As I weep for the victims in Colorado I can’t help but wonder why we are surprised when the steady diet of violence we consume as entertainment spills over into real life and death. Centuries ago the Prince of Peace said, “Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.” As another dark night arose this week in Aurora the sad truth of that diagnosis of our human dis-ease became painfully obvious yet again. We are what we consume, and I pray we will learn to change our diet before too many others suffer. Please pray with me for comfort for those who suffer and mourn and for a new commitment to the ways of peace.
Category: Christian Discipleship
Communion
Note: I wrote this story 22 years ago. It breaks my heart that it is still as relevant today as it was in 1990. The continued struggle of the Christian Church in general and my own United Methodist Church in particular to accept all of God’s children compels me to share it here now. This story is fiction but painfully true. It is part of the collection of stories and plays in my book Building Peace from the Inside Out: Stories for Peace Seekers and Peacemakers.”
“What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8
“The truth is lived, not taught.” Herman Hesse
“The body of Christ, broken for you.” I could hear the bishop repeating the words to each person as we got closer to the altar. Larry was right in front of me, but just before he got to the bishop, he turned and hurried out the sacristy door, nearly knocking one of the communion stewards over on his way out. Before I could decide if I should follow him, the bishop stuck a piece of bread in my hand and motioned for me to keep moving.
I found Larry back in the musty little room we were sharing for the week at our United Methodist annual conference. He was sitting on his bed in the dark. “You O.K.?” I asked, and when I flipped on the light I thought it looked like he had been crying.
“Yeah, I’m O.K. I just had to get out of there. You want to go get some ice cream?”
“You can’t get off the hook that easy, Larry. We’ve been friends for what, fifteen years, now, and the only time I’ve seen you this upset was when Carolyn left you. What’s wrong?”
Larry stared at the floor for a long time before he spoke. “I thought maybe I could get through this without dumping it on you, Jim, but I guess I can’t. I lost my … a really good friend last week; his name is Steve. We met at the health club about four years ago and really hit it off – played racquetball twice a week, had dinner together all the time. He was the best thing that’s ever happened to me…. Oh, what the hell – we were lovers. Steve told me last week that he wanted out – he’s found someone else; said he’s sick and tired of me hiding behind my preacher’s robe.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” But I could tell he wasn’t. I swallowed hard and felt my stomach tighten. I was trying desperately to stay calm, to hide my panic.
Larry shook his head as he continued, “I’m sorry… I know I should have told you a long time ago, but I’ve just never known how to do it. I’ve started a dozen times, but it never seemed like the right time. I guess I just kept hoping that somehow you knew.”
“Well, I sure as hell didn’t” I said, surprised at my own anger. Larry buried his face in his hands. His shoulders started to shake, and I realized he was sobbing again. My instinct was to comfort him like I would a frightened child, put my arms around him; but I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed; too many questions were racing around in my own mind. How in the world could I have been this close to Larry this long and not have known? How many dozens of signals had I missed? Who else knows and if they do, how many of them think I’m gay too?
Larry didn’t look up, but he finally broke the silence. “I guess I knew you’d be uncomfortable; maybe that’s why I could never bring myself to tell you.”
“No, no, Larry, I’m not uncomfortable,” I lied, trying to buy some time to regain my equilibrium. “I’m just thinking about what I can do, you know, to help.”
“Bull Shit! You’re afraid to deal with it just like everybody else! God, how I hoped it would be different with you.”
Larry’s words stung like a slap in the face, and the muggy summer night suddenly felt even more oppressive. I wasn’t sure if it was the heat to blame for the sweat I wiped on my sleeve or if it was my growing discomfort.
“The communion service really got to me tonight,” he continued. “I just couldn’t pretend any longer that I’m included in a fellowship that condemns me and my lifestyle. It’s so damn hard, always living a lie, hiding, pretending. Do you have any idea what it’s like to have to constantly deny who you are, even to your friends, because you know the truth could cost you everything you’ve got, everything you’ve ever wanted, everything you feel called to do and to be?”
He paused, like he expected something from me, but I didn’t have it to give. “And now I tell you my deepest secret,” he said, “and you can’t handle it. I thought I’d feel better, be relieved, once you knew, but I guess I was wrong.”
“Damn it, Larry, that’s not fair. If you’re such a good friend, how could you go all these years without telling me? We’ve roomed together here for years, and I’m always staying at your house? How the hell do you think that looks? How many people in the conference know about this anyway?”
“Practically nobody, you fool, because there isn’t anybody I can trust – can’t you understand that? I guess not! All you can think about is your own precious reputation, you bastard! I didn’t plan to tell you tonight. It just hurt so much I couldn’t cover it up this time.”
“I’m sorry, Larry, I really am, but damn it, give me some time to get used to this, will you. I guess I’m more uptight about this than I realized.”
“Oh, come on, Jim, be honest. We’ve been debating homosexual ordination up here for what, at least eight or ten years, and I’ve never once seen you on the floor arguing for gay rights!”
“You know how people gossip about anybody who stands up for gays. They think you’re one of them!”
“Oh, so you’re just a fair-weather liberal? Do you realize what that chicken shit position does to people like me, especially when it comes from a friend?”
“I haven’t thought about it, Larry. I thought things were getting better.” I knew that was stupid as soon as I said it.
“Better? For whom? Not me! That damn policy on gay ordination means that if the wrong people ever find out about me, I’m finished. Not only is my career over, but they throw me out of my parsonage too! No job, no home, nothing! And the activists like Steve wonder why I don’t run around with a big “G” on my chest, proclaiming to the entire world that I’m gay?”
He picked up a Bible from the desk as he paced the room. “I’ve heard you and a bunch of other so-called friends preach a great line about God’s amazing grace from here, Jim,” he said, holding the book under my nose; “but from where I sit, the only amazing thing about grace in the church is how amazingly scarce it really is.”
He flung the Bible into the wall behind my bed with such force that the faded picture of Jesus hanging there crashed to the floor, scattering shards of glass all over the room.
The intensity of his anger scared me. “I’m going for a walk – need some fresh air,” I said, and left Larry picking up the broken pieces of glass.
The clock in the tower by the pier said it was almost1 a.m.as I walked by. Our conference every year was in the little resort town ofLakesideonLake Erie, one of those places where, except for an all-night donut shop, everything closes by11 p.m., and for once I was glad. I needed some time alone to think, and walking along the rocky shore was always a great place for that. There was something reassuring about the rhythm of the waves splashing over the rocks and against the retaining wall. Even the pungent odor of an occasional dead perch shipwrecked on the shore added to the atmosphere.
I was tired and confused. I had always prided myself on being liberal about most things, but this was the first time I’d really been put to the test on the gay issue, and I had failed miserably. After walking awhile, I sat down on a park bench in the gazebo near the shuffleboard court and tried to figure out why – to remember things that might help me understand the whole situation.
I remembered walking along the lake another night when Larry told me he and Carolyn were getting divorced. I’d never really understood what happened to their marriage, but that, at least, was beginning to make sense now.
