“Creating Sabbath Space”

Genesis 1:29-2:4

September 5, 2010

 

          Last week, I began to make a case.  Modern readers open up the Bible and begin reading from the first chapter of Genesis and almost immediately the majesty of the story begins to be lost.  Those who believe creation took place in six days get ready to argue that position.  Those who simply don’t read the story literally get ready to argue their view.  Probably, both groups gloss over the first five days of creation, completely missing the movement of the breath of God across the earth, hardly noticing the creation of the stars and the moon and the sun, not even pausing to marvel at the birth of the birds of the sky and the fish of the sea and the animals which walk the land. 

 

          Beyond the fight over days, the other reason we miss the majesty is that we are so anthropocentric.  We want to skip to the part that’s about us.  Yes, God is going to tell us we are good and is going to give us all sorts of responsibilities for the earth and it creatures.  However, before any of that takes place, we are invited to see how God-filled and awesome the earth and all its creatures really are.  While we are busy debating days or waiting for the human part, the writer of this story is saying, “Look at this amazing world!  Look and see the hand of God!”

 

          The second thing that almost no one spends any time thinking about any more is how the creation story ends:  God takes a day off.  As we heard in our text, God takes a look around at everything in the world, the earth, the creatures, the human beings, and declares that all of it is not just okay, not just pretty good, but very good!  Then, God takes the day off to enjoy it.  In the story, God does amazing things and then God makes the conscious choice to simply be.

 

          Now, of course, if you think you’re going to get the, “It happened in seven days and there is no discussion to have” sermon from me, you’re listening to the wrong guy.  The thing is, I don’t think that was ever the point.  Scholars date this story as being written during the time of exile for the people of Israel, a time when they had lost their land and their national identity, a time of feeling like the whole world was falling apart.  In that context, I think this story was meant to convey not a truth about days but great truths about God and the world.  One of those great truths was that no matter how chaotic things seem, God is the source of all that is and is the one who brings order out of chaos.  Neither the chaos nor the darkness will win.  That had to be a profound message of comfort to that original audience.  The second great truth was that even God took time to rest and enjoy this life and this world.  Of course, that rest became the basis for Sabbath practices.

 

          In my time with Jewish friends, I’ve always been envious of the deeply meaningful traditions of their faith, traditions that are both grounded in every day experience and that carry the shared memory of a people:  what to eat and how to prepare that food and how to share that food with one another, among other things.  Perhaps the heart of Jewish observances is the Sabbath, itself, from Friday at sundown to Saturday at Sundown.  Of course, at various points in history the Sabbath laws have become so rigid that it was work to keep them.  However, the basic idea--that as a people, we work hard and as a people, we set aside time for rest--has been pivotal.  Think about all the persecution of Jewish people.  Think about all of their time spent as minorities, as oppressed people, as refugees.  And yet, the Sabbath practices have allowed them, again and again, to retain their identity, wherever they might be and whatever might be happening:  on this day, we will worship and spend time together as a family, as a married couple, as individuals who know that God is our source and who have value not just in what we do but in simply being children of God. 

 

          In my own life, there was a deeply meaningful variation on this Sabbath practice.  If you’re my age or older, Sunday was, in a slightly different way, our Sabbath day.  It was true in our family that Sunday was a working day for my father as the pastor and, in certain ways, for all the rest of us as the pastor’s spouse and family.  It was “on” time in the morning in a way that might be hard to explain.  It simply never occurred to me that it could be Sunday and you wouldn’t go to church!  In the end, though, whatever expectations might have been there, Sunday began with a sense of connection to God.  The hymns became ingrained in me.  (I can still pretty much sing the hymnal--not well--but I can sing it.)

 

          In our family, usually after church we had “dinner,” a big meal which might include friends or might just be family but would definitely be everyone sitting down together and just spending time.  We’d talk.  We’d laugh.  We’d hear what was going on in each other’s lives.  Everyone relaxed.  We connected with each other.

 

          For the rest of that day, there would be plenty of time.  There might be time for a game of catch or time to play with friends.  In the evening, there would be time to pop some popcorn (because we’d had our big meal) and time to sit down together and maybe watch “The Wonderful World of Disney.”  Even as a little boy, I could see the effects of having a lot less plans, of having a lot less running around to do, of having it be okay, just for a day, to just be.  Somehow, even at a young age, I think the presence of that modified Christian version of a Sabbath connected me to...me.  I’m still able to simply “be” sometimes as an adult.  I think that is the case because I began to learn how to do that as a child.

