Category: Faith and Politics

Will the Circle Be Unbroken?

by Steve Harsh, posted in Aging to Sageing, Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, Faith and Values

I attended a Bluegrass Festival with some friends a few weeks ago and have been singing or humming “May the Circle Be Unbroken” ever since. Bluegrass is not my music of choice; so I’ve been pondering why that song has stuck in my head. There are good memories of singing that song around campfires when I was a youth minister many years ago. But it has taken on a deeper more pervasive meaning lately. Some of that became clearer to me this week after a depressing visit with my 94 year old father who has outlived his mental and physical faculties and is miserable. Is there a better day coming for him and his wife suffering from dementia?

I don’t think it’s in the sky but where? What? How? Those questions become more relevant as morality pounds harder on my door each day, in aches and pains, friends in surgery, cancer diagnoses and biopsies, longer list of things I can no longer do. I’ve toyed with the lyrics of that song by changing the “e” to an “i” in “better,” i.e., “There’s a bitter day a coming….” That’s what happens when we turn in on ourselves, we get bitter and go victim. “Why me?” “It’s not fair!” “Why didn’t I take better care of myself?” “Let’s try one more miracle supplement that flows out of the fountain of youth!” Fear springs from the unknown “in the sky” or in some place of darkness, from regrets over a lifetime of sin or just dumb mistakes we can never erase.

Fear is epidemic in our society. I was at a wedding reception recently where I was told one of the men at my table was carrying a concealed weapon “because you never know what might happen.” The next week my relatives at a family gathering were discussing preparedness drills for an active shooter at their little country church and in their schools where children are being taught to throw anything they can find at a shooter ala David versus Goliath–only Goliath didn’t have his NRA sanctioned AR 15.

A father was shot dead last Friday in front of his six kids and wife in a burglary in our affluent “safe” suburb. And today Ted Koppel was on the morning news talking about his new book Lights Out, about the coming cyber-attack that will paralyze our society. The temptation to buy some guns and a generator and become a survivalist is so strong even I feel it tugging at me. There is a little solace for me that I’m old enough I may not have to deal with the worst of the Hunger Games scenario, but I fear for my kids and grandkids and feel hopeless and helpless to do anything significant to help them.

Will the circle be unbroken? Or has human depravity and selfishness reached epic proportions that strain the bonds of civility beyond the breaking point? Is Jesus’ pacifist advice to turn the other cheek and put away our swords just naïve idealism? Those are not verses that fearful Christians cite when they turn to Scripture for comfort. I quoted Isaiah (2:4) and Micah (4:3) once to a life-long Christian, the verses about “beating our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks,” and she said that in 60 years of going to church she didn’t remember ever hearing those words! Unless prophetic voices stand up to the fear mongers and proclaim a message of hope and reason to a world gone mad, the circle may indeed be broken.

I remember being this depressed about the state of the world back in 1972 after Nixon’s landslide victory in spite of Watergate and the protests about the Vietnam War. I wrote a letter to the editor saying that all we could do now was “wait for the inevitable judgment of God.” 43 years later we are still here. We’ve survived that war in SE Asia, the resignation of Nixon and his Vice President, 9/11 and a host of other terrorist attacks, too many mass shootings to count, a huge economic recession, and at least so far several ill-advised wars in the Middle East that have only fanned the flame of hatred in that cauldron of religious and ideological conflict that is the eternal flame of human strife and animosity.

The circle is frayed and contorted out of shape, but it is still unbroken; and that last paragraph is a micro-second in the eternity of the cosmic circle viewed from God’s perspective. As we scroll backward in time through Holocaust, Civil War, Slavery, Genocide of native people, the Dark Ages, the Crusades, Roman, Greek, Syrian, Egyptian, Ottoman Empires, the rise and fall of numerous Dynasties in China and Japan, Exile and Exodus, Stone Age and Ice Ages, and all the other eras of our planet’s history that I missed in history class, our current fears and woes are put in better perspective.

In every generation there have been concerns about the elasticity and tenacity of the circle, and it is still unbroken. That is not an excuse to blithely bury our heads in the sand or in our parochial platitudes. We must counter the fear mongers with words and lives of hope and visions of peace in any way we can. And remembering the great circle maker and sustainer gives us the courage to witness to our faith even when fear and doubt threaten to overwhelm us.

Finding Our Way Back to God: The Search for Meaning, Micah 6:1-8

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, Faith and Values

Many years ago I overheard a dinner table conversation between my in-laws that stuck with me. This was back in the days before bucket seats and consoles with gear shifts and cup holders began dividing the front seats of cars like the Berlin wall. For those who don’t remember those good old days, the front seat was a bench seat and dating couples could snuggle up close to each other while driving. We didn’t need cell phones to be guilty of distracted driving. My in-laws had been married for many years at this point, and my mother-in-law was reminiscing about their dating days and how she used to sit over in the middle right next to her beloved. And she asked, “Why don’t we do that anymore?” Her husband got a mischievous grin on his face and said, “Well, I’m not the one who moved.”

As we consider how we find our way back to God the first thing we need to remember is that God isn’t the one who moved either. And our text from Micah addresses the question of how we make that journey.

We sometimes move away from God because we are searching for purpose and meaning for life in a scary confusing world. What is our passion, our purpose for living? What gets us out of bed in the morning saying? And how we answer that question is one of the keys to finding our way back to God when we feel lost and like running away.

The most familiar verse in the book of Micah is one attempt to wrestle with the search for the meaning of life and our relationship with God. Micah 6:8 says, “God has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? That verse is Micah’s reply to the question raised two verses earlier – “With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high?” This is familiar format for an entrance litany as Jews prepare themselves for worship – asking what must we do to please God, to make ourselves worthy of God’s presence and blessing?

Part of our struggle when we feel removed from God is centered in that basic question – am I good enough? And when we feel like we are not, what does God do about that? When we mess up do we get what we deserve from God? I hope not. And if we feel like we don’t have a clear purpose for our lives or we are failing to achieve it, it’s hard to feel all warm and fuzzy about God.

What is your why for living? Unless we can answer that question we are just going through the motions in some kind of cosmic rat race, and that feeling of meaninglessness is not conducive to closeness with God.

Micah prophesied at the beginning of that time when Israel and Judah were in the deep trouble that eventually led to the Exile. The Assyrian empire was threatening their very existence; the rulers of Israel had put their trust in foreign alliances instead of in the ways of God, investing vast sums in armaments instead of taking care of their own citizens, going into crippling debt by borrowing from the Assyrians. Sound familiar?

Listen to how the NRSV introduces the book of Micah: “Micah offered a theological interpretation of the dizzying events near the end of the 8th century: the fall of Samaria, the expansion of Jerusalem fueled by emigrants from the north, and the international situation made unstable by an aggressive superpower, Assyria.” So this question about the meaning of life and what we must do to please God was not some idle Sunday School discussion topic for Micah – it was a matter of life and death, and it still is.

