could be fully honest and open about all that I was struggling with because I didn't trust that these strangers could hold what I was really feeling. No one could understand. Even with people all around me, I still felt isolated. So on the last day I decided that I had had enough of people so I went for a swim--alright not really a swim so much as a step into the ice cold waters and then a step back out. But the place I went was on the other side of the island and I had heard it was beautiful. So I headed out on what was about a 20 or 30 minute hike. This part of the island is largely inhabited by sheep and cows only, humans live on the other side of the island. As I was walking to the water I walked through what I can only describe as a ravine, high rock walls on both sides of me. And as I got to about the middle of the ravine there was a dead baby lamb lying on the ground. It didn't look as if it had been attacked but merely came to this lonely place and died. I passed it by and came to the beach. While I was laying on the beach a Sheep and another lamb wondered close by. We were there together, me and the wild beasts. I wandered if they were like me. Were they grieving the loss of this lamb the way I was grieving the loss of my brother? For the first time I was feeling as if I was not alone. I was being attended to by angels. And for a moment I was at least able to lay down a bit of the pain that I was feeling, because I knew I didn't have to bear it alone.
When a bit of that weight was lifted I felt lighter and in contrast I also felt more grounded. I felt as if I might better understand the heart of God. I felt as if God was grieving with me and with this sheep and lamb.
What I told the children earlier I think really is an appropriate metaphor for lent. Lent is a time for grounding and I don’t just mean some theoretical place in our heads and our hearts, I mean the physical ground. The wilderness all too often sends us to places away from where we are, the land that we are on. We go to what ifs, we go to lonely places. In the Dr. Seuss book, Oh the Places You'll Go, a book that was originally written as a college commencement address, he wrote about "You can get so confused that you'll start in to race down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace, and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space, headed, I fear, toward a most useless place. The Waiting Place…" But when we stop and look around, and notice the world around us, be present to the moment we are in, we see that God is speaking to us right there through the wild beasts. We will notice that we are being cared for by angels. We notice the ground below us, the sky above us, the world around us. And we see that the earth is springing forth shoots of green, blossoms are continuing to appear on trees, and vegetables are popping up out of the ground. Life is continuing. The very ground from which we were formed continues to bear fruit.
In this economic crisis we are being invited to find a new ground, return to the earth, return to a simpler way of living--a way that involves family, friends, love, God. But we have to see this as an invitation. Or we will be stuck in the waiting place, waiting for the market to change or our jobs to start paying more. Even in the crisis and the wildeness we have all we need, but we have to put our feet on the ground.
Lent is about practicing being in the wilderness so that we will be prepared when the wilderness arrives. Many people give up something during lent--it is often wine or chocolate or some other vice. I could rail on and on about how it should be something deeper and more meaningful than simply a new diet, but even in the simple practice of giving up chocolate or whatever it is, we are learning that we can even do with out that. We get back to what is at the heart of what we truly need. We pray and we sit in silence and we listen. We hope that we will hear God speaking through one another, because that is where we most often hear the words of the divine, but we sit in silence and we take a walk on the beach because sometimes the voices of one another aren't enough. There are times when we need to be with the wild beast and simply be tended to by the angels.
Let us enter into this time of preparation. Some of you might be in the wilderness already and I don't know when you'll leave--for you I hope that you will know that you are not walking through this desert alone and that you will find proof of that, proof that won't necessarily come in words. For those who are not walking through a desert right now, store up these moments and practices, practice noticing and seeing God everywhere. Return to the earth and find your grounding. Amen.