Larry and I both enrolled at Union seminary in the fall of 1968. The day I moved in, he spotted myOhioStatesweatshirt and was so glad to see someone from his home state that he invited me for dinner. He and Carolyn were newly-weds, living down the hall from me in one of those efficiency closets the seminary called apartments. Larry was a great cook – did most of the cooking, even before the divorce, and I discovered that first evening that, among other things, we shared a great love for sweet and sour pork. Those were wonderful years – we were two young, idealistic theologues, railing against the Vietnam War from behind the safety of our IV-D clergy draft deferments, preparing for parish ministry, sure we could save the church and the world, or at least the United Methodists. I don’t remember much church history or systematic theology from seminary classes, and even less Hebrew, but I do remember Larry and me talking about burning eschatological issues well into the night, washing our profound musings down with cheap wine that tasted so much better because it would soon be forbidden by our ordination vows. I’d always felt bad that Carolyn seemed left out of those bull sessions. She wasn’t privy to all the inside jokes from class, and she’d almost always go to bed early. She was a nurse and had to leave for work at6 a.m., but I worried about their marriage, even then. It seemed that the closer Larry and I became, the less he and Carolyn had in common. Now I finally understood how little they actually did have in common. I wondered if he knew, even then.
In a strange way, it was a relief to know. Ever since Larry told me they were getting divorced, I’d felt guilty, like I helped cause the problem way back in the early days of their marriage. Now I knew that they had a much bigger problem than me.
All kinds of transformed memories were flooding my mind, like a clergy retreat atCampWesleyright after their divorce. I was so impressed with the way Larry shared his pain with the whole group that I hugged him – told him I loved him, and I meant it, as a friend, but now all I could think about was how that sounded to everyone else.
I remembered visiting Larry shortly after the divorce in a little backwoods cabin nearIndianLake. In those days the church still forced ministers who got divorced to take a year off, and Larry was living in this little God-forsaken place owned by a friend of his – no running water, the only heat was from a wood-burning stove. But it was fine in the summer, and I spent a couple of days there with him, fishing and relaxing. We even cut a cord of firewood one day. That was the time – of course, I remembered now – Larry tried to give me a massage that night because I was so sore from wrestling that chain saw around all day – and I was so uptight that every time he touched me, I giggled like a twelve year-old, until he finally just gave up.
It was becoming clearer to me now. Sure, that was also the time that I was so nervous about where I was going to sleep. That cabin only had one bedroom, and I remember now that I was never so glad to see a hide-a-bed in the living room in my life.
Damn, maybe Larry was right. Maybe I did know, and I just refused to deal with it.
More memories washed over me like the waves on the lake shore, only these felt more like the angry waves of a powerful storm, like the ones I’d seen come in off the lake and drop a fifty-foot oak like it was a toothpick. They were memories of the tasteless jokes I told Larry about gays and the stupid cracks about AIDS. And then there was Robby Johnson, the kid in our Boy Scout troop that we tormented mercilessly because someone told us he was “queer.” We used to pants him or take his clothes while he was in the shower and then laugh our heads off while he ran back to his tent naked.
And that time on one camp out, I was probably twelve or thirteen, when we played strip poker in our tent, me and Johnny Crane and Danny Brown. I lost of course. I always was a lousy card player. After I ran out of clothes, every time I lost a hand they made me run around the outside of the tent naked while they lifted up the sides of the tent and shined their flashlights on me. After we got tired of that, Johnny suggested we “jerk each other off” before we went to bed. I was really nervous, but I did it anyway. I don’t know why. I do know for a long time after that, for several years, I was sure I must be queer, but I was too embarrassed to ever tell anyone.
A shiver from a cool breeze off the lake brought me back to the present, and I was surprised to see Larry standing in front of me. “I was worried,” he said. “I was afraid you felt like you had to stay out all night. I’ll find someplace else to stay tomorrow.”
“No, no, that’s not necessary. I was just sitting here thinking and lost track of the time.”
“I thought you might be hungry,” he said, holding up a white donut bag.
Over coffee and donuts in the gazebo, I said, “I’m really sorry about what happened. I thought I was pretty open about this issue, at least in theory, but it’s really different when it affects you personally.”
“You’re telling me?” he said, smiling.
I smiled too, glad for a break in the tension. “That is funny, isn’t it? But seriously, this has helped me realize that I’ve got a lot of things to sort out. I’m sorry I took it out on you.” I told him what I’d been thinking about, everything – Robby and Johnny and Danny, even the hide-a-bed – things I’ve never told anyone before. “Those are normal kinds of feelings, aren’t they?” I finally asked, trying hard not to sound too desperate for some assurance.
He chuckled, “Yes, very normal for you, and for ninety per cent of the population. But not for me!”
He paused to dunk his donut and take a bite. “Listen, Jim, I’m sorry about tonight, too. I took a lot of anger out on you that didn’t belong to you. A bunch of really heavy stuff has been piling up on me for months, and you just happened to be there when it finally blew. Do you remember my friend Craig? I think you met him one time when you were inCleveland. He went out to dinner with us.”
“The one who was the minister at Trinity?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“Didn’t I hear that he died recently?”
“Yeah, in February.” He took a sip of coffee and looked very pensive. “Craig was gay too and had a very hard time dealing with it. He was like me – tried like hell to be “normal” and fit in, had a wife and kids. He did his best to play the game, but it just didn’t work; and when the General Conference decreed again last year that gays are unappointable and unordainable, he just lost it. He finally came out to his congregation one Sunday morning, if you can believe it, and then went home and gassed himself in the parsonage garage.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know how he died.”
“It was the same week that Gary, another friend of mine, died of AIDS, a terrible, slow death. I preached both of their funerals, Jim, in the same week and didn’t dare let anybody know how much I really cared.”
We drank our coffee in silence, surrounded by the darkness and the enormity of Larry’s pain. “Ash Wednesday was just two days after those funerals,” he continued, “and I was still really pissed at God and the church. We had communion that night, and I felt like a stranger in my own church. I went through the motions and said all the right words, but I kept thinking that Craig and Gary would not have been welcome there if people knew them, and I knew damn well that most of my “sisters and brothers in Christ” would choke on their bread if they knew who was serving it to them. It was like I was in a daze, serving the elements to dozens of nameless, faceless people parading by the altar.
“And then I came home to an empty house, no one to talk to but the dog. Steve was out of town, or so he said, but I realize now that he was probably already seeing someone else. Another friend, George, called, inviting me to a belated Mardi Gras Party. I was so lonely I would have gone anywhere with anybody. Well, it was wild party, let me tell you, and they weren’t serving grape juice like we did at church. So, I got a little bombed, and I had sex with three or four guys before the night was over.”
“You what!”
“Now, don’t pull parent on me, Jim. I don’t need you to tell me how stupid I was. I’ve never done anything like that in my life, even before AIDS! The point is that I am that desperate, and it scares the hell out of me. I don’t even know who those guys were, and I sure hope they didn’t know me; but the weird thing was how that awful, anonymous sex felt the same to me as serving communion to all those people who don’t know the real me either.”
Tears were flowing again, but this time Larry wasn’t crying alone. We embraced and held each other for a long time, until Larry finally broke the silence, “Want some more coffee? I can go get refills.”
“Sounds good to me.”
As I watched Larry walk toward the donut shop, I realized the sun was already beginning to brighten the eastern sky. I watched the gulls skimming the lake for breakfast, and then I saw something I hadn’t noticed in the darkness. On the retaining wall in front of the gazebo, someone had spray-painted “DEATH TO ALL FAGS!” Without hesitation, I scrambled down over the rocks, picked up a sharp one and tried almost frantically to scrape the ugly letters off the wall, rubbing so hard I scraped my knuckles and left a trail of blood across the “A” in “DEATH.” But it was hopeless; the paint would not come off. I leaned my head against the wall in frustration and exhaustion.