Micah begins chapter 6 with an Imperative – “Listen up people to what the Lord says.” He then portrays the situation of Israel being on trial for breaking her covenant relationship with God. Then follows a quick review of God’s salvation history with Israel. Micah begins with the seminal event in Israel’s history, how God chose Moses, Aaron and Miriam to lead the people out of slavery in Egypt. Secondly he highlights a much less familiar, at least to us, story of Balaam’s encounter with King Balak of Moab during the long wilderness journey of the Exodus, and wraps it up with a reference to two cities representing the crossing of the River Jordan, Shittim on the east side of the Jordan and Gilgal on the west in the Promised land.

If you’re like me, the exodus from Egypt and the crossing of the Jordan are familiar stories, but the Balaam and Balak reference, not so much. We’ll come back to it because it’s a really cool story, but for now let’s just say Micah uses it to remind the people of one of many times during the 40 years in the wilderness that God rescued the Israelites and helped them overcome obstacles and enemies that stood in their way to freedom and promise.
So with a God who has done all that for his people, people are asking why have things gone so sour? Their world is going to hell in a handbasket. They feel abandoned and alienated from this God who has been their deliverer and savior for centuries.

They need to remember, God isn’t the one who moved – God is faithful and just forever; so when we feel separated from God, the question is what do we need to do to get back next to God.

Micah responds by turning to the question of worthiness and atonement. Verse 6 says “With what shall I come before the Lord.” How can I find my way back to God? And then follows a litany of sacrifices that gets increasingly ridiculous – the best calves, 1000 rams, 10000 rivers of oil, and first born children. You see, the Jews are big on laws. We’re familiar with the top ten list from Mt. Sinai, but those tedious books of Leviticus and Numbers that we don’t often read spend a lot of time explaining the 10 commandments and trying to legislate specific rules and regulations for daily life in order to fulfill what God requires. There are 613 laws the Jews tried to live up to –- and they didn’t’ have any apps to keep track of those. So obviously, being the imperfect fallible human beings they were, they needed a way to make amends with God when they messed up, which was often.

And their system for getting back in God’s graces was offering sacrifices to God. These were ritualistic acts of worship, but as Micah and the other prophets point out, to attend church regularly and perform all the necessary rituals doesn’t mean squat if you go on living unjust, sinful lives the rest of the time.

So finally we get to verse 8 where Micah summarizes what the faithful life looks like in three short phrases – what does the Lord require? – do justice, love mercy or kindness, and walk humbly with God. That’s the way to a life of meaning and purpose, that’s the way back to God. It’s not just something we can do but encompasses who we are called to be. I heard a wonderful sermon once that took its theme from a Frank Sinatra song, “Strangers in the Night,” and in particular from the profound refrain to that song that just says, “do be do be do.” The preacher said if you change that phrase and take out the “be” all you have left is “do do.”

We are not human doings – we are human beings, and faithful living is a holistic process that encompasses all that we are, not just some segmented religious part of our life. Micah lists justice, mercy and humility, qualities that include active doing – working for justice, treating others with mercy and kindness as a way of being –not out of sense of duty or obligation, but simply because in a faithful, loyal relationship with God, we take on those qualities of being.

Pope Francis is a fascinating example of what Micah describes here. The Pope is beloved by so many people because of his humility. He has rejected the usual pomposity of his office, traveling in a little Fiat, taking time to listen to a little girl trying to keep her immigrant parents in this country, spending time with the homeless, washing stinky feet. He walks the walk and because he does so he can also advocate for justice in the halls of Congress and get a standing ovation for the golden rule from a badly broken and partisan legislature.
Francis has been criticized for being too political, but that’s where justice has to happen, in the political arena where too often the rules that perpetuate poverty are passed by the powerful for the benefit of the powerful.

We sometimes use separation of church and state as an excuse for not getting our hands dirty in the messy business of politics, but that’s a misunderstanding of the first amendment to our constitution. It says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” It doesn’t say religion can’t influence the making and implementation of the laws and policies we live by. In fact Micah and the prophets and Jesus are all very clear that God wants laws that are just and that part of the free exercise of our faith is to help make that happen.

Speaking of church and state, let’s go back to King Balak and Balaam for a moment. The whole story is in Numbers 22-24, and I’d encourage you to read it. It is no accident that Micah uses this story in this section about justice and mercy and humility. The short version of the story is that the Israelites are on their way through the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land and one of the many hostile territories they have to pass through is Moab. King Balak sees the vast number of these illegal immigrants heading into his country and orders the prophet Balaam to curse them and drive them away. (Sort of like building a big fence?) But Balaam consults a higher authority, and God tells him, don’t curse these people for they are blessed. In a humorous scene, when Balaam’s faith wavers a bit his faithful donkey sees God’s angel blocking their path when Balaam can’t see the angel, and the donkey prevents Balaam from giving in to King Balak.

Three times Balak pleads and begs with Balaam to curse the Hebrew people, trying to bribe him with great wealth and power, but Balaam holds fast and tells this powerful ruler that he must do and say only what God has told him. Instead of cursing the Israelites he blesses them and they continue on their way toward the Promised Land.
What does the Lord require of us? Balaam and his donkey’s kind of courage and steadfast faithfulness – refusing to give into unjust, unethical demands of the world, even when it would seem to benefit us to do so. And how do we do that? By walking humbly with God as our constant companion and spiritual guide.
Finding God’s meaning and purpose for most of us is not about one burning bush moment. It’s a journey not a destination. It’s about a total body of work, a life of working for justice for the least and lost, of being kind and merciful to everyone, and doing it all not to earn brownie points with God but to simply share God’s love with the world.
John Wesley famously said when he was kicked out of the Church of England, “The World is My Parish.” And he took his ministry to the streets and to the open fields where people who did not feel welcome and worthy in the church were looking for their purpose and trying to find their way back to God.

On this World Communion Sunday, when our world seems to be on the way to the same destruction that befell Samaria and Jerusalem, the Word from God is this: Listen up People, I have not moved, trust my ways. Do not be overwhelmed or despair. I know your sins and they have not driven me away and never will. Don’t worry about paying for your sins, that has already been done by Jesus Christ, and your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to be Christ-like in humble, merciful service, to work for justice in whatever part of my world you are in – I’m right here with you always.

Benediction: May God grant us the vision of Balaam’s donkey to see that God is not the one who has moved. God is on this journey with us to empower and lead us. By our own strength we cannot live just and merciful lives all the time, but if we humbly walk with God, he will show us the way. That is our purpose. Let’s go.

Walls or Bridges?

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, Faith and Values

“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, that wants it down!” Robert Frost, “Mending Wall”

O God of unity, forgive our walls made of concertina wire. Forgive our walls of fear and hate, fortified with ideology and suspicion. Forgive our scarcity mentality that hoards life and refuses refuge to the homeless and hopeless. Remind us again that we are to treat the sojourner and alien in our midst as one of us because we are all one human family, that how we treat the least of our sisters and brothers is how we treat you.

The need is overwhelming, but your love oh God is boundless and unconditional. Renew our faith that all things are possible with you; swing wide the gates of our hearts and empower us with your Holy Spirit to build bridges of hope instead of ugly walls. Amen.