February 22 Sermon: A little different from last year

The story of the Transfiguration doesn't change very much from year to year. There are subtle differences in each of the synoptic gospels, Mathew, Mark, and Luke, but roughly it is the same story. To that end there will be subtle differences in this sermon from last year's but roughly it is also the same sermon, but as we will see a lot can happen from one year to the next.
As most of you know I’m a member of a group of young clergy that were brought together as the result of the First Parish Project. This past year we met at Pendle Hill near Philadelphia. I love these people, we love one another. When we are together we share our struggles, we share our joys, we worship together, we cook together, we play together, we pray together. I have never felt more connected to any group of people than I do to these folks. It was a connection I felt from the very beginning of our relationship—I remember it distinctly. We first met in the food court of the Atlanta Airport and then rode about 3 hours in a van headed for North Carolina. I knew these people were kindred souls. And the delight I take in them has only grown over these 5 years or so. We are as close as I believe the disciples were to one another. And inevitably the same thing is said at least once during our time together and that is this: so when are we going to build our little commune and all of us live and worship together forever? We want to hold onto the experience, we want to hold on to one another and stay there. Stay there in the midst of this wonderful experience. But inevitably we come down from the mountain and reenter our daily lives. Some would suggest that we are coming back to the real world, but I would disagree with that statement because it suggests that what we had up on that mountain wasn’t real. It was instead a mere figment of our imagination. But no the experience we had was real, it was as real as anything that any of us have ever known, perhaps more real. What it was though is only a moment, only once experience, and while it was profound and life changing it was only one moment among many.
That is the kind of experience that Peter, James and John had on that mountain with Jesus. It was an experience unlike any of them had ever had before. I must confess I don’t really understand what happened. Something that I have in common with most people who write about this text. Moses and Elijah appeared. Then a big cloud that they heard God’s voice echo out of “The is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him.” Then Moses and Elijah disappeared and the cloud disappeared and everyone went down the mountain and Jesus said don’t talk about this until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead. Which you know the disciples had to be thinking “you’ve got to be freakin’ kidding me, we can’t talk about this?” But those are the facts. I can’t tell you any more than that. Well I can tell you about the one thing I do understand and that is after Moses and Elijah appeared Peter said, let’s stay here on this mountain. I’ll build you a house and Moses a house and Elijah house and we’ll just stay here forever. Peter wants to stay here and bask in this experience forever. So that means whatever is going on here has to be more than can be expressed in words. It would have to be felt. And that I can’t explain—I think whatever it was that Peter, James and John experienced here is more than words can describe. Because this was clearly a vision and visions involve more than just facts. Visions are about seeing what is not there as well, they involve a little divine imagination. They saw something in that cloud that was so spectacular that they wanted to preserve it forever. There was a Peanuts cartoon: Linus and Charlie Brown are lying on their backs on the pitcher’s mound, staring up at the clouds in the sky. 

Charlie Brown says, Linus, do you ever see anything in the clouds?”

Linus: Well, yes Charlie Brown, I do. For instance, that one over there bears a striking resemblance to Michelangelo’s depiction of the Creation on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. 

And that one, there over the school, looks like a map of Scandinavia, see; there’s Denmark and Sweden. 

And that one there looks like a helix. Do you ever see anything Charlie Brown?


Charlie Brown: Well, I was going to say a Ducky and a horsy but I changed my mind. Peter, James and John saw things in that cloud that were dazzling and amazing. And they wanted to preserve that. They wanted to preserve it because they were afraid that it might not compare to anything else that they would ever experience. Have you ever had one of those experiences? An experience where you said, I could die now. Not because you are necessarily ready to die but instead because you can’t imagine it getting any better. That is how the disciples felt. They couldn’t imagine it getting any better than this. And then it got better after they saw Moses and Elijah they heard God’s voice. Now they really were afraid. Hearing God’s voice is awe-inspiring. It comes with such weight. It also forever changes how you view the world. They will remember that day forever. They know that it will be a permanent marker. That was the day we heard the voice of God. This is the first day after the day we heard the voice of God. This is the day after the day after we heard the voice of God. This is the first meal since we heard the voice of God. Well you get the picture. But they also want to hold on to it. They want to hold this closeness that they feel tight. They don’t want it to fade away.
It’s like the end of every youth camp. We would have to physically drag the youth onto the vans to leave camp. The experience was so great, so beautiful that they wanted to hold on to it. The world at the bottom of the mountain was so much harder than this experience in the cloud. It was in this moment that the disciples were beginning to fully understand who Jesus was and they were beginning to get what was going to happen when they left the mountain, if they left the mountain. The march down the mountain wasn't going to end until they got to Jerusalem, until they got to a cross. Life on the mountain is a lot better than that is going to be. So let’s just hold on to this experience. Let’s freeze it in time and just bask in its glow forever. But they couldn’t. When they looked up again it was gone and they had to go back down the mountain.
It's at this point last year that I said
"Sometimes we want to linger too long in the negative experiences too. The painful moments that also completely alter how we see the world. We got some more bad news about my brother this week. And so while we still have a little bit of hope, it is looking more and more likely that he might die soon." How much the world has changed since I said those words. The moment of my brother's death has completely changed how I see the world. I can't tell you how many times over the last year I wanted to just go back up on the mountain and pretend that nothing else happened. But it did happen. I said last year that we want to hold on to what is dark for the same reason we want to hold on to the light--fear. We are afraid that this is as good as it will get or because it could get worse. And what the disciples will discover in some sense and what I discovered I that it will get worse. My brother died. Their friend will die. They will die. What lies at the foot of the mountain is pretty awful.