Just then Larry’s voice started me, “You’d better be careful.” I turned quickly to see him standing there with the coffees in his hands, watching me.
With a little grin on his face, he said, “If some people see you doing that, they might think you’re one of us.”
“I know,” I said, “and frankly, my friend, I don’t give a damn.”
SIGNS OF LIFE: MINISTRY OF GIFTS, Mark 6:30-44
We’ve had a series of medical emergencies during Sunday morning worship at our church this winter when it was necessary to call the emergency squad. This has happened so often we’ve thought of asking the EMT’s if they’d like to join the congregation. After all, they’ve been more regular attendees than some of our members!
I suppose that’s why I dreamed the other night that they came again, but there was a major difference in my dream. Instead of one ambulance, a whole herd of them arrived in our parking lot, and they loaded up the whole congregation and took us to the ER to check our congregation for signs of life. Ironically we had just finished singing the old Methodist hymn, “And Are We Yet Live?” when we heard the first sirens.
In the ER there was another patient in the cubicle next to ours, and HIPPA privacy laws or not, I could tell from the conversation I overheard through the flimsy dividing curtain that it was another congregation. From the pieces of conversation I got between the doctors and nurses, I knew that other patient was in trouble. They were checking the vital signs and none sounded good:
- Spirituality – detected in the brain but not in the heart
- Mode of Worship– luke warm and dropping fast
- Small group involvement – below normal
- Loving Community relationships– compound fractures and divisions
- Evangelism and outreach – barely detectable
Pretty soon I heard the steady hum of a heart monitor that had flatlined. I heard someone, I guessed the hospital chaplain, explain the death by quoting parts of the New Testament letter of James. I questioned his bedside manner, but the words rang true –“Be doers of the word and not merely hearers…Faith without works is dead.”
That got me to wondering. When new people first enter our church building do they see those signs of life? Do they experience the final vital sign that is our topic for today — a congregation that shares God’s gifts in ministry and service to others?
Mark 6 says the disciples came back from their mission trips and their evangelistic efforts at school and work and “reported to Jesus all that they had done and taught.” How different would our lives and our church’s life look if we intentionally reported to Jesus every day what we did that day for the good of God’s creation and God’s children?
Please note, I celebrate all the wonderful ministries our congregation is already doing – the ones going on for years, decades, some even for the 177 years we’ve been here. And I love the new ministries, like the Knit Wits (who make warm hats for homeless folks) or our Kids Morning Out program that reaches out to the smallest members of God’s family. So this isn’t about a guilt trip – those don’t ever take us anywhere God wants us to be. This is about examining our hearts to see if we are discerning correctly what God wants us to be doing here in this place as a church in 2012.
One of the Jesus tests for answering that question comes from Matthew 25 where Jesus reminds that what we do for the least of our sisters and brothers is what we do for Christ. Sometimes the least of us go to great lengths to hide their needs from others and from God. The least could be someone who appears to have the most. I read in the news this week that actress Jennifer Aniston spent—are you sitting down–$141,000 last year to maintain her youthful appearance. After being shocked and angry at what she spent on hairdressers, personal trainers, a private nutritionist, and laser peels (I don’t even want to know what that is), I wondered if anyone is also ministering to her spiritual needs. Is anyone sharing with her the good news that God loves her just the way she is without spending all that time and money on her exterior image?
The ministry of gifts is the rubber meets the road vital sign for the church. Health professions measure our health by checking blood pressure and heart rate, weight and cholesterol. What yard stick do we use to check how alive we are as a congregation? Is it good enough to be doing better than the Presbyterians or Baptists? Or more than our unbelieving friends and neighbors? Sorry, Jesus doesn’t let us off the hook that easily. Jesus himself is the gold standard, the best model of servanthood and the sharing of gifts.
Look at how Jesus lives that out in the familiar miracle story of the feeding of the 5000. First, Jesus sees the crowd as they get off the boat on the way to a much-needed spiritual retreat. Mark tells us that Jesus and the disciples were so busy ministering to the crowds who pressed in upon them to be healed and taught that they “had no time even to even eat.” That’s way too busy. Jesus sees the weariness and the need for a time away to rest and renew. So they get in a boat to cross the lake, but the crowds saw them leaving and started texting and tweeting to their friends; so when Jesus and the disciples got to their destination to get away from it all – it was all there waiting for them.
How does Jesus respond to the needs of the crowds clamoring for time with him? What we’d expect – he sees they are like sheep without a shepherd and he has compassion on them. That’s all well and good. I have compassion every time I see a homeless person standing by a freeway off ramp holding a “will work for food” sign. I pray for them or even give a little cash, but then I quickly move on to my intended destination. Not so our mentor servant Jesus. He responds to the need he sees and postpones the R&R he and his boys really needed and were counting on. He sees and feels the spiritual hunger of the crowd, and he teaches them. He doesn’t toss a pious platitude to them or say “take two proverbs and call me in the morning.” He sits down and listens to them, teaches them until the sun begins to set and his disciples interrupt to say it’s time for supper.
Ok, another need has arisen, this time not spiritual but physical hunger. Notice the difference between Jesus’ response to this need and that of the disciples. The disciples are anxious to get on with their own agenda. They say, “Let’s send them over to Chipotle or Subway so they can buy themselves some food.” “ Nope,” says the Lord. He looks Peter and John and the others right in the eye, and he says, “YOU give them something to eat.” And what does he get from the disciples? Excuses. “We don’t have that kind of bread, Jesus; we’ve barely got enough for ourselves. There must be 5000 of them. We can’t possibly feed them all!”
Jesus says, “Go, and see what you’ve got. Check out your available resources.” Jesus asks us to take that kind of inventory too. What do we put on our list? We don’t think about all the gifts we have as a congregation. The big ones are obvious – the music program, the mission trips, the weekly trips to serve a meal to the homeless, Sunday school teachers & youth leaders, committee chairs – but what about the gift of a friendly smile to a stranger, the ministry of calling a child by name so she knows she matters, setting up chairs for worship, rocking an infant in the nursery. And the ministry of gifts is an even more effective witness when we do it away from the church building. Forgiving a rude driver on the road or giving up your spot in line at Kroger’s to a harried father with 3 squirmy pre-schoolers in tow – those are gifts of ministry to God’s children. And let’s not overlook the gifts of ministry children offer us –their curiosity, pure innocent honesty, exuberance and energy. In the Gospel of John’s version of this miracle (John 6) the food Jesus uses to feed the masses comes from a little boy in the crowd.
It is a gift to grow food for the hungry in your garden or to lead a community organization, mobilizing efforts to change things in our society and world that are unjust or just plain wrong. We all have unique gifts, and our call is to take whatever God has gifted each of us with and re-gift it to those who need it.
So the disciples report back to Jesus with a meager 5 loaves and 2 fish. They give it to Jesus; he blesses it – offers it to God and has the disciples share it with the crowd. Not only does everybody get food to eat, Mark tells us that they all are satisfied. And not only that, there are enough leftovers to feed the next hungry people already coming down the road.
In the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 7), Jesus says, people will know us by our fruits. [I held up a beautiful large red apple in one hand and a very black, over-ripe banana in the other] What kind of fruit do we want to be known for?