Blowing in the Wind: Hiroshima and Our Addiction to Violence

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, Faith and Values

hiroshima
With so much political posturing dominating the news this week there seems to be little notice in the U.S. that today is the 70th anniversary of the first atomic bomb dropped on Japan. I’m sure the date is not forgotten in Hiroshima. August 6, 1945 has been a somber day for me ever since I learned about it in school. Even though I wasn’t born until 15 months after it occurred, what happened in that Japanese city at 8:15 that morning changed the world I was born into forever.

Diana and I visited Japan several years ago, and the horror of that event was made even more real. As we stood on the very spot where so much death and devastation took place, we saw pictures and read accounts of the unbelievable power unleashed on that city, of the 70,000 people who were annihilated by the blast and perhaps 200,000 more who died later after horrible suffering from radiation poisoning.

Many arguments about the pros and cons of the decision to drop that bomb and the one 3 days later on Nagasaki have been offered, and I appreciate that ethical and political debate. The truth is that whether dropping the bombs was justified or not, the atomic genie can’t be put back into the bottle. The question as always is what to do now with the reality we have.

I am haunted by Einstein’s assessment of the significance of this day. He said, “The splitting of the atom changed everything, save man’s mode of thinking. Thus we drift towards unparalleled catastrophe.” Yes, we have managed to avoid nuclear annihilation for 70 years, and that’s a good thing. Except for the people unfortunate enough to live near Chernobyl or Three Mile Island or Fukushima the human race has been smart enough or lucky enough to avoid nuclear disaster. We will probably never know how close we have come on many occasions, and the tensions with Russia and Iran and North Korea, not to mention the threat of nukes falling into the hands of terrorist groups, mean we still have not changed the mode of our thinking.

Why has humankind always used every new technology to develop more deadly ways to maim and kill each other? Every advance in science seems to carry with it a dark side of destruction. Chariots, horses, airplanes, ships and rockets become delivery systems for death. Chemical gases, Nobel’s invention of dynamite, even pressure cookers can and have been turned into weapons—just the opposite of the biblical vision of beating “swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” (Isaiah 2:4)

A friend emailed me a piece today about the positive uses of drones to deliver medicine with the comment that drones have been getting bad publicity lately. My response was, “No, some idiots flying drones have been getting bad publicity.” It isn’t the technology that is the problem; it is our failure to use it wisely. And that failure usually stems from fear.

Fear is the enemy of the moral courage to change the way we think and stop the madness of violence as the default solution to our conflicts and problems. Another wise friend sent me these statistics yesterday. “In the US we had about 34,000 gunshot deaths in 2013, two thirds of which are actually suicides. Germany had about 200, and Canada and Britain had even less. Somebody has to have the moral courage to say that this is crazy, to have 300 million firearms in one nation, and that all it does is to lead to thousands of deaths.”

There is an old folk song that asks a question that is as relevant today as it was in 1945 or when Bob Dylan asked it in 1963: “How many deaths will it take till we know that too many people have died?” Dylan’s answer was that “the answer my friend is blowing in the wind.” I don’t know if Dylan knew that the Hebrew word for wind, “ruach,” is also the word for “spirit” and “breath.” So that song for me says the answer is blowing in the life-breathing spirit of God, and only there.

The answer is not more and bigger bombs. The answer is not more guns. The answer is to examine our fears that drive us to build gated communities, to propose building walls on our borders to keep others out. Instead of repairing roads, educating our children, alleviating poverty, and addressing social injustice, we spend obscene amounts of money and resources on defense because we are afraid. The gun lobby sells more and more automatic weapons that have no purpose but to kill other people because we are afraid. Wealthy lobbies buy more and more congressional votes because our legislators are afraid to take courageous stands that will cost them their office and lifetime benefits. The church is silent about being peacemakers and turning the other cheek because we are afraid those unpopular views will cost us members and contributions.

I started a series a few months ago on Pentecost and the power of the Holy Spirit as described in Acts 2 (see posts from May 26 and June 14). I haven’t finished that series because other issues keep grabbing my attention. I didn’t realize when I started this post that I would come back around to Pentecost.

“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:1-4)

The forces of fear are powerful and real and require an even stronger power to overcome them. They cannot be conquered by any human technology or ideology. Fear paralyzes our ability to reason and recognize the futility and foolishness of our attempts to save our lives and our stuff through arms. We can learn a valuable lesson from Alcoholics Anonymous about our addiction to bigger and badder weaponry or security systems. AA knows we cannot conquer an addiction without surrendering to a higher power.

That higher power blew through Jerusalem on Pentecost and changed lives and the world forever. And the answer to stopping the violence in our theaters and schools and churches and to defusing the nuclear nightmare is still blowing in the ruach of God.

Blow, holy wind, blow away our fears.

Critics Welcome? Amos 6:1a, 3-7

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, Faith and Values

I was back at Northwest UMC this week for a sermon in a series called “From Tablet to Table.” The table metaphor for community reminded me of sitting at the kids’ table when my large extended family gathered for holiday feasts. Kids sat at card tables in the kitchen or living room while the adults got to fly first class in the dining room. I remember the first time I got invited to move up to the big table. I was scared to death I would screw up and spill my milk or break some rule of dining etiquette that I didn’t even know existed and get sent back down to the minors.

Who do we confine to the kids’ table when it comes to the faith community or other groups we belong to? People who are different? Certainly people who irritate us or just plain make us mad. The unspoken rule at many family gatherings is that there are two topics that are taboo – politics and religion–because those emotionally charged issues can start a family feud. That’s really unfortunate because those two subjects are so central and important to how we order our lives as individuals and as a society that we really need to have meaningful dialogue about them. Amos of course breaks both rules. He stops preaching and goes to meddling as soon as he opens his mouth to warn Israel about their sinful, unjust lifestyle.

I began my sermon by repeating a story I used two weeks ago at another church (see post from July 12, 2015). It was the one about a preacher being a real “pane.” The prophet Amos certainly qualifies as one who delivers painful words that afflict the comfortable. The prophets remind me of teachers and professors I had over the years that were demanding and critical–the ones who kept putting on my report cards in grade school that I “didn’t work up to my potential.” Or the homiletics professor who dared to flunk me on the first sermon I preached in class! They were not candidates for my favorite teacher of the year award. My knee jerk reaction to their criticism was anger and looking at the course catalogue to see if I could drop the course. Fortunately in most cases that was not an option, and with the benefit of many years of life experience I know now that those teachers were the ones from whom I learned the most because they challenged me with the truth.

My wife and I were eating at a super market recently that offers free food on Friday nights to entice shoppers into the store. As we were moving down the buffet line we saw one of the servers refilling a large salad bowl with his bare hands – no gloves, no tongs. Diana made a comment to him that he really shouldn’t be doing that with his hands. He reacted very defensively, as we often do when we know we are in the wrong, and his words as he dramatically dumped the entire bowl of spinach salad into the trash we very telling. He said, “Lady, this is free food. Either accept it graciously or refuse it graciously.” I was angry at his response; so the irony of what he said didn’t strike me until later. He talked about graciousness, but the way he accepted her criticism was anything but gracious.