What is different this year though, is that I've learned to at least look at the light and the dark differently. We have to come down off the mountain. We don't have any other option. We experienced the beauty, the radiance, the glory. But we are also going to experience the dark. Last year when I preached this sermon I knew what was coming. I knew that my brother was going to die and I knew that it would be like no pain I had ever experienced, but my fear was that I wouldn’t survive it. The darkness would win. But it didn't. The darkness didn't defeat me, the darkness didn't defeat the light.
. Today is the end of Epiphany. So it is appropriate that this Transfiguration story appears the week before Lent begins. We have been spending these weeks talking about Jesus’ birth, the magi following a star, great healings, the glory and splendor of Jesus and next week we begin the march to the cross. We journey through the dessert of Lent. And to all of this Jesus says do not fear. Jesus says stand up Peter, lets go down the mountain. You can do it. Do not fear. Nothing will be too great that you will not be able to handle because I am going with you. As we look to the desert, as we look to the foot of the mountain, as we look to Jerusalem I will go with you, you will have the light with you even in the darkness. And then he says what as I pointed out earlier must have completely mystified the disciples but I think it so important to remember as we set out for the desert. As we try and hold on to the moments of our lives that we think can’t get any better or any worse will look differently after the resurrection. All the death that you are so afraid for me to experience, all the death and darkness that you are afraid of, do not fear. Because there is light on the other sight, beautiful glorious light. You may not be able to see it yet, but it is there. You've had a glimpse of it. Remember it and just come down from the mountain and keep walking. Keep walking when you want to lay down and close your eyes. Keep walking when you think all hope is lost. The darkness will not defeat you. It won't because it hasn't before.
And so I’ll end this Epiphany with this poem. A poem that I think serves us well as we come down from the mountain, as we let go of our fear.

"Grounds for Hope" by Gerhard Frost

If I am asked
what are my ground for hope,
this is my answer:
Light is lord over darkness,
truth is lord over falsehood,
life is lord over death.

Of all the facts I daily live with,
there's none more comforting
than this: If I have two rooms,
one dark, the other light,
and I open the door between them,
the dark room becomes lighter
without the light one
becoming darker. I know
that is no headline,
but it's a marvelous footnote;
and God comforts me in that.

Amen.

The Academy of Science: Fail

Yesterday, AlanO and I tried to go to the Academy of Science in Golden Gate Park. It was the free day and I think many kids are on their winter break--hence the reason AlanO could take the day. But we didn't make it in. This picture is of the line outside the museum. It looks short but if you look towards the back of the photo you can see that the line stretches all the way to the other side of the park