Remember we’re not talking about buying new expensive gifts, just sharing the talents we already have. When he feeds the multitude, Jesus doesn’t ask the disciples for more than they have – that would be terribly unfair, but he does ask us to trust him with ALL that we have – whatever that may be. There’s a great example of the miraculous results the spontaneous ministry of gifts can have in a short documentary on you tube about a little known part of the events of 9/11. “Boatlift: The Untold Story of 9/11 Resilience” tells how immediately after the towers collapsed thousands of frightened people were desperate to get away from ground zero. They had no idea what other attacks might be coming. But the subways and bridges were all shut down, and as the film’s narrator Tom Hanks says, “Many people realized for the first time that Manhattan is an island.” The miracle is that 500,000 people were evacuated from Manhattan in just 9 hours by a group of volunteer tug boat and ferry boat captains who saw a need and put out a radio plea for other boats to join them. They had no plan, no organizational chart. Dozens of good people simply decided to share the resources they had available – no more, no less – and their gifts bore great fruit. (For the full story, go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDOrzF7B2Kg.
When they do the EKG to check on the heartbeat of Jesus followers at Jerome Church, what fruits will they know us by? What can we report to Jesus that we have done in the past and will do today to feed the spiritual and physical hungers of his children?
The bottom line is this – when the time comes for Jesus to check my spiritual vital signs he’s not going to ask me why I didn’t take my canoe to help with the boatlift on 9/11, or why I didn’t sing like Josh Groban, or minister to the desperately poor like Mother Theresa. Those gifts belong to others, not me. All Jesus is going to want to know is if I’ve been the best Steve Harsh I could be and used the gifts and talents God gave me to show God’s love and mercy to my sisters and brothers
Jesus will remind me that life isn’t Facebook. We can’t just push a button and unfriend the annoying or the needy. We are called to share the gifts of ministry with them all, the least and the most of them – the poor and the poor in spirit — to share with them all the gifts we’ve been given. And when we do, miracles happen, and it is more than enough.
5-Hour or Eagle Energy?, Mark 1:29-39; Isaiah 40:21-31
Someone once compared ministry to being in a tank of piranhas where nobody wants much of you, but everyone just wants a little piece of your time. That is also a great metaphor for life. Who are the piranhas in your life – kids, parents, boss, teachers, students, the IRS, Facebook friends, customers, clients, telemarketers, the church, charitable organizations, starving children in Somalia, spouse—all of the above? Jesus had the piranha problem often. Mark tells us in the very first chapter of his Gospel that Jesus is going around doing his thing – casting out demons, healing the sick, teaching and preaching, and one morning he needs a break from the demands of his life so much that he goes off before daybreak by himself to pray (Mark 1:35). But his serenity break doesn’t last long. The disciples track him down and try to lay a guilt trip on him. “Everyone is searching for you,” they say. Ever feel that way?
Sometimes we flee from the piranha tank to get away from it all at some popular vacation destination, only to realize when we get there that a million other tourists had the same idea. Modern technology doesn’t help. Being connected to the world 24/7 isn’t how our creator intended for us to be wired. We grow faint and weary from information overload, from legitimate demands on our time, and from too many needs we want to meet and too little energy, time and money to go around.
Jesus “went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.” That sentence speaks volumes to me about coping with modern day life stressors. First, finding a deserted place is darn near impossible today. Even at home we have televisions in every room and the omnipresent cell phone, iPod, iPad, or the communication device du jour constantly within easy reach. If you don’t think you’re addicted, ask yourself how you feel when there’s no Wi-Fi close by or no bars on your phone. Or, have you ever realized you’ve left home without your phone and feel naked without it? Secondly, if Jesus needed time alone now and then, why would we ever delude ourselves into thinking that we don’t?
I love the interplay among the lectionary texts for February 5th even though I’m not sure how to resolve the tension between them. In I Corinthians (9:16-23) Paul tells us he has made himself “a slave to all” and has “become all things to all people.” If that doesn’t sound like a sure fire formula for burn out, what does? By contrast when the disciples find Jesus and interrupt his prayer time with a plea for him to meet the needs of the teeming masses, Jesus answers, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do” (Mk. 1:38). Jesus isn’t distracted from his primary mission and purpose by the demands or desires of others. A more dramatic example of that focus occurs in Luke 9:60 where Jesus says, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God” (See also Matt. 8:22). Jesus clearly knows what his priorities are and how to say “no,” even to legitimate, heart-rending needs around him. Remember that Jesus is not only the Messiah, but he is also fully-human like us and understands our limitations.
Competing commitments muddy human decision-making waters all the time. If every choice of how to spend our time, money and energy was a no brainer between a good and bad option, no problem, we could all do it. But it’s rarely that easy. I wrote a short story for an English class way back in my undergraduate days at Ohio State. The story was about a father who chose to spend little time with his family, but it wasn’t the common workaholic, materialistic-driven absentee dad version of that tale. My variation on the theme was that this father was so busy donating his time to good causes at his church and in his community that he was hardly ever home when his children were awake and had little energy left over for any quality time with his spouse. My English prof didn’t like the premise of the story. He thought it would be more effective if the option between good and bad life choices was more clearly drawn. 40 years later, I still think choosing between two worthy causes is more common and much harder to do than opting for something that is obviously the more noble of two forks in the road.
Now the “so what” question. What does this all mean for 21st century Christians caught on the treadmill of life that just keeps going faster and faster? Where’s the emergency red button that stops the world so we can get off? And if you think this is a new problem for our over-stimulated generation, Google “Stop the World, I Want to Get Off.” That’s the title of a musical and movie made in the early 1960’s about exactly what the title says and what Mark wrote about over 2000 years ago.
Interestingly enough, the problem is even older than that. The Hebrew text (Isaiah 40) for this Sunday, written some 500 years before Jesus’ time, addresses the same problem. “Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted (Isa. 40:30). So, let’s not feel special or put upon. This is a human problem that transcends time, age, generations and cultures. God knew from the beginning we were going to have problems with knowing when to take a day off and sets a clear example for us to follow by resting on the 7th day of creation (Gen. 2:2). Honoring ourselves with Sabbath rest is so important it ranks in God’s Top Ten list, right up there with not killing, stealing, committing adultery, etc.
So why is this so hard? We all know we need rest and re-creation time. The problem is actually living it. For far too much of human history we have wasted valuable time and energy arguing among ourselves about which day is the true Sabbath and what constitutes resting, instead of just doing it. Please note that how we recharge our physical and spiritual batteries is different for different people. I am an introvert, and I need quiet solitude to be refreshed and renewed. Extroverts, on the other hand, find a loud party or a rock concert very energizing. Whatever is restful and renewing for you – find time to do it on a regular basis. You’re worth it. God says so and Jesus shows us.
I love the way Isaiah puts it. After that verse about even young people getting exhausted, Isaiah says, “but those who wait for the lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like Eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint” (40:31). The secret is waiting for the Lord. Waiting is not easy for our instant gratification culture. We will spend good money we don’t have to upgrade from 3G to 4G, whatever that means, to save a few nanoseconds of download time. We don’t wait well. Waiting means surrendering control and none of us want to go there. But I would suggest that we don’t really have a choice. We can either surrender control to Microsoft or the Messiah, to piranhas or peace. Instant gratification lasts an instant or two. Eternal life endures forever.