 

          What Sabbath space affords us in life is perspective.  You learn that the whole world doesn’t come to a screeching halt if you take a deep breath and sit down.  You learn that while the things you are doing do matter, maybe they don’t matter quite as much as you thought.  You begin to breathe differently and move differently and absorb the ups and downs of life in a different way because instead of frantically trying to control the world around you, it dawns on you that maybe the more important thing is to stay connected to that world, to the people who matter and the creatures who matter and the God who is the source of everything worth caring about.  There is something that is amazing and marvelous that happens when we realize that we’re not God and that’s just fine.  There is something amazing and marvelous that happens when we come to realize that God “is” and that we can do things to stay connected to that God.

 

          The single thing that we all can do is to make room in our lives for that God.  In one of my favorite Groucho Marx scenes, people keep piling into a room the size of a closet, person after person after person.  Finally, someone opens the door and everyone and everything just come flying out.  We can stuff person after person and concern after concern and “to do” list after “to do” list into our lives.  Sooner or later, everything will start flying.  Chaos will ensue.  That might be the moment when we remember that God is God and we are not.  That might be the moment when we think, “I’ve got to get rid of some of this ‘clutter.’ I need a little ‘living room’ in this life.”

 

          How do we make room?  The world has changed from my childhood.  We don’t live in a world that sets aside a simple time for us.  What that makes us is responsible for our own choices (which in fact sounds remarkably like the point of Genesis’ sixth day.)  I’ve preached the “Why our culture needs to change!” sermon before.  Today, that’s not what I’m saying.  Instead, what I’m inviting you to do is to see that you have the power to say, “No thanks!”   No thank you...I really don’t want to be that busy.  No thank you...I don’t want to meet that night because I’m going to be with my family.  No thank you...I’m going to take a walk instead, not to drop my waistline, but because it feels good and because somehow I end up more connected to who I am and how amazing this world is and how truly close God is even when I was sure God was so far away.  The only thing that stands between us and a life that is a far better balance between doing and being is our own willingness to make choices and to accept the consequences of those choices.

 

          Of course, there will be consequences.  I remember a group of our high school boys who are athletes and were told that they couldn’t go on our work trip because they had to go to a sports camp.  They said, “No!”  They defended their Sabbath, a time which connects them to each other, to themselves and to God.  Will they pay a price?  We’ll see.  The truth is that these days, whether you are young or old or any point in between, if you begin to make your own choices, you will pay a price.  The secret is that sometimes the price is worth it.  Sometimes, paying that price is precisely how we end up not “losing ourselves.”

 

          What connects you to God, to your family and friends, to your spouse and to yourself?  How are you making room to practice those connecting things, day-in-and-day out, week in and week out?  If I looked at your calendar or followed you through a day, would I be able to tell where you’ve made room for those connecting and meaningful moments?  Is there concrete and visible evidence of the ways in which you remind yourself that life is in fact very good, that you are in fact very much God’s and that even in a world that can be so chaotic and frenetic, as a person of faith, you can have perspective? 

 

          Do you need concrete suggestions?  Okay...don’t focus on setting aside a day.  Focus instead on building structure.  How do you begin a day?  Is there room in there for a simple prayer?  Is there time you could take--however short--to begin your day with something that could make room for joy:  an undisturbed cup of coffee or tea; a little exercise; a conversation with someone you love?  In the course of a day, even if you’re commuting, how can you make room for meaning?  Who do you let know that you’re thinking of them?  How do you let them know that?  What does a break look like?  Is it a short walk?  Is it listening to some music?  Is it reading a few pages of a book?  What is an evening meal like?  How do you prepare that meal?  Who do you share it with?  What do you talk about while you’re eating?  How do you end that day?  Again, is there time for a prayer?  Is there time to count the blessings of your days and offering a word of thanks to the God who gave you another day of life?  If we’re not going to set aside a day, then we need to create Sabbath space in our days.  What is your way to do that?

 

          If today is God’s gift, then we shouldn’t simply trudge our way through it. If even God rested and found joy in this world, don’t you think it might just be okay for us to do the same?  If we are going to live in a world that can be chaotic and feel pretty dark, isn’t it our job to make the choices that will help keep us from absorbing too much of that chaos and darkness?  Isn’t it up to each one of us to create a little Sabbath space?