February 15 Sermon

Yesterday, I was doing what I always do on Saturday afternoon, I was at my favorite coffee shop, Farley's, writing my sermon. (I refer to it as my East Office.) I had finished my first cup of tea and still hadn't written a word. I had, however, updated my facebook status twice. (If you don't know what facebook is, I'll explain it some other time.) Anyway my first status was "Brian is working on his sermon. How does this happen every week?" Then I decided to change it and here is why. Something even more pressing came up, something more important to share with all my facebook friends, something that the world needed to know about. The couple sitting next to me, who I think might have been on a coffee date. I think it was probably going pretty well although the guy in this guy/girl couple seemed to be more into himself than he was into her. Anyway, they were talking about how he knew Oliver Stone and how he had done some acting, and that he had done some writing, etc. This strain of conversation led to him saying that Oliver Stone wanted to do a "project" based on Chairman Mao, but that he realized that it was too big, "Lord of the Rings" big--his words. The woman chose that time to chime in, chime in with something that wasn't quite on point. She said "I didn't like Lord of the Rings." Even though this was not the point of his topic it was at least interesting enough to him to echo her sentiment about how overrated it was and that had there been a teen category at the Academy Awards then it might have deserved to win that. "Teen category!?!" I was appalled. I loved these movies and I needed to share my outrage not with the total strangers sitting next to me having this absurd conversation but with all my Facebook friends. So my status changed to "Brian can't believe that the people sitting next to him just called Lord of the Rings a teen movie. He might have to slap them." On Facebook people have the ability to respond to what you’ve written. My friend LeAnn responded back "Is that sermon you are writing about loving your neighbor?" To which I shot back, "no but maybe it should be." And this sermon is not about loving one's neighbor, well not exactly.
It is about a leper. A leper named Naaman. Most people whether they have ever been to church, whether they have ever heard a sermon, whether they have ever read the Bible, understands that lepers live in colonies and that calling someone a leper is not a good thing. But Naaman doesn't quite fit into that understanding. Naaman had some status in the community. He had some success. He had been a commander in the army of the King of Aram, a king who is not named. His leadership, and the will of the Lord, had given Aram victory over among others Israel. Remember this story is from the holy text of Israel, this is not an Aramean story--so one has to imagine that there was at least a little bristling going on by the people hearing this story, a story about how the Lord had given victory to the Arameans over the chosen people. They thought the Lord was on their side? But really how else could they explain it, clearly they must have done something wrong and the Lord had turned against them giving victory to their enemies. But despite his status, despite his victories, despite his prestige, Naaman still had leprosy.
I heard an interview this past week with Jose Ramirez, the author of a book called Squint, about his diagnosis with leprosy when he was 20 and his move from his home in Laredo, Texas to a leper colony in Carville, Louisiana. The phrase squint was new to me. It is an architectural term that was used in churches in the Middle Ages. People who were diagnosed with leprosy were banished from the community, given last rites by the church, but then required to attend mass each week through the back of the church and peer through the squint to view the mass. Ramirez also used the phrase though to describe how he was moved to the leprosorium in Carville. He was taken in a hearse, because as the ambulance drivers described it ambulances were for the living hearses were for the dead. He said on the drive from Laredo to Carville the hearse would stop to fill up with gas and people would squint in the window to see this man being driven in a hearse.
This was just in the last century, so we have to imagine that Naaman experienced some of this isolation as well. We don’t know how exactly Naaman felt isolated, but we know that even the servant of his wife noticed. Not his servant, not his wife, but his wife's servant. How much interaction could she have had with Naaman? But the servant noticed and she told her mistress that if only Naaman were with the prophet in Samaria then he would be cured. The prophet of the slave girl’s people. The prophet of the people that Naaman had defeated. We have to believe that Naaman was desperate for healing if he was willing to humble himself in this way, to pay attention to this servant girl, to go to ask for help from a people who he had defeated. How defeated he must have felt. But he might have thought this was his last chance to be whole. Ramirez talks about life in Carville. He talked about how he would go for treatments that would involve all the people there having their legs placed in a bucket of water with aloe in it and then being patted dry and rubbed down with petroleum jelly. He said that he would look at the people seated across from him and see the places on their faces where noses had once been. And he wondered would he eventually lose the use of the legs that were being treated. Would he eventually lose his nose? Would his girl friend, Magdalena, still want to look at his face? Would his isolation never end? Was this what Naaman wondered? Is this why he was so desperate for healing? Did he wonder when his wife would stop looking at him? Did he wonder when people might start averting their gaze when they passed? There must have been some of this desperation. Because he went to the king and the king sent him with gifts to the king of Samaria. The king of Samaria totally misinterprets this act and believes that the king of Aram has used this as an opportunity to justify another attack. And he rips his garments and cries out, " Am I God…?" And everyone hearing this knows the answer is no, but there is someone who knows God, and who knows what to do, Elisha. Elisha is the prophet for the job. When Elisha hears what is going on he sends a message to the king to send Naaman to him. And Naaman hops on his horse, again humbling himself. Why didn't Elisha come to him? This was an insult. He was the mighty Naaman, victor over Israel. But he goes and he gets to the front of Elisha's house and he waits. He had come this far, now Elisha was going to have to come out to him. He would only stoop so low. And what does Elisha do? He sends out a messenger to tell Naaman to go bathe in the Jordan. A messenger? Bathe in the Jordan? There were bigger and greater rivers. Angry that he had wasted his time he turned to head back home. Also angry because he believed he would now live with this disease forever. Soon he would be completely alone. And again it was a messenger who offered a word of advice. He said "You would have done something much harder than this, so why not go bathe in the river." And that is what Naaman did, he bathed in the Jordan river and he was healed. But had it not been for some servants and a foreign prophet the healing might never have come. It reminds me of a song from the musical “Spamelot.” King Arthur is singing a song about how he is all alone, when his assistant Patsy chimes in that he is not alone because Patsy is there. Unfortunately for King Arthur he never gets it and so he is alone, but fortunately for Naaman he gets it, he hears the words of the servants.
Jose Ramirez was eventually cured of his leprosy, but before that he found a community in Carville that adopted him and hoped and prayed for his healing. They did not want the same fate that befell them to befall him. Even in his isolation, even in the back room of the church, even in the hearse he was not alone. Naaman didn't just need healing from his leprosy. The leprosy was merely a physical manifestation of something greater. Naaman's wounds were internal. The sense of entitlement, the arrogance, the pride. This is what isolated him from the very healing he sought. His healing came from the most unexpected places, it came from a servant, it came from an enemy, it came from a tiny foreign river.
We all have wounds that lie deep beneath the skin. That threaten to isolate us from the world around us. That prevent us hearing the offers of help. That prevent us from loving our neighbor. That keeps us stuck in our sad and bitter lives. That keeps us feeling like we are alone. That keeps us from finding healing. That keeps us stuck in our arrogance, in our sense of entitlement, that keeps us in our anger, that keeps us in our loneliness. Our wounds are deep. Let us be open to healing, let us be open to hearing words of hope from unexpected people in unexpected places. Let us be open to each other. Amen.