Finally, like most of life, this is not really an either/or choice, but both/and. The final verse of the text from Mark for this week tells us Jesus didn’t choose A or B. “And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues AND casting out demons” (1:39). How could he do both? First, he knew that proclaiming the Gospel by word and deed is one way of combating the evil demons that threaten humankind. Secondly, Jesus knew how to say “no” to the demands of the world, take time to wait upon the Lord, and renew his strength so he could soar with the eagles. May it be so for you and me as well.
Fish Tale and Forgiveness, Jonah 3:1-10
Last week’s text from I Samuel raised a tough question: are some sins beyond forgiveness? I hadn’t looked ahead in the lectionary then but was pleased to find that the Hebrew text from Jonah for this week offers a great response to that question.
Ask most people what they know about Jonah, and you will get “Jonah and the whale” as their response. It’s a familiar story kids learn about and sing about in Sunday School, but it is more than a big fish story (which is what the Hebrew says, not a “whale” per se). I’m not a fisherman, but I’ve always been attracted to Jonah and even chose it as the text for the first sermon I ever preached, way back in 1969. At the time my wife asked me why that text. She said, “What does that story mean for us today?” My response, “Don’t go swimming with big fish.”
Of course, it means much more than that if we take time to ask some basic questions, like what was Jonah doing in the water and why was he swallowed by the big fish? It’s a very short story, only 3 pages, and it makes much more sense if read in its entirety. But here’s the abridged version:
- God calls Jonah and tells him to go on a mission to Nineveh.
- Jonah doesn’t want to go and jumps on a ship headed for Tarshish (in the exact opposite direction) instead.
- God is not pleased and causes a storm at sea, and when the sailors learn that Jonah is the reason for God’s displeasure, they throw Jonah overboard.
- God appoints a big fish to swallow Jonah. (Not to punish him, by the way, but to save him and give him time to reconsider God’s offer.)
- After 3 days God has the fish spit Jonah out; and Jonah decides this time he’d better listen to God, heads for Nineveh and delivers God’s message.
- The people of Nineveh heed Jonah’s warning, repent of their sins, and are forgiven and saved from God’s judgment on them.
- Jonah pouts because he really wanted God to give the Ninevites hell, not mercy.
So there’s a lot more going on here than Jonah and the fish. It’s a story about a refusal to say yes when God’s wishes are very plain. Jonah’s call is not ambiguous as is sometimes the case. The message from God to Jonah couldn’t be more clear and direct: “Go at once to Nineveh” (1:1). There is no failure to communicate here – just reluctance to obey. And we all know how smart it is to say “no” to God; so why would Jonah even try? To answer that question requires a little history lesson. Nineveh was the capital of Babylon, a hated enemy of the Hebrew people. Ironically, for our contemporary context, Nineveh sat about where modern day Baghdad is located today. Given that context, we know what Jonah was being asked to do was take a warning to the people of Nineveh so they could be forgiven and spared from God’s wrath.
Jonah knew, as he says in 4:2, that Yahweh was a God of mercy and would forgive those hated enemies of his people. Put yourself in Jonah’s place. Fill in your own favorite enemies: liberals, conservatives, 9/11 terrorists, Republicans, Democrats, Tea Partiers, Muslims, Evangelicals, bitter athletic rivals, business competitors, lawyers, former spouses – whoever it is that you would like to be the very last people God would forgive. That’s who Johan is being asked to save and why he is a reluctant prophet who dares to defy a direct order from God. As the story unfolds we see it is one of repentance – Jonah repents of his obedience after God gives him a three-day time out in the smelly innards of a fish. The people of Nineveh repent after they hear Jonah’s message from God. And even God gets in on the act and repents of his judgment against the people of Nineveh.
Which brings us, finally, back to last week’s question about unforgiveable sin. And the answer is “no.” If God can forgive the enemies of his chosen people who destroyed Jerusalem and carried God’s people off into exile, what could be unforgiveable?
Jonah is a foreshadowing of the grace-filled Gospel of Jesus, which turns on its head the vengeful, don’t get mad, get even theology we often prefer in our Jonah-like assessment of who deserves forgiveness. Jesus states that Gospel as clearly as God calls of Jonah. “You have heard it said ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,’ but I say to you, if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.” And, ‘You’ve heard it said, ‘love your neighbor and hate your enemy,’ but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:38-44).
That doesn’t sound like a God who would hold anything unforgiveable, does it? That’s the Amazing Grace we sing about that “saves a wretch like me.” So, then why does it say in last week’s text (I Sam. 3:14) that the sins of Eli’s house shall not be atoned for forever? David Stackpole, one of the best students I ever had in preaching class, interpreted that I Samuel text in a way many years ago that made a lot of sense to me then and still does. David pointed out a couple of key words in I Samuel 3:14 that are easy to read over when our attention is captured by the harshness of the other words in the verse. He pointed out that the verse doesn’t say their sins cannot be atoned for; it says they cannot be atoned for “by sacrifice or offering.”
We sometimes fall into the trap of imposing our human limitations on God. Someone once said, “God created us in God’s image, and we return the favor.” In this case those limitations involve too narrow concepts of not only who and what God can forgive, but how. The Hebrew theology of Samuel’s day saw sacrificial offerings as the default means of seeking God’s forgiveness. Ironically, it was Eli’s son’s misuse of sacrificial offerings that got them in hot water. (See last week’s post for details.) Eli’s sons corrupted sacrifice as a means of grace with their own selfishness and deceit; so how could something they had no respect for and had broken trust with be a vehicle for finding their way back to God.
But because humans spoil one gift from God doesn’t mean God can’t come up with others. To put those kind of limits on God would limit God’s power and render God unworthy of our trust. Jonah tried putting parameters on God’s forgiveness, and we see how well that worked for him.
God’s forgiveness cannot be bought with sacrifice or offering. But it can be accepted as a freely given gift by those who are humble enough to know we need it. The Ninevites were forgiven because they repented and admitted their sin (Jonah 4:6-9). There are multiple scriptures that attest to God’s merciful nature. The prophet Isaiah (1:18) says, “Though your sins be as scarlet I will make them white as snow.” Jesus says to his executioners from the cross, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:24). I John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Yes, I know, there are many counter texts that argue for the vengeful God Jonah wished upon his enemies (like we do). Those texts were written by angry men who wanted their enemies to suffer, but be very careful of that two-edged sword. Those who live by that unforgivable doctrine will stand under the same judgment. See living in glass houses and throwing stones?
God’s grace is free. It can’t be earned by bigger checks in the offering plate or making greater sacrifices of our time and effort. It is simply poured out in an overflowing cup for those who repent and truly seek it. What are you waiting for? There is no need to carry that heavy burden of guilt and anger another day. God who can show mercy on reluctant, disobedient Jonah and on his dreaded enemies in Nineveh can certainly forgive us too.
Unforgiveable? I Samuel 3:1-20
Are some sins so bad they are beyond forgiveness, even for God? I sure hope not, but in
I Samuel 3:14 God says, “Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering forever.” That’s the NRSV translation. Since “expiated” is not a household word, the NIV translation of that verse clarifies things a bit. The NIV says, “The guilt of Eli’s house will never be atoned for by sacrifice or offering.” At least that one leaves off the ominous “forever” of the NRSV. But don’t celebrate that verbiage too soon because both translations agree in verse 13 that this judgment is forever. No matter how it’s translated, this passage is bad news. Eli’s family is guilty of some heinous sin that they can never ever make amends for.