  

“Let’s Talk Turkey”

Genesis 1:1-25

8/29/10

(Blessing of the Animals Service)

          So...Let’s talk turkey.  You know what I mean...A few months ago, the life of this village was changed forever by the arrival of a wild turkey.  (Or...according to some, by the arrival of a turkey from a nearby farm).  He (or according to some...she) set up shop at the busiest intersection in town--Green Bay Road and Highway 176.  Some say the turkey stayed there because the children fed it on their way to and from school.  Some say the bird had bonded with the crossing guards.  Some say he/she just liked the little swampy area that was behind the nearby fence.  Whatever made it happen, that bird set up shop and stayed.  In the process, he/she put Lake Bluff on the map: headlines on the Chicagoland newspapers and film at 10:00 on the television news.

          In the end, I think the turkey was a bit of a Rorschach test.  You know the test...the one with the inkblots.  The psychologist sits across the table and holds up cards, one at a time, each with an abstract blot on them.  Then you are asked, “What do you see?”  I remember in graduate school being shocked by some of the things people saw in the practice tests:  “Really...you see that?”  For some reason, they discouraged us from asking those kinds of questions.

          My point is that the turkey’s presence became a sort of village wide Rorschach test.  Look at the turkey.  What do you see?  Basically, there were two strong responses.  One group saw a threat.  This is a busy intersection.  Distracted drivers do silly things.  Accidents are going to go up.  People are going to be at risk.  This is an understandable perspective, especially in an intersection where there are children.  Of course, if you are driving in an intersection where there are children and you already aren’t slowing down and paying attention, then the problem isn’t the presence of a turkey.  The problem is that you are a careless driver.  

          Aren’t there all sorts of distractions when we drive?  I spend a fair amount of time driving in an area where there are moose.  The moose are not considered a hazard.  They live there.  You don’t remove the moose.  Instead, you put up a moose crossing sign and make drivers responsible for their driving.  Whether it is a moose or a turkey or a child or a squirrel, if you’re going to sit down behind the wheel, you’d better be paying attention.  In this sense, from a pure human safety standpoint, I suspect we would be safer if we all sent our cell phones to a nice rural wooded area of Northern Illinois, rather than sending the turkey.  (Personally, I had at least as much fun gawking at the people trying to catch the turkey as I did watching the turkey, itself.)  In the end, it’s the turkey who is safer living in those woods.

          On the other side of the Rorschach responses were those who saw a wild (or farm bred) turkey and made it “one of us.”  Not unlike the safety response, there was some truth in this reaction.  We felt connected to the bird because we watched it every day, wondering if it would be there, wondering which side it would be on, wondering if the crossing guard and the turkey had actually agreed to sit with exactly the same posture and exactly the same facial expression.  However, we may well have crossed those “Disney” borders when the bird acquired more nicknames than a high school athlete, and when we started to debate its favorite diet (grapes and Cheerios).  To have Lake Bluff’s fifteen minutes of  fame arrive in the papers and to have one of the primary messages to the world be that we were the village who named our town turkey, “Sparkles”...come on people...what kind of impression do you think that’s left on the world?  One person asked me if a hungry person set up shop next to the crossing guard, would that person generate as much spontaneous care.  Good question...

          Interestingly, the height of the personification of our turkey was reached not by a village resident, not by a village official, but by the expert brought in to catch it.  Maybe you read the story.  After catching... “Sparkles”...he described the bird as a “genius” for his ability to avoid capture and as “psychic” in figuring out the traps.  I want to be a genius!  I want to be psychic!  Darn...the turkey got there first...

          If those were the two big responses to the bird, I’d like to risk offending everyone and offering a third, one which I’m pretty sure is in line with our Scripture reading this morning.  The most important lesson in our text is not that God created the world in a certain number of days.  Rather, the most important lesson is that God is the source of all that is and is connected to every creature.  From a human standpoint, we might well like to think that the crowning achievement in that creation was the creation of human beings.  However, in those occasional moments when we can crawl out of our own skins and see beyond ourselves, we are led to suspect that some of the other creatures and forces which God created might be pretty wonderful, too.