Bulletin Cover for Sunday

Okay, I know this is tacky. I found the picture on a lectionary text website. Actually, a friend of mine found it and shared it with me. I'm not even using this text this week--it is Jesus healing the man with leprosy. But I couldn't resist using it.

Human bobble head

This guy was seated next to me on the airplane from Phoenix to Raleigh yesterday. (I'm in Raleigh on my way to a Baptist men's retreat on the coast of North Carolina.) He slept the whole way. He was a complete armrest hog. I, also thought that his head was going to pop off his neck the way it would fall to his chest, and it did that often. And not once did he wake up. It would just fall over and then jerk right back up. So of course I had to take a picture. I wanted to get a picture of it in the down position but I couldn't work that fast. I was working stealthily because I couldn't be obvious that I was taking a picture of sleeping beauty.

That though is the real beauty of the i-phone. i can take a picture of random things that I find funny.

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did.

Yuck!!!

I got a parking ticket today for...wait for it...wait for it...

Not curbing my wheels. $45!!!! WTF?!?!?

February 1, 2009 Sermon

What makes you sad? (Give people time to think and then respond.) What gives you joy! (Give people time to think and then respond.) What amazes you? (Give people time to think and then respond.) One of the temptations of this text is to vilify either the law or even worse the entire Jewish race. To say that they were too focused on the law and were thus unable to see Jesus right there in their midst. To say we should be less like the Pharisees. But at best this clouds our eyes to an important point and at worst this makes us anti-Semitic. The thing we forget or miss when we do that is that everyone there including Jesus was following the law. They were observing the Sabbath and doing what a good Jewish faithful would do. They were attending synagogue. That is what got them there.
The first reading today was from a book called The Year of Living Biblically. The author set out on a journey of trying to live by all the Biblical laws. Here is a person who identifies as an atheist--well that is how he identifies at the beginning of the experiment. (I haven't gotten to the end of the book yet, so I don’t know how it turns out.) But essentially he starts working through the Bible and looking for all the laws in it. And he comes up with a pretty big list. Each day he tries to focus on one particular law. He quickly learns that this is not the easiest way to live. And honestly people begin to view him as a little crazy. But what he also finds is just what we read today, that when followed the laws often lead you into some profoundly faithful places. This little law about eating only things that are grown from trees that are at least five years old invites him to pay attention and to notice what he is eating, to be present. In other places he talks about praying and how in the beginning he is pretty uncomfortable with the whole idea. But as his journey continues he becomes more comfortable and it actually again invites him to a place of gratitude, gratitude for the people in his life, and he doesn’t just talk about food but gratitude for all that is involved and all who are involved in bringing food to his table. He begins to notice how rituals give him a new way to mark time, a new way to settle in and a new way to notice the world around him.
This is what is happening, in theory, on this day we read about in Mark. The people have gathered like any other Sabbath to participate in a ritual that they had practiced since they were born. A ritual that their ancestors had practiced. To be honest it was probably becoming old hat. For some of them perhaps they just came because their parents had come before them and their parents' parents before them. They came because it was the thing to do. Regardless of the ways they were living every other day, whether they were obeying the other laws or not, this is what they did on the Sabbath. It reminds me of when I was in college and the girls who would not go to church on Sunday morning but before they would come to the cafeteria for lunch they would put on all their makeup and do their hair as if they had just gone back to their room in between church and lunch to change. Because going to church is what people did on Sunday morning whether you wanted to or not. I was a church geek so I really didn't have to be dragged to church on Sunday morning but others my age did. And I'd imagine that on this Sabbath young adolescent Jews were being pulled by their ears to attend Synagogue. And perhaps more than a few adults came reluctantly as well.