Inquiring minds want to know what the sin of Eli’s family is–in part to be sure that particular big no no is not on our rap sheet, but even more we want to know what this Scripture means about the very nature of the God we worship and want to trust with how we will spend eternity. Are some acts so evil that they are beyond the limits of an infinite God’s power to forgive?
We can all think of potential candidates for the unforgiveable list: genocide, child abuse, hate crimes, cruelty to animals, and murder might come to mind. Many of us have painful memories of things done to us or by us that stay with us so long they feel unforgiveable. But just because we mortals can’t forgive something doesn’t mean God can’t, does it? “The guilt of Eli’s house will never be atoned for” has a ring of finality to it, and with God there’s no higher court of appeal to turn to.
So what is this unforgiveable offense? I’ll summarize, but the details are found in I Samuel 2:11-17 if you want to read them for yourself. First, you need to know that Eli and his sons are priests in the temple at Shiloh. But we are told up front in 2:11 that Eli’s sons are “scoundrels” or “wicked men.” Their offense is that they violate their sacred priestly duties by taking for themselves the very best portions of meat which are meant to be sacrificed on the altar to God. Furthermore, they don’t even attempt to hide their wicked ways but boldly and openly demand the very choicest cuts of meat for themselves and even threaten to take those by force if anyone tries to stop them. Verse 17 concludes this section by saying, “Thus the sin of the young men was very great in the sight of the Lord; for they treated the offerings of the Lord with contempt.”
Sadly, in contemporary times it is easy to draw parallels here to clergy embezzlement of funds entrusted to them for feeding staving orphans or betraying sacred trust through sexual misconduct. It is a given that Christians and clergy in particular must not dodge those hard questions and constantly strive to understand and eliminate the suffering those unacceptable behaviors cause. But a broader question raised by this text is: are those unforgiveable sins? In our eyes? In God’s?
And to muddy the waters even further, for those of us who believe in the priesthood of all believers, the question becomes what offerings of the Lord do you and I treat with contempt? If all of creation is an offering of God to us and we are entrusted by God with all that we are and all we have, not as owners but as stewards, then how does our stewardship compare with that of Eli’s wicked unforgiveable sons? When we betray God’s trust and desecrate God’s creation with toxic waste, or pollute our bodies with carcinogenic junk food, or disobey God’s laws against killing, or violate the sacred vows we made at our marriage or our baptism, does God then say to us, “I swear to you that your sins shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever?”
The God I know and love does not pass such harsh judgment, and in most sermons and blog posts I would attempt to show why I believe that and bring some resolution to such a difficult question. And I will do that in another post, but not yet.
Sometimes we need to wrestle with the questions of our faith so the answers we find can be claimed as our own. So I’d like to ask you: What evidence do you find in Scripture and in life that speak to you about the nature of God and God’s relationship to human sin? If you were explaining this text to a new Christian or someone living in guilt and fear of an angry God, what would you say? I invite you to explore this for yourself or with friends and if you like share your thoughts by posting a comment.
Let’s dialogue a bit and next week I’ll share my thoughts on what I think the key to understanding this text might be.
HEARING AND BEING THE VOICE OF GOD: Genesis 1:1-5; Psalm 29; Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11
There’s a famous line in the movie “Cool Hand Luke” where a frustrated prison guard tells the prisoner, Luke, “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.” It’s a great line but not quite true. The problem is not communication; Luke heard the message, he just chose to ignore what the prison guard wanted him to do. I wonder if we have a similar communication problem with God. The lectionary texts for January 8th are all about communication, in particular about the power of the voice of God. Literally from Day One (Gen. 1:1-5) to the Baptism of Jesus (Mark 1:4-11) to Paul’s ministry in Ephesus (Acts 19:1-7), God speaks and big things happen. And the Psalm for this Baptism of the Lord Sunday, Psalm 29, speaks directly about the power of “Voice of the Lord” seven times in 11 verses and by implication several other times.
Communication scholars describe Speech-Act theory as the phenomenon by which language has the power to create or change reality. Anyone who has ever stood before a clergy person or a justice of the peace and said two little words, “I do,” knows very well that their lives are forever changed from that moment forward. “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” is a little ditty most of us learned at an early age. The problem is it isn’t true. Words have power to hurt and heal. Most bullying begins with name calling and naming our political or personal enemies in ways that depersonalize and demonize them is the first step toward justifying abusive and unkind treatment that can ultimately lead to violence and death.
The words we use are a matter of life and death, of light and darkness. Psalm 29 contains a whole litany of things that the voice of God can do: thunder, break cedars, fire, shake the wilderness, whirl oaks, strip forests and cause floods. This must be where the insurance companies get their justification for excluding from coverage (read the fine print) natural disasters as “Acts of God.”
I am more interested in what these texts say about the power of God’s voice to transform human lives than I am the cause of natural disasters. Genesis 1 tells us God spoke light into darkness, and that speech act is far more important symbolically than the on-going debate between creationism and evolution. The darkness God expelled on day 1 of creation is wonderful, but a more relevant question is “what has God done for us lately?” There are still far too many black holes of darkness in our world and our hearts today that need the light of God’s powerful voice of truth.
I love this parable by an anonymous author:
A pilgrim asks a wise one about the moment when we can tell darkness from the dawn. “Is it when I can tell the difference between a sheep and a goat?” she asks. “No.”
“Then is it when I can tell the difference between a peach and a pomegranate?”
“No,” says the elder. “When you can look into another’s eyes and say, ‘you are my brother, you are sister,’ that is the dawn. Until then, there is only darkness.”
Both the Mark 1 text and Acts 19 deal with hearing God’s voice through the sacramental act of baptism. Both texts tell us that John the Baptist preached and performed a baptism of repentance and belief in Jesus as the anointed one who came after John. Mark doesn’t address the perplexing question of why Jesus needed a baptism of repentance because that’s not the point of that text, and not the full meaning of baptism. Repentance is a critical first step in transformation, but only a prelude to what an anointed, spirit-led disciple can do. When Paul asks the Christians in Ephesus “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?” they reply, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” So Paul proceeds to fix that problem but in doing so creates a theological dilemma for us. Paul baptizes those Ephesians a second time. To this day rebaptism is a controversial issue among Christians of different persuasions, along with what kind of baptism counts, how it’s done, at what age, by whom, etc.
Our different opinions on such matters can sometime be humorous. One person, when asked if he believed in infant baptism replied, “Believe in it! I’ve seen it.” Or when my children were young and we were visiting a Baptist church where my daughter was playing in a piano recital. After the recital our son went up to explore the chancel area and came back to excitedly report, “Dad, they have a Jacuzzi up there!”
Let’s put the debates about sprinkling or pouring or immersing aside for now and focus on one key point of the Acts text and Mark’s account of Jesus’ baptism– what the power of the Holy Spirit does to transform lives. It’s not the water or how or when it’s applied that matters, it’s the voice of God and whether we hear it. Jesus’ public ministry begins from the moment he hears the voice of God saying “You are my son….” The question is have we heard God say, “you are my daughter, you are my son, and with you I am pleased?”
Gospel interpreters sometime wonder if Jesus was the only one who heard God’s voice there beside the Jordan. Given God’s propensity to speak in parables and metaphors and in “a still small voice” (I Kgs 19:12), I’d bet he was. And so would Fred Craddock, I believe, who loves to say that when it came to his call to ministry it would have been so much easier if God had called him in a voice loud enough that his friends and relatives could have heard it too.