Do we welcome and encourage dissent at our table and accept honest criticism with grace and gratitude, or are we more like the people who say, “My mind’s made up; don’t confuse me with the facts?”

Here’s the context for Amos’ criticism of Israel. Amos was the first of the classic Hebrew prophets. He doesn’t get top billing in our Bible because the creators of the canon apparently gave more weight to quantity than quality. The books of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel all are much longer; so they are traditionally known as the Major Prophets, and Amos, Hosea, Jonah and others sit at the kids’ table as the Minor Prophets. But chronologically Amos was the first to voice concerns about the direction that his people were going. He lived in the first half of the 8th century BCE during the long and peaceful reign of Jeroboam II (788-747 BCE). This was the golden age of Israel, the height of territorial expansion and prosperity never again reached. My NRSV introduction to Amos contains a sentence describing the socio-economic situation that I had to read several times because I thought I was reading a current event headline. “Through manipulations of debt and credit, wealthy landowners amassed capital and estates at the expense of small farmers and robbed them of their inheritance and liberty.” Amos understood that situation all too well because he was a small farmer and herder from a little village in Judah.

This was the period after Israel had split into two kingdoms, Israel in the north, sometimes referred to as Samaria, and Judah in the south where Jerusalem was. Amos is from Judah, but he feels compelled by God to travel to Israel and warn them about their decadent opulence and immorality, their abuse of the Lord’s table. In one of the most famous lines he tells them God says, “I hate I despise your festivals and take no delight in your solemn assemblies… I will not listen to the melodies of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an overflowing stream” (5: 2).

To paraphrase the text from chapter 6, if Amos were at our table today, he would probably be saying something like this:

“1Alas for those who are at ease in Dublin,
and for those who feel secure on Mad River Mountain,
4 Alas for those who lie on sleep number beds,
and lounge on their recliners,
6 who drink wine from fine crystal,
and anoint themselves with the finest oils from Bath and Body Works,
but are not grieved over the ruin of America!
7 Therefore they shall now be the first to go into exile,
and the revelry of the loungers shall pass away.

Those are hard words to hear. How do you suppose Amos was received at the table? Not well. He tells us in chapter 7 about the reaction of Amaziah, chief priest of the royal sanctuary at Bethel. Amaziah says, “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.” Notice that it is not God’s sanctuary, or God’s kingdom, but the king’s. That one sentence tells us all we need to know about what was rotten in Israel. Their priorities were 180 degrees out of whack. Amaziah doesn’t want to hear that so he says to Amos, “Shut up and go home – back down to kids’ table where we don’t have to deal with you.”

Amos went home, but he wasn’t exactly quiet. He wrote down his prophesies so we can still benefit from them 3000 years later if are willing to listen. You can’t silence the word of God by ignoring it. When Jesus was entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the authorities told him to silence his crowd of supporters, and he said, “If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” (Luke 19:40)

Welcoming words of criticism is not easy or natural. When we go to a party or a dinner or church, most of us gravitate toward people we know and enjoy. We don’t usually seek out people who are different from us and certainly not people who irritate us or just plain make us mad. So if we are to have honest dialogue and benefit from criticism and diversity we have to intentionally invite people to the table who can bring those gifts.
I was fortunate to be part of two such intentionally diverse communities in my life. They didn’t help me as much as I wish they had since welcoming criticism graciously is still very hard for me. The first model of what communication scholars call cooperative critical inquiry that I was privileged to be a part of from 1989-2007 is the Interprofessional Commission of Ohio.

The ICO is an organization housed at The Ohio State University whose mission is to promote and teach interprofessional collaboration to students and practitioners in the helping professions. The model for accomplishing that goal is offer graduate level interdisciplinary courses in collaboration, ethics, and community organization that include students and faculty from a wide range of professions: law, medicine, nursing, allied health, education, social work, and theology. It also includes sponsoring continuing education conferences for practicing professionals in all those fields on a range of topics from Aids to Urban Sprawl and Smart Growth.
The content of those courses and conferences is important, but more significant is the fact that they are vehicles for bringing all of those individuals together around tables where they can share ideas and concerns and get to know each other in ways that would not otherwise happen. Misinformation and stereotypes about what other professions do and what they can bring to the table to help solve complex problems that are too much for any given profession to address alone are shared and lines of communication are opened.

Even further back in my past, when I was an undergraduate at Ohio State in the 1960’s, I lived in a rooming house sponsored by the Wesley Foundation, the United Methodist campus ministry. There were two houses actually, one for men and one for women, but they were not ordinary rooming houses. They were intentional living communities of about 20 residents each, and in order to live there you had to make two commitments. The first was to participate in a house meeting every Sunday evening facilitated by two pastors trained in group dynamics and conflict management. The agenda each week was to simply air any grievances and talk about any issues that were affecting life in the house so we could manage them before they became bigger issues.

The second commitment had to do with roommates. We changed roommates every quarter, and the process for doing that was to have each person submit a list of 2 or 3 people that he was having the most trouble relating to for whatever reason; and roommates for the next quarter were chosen from that list. It was an intentional way of effectively addressing problems and expanding our ability to relate to a variety of other people. It wasn’t a perfect system, but it was better than the way we usually deal with conflict by ignoring it until it gets too big to deal with.

People who live together and socialize get to know each other as people with common dreams, fears and problems. It’s probably too much to hope that the Trumps and McCains and Boehners and McConnels could all move into the White House and learn to live together, but it is true that part of the partisan problem in Washington is created by the fact that representatives and senators no longer live in the DC area with their families the way they did a generation or two ago. It is so easy to fly back home on weekends that many of them do that now, and the consequence is they do not socialize with each other across the aisle as they once did. Stereotypes and ideologies therefore are all they know about each other, and we see the results of that unfortunate situation which prevents dialogue and compromise to address critical problems.

Sharing dissenting opinions is a way of bringing hidden or taken-for-granted assumptions about life out into the open where they can be examined. We all tend to automatically do things the way we’ve always done them, and we assume that’s just the way it should be. But we change and life changes, and it’s good to bring those assumptions into awareness so they can be evaluated and either kept or changed. Prophets break open old ideas and prejudices that hold us back and limit our ability to learn and grow.

Prophets never win popularity contests. Galileo and Copernicus were thrown out of the church for proposing new and radical ideas about how the universe is put together. But they were right, and the old assumptions were wrong. We often feel like critics are judging us personally and have trouble separating our identity and worth from our behavior and ideas. God does not send Amos to Israel to judge or condemn but to warn the people that the consequences of their current behavior are going to lead to destruction. Those words are not easy to hear, especially for those who are comfortable and benefiting from the way things are.

We are facing major problems in our nation and world today that are not easy or simply solved. Climate change, fixing health care and social security, saving our education system, stopping the insanity of gun violence, dealing with immigration—all of those problems are going to require sacrifice on the part of us who have so the have nots are given a fair and just opportunity to live better lives. We don’t want to hear about sacrifices; so we keep kicking the can down the road and those chickens are going to come home to roost probably sooner than later. That’s what Amos was trying to tell Israel. They didn’t listen. Do we?