          Sometimes those moments happen very simply.  I remember a time when I was sitting in the sun on a dock, just absorbing a beautiful day.  All of a sudden, a dragon fly landed on my hand.  The truth was that it wasn’t the most beautiful dragon fly ever.  It was just the first one to land on me and the first one that I’d ever taken the time to really observe.  It was beautiful--the perfect mosquito catching flying machine!  It stayed for probably ten minutes on my hand--literally.  Eventually, I got hot and wanted to swim.  I swished my hand into the air and off he flew.  I tore off my shirt, did a few Michael Phelps like stretches, and dove into the water to swim to the floating dock.  As I swam near, the kids on the dock were laughing.  (I thought at my incredible swimming technique--darn kids!)  The real reason they were laughing was that on the beautiful dome of skin otherwise known as my head, there was a dragon fly, hitching a ride.  He kept sitting there for a long time on the floating dock, until finally he flew away.

          The truth is that we are blessed by the animals with such encounters in this life.  I’ll never forget the drive when I saw some beautiful deer, a wild timber wolf, and a moose--all in the span of about ten minutes.  I’ll never forget the canoe trip when for the entire trip, the eagles seemed to be flying a relay race from bay to bay, accompanying us day after day of the journey.  You can’t love the world that I love without remembering your encounters with the loons and the variety of calls that you hear as the night settles in.  I have those moments in life and I think, “Wow...what a gift!  I’m glad that there are still wild places to go and wild creatures to see and hear.”

          And yet, I’ve also grown to learn to see and love the encounters with God’s wild creatures right here.  I have a pair of mourning doves that I swear have lived around my house for years.  I delight all winter long in my feeders, in the black capped chickadees who look so prim and proper against the snow, in the juncos that insist on eating upside down.  I delight in the coyote who sometimes walks up to the feeder early in the morning and eats one of those birds.  I delight in watching the squirrels in their never ending effort to “crack the code” of my “squirrel proof” spring-loaded feeder.  I delight in the hooting of the neighborhood owl who would never deign to even acknowledge the presence of a feeder at all.

          One day there was an encounter between God’s wild animals and my strange menagerie of pets.  One of our cats was sitting in the window, plotting the imaginary demise of yet another bird.  Out of nowhere, a red tailed hawk swooped in, a bird which was not only 50 times larger than any chickadee but at least 3 times larger than my cat.  Literally, the cat just fell over backward out of the window as if it had been shot.  I’m not sure the cat felt “blessed” by that encounter. 

          Our encounters with wild animals...eagles or chickadees or turkeys...are blessings.  We are invited to remember that the world is bigger than ourselves or our plans or our point of view.  For the most part, those animals are almost never threatening.  (Or if they are...it is never personal.  They are just doing what they were created to do.)  And, of course, to encounter them as they are is to realize that they really aren’t just like us.  Instead, they are just exactly the creatures that God created them to be.  We can watch them and feel awe.  We can watch them and feel envy (just try to tell me you can watch an eagle soar and not want to do a little soaring yourself!).  We can watch them and even be amused (by the turkey’s indifference to traffic, by a penguin, sliding on the snow slope, by a squirrel hanging upside down from its tail).  In the end, though, we really ought to simply honor them as part of God’s creation and as a thread in the fabric of life.

          Ultimately, what I’m suggesting about the turkey is that he was an honored guest.  He wasn’t a threat.  He wasn’t a cartoon character.  He was one of God’s creatures.  There are a whole lot of people who might go a very long time in life without ever noticing another of God’s creatures in a day.  A lot of those people noticed the turkey.  They might have noticed because he was the “talk of the town.”  However, maybe some of them felt the invitation in those encounters to expand their worlds just a little, to feel some awe, to make room for “wonder” in a day.  I firmly believe that our souls grow sick when we spend too much time without encountering the wild things in this life.  Somehow, when that happens, we lose touch with the “wild” part of ourselves.  We also lose touch as fellow creatures with our creator.  Maybe, in this simple way, the turkey was a gift.

          In the simplest way that I can put it, what I’m saying is that the animals are the blessing.  Most of us have a few in our homes or running around our backyards.  Despite what we might say in our most cranky moments, those animals are a blessing.  They make us laugh.  They are generally happy to see us.  They make our worlds a little less lonely.  They bring comfort to our lives.  So, we pause every now and then to thank God for them and to recommit ourselves to their care.  However, we miss the point if we stop there.  We share this world with a host of creatures...birds of the air and fish of the sea and those who walk the land around us...all of whom are meant to be here, whether it is convenient for us or not, each of whom are a part of God’s creation.  How we live in relationship to those creatures matters.