We liberal, sophisticated Christians are often afraid of the emotion associated with Pentecostal Christianity. But we dare not let that fear make us miss the positive power of the voice, breath, and spirit of God to transform lives. Jesus is transformed into the Messiah at his baptism and empowered by the voice of God to resist every temptation that Satan can throw at him in the wilderness. God’s voice enables Jesus to find his voice to speak truth and salvation as God’s messenger. We don’t know where Jesus was hanging out till he was 30, but we do know that at this pivotal moment Jesus emerges to “shout from the housetops what the Spirit has told him in a whisper” (Matt. 10:27). By the power of God’s voice he is inspired to go public with his ministry with a passion that enabled him to set his face toward Jerusalem’s cross and never look back, even when his closest friends try their best to persuade him to renounce his calling and take an easier route.
And here’s the important point so don’t miss it– it’s not just Jesus who is transformed and empowered by the voice of God. In the text from Acts 19 we see how the ordinary folks in Ephesus are also changed into God’s messengers. “The Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied” (19:7). Those are loaded terms that may need clarification. Speaking in tongues for many of us conjures up images of ecstatic nonsense speech that is unfamiliar and incomprehensible. But what if we interpret tongues to mean that these people were on fire for God and spoke with passion about their faith in ways that people of many different cultures and ethnic groups could understand, as they did on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2)? Acts 19 also tells us these new baptizees “prophesied,” another term that can have negative connotations if we take prophesying to mean what psychics who advertise on late night TV do. Biblical prophets are not fortune tellers or crystal ball gazers. A biblical prophet is simply someone who speaks for God. They are those who know God’s truth and are emboldened by God’s presence in their lives to proclaim good news to a world starving for some.
The world needs people in every walk of life who have heard the voice of God and are willing not only to talk that talk but to walk God’s walk. To do that takes incredible courage and faith in a world where people of faith are often aliens in a strange land. To have the courage of our convictions means that all of us, clergy and laity alike are called to witness to our faith by word and action, even when we know the dangers and risks involved in speaking an uncomfortable truth – in love. The risks of that kind of truth are exemplified quite simply in the fact that the Greek word for “witness” is also the word for “martyr.”
All baptized Christians are called to be witnesses and prophets for God, and the enormity of that calling means we all need to be anointed by God’s spirit. We cannot hope to fulfill the ministry we are baptized into without the power of God’s spirit to guide and direct us. God knows we all need a baptism of repentance, but we also need the power of the Holy Spirit to move us from repentance and forgiveness to become proactive messengers who dare to become the voice of God that transforms lives and the world.
HEAVENLY PEACE, Micah 5:25a; Isaiah 9:6-7a; Luke 1:76-2:14
[Christmas Eve sermon at Jerome United Methodist Church, 2011]
Among the many pieces of “wisdom” floating about in cyber space this gem about being at peace came into my inbox recently:
“If you can start the day without caffeine,
If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,
If you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it,
If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,
If you take criticism and blame without resentment,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,
Then you probably are the family dog!”
I flunked 5 of those 7, by the way, especially in the hectic days of December. Does anybody else feel like you’ve been running non-stop since Thanksgiving? I was reminded again during this busy Advent season of a book I read many years ago by Malcom Boyd. I’m sorry to say I don’t remember much about the content of the book, but the title has remained with me for decades as a great motto for living. The title is Are You Running with Me, Jesus? We all know we are more likely to exercise if we have an accountability partner, and who could be a better companion to run life’s extraordinary journey with than the one we call Emmanuel, which means “God with us.”
If we are asked what we really, really want for Christmas, deep down, most of us would go beyond the stuff under the tree and ask for real peace – peace of mind, peace with God. Peace is a goal of all major religions. In just 24 verses of Scripture tonight from Micah, Isaiah and Luke peace is mentioned five times. My concordance says there are 392 references to peace in the Judeo-Christian Bible.
If peace is so central to our faith, why is it so illusive? Do you remember the great Wendy’s Hamburger commercials a few years ago that asked “Where’s the Beef?” My question this Christmas is “Where’s the Peace?” The Scriptures from Micah and Isaiah promising us the Prince of Peace were written over 2500 years ago. Even for the U.S. Postal Service, 2500 years is pretty slow service. It makes me wonder if the problem is not on the sending end, but on the receiving end? Maybe God’s peace does not come packaged the way we think it should look and we miss it.
Where’s the peace? Peace is what we say we most want in our lives – and yet our actions are often inconsistent with our words. We all profess to know that money can’t buy happiness – but we don’t act like we believe it. In the midst of the worst economic recession in nearly a century, guess how much Americans spent Thanksgiving weekend. $52 billion. How much peace will those purchases really bring, especially when the credit card bills come home to roost early in 2012?
We have most of our troops officially out of Iraq one day, and we’re talking about intervening in North Korea the next. Violence masquerades as entertainment on video and movie screens. Where’s the Peace?
When baby Jesus grows up he preaches a sermon that says, “Blessed are the Meek.” Wait a minute, Jesus – maybe we don’t want peace if have to be wimps to get it. Maybe what we really want is just law and order to preserve things the way we want them to be? We keep looking for a superhero who will solve all of our problems, and who do we get? A puny helpless baby born in a barn. Isaiah promised, “A Little child shall lead them?” And we say, huh? Kids have no power, no influence. Where’s the peace?
One of characteristics of those who find peace is a willingness to be surprised – to think outside the box – to embrace serendipity and ambiguity and admit we don’t know – to laugh at ourselves instead of others. The modern innkeeper in our skit tonight saw human potential in a homeless man where her hotel doorman could only see a problem
Could it be that God’s peace is different from ours? In John 14 where Jesus is saying farewell to his disciples before the crucifixion he says, “My peace I give you – not as the world gives do I give to you.”
We don’t’ get it, and that’s why God persists. That’s why we need Christmas every year and worship and prayer on a regular basis. Luke tells us that the Messiah will “guide our feet into the way of peace.” And even better, God gives us all kinds of road signs to help us stay on that path. The Scriptures are very clear about the characteristics of peace – forgiveness, mercy, love, faith, hope, humility. Those are the real gifts of Christmas, and they are never the wrong color or size. You don’t ever have to return them to the store. And best of all you can regift them all as often as you like. In fact it is highly recommended to share the gifts of forgiveness, mercy, love, faith, hope, humility as often as you possibly can.
Peace is not an easy journey, and that’s why we need Jesus to run with us. The powers of evil never rest and are very creative. Beware of the prosperity gospel that tries to turn disciples into consumers. The abundant life Jesus promises is not one of ease and comfort and wealth. It is a life of abundant faith and peace no matter what our life situation may be. We want to believe what Fred Craddock calls the “almost Bible” statement that says, when the Messiah comes there will be no more suffering. That’s almost right, but what the Scriptures really say quite different, “Where there is suffering, there the Messiah will come.”
That’s what the Christmas story shows us if we don’t miss the irony of where the baby Jesus is born. He is a helpless, poor, homeless kid revealed to shepherds in a country living under the oppressive rule of a despot like king Herod who kills babies for fun. The beloved Christmas story is so familiar we forget how radical it is. It’s so hard to fathom that the Magi, the so called wise ones, went to the wrong town, to King Herod’s palace, the absolute wrong place in search of the Messiah. Like us, they were looking for peace in all the wrong places. Where’s the peace?