Genuine criticism is a gift to be embraced, not rejected, not just tolerated, but welcomed and invited to the table. It is a way to learn and grow and be challenged by different perspectives and experiences. And if it is shunned or ignored by sending the critic back to kids’ table, the consequences can be tragic.

The rest of the Amos story illustrates that point. 30-40 years after Amos tried to warn Israel of the consequences of their unjust lifestyle, in 711 BCE, the armies of King Sennacherib of Assyria invaded Israel, conquered them and the Exile of God’s once proud people begins. Judah lasted 136 years longer, but they didn’t listen to the prophets either; and in 586 BCE Jerusalem fell, the temple was destroyed by the Babylonians, and the nation of Israel has never been the same again.

When God’s prophets speak uncomfortable words of truth, it pays to listen.

Radical Hospitality through Empathy

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, Faith and Values

“15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. 18 If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” (Romans 12:15-18)

This has been a remarkable and historical week in our country. In fact the two decisions handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 24 hour span are some of the most dramatic events ever in a city that thrives on drama. Yesterday the court upheld the Affordable Care Act by a surprising 6-3 margin, and today same sex marriage was ruled a constitutional right in all 50 states. To be clear, I agree with both decisions. If I were a member of the court I would have voted with the majority on both cases. The two decisions are cause for great joy and celebration by those who agree with the court. For many others they feel like a bitter defeat and cause for great alarm and concern.

Knowing those two radically different perspectives exist, the verses above from Romans 12 have been running through my head all day, especially verse 15, which says “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” Notice Paul is not saying we have to agree with others or embrace their views; we just need to empathize and understand the feelings of others. These verses are in a section with the heading “Marks of a True Christian” in the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, and they lift up a high standard of radical hospitality. It’s easy to rejoice with those who rejoice if we agree with them. Everyone loves a good party. Likewise it is easy to weep with those who weep if we share their grief.

Where the hospitality gets radical is when we disagree, when we don’t identify with those who are celebrating or mourning something we don’t agree with. To have empathy for those with whom we vehemently disagree is very hard, but without respect and understanding for those we differ with, there is no hope to “live in harmony with one another” or to “live peaceably with all.” Those qualities of living in community define the very essence of Jesus’ teaching and of the early church described in Acts 2. So whether you are rejoicing or weeping over the recent Supreme Court decisions, the bigger goal of unity and peace in our diverse nation and world depends on our ability to be empathetic and understanding of those on both sides of the issues.

Empathy requires some creative imagination. I have been blessed with the good fortune by accident of my birth as a white male in a prosperous family and country to never suffer oppression. I have never been without adequate health care and my freedom to marry the person I am in love with has never been questioned or denied. So I have not experienced the realities that the people most affected by these court decisions have. Empathy requires me to make the effort to imagine what those experiences have been like, and even more so it requires me to get out of my comfort zone and spend time with people who have lived that life. Only then can I overcome my fear of those who seem different from me and discover and embrace the common humanity we all share if we can get past the exterior differences and stereotypes. Easy? No. Necessary? Yes, and we are privileged to be living in an historical moment when radical hospitality and empathy are calling us to live into the love of Christ.

Almost forgotten with the big news out of Washington is the latest terrorist attack at Emmanuel A.M.E. church last week. The 24/7 news cycle threatens to overwhelm us with input. Much has been said and will be said about the Charleston tragedy as the 9 victims are buried this week. I personally went through at least 5 stages of grief when I heard that news—disbelief, anger, sorrow, fear, and finally a resolve to move forward speaking out for justice, facing my own racism and prejudices, and refusing to let the forces of evil go unchallenged. Praying for the victims and the killer and his family and for our nation and world is good, but it is not enough. We must find ways to live our faith as disciples of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, who lived and died and rose again for all of God’s children.

I do not believe it is a coincidence that the name of the church in Charleston is “Emmanuel.” Emmanuel means “God with us.” It is a name we use to describe the incarnation of God in Christ. Most of all today it is a reminder that no matter what the tragedy or where we stand on controversial issues, or how divided we may seem as a nation and world, the one constant truth is that God is still with us, always, forever, and anchored in that presence we move forward with confidence and faith. Thanks be to God who gives us the victory.

Look, We CAN Communicate: Pentecost, Part 2, Acts 2:5-13

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, Faith and Values

My Ph.D. in Communication is both a blessing and a curse. The curse is that when people know I studied communication at the graduate level they actually expect me to be able to communicate. My excuses that my research was theoretical and in rhetoric and public speaking, not in “normal” interpersonal discourse always fall on deaf ears. I sometimes feel like the undergrad who signed up for a course in interpersonal communication only to be very disappointed the first day of class when he discovered that the course catalogue description of a course about “human intercourse” was not exactly what he expected.

You don’t need a doctorate to know that communication is hard. Words are just symbols that represent objects or feelings or relationships. As symbols they can only point to the reality they represent. Communication goes through different filters of both the sender and receiver of the communication, and those filters are unique to each person. And of course communication occurs on multiple levels – verbal, non-verbal, emotional, rational, and all of those are culturally conditioned and affected by other environmental and genetic factors. This explains the popular success of John Gray’s book, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.

Sometimes the challenges of communication produce humorous and embarrassing results. For example, “The V-for-victory sign was immortalized by Winston Churchill in the early, dark days of World War II, and the proper form is with the palm facing outward. But, a simple twist of the wrist puts you in dangerous cultural waters. Throughout much of Her Majesty’s realm, the palm-in V sign is the equivalent of the more infamous middle-digit salute.” (See the article by William Ecenbarger of the Philadelphia Enquirer for many other valuable tips on cultural competence, http://articles.philly.com/2009-02-22/news/25280966_1_taxi-driver-mumbai-desk-clerk.)

The Hebrew Scriptures explain the origins of different languages in various parts of the world via the Tower of Babel story in Genesis 11. In that story it is human pride, a belief that humans could build a tower tall enough to reach to the heavens and establish their importance that leads to this judgment from God: 6 And the LORD said, “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”

That story is a mythical way of explaining the reality that languages are unique to different cultures, countries and ethnicities. While I don’t believe God would throw that kind of monkey wrench into the communication machinery as a punishment for our pride, the language barrier is a major challenge to communication. There is a joke that defines “multi-lingual” as a person who speaks 3 or more, “bilingual” as a person who speaks two languages, and someone who speaks only one language as “an American.” That unfortunate state of affairs was demonstrated in a grocery checkout line when a woman finished a cell phone conversation in her native tongue. The man behind her in line said to her, “Excuse me, ma’am, but this is America and we speak English here. If you want to speak Spanish, go back to Mexico.” The woman calmly replied, “Sir, I was speaking Navajo. If you want to speak English, go back to England.”

The task of bridging cultural differences and communication challenges in our global village is very daunting. Technology offers help through on-line language lessons, apps and programs that automatically translate text from one language to another, and systems like the one at the United Nations where people from all over the world can hear a translation of a speaker’s words into their own language through a set of headphones. But those technologies do not solve the deeper spiritual divisions at the root of human suffering that manifests itself in prejudice, racism, economic injustice, terrorism and full scale war.