Reluctant probably because nothing all that interesting ever really happened at temple. They would read the same words, the same old words that they had read way too many times before. And they would sing the same songs or hear the cantor sing the same old tired songs that didn’t really mean all that much to them anymore. It wasn't the music that they were hearing out in the marketplace. They weren't creating play lists of their favorite Sabbath music. And then after they sang the same songs that they had heard and sung too many times, the rabbi would stand up and start speaking. Start speaking at them about things that seemed very cold and unemotional. They would sit there and listen to something that they had probably heard way to many times already. And while the rabbi was teaching they would be wondering when it was going to be over so that they could get on with their day. They were probably getting hungry and wanted to get to their Sabbath meal that was waiting at home. Hopefully, the chicken wouldn't get cold before they got there. They were certainly not looking to be amazed.
Then this new guy stood up and began to speak, to speak like no one had ever spoken before. When the rabbi spoke it was as if an expert was speaking about something he had learned when he was in seminary or rabbinical school. But this man was speaking with an authority that was unlike the rabbi's. It didn't come from diplomas on the wall. And it wasn't even so much what he was saying as how he was saying it. In American Idol lingo he had whatever that X factor is that Simon Cowell is always talking about. It came from what could only be described as first hand knowledge. He wasn't just talking about God he was talking as God. But I'm not sure that had time to set in before all hell broke loose.
A man stood up and started screaming. And before we go any farther, this is what I want to know. Was this the first time this man showed up or had be been there before? Was he, like Jesus, a visitor to the synagogue, or was he a regular part of the community? Had they simply grown accustomed to this man? We always want to believe that the one who is out of touch with Divine, the one who's soul is clouded by darkness, is somewhere out there. And we never think that he or she could be right here. Perhaps the one who needs the most healing is not out there on the street but right here among us. But we have grown complacent towards that too.
Regardless, the man who needed healing on this particular day was right there. He stood up and started shouting. Wanting to know if Jesus had come to destroy them. Destroy the demons that were living inside this man. Interestingly enough it seems that the only ones who recognized Jesus as Jesus were the demons, no one else in the room did. And to them Jesus said, "Be silent, and come out of him!" Then the demons started convulsing and came out of him.
When the people who were witnessing this picked their jaws up off the floor they all began remarking how amazed they were at this. Even though there was convulsing and such this does not really seem to be the focus of their amazement. Mark spends very little time focusing on the actual exorcism. This would not be the making of a Hollywood movie plot, well maybe one of those indy films where they just sit around talking about what happens instead of anything actually happening. In this telling no heads seem to spin, no split pea soup is projectile vomited. Instead the demons leave. What really seems to amaze the people is the authority with which this man speaks. Again it is not the authority of someone who has second hand knowledge of the divine but someone who is intimately connected to God.
Mark wants us to know that this is not just someone talking about God, this is someone who is God. The word immediately is used three times in the short little passage that was read today. Not in the translation that was used today where immediately is often replaced with “just then” or “at once,” but the idea is there. Mark wants the reader to know that Jesus wasn't coming, God wasn't coming, God was there. Not in the future, but right now.
How do we come here? How do we come to worship? Do we come because this is what we do? Because this is what we have always done? Do we come expecting to be amazed? Do we come expecting to come in contact with the divine? Do we come expecting to be so changed that we will leave here differently than we have come? Do we expect people to be healed? I'm not talking about physical healing, I'm talking about something that no medicine could touch, I'm talking about spiritual healing. A healing of the soul, a filling of a wound that only the divine could fill. Really do we ever come expecting to be amazed or on the opposite side do we ever leave having been amazed. The author Annie Dillard wrote, “On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.” (Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk ) Now I don’t necessarily agree that God is going to wake up and take offense. I think God is already awake and waiting for us to take notice. To be amazed. Because God is seeking to do amazing things. And perhaps God is already doing amazing things, but we have gotten too cold and complacent. Epiphany is about waking up, from the sleep and the cold and taking notice. About tasting the cherry and seeing the healing that is going on around us. So wake up and be amazed. Amen.