[At this point I walk over to the Nativity Scene] Our nativity scene looks so peaceful and serene, but anyone who’s ever been in a barn full of animals know it can be a very noisy, smelly place – but even there surrounded by the most basic reality of life what does the infant Messiah do? He “sleeps in heavenly peace.”
[I pick up the doll from the manger and carry him out toward the congregation]
Have you ever held a sleeping infant in your arms? There is no more peaceful, wonderful feeling in the world. A sleeping infant is so trusting, so helpless and innocent, even when they have been screaming and driving you up the wall for hours. The minute he or she falls asleep in your arms the baby becomes a warm, cuddly bundle of pure peace and joy
[The members of the congregation were all given a small piece of a baby blanket with baby powder on it as they came into the service]
I invite you to take the piece of baby blanket you were given tonight and feel its softness. Hold it to your cheek and smell it. Close your eyes and feel the joy of knowing that the Prince of Peace still comes into our broken lives and hectic world – and where “meek souls will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in.” And we too can sleep in heavenly peace.
[Kiss baby and put him back in manger]
Room at the Inn
A Drama for Christmas Eve, 2011, Lighting of the Christ Candle, Jerome UMC
[The four Advent candles are lit before the service begins]
One: One of the traditional things we do very Christmas Eve is the lighting of the Christ Candle. Do you ever wonder why we do all the things we do at Christmas? We sing the same songs, eat the same foods, decorate our homes and our churches with the same lights and ornaments, read the same Scriptures. I wonder if we really stop to think about why we do those things or what they mean. Are we just going through the motions? Are all of these traditions just habits—things we do every year, well, because that’s what we do every year?
[Two hurries in late for worship, well dressed, checks his cell phone for messages and puts it away]
One: Excuse me, sir, maybe you can help me. I was just trying to figure out why we do all the things we do to celebrate the birth of a simple peasant child who was born over 2000 years ago. And why do we all these people come to church on a cold dark Saturday night?
Two: I can’t imagine being anywhere else tonight.
One: So does that mean that coming to church is just part of the holiday tradition for you – like decorations and holiday parties? You buy gifts, you send Christmas cards and you go to church?
Two: No, not at all. Without Jesus’ birth, none of those other things would happen at all. Christmas isn’t just about what happened in Bethlehem so long ago. That’s important history, but what happens in here (points to his heart) that’s what really counts.
One: What do you mean?
Two: Let me tell you my story. I used to be kind of a Bah Humbug guy when it came to Christmas. I thought I had outgrown all that baby Jesus stuff. I left home for college, partied hearty, if you know what I mean, flunked out of school and dropped out of church. My family disowned me. I couldn’t pay my rent. I was hungry and cold, walking the streets of Columbus in February.
One: Well, you look pretty well off now. What changed?
Two: Things changed on a very cold, dark night like tonight. I slipped into the Hyatt downtown, just to get in out of the cold and wind for a little while. I sneaked in when the doorman was busy with someone else. But he saw me and immediately came over to tell me only paying guests were welcome in the lobby. He began to escort me back out onto the street, and I was at the end of my rope.
One: I’m so sorry. [pause] But you’re here now. Something major must have happened to turn things around?
Two: Sure did, and not just some thing but some one. Just as I was being kicked out of the Hyatt, this well-dressed woman with a brief case was leaving. Turns out she was the hotel manager and was leaving for the night. She stopped and asked the doorman what was going on. When the doorman said he was just following company policy and removing someone out who would scare off paying customers, the manager thanked him for doing his job. But I guess she could see how desperate I was. I’m sure she had family waiting for her at home, but for some reason she took pity on me. She invited me back into the hotel restaurant and bought me a steak dinner. It was fantastic. I hadn’t eaten for days. But what blew my mind was that she sat down at the table and talked to me. She treated me like she would a paying guest or a business partner. I couldn’t believe it. And then, it got even crazier.
One: How could it get any crazier than that?
Two: When she learned I was homeless and had no job, she asked if I’d like to work for the hotel. She gave me a job on the spot, and then she told me I could stay in one of the hotel rooms until I could find a place of my own. I thought I was dreaming, but I wasn’t.
When I tried to thank her, she said something I have never forgotten. It turned my life around.
One: What did she say that could have that much impact on you?
Two: She said, “Don’t thank me. Give God the Glory and thank Jesus for leading me to you.” [pause] That’s why tonight is so special – because Christ lives in the hearts of people who share his love and peace with others.
One: [pause] Thank you so much for sharing your witness about the true meaning of Christmas. Merry Christmas. [They shake hands and Two goes to take his/her seat in the congregation.
One: [Goes to Advent Wreath] As we light the Christ Candle this Christmas eve, our prayer is that the Peace and Love of Christ will shine brightly in all of our hearts, this night and always. [lights the Christ candle]
Joseph: Lessons of Love
[Note: This is the brief drama for lighting the 4th Advent candle at Jerome UMC]
[First 3 Advent candles are lit at the beginning of the service]
Interviewer: Can you feel the anticipation, church, as our extraordinary journey draws so close to the big day? Three candles are already glowing on our Advent Wreath. Along the way we have talked with Zechariah about Hope, with Mary about Faith, and last week with an angel about Joy. On this 4th and final Sunday of Advent our special guest is a carpenter from Nazareth.
[Joseph enters dressed in contemporary work clothes wearing a tool belt, pencil behind his ear]
Interviewer: Thank you for coming to share your story with us, Joseph. How would you describe your experience of the events surrounding Jesus’ birth?
Joseph: My journey began with our prearranged marriage. Our parents certainly picked well for me. Mary was so beautiful and she has such a strong faith. I was truly blessed to have a wife of such noble character. The custom for us is to wait an entire year after we were engaged before the marriage vows are finalized. That year of being apart and waiting seemed like forever. But Mary was worth the wait because I loved her.
Interviewer: But I understand that your waiting turned out to be much harder than you expected.
Joseph: That’s an understatement! There was a night that left me feeling so cold and alone, in total shock. Mary’s news broke my heart when she told me she was pregnant. My head was spinning and my heart pounding. I knew I wasn’t the father? I was so hurt and angry and confused. I wrestled with my decision all night long. How could I marry her now? I wanted to just divorce her quietly. But I knew the punishment for adultery was death by stoning. I couldn’t let that happen to my dear Mary.
Interviewer: What a terrible dilemma! How did you ever decide what to do?
Joseph: The answer came to me in a dream. An angel appeared to me and said, “Joseph, don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because the child conceived in her is the result of a miracle performed by the Holy Spirit.” The angel said, “You will name the baby Jesus, because he will save the people from their sins.” When I woke up I knew what I should do. The stars were brighter and my heart lighter as I ran to tell Mary my decision. I decided I would be the best husband and father I could possibly be.
Interviewer: What was the most important thing you learned from this amazing journey?
Joseph: Oh we learned a lot through some very turbulent times. I got another message from God when Jesus was very tiny warning us that Herod was going to kill all the baby boys, and we had to flee to Egypt to save Jesus’ life. Being a father to such an unusual boy wasn’t easy, but through it all God has taught us so much about love – love for each other and God’s love for us and ours for Him. The real miracle was that God’s son became my son too. He was bonded into my life by love.
Interviewer: What an incredible story. [Lighting the 4th candle] As we light this 4th Advent candle, may the love Joseph showed for Jesus grow in each of our hearts as well.
Peacefully Harsh 