          Maybe it would be good for all of our souls to open our eyes and our hearts a bit more to such encounters.  What if on the next walk you took you tried to count just how many different creatures you encountered?  What if, though you’ve never tried it before, this is the winter when you see what it’s like to put out a bird feeder?  What if part of the pathway to that deeper sense of God’s presence in this world is as simple as opening your ears to the sounds and your eyes to the sights of God’s creation?

The Servant Leader (Part 3):  Diving in Heart First

John 8:1-11

August 15, 2010

          Over the last two weeks, we’ve explored a model of servant leadership, the model that I think Jesus lived and set before us.  The first week, we watched as Jesus shed his robe and tied a towel around his waist.  He knelt down and washed each disciples’ feet, including the feet of Judas who was about to betray him.  Later, he spoke to the disciples and taught them that there is no task that is “beneath” them.  They are not there to be served but to serve.  Having heard that story, we paused for a few moments to reflect on how hard it has been for the church and it’s leadership over the centuries to hold onto that model.  There always are those serving--feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for the sick.  They serve quietly in places near and far, hardly noticed because they are not looking for a spotlight.  At the same time, there have always been those who fell in love with the notion that because they were a pastor, or a bishop, or a cardinal, or simply a devoted donor, somehow, they deserve to be served.  A servant leader humbles him or herself.  That’s a struggle for just about any human being.

                   Last week, we heard the story of the Canaanite woman.  She was seeking healing for her daughter.  However, she was a Canaanite, a woman, and loud.  Her shrieking and screaming annoyed the disciples who wanted to just send her away.  At first, Jesus didn’t fare a lot better.  He said nothing at all.  Then, when he engaged the woman, it was simply to tell her why he couldn’t help the likes of her.  Finally, when she pleads her case, Jesus melts.  He sheds the prejudice toward foreigners that he must have been raised to have.  He learns.  He grows.  Servant leaders are willing to admit they are wrong.  They are willing to change their minds and their hearts.  Perhaps most importantly, they are willing to listen to and be taught by just about anyone, including the people who annoy everyone else.  We asked ourselves, “Who is our Canaanite woman?”  Who is God putting in my path for me to listen to and learn from?

          Servant leaders are humble and have no problem doing humble tasks.  Servant leaders will listen to and learn from anyone.  Here’s a third thing servant leaders are willing to do:  they are willing not only to walk in darkness but to dive straight in, heart first, and do things that don’t always make sense to most people.  They are willing to take a stand and put themselves at risk.

          Let’s look at our text.  Jesus had been in the temple the day before, teaching to a large crowd of people.  He has spoken with such eloquence that even the temple police were so moved that they did not arrest him.  The Pharisees are angry:  “Surely you have not been deceived, too, have you?”  In the Pharisees eyes, the problem is that the crowds who follow Jesus just don’t understand the law like they do.  They’re uneducated.  They are easily “duped.”

          The next day, Jesus shows back up at the temple.  The crowds immediately gather around him again.  He sits down and begins teaching.  At this point, the scribes and the Pharisees hatch their latest plan.  They march in all their pompous glory straight into the crowd, dragging a woman with him.  Then, they make their announcement:  “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of adultery.  Now, in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women.  Now, what do you say?”  This was how they were going to catch him.  They were going to get him to publicly betray the law with a whole crowd as their witnesses. 

          Jesus does something very interesting.  He just bends down and begins writing on the ground with his finger.  He is non-reactive.  He doesn’t panic.  He doesn’t fire back.  He takes his own sweet time and gathers himself to respond.  Meanwhile, the authorities just keep peppering him with questions.

          Let’s stop though for minute and think about this act of writing in the dust.  Let me give you a few things to consider.  First, if this occurred on the Sabbath, writing on paper would have been considered a violation of the Sabbath laws.  The only writing that was allowed was to write in dust.  Is Jesus’ writing intended to be a signal to the authorities that they had better understand that they were dealing with someone who knew the “ins and outs” of the law himself?

          Second, there are Old Testament references to writing in the dust.  The prophet Jeremiah speaks these words:  "O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the Lord, the spring of living water.”  There was thought to be a “Book of Life” in which the name of each faithful person was written.  The opposite of being in that book was having your name written in the dust.  Your name, itself, would disappear.  Was Jesus not only demonstrating his knowledge of Scripture to the authorities but also telling them that they had defaulted on their faith?