Sermon for January 25, 2009

This is one of my favorite stories in the whole Bible. It is just a great story. It is a story that I heard countless times when I was growing up. I'm fairly certain that it rolled around in Sunday School at least once a year. But there were often some omissions and distortions in the story that I heard as a child. One of those distortions was that it was always Jonah and the Whale. And I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone say well it wasn't really a whale the Bible actually says it was just a really big fish. As if somehow that makes this story so much more believable. "Oh it was just a really big fish well now that makes perfect sense. I'm sure it is a factual piece of history now." But despite that piece of information there were many other ways that this story was not told in full. And even in our lectionary reading for today we only get a part of the story. As a child I heard the basic beginning of the story.
It goes like this. Jonah is just laying around minding his own business when out of nowhere God says "Hey get up and go to Nineveh." "You know Nineveh, that great city. You know the one where the Assyrians live. Those who are not like the Israelites. Go there and tell them to get theirs acts together. Because it has come to my attention that they are engaged in some wicked behaviors." And so Jonah did exactly that.
Okay well he didn't exactly do that. Instead he did exactly the opposite of that. Instead of heading north to Nineveh, he headed south to Tarshish. Basically he was gettin' the heck out of Dodge. There was no way he was going to that Nineveh. Imagine the Tenderloin and then double it. They weren't going to listen to him and honestly they might kill him once he got there. So he was not going to Nineveh and he was going to try and get away from God as well. So he went down to Joppa where he was able to get on a boat that was headed to Tarshish. He paid his money and he and the crew were off. Surely God would never be able to find him there. But he was wrong. A big ol' storm came up. A storm so big that the crew thought the boat would be ripped in half. If you've ever seen that tv show "The Deadliest Catch" or even just a trailer for it, the storms on that show are what I imagine. Think any big storm movie you have seen and that is what this storm must have been like or perhaps even worse. And so they started praying, each one of them to their own gods. But to no avail the storm continued to rage. They started throwing stuff overboard, cargo, anything that wasn't absolutely necessary, anything that might lighten their load and ensure their survival. But still the storm went on.
And where was Jonah during all of this? Well I'll tell you where he was--he had gone down below to lay down and he had fallen asleep. I guess he thought this was some kind of pleasure cruise. It's as if he had been looking for the slot machines and when he didn't find them he thought well maybe I'll just take a nap instead. And he went to sleep. I mean he had to be hard and fast asleep since this massive storm didn't wake him. That is the sleep of someone who does not feel guilty about anything. And so the captain comes down and can't believe what he finds. So he wakes Jonah up and says "Why are you sleeping? Fool." Alright I added the fool part, but I'm guessing a captain on a ship would have said a lot worse than that. The captain wakes him up so that he can pray to his god too. "Pray for our safety man. This storm is going to kill us all." "Pray like you've never prayed before. And perhaps if your God isn't too busy, you know has a moment or two to spare for us, then we might not die out here on the sea."
And the storm continued. All the sailors thought that surely this must be someone's fault. Surely they are all being punished for something someone did. So they did what makes oh so much sense they started casting lots to see who it was. I'm imagining the ancient version of either spin the bottle or rock/paper/scissors. And when they did this the lot fell on Jonah. So they all look, look at him with a little bit of fear in their eyes and probably even more so anger as they all wondered what this schmuck, this stranger, must have done to warrant this kind of punishment. They start screaming out questions. "Why is this happening to us?" "What did you do?" Where are you from?" "Who are you?" And what amounts to "Who's your daddy?" So Jonah explained everything to them. Who he was, where he was from and what he had done. And they said, "Alright, now what? What should we do to make this stop, to save our lives." Jonah knew. The only way to make this stop was to get him off the boat. But the sailors were not about to throw someone overboard. They might have been afraid but they weren't that afraid,…yet. They thought well maybe if we just row harder and faster we can escape the storm. But they couldn't. They couldn't outrun this storm and they were left with no other option. So with a prayer that they wouldn't be held responsible for the death of this man they threw Jonah overboard. And the storm stopped. This certainly turned the life of the sailors around. These sailors who had been worshipping their own gods were now converts. This would be their God too.