The on-going cultural and religious conflicts in our world are proof that we’ve a long way to go to overcome our failures to communicate. The Pentecost story in Acts 2 addresses those concerns, not from a technological or academic perspective, but from a spiritual point of view. Acts 2: 5-13 describes it this way: 5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.7 Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,11 Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” 12 All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13 But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

Jews and non-Jews from all over the world hear the apostles sharing their faith story in their own language. This is not some ecstatic, unintelligible speaking in tongues, but genuine communication made possible by the power of the Holy Spirit. These apostles are not educated linguists. They are common fishermen and tax collectors. They have not suddenly been empowered by Rosetta Stone; they are filled with the only force capable of overcoming human fear and division. At Pentecost the confusion of tongues from the Tower of Babel story is reversed and the response of those who have ears to hear the Gospel is both amazing and confusing.

People from all over the world have come to Jerusalem for the Pentecost Festival and some are apparently there on other business – Romans, Cretans and Arabs. The story shows us that as insurmountable as our communication barriers are, be they religious, cultural or political, we cannot just throw up are hands and say “we can’t do that!” Whatever happened in Jerusalem that day, this story makes it very clear the “this is impossible, we give up” excuse simply will not fly. It is easy to despair and say the hatred and divisions in our world today between Islam and the West, for example, are not amenable to any simple communication skills. Anyone who thinks so must be filled with new wine or smoking those funny weeds.

But this story counters with evidence that the Acts 2 audience is exactly like our multi-cultural world. A cross section of the whole world, people from Asia Mesopotamia, Judea, Egypt and Libya are identified; and the message is clear. Because they have received the gift of God’s spirit, a spirit of unity and love that is universal and offered to all of God’s creation, these apostles are able to overcome all of the cultural and communication barriers and share their amazing transformation stories in ways that are heard and understood.

That is a word of hope that our war-weary world desperately needs to hear. We may see no hope for peace and justice because we rely too much on human ways of dealing with our problems. We still think we can build towers or systems or networks that will make us the heroes and heroines of our story. The problem is it’s not our story. And when our best efforts fail, in desperation and fear we think destroying our enemies will bring peace in spite of centuries of evidence that violence and death only beget more of the same.

God’s answer that is blowing in the wind of Pentecost is that the transforming power of the God of the whole universe is the only hope for overcoming human differences and conflicts. The God of Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia is still the God of Americans and Syrians, of Islam and ISIS, of every soul that breathes; and those who dare to believe that are not crazy or filled with new wine. We are filled with the Holy Spirit of the Source of our being, and we speak a language of peace and grace that everyone can understand because it is the message that the world is longing to hear.

Peter’s summary of that message follows in Acts 2:14-36 and will be addressed in the next segment of this series on Pentecost.

(All Scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version)

Spiritual Euthanasia

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, Faith and Values

Recent debates about the Affordable Care Act and Physician-assisted suicide have prompted important ethical discussion about rationed care, death panels and euthanasia. These are unavoidable issues as long as we treat health care as a commodity to be traded in the market place instead of as a basic human service deserved by all regardless of economic status. A related but different concept is that of triage, a necessary strategy for dealing with emergency or critical situations where difficult decisions must be made quickly about which victims of a disaster or epidemic should be treated immediately with the limited available resources, who can wait for care, and who unfortunately is beyond saving.

Making such choices is necessary because of the limits of what modern medicine, as amazing as it is, can do and because of the unavoidable truth of human mortality. I have become painfully aware recently of a similar phenomenon in the church that is as unnecessary as it is misguided, an oxymoronic philosophy of church growth I have labeled “spiritual euthanasia.” I imagine this deadly virus is contagious across denominational boundaries but I can only address my own United Methodist Church from personal experience.

In our United Methodist conference the latest church growth cure all for what ails the church is called the Missional Church Consultation Initiative, and I was serving on a church staff where this program was adopted 2 years ago. The foundation document for this initiative is a book by John Edmund Kaiser, Winning on Purpose: How to Organize Congregations to Succeed in Their Mission. Kaiser is an Evangelical Baptist, a telling and strange choice for the far more open and theologically diverse non-doctrinal United Methodist Church.

Kaiser’s basic model for church structure and governance is one of a lead pastor who has total control over the membership and operation of the church board and staff. As one reviewer of the book says, “no one leads that way anymore.” Apparently that is not true for desperate church leaders more concerned with saving their institution than with sound theology.

If it were not so fundamentally wrong I would admire the clever strategy this initiative uses to stage a coup that overthrows the long-established democratic system of church governance in the Methodist Church. Instead of respecting the basic Protestant principle of the priesthood of all believers, Kaiser’s structure of the church is intentionally designed to eliminate all dialogue, disagreement, criticism and collaboration. Staff members are told their function is to carry out the mission of the Sr. Pastor and are required to sign a covenant pledging obedience and loyalty to the directives of the Sr. Minister. Such a hierarchical structure may work well in the military or with a staff of unquestioning people; but it will never produce the kind of creative and dynamic thinking that a diversity of opinions and open communication requires for dealing with the ambiguities and mysteries of theological inquiry and spiritual growth. Having spent 18 years teaching and promoting collaboration at Ohio State University, it is very clear to me that Kaiser’s leadership model violates every basic tenet of collaborative organization and leadership.

And that brings me to Spiritual Euthanasia as one very important result of uncritical thinking. Spiritual euthanasia occurs as a form of collateral damage when pastors and congregational leaders accept what the church growth experts and consultants say as gospel just because they say so, namely that all resources must be focused on reaching new young families at the expense of providing ministries and care for existing members of the church. One consultant told our staff that we shouldn’t worry about devoting resources to the older people in the congregation because “they won’t be around in 20 years.”

I understand the emphasis on reaching and discipling new people, but making disciples is not a one-and-done strategy and must include continual spiritual growth and nurturing, prophetic and pastoral preaching and teaching and opportunities for mission work for those already in the church family. Any strategy that emphasizes one aspect of a holistic and healthy Christian life is out of balance and a formula for losing existing members out the back door as fast as we bring new ones in the front.

Our consultants told us that the 55 and over segment of the population is one of the two largest and growing groups in the demographic data they shared about area, but that same older population is being taken for granted or overlooked by the same consultants’ recommendations for the congregation’s ministries. I understand the obvious importance and emphasis on reaching younger people for building for the future, but to fail to also appreciate and utilize the wisdom and life experience of the elders in the congregation and minister to the needs of seniors in the church and community is not only theologically unacceptable but foolish. From a purely pragmatic perspective, to alienate a large segment of any organization that has the most resources and time to support the work of the organization and the most institutional memory and loyalty is simply not a sound strategy for survival. Nor does a narrow focus on young families address the critical need in our society to help all ages learn about intergenerational relationships, caregiving, and end of life issues. Given the realities of increased longevity and the weakening of extended family support systems, the church can ill afford to ignore this opportunity for important ministry.