          Or, consider this option:  what if he’s just writing down a few sins?  What if he knows the authorities well enough and maybe even knows some in the crowd well enough that he is setting up the point he’s about to make:  “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.”  You can’t be a relational, connected leader and not know the brokenness of those to whom you are connected.  When we are truly connected to one another, we understand each other’s struggles.  What if Jesus’ writing in the dust is simply an unspoken message, “I know what I know and because I know it, you don’t get to count yourself as sinless...”  After speaking his challenging words, Jesus bends down and starts writing again.

          One by one, the people leave.  The Pharisees and the Scribes are the first to go.  Slowly, but surely, not a person remains, not one, that is, except Jesus and the woman.  Jesus stands up and looks the woman in the eye and says, “Woman, where are they?  Has no one condemned you?”  She answers, “No one, sir.”  Jesus replies, “Neither do I condemn you.  Go your way and do not sin again.”

          Does Jesus endorse adultery?  Of course not!  The instruction is to stop doing that.  It is a shameful, destructive thing.  However, what is also shameful is authorities who apply the law selectively.  (Did you notice that there is no mention of the man with whom she was having the affair?  Did you notice that there was no mention of a trial?  Did you notice that there was no mention of the chance to repent for these actions, a repentance that would have been at the heart of the Mosaic Law?)  What is shameful is terrorizing a woman and potentially killing her to make a point about Jesus.  What is shameful is the hypocrisy of those in power.

          Lots of people want to talk about sin, as long as the sin that gets talked about is someone else’s sin.   If we can just work out some sort of understanding about which sins are the really bad sins and which are “medium” bad and which are “not so bad,” then we can put people into categories.  We can judge others.  (Human beings love to judge each other!)  We can place ourselves in the “not so bad” bin.  We can find a way to still that voice inside of us that knows that we have fallen short by saying to ourselves, “Well, at least I didn’t fall as far as them!”  Just don’t ask me to take responsibility for what needs to change in my own life.  Don’t ask me to be honest about my own brokenness!

          Shocking as this might seem, there is not a lot of room for “riding the moral high horse” when it comes to being a servant leader.  We can’t be connected to each other without running headlong into one another’s brokenness.  However, if we are followers of Christ, that is old news.  We’re all broken... period...end of story.  We can celebrate the moments in life when we achieve a little success in confronting “our demons.”  We can encourage one another to “fight the good fight.”  And yet, the gritty, realism of Christ’s view of human beings is that we’re all “a piece of work.”  The good news of the Gospel is not that there are a “handful” (or a church-full) of perfect people out there somewhere.  Rather, the good news of the Gospel is that there is a world full of broken people who are forgiven by a perfectly loving God.  Having been forgiven and loved, somehow, it is our job not to “hammer” the person who sins the sin that we’ve decided is really bad.  Rather our job is to be a source of grace and forgiveness and redemption. 

          Think about it...The most shocking thing to me in this text is not that Jesus forgives the woman and refuses to condemn her.  We know the rest of the story.  Jesus is going to forgive his friends for abandoning him.  Jesus is going to forgive the people who nailed him to a cross.  No...the shocking thing in this text is that there wasn’t one self-righteous hypocrite in that crowd who just didn’t get what Jesus said at all and went ahead and threw the first rock.  Seriously...knowing what you know about people, aren’t you surprised there wasn’t one person who gave it a whirl?

          However, on behalf of a terrified and broken woman who probably shared the same short sighted, passion-seeking, desperation that everyone who has ever committed that particular sin has shared, Jesus dives in.  He doesn’t defend what she’s done.  Instead, he takes offense at the notion that when it comes to condemning someone, anyone has a leg to stand on.  He tells the crowd and the authorities what they don’t want to hear, namely, that they better take responsibility for themselves before they start condemning others or at the very least that it is time for them to take a good long look in the mirror.  And in one of the least celebrated miracles of Scripture, for once, people get it.

          Servant leaders are not in the business of condemning people.  Uncomfortable truths need to be told.  Change needs to happen.  However, servant leaders don’t elevate themselves by stepping on other people.  Instead, servant leaders work for redemption.  How can we right this wrong?  How can we retrieve this lost person?  How can we make this situation work?  Worldly leaders might delight in discovering a common enemy and see an opportunity to increase their power by rallying everyone in opposition.  A servant leader understands that an enemy is a luxury that we simply cannot afford.   Once we are convinced we are “better” than anyone, our faith begins to erode and we begin to worship ourselves.