And what happened to Jonah? He was swallowed by a big fish. That’s right a big fish. The Lord sent a very big fish to save Jonahs' life. And it says that Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights. Now I have to imagine that immediately Jonah was not all that excited to be in the belly of a fish. Think about it. Just think about what fish smell like from the outside. I'm guessing from the inside they really stink. So day one and day two must have really sucked. But it gave Jonah a long time to think. To think about what he had done, where he had ended up. He thought he was going to get away scott free and not have to follow through on God's call, but instead he was in the belly of a fish. This is not how he imagined his life playing out. So finally on day 3 he had it figured out, or at least figured out for the time being. And so he prayed. He prayed a prayer of gratitude. "O God you were with me." "I thought I would die and instead you sent this fish to save me. Blah, blah. Blah." "I am a changed man. I will do what you have asked me to do." And then when the prayer was over God spoke to the fish and said alright let him go and that is what the fish did. The fish threw up Jonah out onto dry land. Now to the Jewish audience hearing this, Jonah as vomit would have been hilarious. Here was someone who was a follower of the law, a follower of the God of Israel. Someone who had kept kosher all his life and now he was not himself kosher. If only he had listened to God to begin with he would not have ended up in this situation. And I imagine they might have been even thinking, I would have followed God. I would have gone to preach to those awful, wicked Assyrians.
Jonah is on dry land, laying in fish vomit, well being fish vomit. God says again, "Get up and go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim the message that I tell you." And that is what Jonah did, although, I'm guessing he couldn't understand why God kept saying that great city. Nineveh wasn't that great. But he would go. Because he was rededicated to God. He was God's messenger. So he went a days walk to Nineveh and when he got there, he told them this, "Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown." And then he just stood back and crossed his arms and waited for Nineveh to get theirs. He was going to enjoy this. Those dirty, nasty Ninevites were going to be destroyed. But something happened that Jonah did not expect. He didn't expect partly because he thought the Ninevites were beyond hope, but also he had not done the most convincing job of proclaiming the word of the Lord. He hadn't really sold it so to speak. But they heard something because they got their repentance on. I mean from the top down. The king decreed that they would all enter into a time of repentance. Even the animals were going to seek forgiveness. They were all going to fast and hope and pray that God did not destroy them. And you know what, that is what happened. God saw the authenticity and the honesty in their desire to repent and turn from their wicked ways and God did not destroy Nineveh.
And that is where the story that I was told in Sunday School ended. But that is not where this story ends. Because one would have thought that all would have been ecstatic at the salvation of the Ninevites. But everyone was not overjoyed. Jonah was angry. Jonah essentially said to God, "I told you so. I knew this would happen. I knew that you were gracious and generous and that you would spare the lives of these people, these Ninevites. That's why I didn't want them to come. I would rather die than live in a world where the Ninevites are spared." To which God responded "what? Really? You are going to be angry with me for this?" So Jonah goes out to the desert to pout. And he was just gonna watch, watch what these Ninevites did with their spared lives. And then a bush grew up that gave Jonah shade and for a day Jonah was very happy about the bush. And then, and then and I think this is the best part, the next morning when Jonah woke up to sit beneath his nice shady tree a worm had come along and killed the tree. The sun was hot and Jonah once again, cried to the Lord, "Just kill me." This is classic Jewish comedy. This is the Jewish mother crying, "why don't you just kill me already? Here I’ll do I for you, I’ll just stick my head in this oven." And that is when God said this "You are concerned about a bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow, it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, a great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left…?" And that is how it ends. It doesn't end with Jonah getting it or even an answer. But we know the answer and the hearers would have known the answer? There is no one who is unable to received God's grace. Not the sailors who worship other Gods, not the people of Nineveh, not even Jonah. God will never stop offering us moments to accept and receive grace. Not one time, not two times, not 27 times. Never.
This week we saw the inauguration of a new president. A new president that invited us to look not to fear and hatred but to hope. A president who offered an open hand to our enemy, to our Ninevites, if only they unclench their fists. And a president who invited Rick Warren to pray at the inauguration. Now I was prepared to not like this man and to be overjoyed with Rev. Lowry. However, I found that while I was kind of put out with Rev. Warren I also found that he was seeking to include all people in this prayer. Now I'm not sure he completely did that but he tried. We all have our Ninevites. We all have our Rick Warrens. And despite our desire, God keeps inviting and calling us to offer them grace and redemption. Let's not venture out into the desert and pout, but instead let's walk into the city, and celebrate that God's grace is for all. Not just those that are like us or even not just for those who like us. Grace happens, again, and again, and again. Amen.