One church board member, when asked about the strategy to put all of our eggs in the outreach-to-young-families basket responded by repeating the spiritual euthanasia company line, “it has to be one or the other – we can’t do both.” Why is ministry to the young and old an either/or question? Even the state of Ohio has more faith than that according to our state motto which quotes Matthew 19:26, “With God all things are possible.”

Two years into this initiative the results of Spiritual Euthanasia in the situation I know best are predictably painful. Yes, the church has attracted some new members and is providing more ministry and programs for young families, but at what cost? Long-established mission programs are suffering, the church has lost many faithful long-time members, a very successful youth ministry has lost two dedicated leaders with decades of loyal service to the church, half of the former staff has resigned, and reduction in financial support has forced drastic cuts to the church budget and depletion of financial reserves.

The Spiritual Euthanasia strategy reminds me of the quote from an unnamed American Major in the Viet Nam war who explained a particular military operation by saying, “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.” That is not to judge those Viet Nam vets who were doing what they believed was the right thing in a bad situation. Nor is it to judge pastors and denominational leaders and congregational leaders who are under tremendous pressure to stem the tide of frightening declines in church membership and giving in mainline denominations. These are desperate times when our world and nation need the Christian Gospel of peace and justice more than ever. But desperate times must not lead us into desperate actions that do more harm than good.

My dear departed mother used to quote a familiar adage that “the church is only one generation from extinction.” The urgency of that warning is well-intended and always worth noting, but it is not totally true. The church may be one generation from extinction, but the truth of the Gospel is eternal. As we look forward to another Holy Week, let’s remember how Jesus was ordered by authority figures on his way into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday to silence his crowd of cheering fans. But Jesus took his marching orders from a higher authority, and he replied, “If they keep quiet the stones will cry out,” (Luke 19:40). The Romans and Jewish authorities didn’t believe him of course. They tried their evil best to silence him, and guess what? It didn’t work then, and it won’t ever work. As our friends in the United Church of Christ like to remind us, “God is still Speaking,” and no matter what we do, God will keep speaking. The question is who’s listening?

As we enter the Lenten season of repentance again this year, I am grateful I am no longer on the front lines of this struggle, and I have great respect and offer prayerful support for those who are. My prayer is that all of us, especially pastors, congregational and denominational leaders will use this Lenten season to prayerfully consider the dangers of Spiritual Euthanasia. May these 40 days of Lent be a time of healing and discernment of a balanced, compassionate Gospel that values and serves the needs of all of God’s children in a church that is called not to be successful by worldly standards, but faithful to the one who is the “way and truth and life.”

What Are We Full Of?, Jonah 3:1-5, 10

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, Faith and Values, Lectionary Texts

This sermon was written for a Sunday emphasis on what it means to live a missional lifestyle, and our case study from Scripture is one of those negative examples of how not to do that. I asked my son once how it was that he is a better golfer, skier and basketball player than I am when I introduced him to all those sports. He smiled and replied, “Oh, I just watched you, Dad, and saw how not to do it.” I think he learned a lot of life lessons that way from me. And we can all benefit in the same way from the story of Jonah.

Before we get to Jonah, I want to tell you about a pastor who decided one day it would be good for his parishioners and his son to take the 5 year-old with him to visit a local retirement community. The little fellow was fascinated by all the new things he saw – walkers and canes and especially the power wheel chair when one of the residents took him for a ride down the hall. But he was most interested when he went into one room with his dad. Pointing in amazement at a set of dentures in a glass on the bedside table he said, “Dad, the tooth fairy is never gonna believe that!” Some things are hard to believe – and the story of Jonah is one such tale.

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 in Sunday school, but it is much more than a big fish story (which is what the Hebrew says, not a “whale” per se) if we ask some basic questions, like what was Jonah doing in the water and why was he swallowed by the big fish? And please don’t get hung up on the feasibility of a grown man being swallowed by a fish. This is about theology, not biology.

Jonah is a very short story, only 3 pages, and it makes more sense if read in its entirety. So here’s the abridged version of the whole story to put it in context:
1. God calls Jonah and tells him to go on a mission to Nineveh.
2. Jonah doesn’t want to go and jumps on a ship headed for Tarshish (in the exact opposite direction) instead.
3. 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 to save themselves.
4. 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.)
5. 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 that they should repent or else bad things are going to happen.
6. The people of Nineveh heed Jonah’s warning, repent of their sins, are forgiven and saved from God’s judgment on them. You’d think any preacher would be thrilled if thousands of people changed their lives based on one short sermon, right? Not Jonah.
7. Jonah pouts because he really wanted God to destroy the Ninevites, not save them.

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 mission is very clear. The message from God to Jonah couldn’t be more straightforward and direct: The 2nd verse of chapter 1 says, “Go at once to Nineveh,” and those orders are repeated verbatim in our lesson for today. There is no failure to communicate here – just reluctance to obey. Frederick Buechner says, “Lying to God is like sawing the branch you’re sitting on. The better you do it, the harder you fall.” Saying “no” to God is pretty much the same thing; so why would Jonah even try? And why do we?

We all have different reasons and excuses for failing to live missional lives. To consider Jonah’s rationale for disobeying God requires a little history lesson. Nineveh was the capital of Babylon, a hated enemy of the Hebrew people that had overthrown Israel years before and carried many of their people off to Exile. So 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. It may help us to identify with Jonah to know that Nineveh sat about where the modern city of Baghdad is today.

Put yourself in Jonah’s place. Fill in your own favorite enemies: Democrats, Tea Partiers, Islamic extremists, the religious right or left, your bitter athletic rivals, unethical business competitors, lawyers, former spouses – whoever it is that you would like to be the very last people God would forgive. That’s exactly who Jonah is being asked to save and why he dares to defy a direct order from God.

I have been blessed by hearing good preaching this month. Pastor Tom Slack started the New Year off right for me with a sermon on the prologue to John’s Gospel. What struck me that day was the verse that says “The word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” And just 2 verses later, “From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” I’ve been journaling and praying ever since about what it looks like for us, for me, to be full of grace and truth. Our other fine preacher, Mebane McMahon, added to the dialogue with her sermon the next week on the baptism of Christ and how we are all beloved children of God. She added another piece to the puzzle the next week’s sermon on the story of Eli and Samuel and how being beloved children means listening when God speaks.

In Jonah we have someone who doesn’t just fail to listen to God, he rebels and does the exact opposite of what God tells him to do. Why do we do that? It never turns out well. Reflecting on those January sermons my take on why Jonah and I and many of you fail to live a missional lifestyle is because of what we’re full of – or NOT full of. The Scriptures don’t tell us for sure why Jonah ran away. Chapter 1 says he tried to flee from the presence of the Lord. He needed to read Psalm 139 which asks the very question, “Where can I flee from God’s presence?” The answer is nowhere, because there is nowhere in all creation that God isn’t.

We aren’t told but we can imagine why Jonah does what he does. Maybe fear – he was being asked to go into enemy territory. Are there places or people God is asking us to be in mission that we are uncomfortable with or afraid to go? Maybe Anger – Jonah admits in the end of the story that he’s mad at God for forgiving his enemies. He says, “I knew you were a God of mercy who would repent and forgive these slime balls. They don’t deserve it.” (That’s a loose translation, by the way.) Are there people we don’t think deserve God’s grace and mercy? Do we hoard the good news of the Gospel – thinking if we share it there might not be enough for us?