          One of the most shameful legacies of Christianity is the long history of Christians for whom faith has become the basis for condemning others.  The next time you hear someone doing that, remember Jesus standing beside this woman, challenging the crowd to look at themselves.  How could we go from being a forgiven people to being the folks who judge and dismiss the folks we don’t like?  How could we go from being servant leaders to being those who are convinced that it is our God-given right to judge the world?

  

 

The Servant Leader (Part 2):  Listening and Learning

Matthew 15:21-28

August 8, 2010

          I had a friend quite a while ago who happened to be a political science professor.  Because of his position, when the President of the United States visited his campus, my friend was given the privilege of hosting him.  (I’m not going to tell you which President.  That’s not the point!) This involved meeting the President at the airport and riding in his limousine with him to the campus.  Not a bad assignment!

          Although my friend had prepared all sorts of witty and insightful things to say to the President, it was clear when they entered the limo that his intention was to have a little quiet time.  (He had been quite animated until the door to the limo closed.  As the door closed, so did his eyes.)  My friend just sat there, taking in the vision across the seat from him of the most powerful man in the world who seemed to be taking a nap:  “Well...that’s okay.  Even the most powerful man in the world has to get tired.”

          Suddenly, though, my friend grew concerned.  With his eyes still shut, the President began wincing and hunching his shoulders.  This “wince and hunch” kept happening at regular intervals.  What do you do?  Do you call out to the limo driver behind the glass partition?  Do you call 9-1-1?  To my friend’s relief, right about the time he was ready to panic, the President’s eyes opened and he smiled:  “Beautiful day, isn’t it!”

          The President was in town for a dedication.  The limo pulled up at the construction site.  My friend and the President and a virtual army of secret service agents, all of whom seemed convinced that they were invisible, even though they were the only people in suits, with wires running down their necks and talking into their lapels, made their way to the temporary platform from which the President and other dignitaries would speak.  The speeches were lovely.  The crowd roared its approval. 

          The final task was the symbolic “groundbreaking.”  The President walked over, picked up the special shovel, which had been painted gold for the occasion, and smiled at the crowd.  He planted the shovel and stepped on it.  He grabbed the handle and then (are you with me?) he hunched his shoulders and winced, the exact “wince and hunch” routine that he had been practicing in the limo.  My friend found himself trapped somewhere between hilarity and horror:  “My God, the President of the United States had to practice appearing strained.  Even the ceremonial turning of the shovel was manipulated, controlled.  It was all about how it would look.”

          Last week, we began to think about the example of servant leadership that Jesus set before us.  We stood and watched as Jesus humbled himself, taking off his robe and tying a towel around his waist, kneeling down and washing the feet of each disciple, including the disciple who would betray him in a matter of hours.  We heard his challenge to the disciples to realize that no job was “below them,” that if they were going to follow him then they had to be willing to do what needed to be done, even if what needed to be done was the last thing they would ever choose to do.  Clearly, to the disciples, particularly Peter, it “looked bad” for Jesus to humble himself.  Jesus just essentially gives them all a wink and says, “Wait until it’s your chance to be humbled, too.”

          A servant leader does what needs to be done, does what he or she believes they are called to do.  A servant leader might even, as a rule of thumb, seek out the humble task, not for a ceremonial turn of the shovel but because it needs to be done and why shouldn’t it be me who does it!  A servant leader doesn’t just search for the right words to inspire people to wade into what is difficult.  Servant leaders wade into what is difficult and invite others to join them. 

          As they wade into such difficulties, as they roll up their sleeves and go to work, those leaders pay attention and listen and learn every step of the way.  Think about it...From the moment that Jesus leaves the wilderness after his baptism and his subsequent time of temptation, Jesus wades straight into the world of hurt, of pain, of suffering and danger.  From the very earliest moments on, Jesus is sought out by and seeks out the people whom everyone else is trying to avoid:  the blind, the mentally ill, the sick, the foreigners.  He goes out of his way to recognize not just the needs of others but the needs of the people whom most everyone didn’t like.  He listens to those people.  He learns from those people.  He cares for those people.  To everyone else, that just plain looks bad.

          The crowds who are always somewhere nearby don’t get it.  Why would Jesus care about a sinner like Zacchaeus?  Why would Jesus call a tax collector like Matthew to be a disciple?  Why would Jesus talk to women, much less include them among his followers.  Why would Jesus dare to touch people who were unclean?  Why won’t Jesus just follow “the rules?”