It seems pretty clear to me that Jonah is full of anger or fear or vengeance or judgment, or some combination of those poisons. And that’s why he can’t obey God’s call. When we are full or even partially full of guilt, jealousy, doubt, insecurity, bitterness, pain, there’s no room for us to be full of grace and truth. Those negative feelings are like an anchor that keeps us stuck where we are and unable to go where God wants to send us.

It’s like this story about a blacksmith with a seemingly insurmountable problem. He just didn’t fit the macho stereotype of a blacksmith. He was strong and very good at his craft, but he was very, very short of stature. As a result, he was very unsuccessful in the dating game and was quite lonely. Until one day a beautiful young woman appeared in his blacksmith shop with a horse who had thrown a shoe. It was love at first sight for the smithy, and he could tell the feelings were mutual. So he took all the time he could and did the finest job he had ever done on shoeing a horse. As it was drawing time for his new love to leave, he desperately wanted to kiss her and could tell she would welcome that. But there was a big problem. She was a full head taller than he.

Just as he was about to give up yet again on romance, the blacksmith had a brilliant idea. He led the young woman by the hand to the corner of his shop and jumped up on the anvil where he had just hammered her horse’s shoe into perfect shape. Standing on the anvil, he was able to look into her beautiful brown eyes and kiss her.

The two of them fell madly in love and were inseparable for weeks and then months. Everyone in the village assumed they would soon announce their engagement to be married, and the young woman was waiting expectantly for her little beau to pop the big question. Instead, without warning, he announced to her one fine spring afternoon that he was going to have to end their courtship. She was devastated and confused. She asked him why? Didn’t he love her? Was it something she had done or said, or not done or not said? To each question he just shook his head until she was begging him to explain his sudden change of heart. Finally he said, “My dear, I do love you very much, but you see, dragging that darn anvil around everywhere we go is killing me!”

Like that anvil worry, fear, guilt, anger – whatever you are full of is an unnecessary burden that no longer needs to drag you down. And we don’t have to break up with God. Just get rid of the burden. We can give those things to God. That’s the truth that sets us free to say yes to God’s mission and purpose for our lives! No matter what our excuses have been none of us are beyond God’s redeeming love. If God can forgive the enemies of his chosen people who destroyed Jerusalem and carried God’s people off into Exile, then God can certainly forgive our reluctance to share our faith with the least and lost. And your Nineveh may not be as far away as you think. The person sitting next to you may need your support. Your mission may to someone in your own family or neighborhood or it may be somewhere further away.

Be open to surprises about where God leads you to discover your mission. In 1997 Bill Gates thought he was on a mission to bring computers to people in developing countries until he visited Africa and saw firsthand the abject poverty and the ravages of malaria and tuberculosis. He realized there were far more critical needs there than internet connectivity. He found a new mission and he and his wife Melinda started their foundation which has for 17 years donated millions of dollars to build hospitals and schools for impoverished people all over the world.

When wrestling with a call to a new mission, remember that it’s natural to feel nervous and fearful whenever we try something new and different. They call it moving out of your comfort zone – because it is! Susan Jeffers has written a very helpful book called Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. That’s easier said than done, but very good advice. I saw some good advice on Facebook recently about working out early in the morning before your brain realizes what you’re doing. In a similar vein, I’ve also found that it helps me when tackling a new challenge to do it quickly before I have time to realize I’m afraid.

So what does Jonah do after his mission in Nineveh is over? We don’t know. At the end of the story he’s pouting, caring more about a dead gourd plant that had been shading him from the sun than 120,000 people in Nineveh. Like many Biblical stories, the ending of the story is left up to us. That’s because more important than an old fish story from long ago is your story and mine, and the next chapter of those stories is waiting to be written.

My wife and I were participants in a very intense personal growth seminar a few years ago, and something there stirred up some anger in me which I directed at one of the workshop leaders. She listened to me rant awhile, and then she said very quietly to me, “You know, Steve, you don’t have to be angry. It’s a choice.” It was one of the best Aha moments of my life – to realize for that I don’t have to be controlled by my emotions. I can choose to respond differently. Is that easy? Of course not. My wife can tell you I still have a long way to go in changing that 60 year-old habit. But old dogs can learn new tricks; it just takes us awhile. We can change and allow ourselves to be filled with grace and truth that empowers us to live the mission God has for us – whatever that is.

Let me share something that has worked for me lately. When facing a challenging situation I try to remember to pause and ask, “How would I respond to this situation if I were filled with grace and truth?” It’s a form of “faking it till you make it,” a small way of practicing a missional lifestyle; and if I keep trying, with God’s help, to live AS IF I am full of grace and truth, that lifestyle will eventually become a new habit.

What are you full of? If you don’t like the answer to that question, the good news is you don’t have to spend time in a fish’s belly to turn your life around. All you have to do is say yes every day to the one who is Grace and Truth.

[Originally preached at Northwest United Methodist Church, Columbus, Ohio, January 25, 2015]

A Prayer for Living the Dream

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, Faith and Values

As we honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. it is a good time to renew our commitment to follow Jesus and all the prophets who call us to lives of peace and justice. Today we pray for all of our sisters and brothers who live in fear of violence and terror in Africa and Europe, or the Middle East and here at home.

O Creator and Sustainer of all, we ask you to speak words of comfort and hope to us today. With depressing news bombarding us about climate change, racial tensions, and violence in all parts of the world, we hunger and thirst for the strength and renewal of our spirits that you alone can provide. When so much of the terror and violence we see is fueled by misdirected religious fervor fed by insecurity and self-justification, it is easy to despair and wonder if Dr. King’s dream is still alive.

Remind us, O God, of how far we’ve come since Selma, even as we struggle with how far we have yet to go. And especially remind us again that the dream Dr. King articulated so beautifully with his words and his life was not just his dream. It was a dream of liberty and justice for all that echoes through the ages: from Deuteronomy’s hospitality for aliens and strangers, to Isaiah’s lions and lambs lying down together and Micah’s swords beaten into plowshares, to Jesus’ command to love one another, even those who persecute and revile us. It is a dream preserved by more recent prophets like Jefferson, Lincoln, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Sojourner Truth, by Gandhi, and Mother Theresa and Pope Francis and millions of unknown saints who witness to their faith by daily random acts of kindness.

Parents and teachers, mentors, coaches, nurses and caregivers, missionaries and friends—all doing a small but vital part to pass on the torch of freedom that violence and fear can never extinguish – because it is not our dream. It is ultimately an eternal dream for all of creation that springs from an infinite source of Hope and Trust in the author of that dream.

It is undying faith in you, eternal God, that enables us even in dark times to know with confidence deep in our hearts that with your help we shall indeed overcome – overcome the forces of hate and violence someday. And in that assurance we dare to pray and live in the name of Jesus Christ, who calls us all to keep his dream alive. Amen.

Northwest UMC, Columbus, OH, January 18, 2015