          Certainly, when it came to “the rules” the crowds and the the authorities stood on common ground.  The authorities asked how Jesus could dare to forgive someone’s sins.  The authorities asked how Jesus could dare to interrupt the stoning of the adulterous woman.  The authorities asked why Jesus and his disciples didn’t wash their hands just the right way.  The authorities bristled at the gall of Jesus, to actually heal someone on the Sabbath.

          To be honest, the disciples don’t get Jesus either.  They keep trying to shield him from the people he is seeking.  When the little children are brought to Jesus, the disciples tell them to go away.  Jesus rebukes the disciples and embraces those children.  When the crowds grow hungry as he is teaching, the disciples want the crowds to just go away.  Jesus rebukes them and tells them, “No, we’re going to feed them.”  The disciples always seem to have somewhere to be and something else to do. Jesus always just seems to be right here and focused on the needs of the person or the people in front of him.  He doesn’t care how it looks.  What he cares about is helping.

          Our text this morning is one of those moments that would have driven just about everyone around Jesus crazy.  If you listened to the text, it may already be bothering you, too.  Jesus is away from his homeland in the area of Tyre and Sidon.  This was a Gentile dominated area where the prevailing customs and laws that they knew at home would not have been “the rules.”  It was the kind of place in that day in which a “good Jew” would have worked hard to remain “undefiled.”  (Think of it this way:  you know how to “navigate” Lake Bluff or Lake Forest; you understand the “rules,” both written and unwritten.  When you go to the city, though, isn’t it easy to feel out of place, to just want to get through and get home?)

          Almost as soon as he and the disciples arrive, though, Jesus is spotted.  A Canaanite, a group of people despised even more than the Samaritans, starts to follow them.  They all would have been carefully taught to avoid contact.  The second bit of bad news is that the Canaanite turns out to be a woman which probably would have made the defilement of any real contact with her exponentially worse in the mind of a “good Jew.”  Finally, to top things off, the Canaanite woman turns out to be a screamer:  “Hey, Jesus...Jesus of Nazareth...Listen to me!  Have mercy on me!  My daughter is suffering!”  It was enough to make the disciple’s skin crawl!

          The thing was...that woman’s screams were enough to get Jesus’ attention but not his care.  He stands and stares at her.  He ignores her.  (Gee...that seems a little “out of character” to us doesn’t it?) And then the disciples get right up in Jesus’ ear:  “Please send her away for she keeps shouting after us.”  “Trust us Jesus...send her on her way and we’ll never say another word about her.  (Isn’t there always a crowd around us, reassuring us that ignoring that person who makes us uncomfortable will be fine?)  Then, in a moment that we all ought to really struggle with if we’re actually listening, Jesus essentially dismisses her:  “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  I wasn’t sent here to care about the likes of you.  (Ouch!)

          I want to make the case this morning that in this terribly uncomfortable moment, Jesus is learning.  In fact, I think he learns something new and becomes someone different.  Like every human being, Jesus had been growing in every way since the day he was born.  And, like the best human beings I know, even as an adult, I think he was still learning.  He came from a culture that told him that Canaanites were not worth caring about.  In this moment, he sheds that prejudice.

          The Canaanite woman throws herself at his feet and cries out, “Lord, help me!”  Just when we think things for us can’t get any worse, Jesus says the harshest thing that we hear him say to anyone:  “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”  How could he say that?  And yet, you know that the disciples had to be sitting there and thinking, “Finally...he’s speaking the truth!”  He was saying exactly what his culture would have taught him to say.  He was saying exactly what his closest friends and followers were dying to hear.  He was doing the “wince and hunch” in exactly the right way.  And yet, suddenly it was no longer a Canaanite who was clinging to him but a mother whose heart was breaking because her daughter was in pain.  She whispers to him:  “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”  “Call me what you want.  I wouldn’t presume to have some honored place above anyone else.  Just help me!  Please help my daughter!”  Jesus melts.  Jesus learns:  “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish!”  Imagine how disappointed the disciples were!

          Is your faith wide enough and deep enough to make room for a Jesus who learned, who treated someone one way and then learned that he was wrong?  I think the notion of trying to be a servant leader ourselves as we try to follow Jesus requires us to come to grips with this.  What if the model of leadership that Jesus sets before us does not require that we know everything or control everything or spin everything ahead of time?  What if the model involves wading into life and learning as we go?  What if this pathway that Jesus puts before us includes making mistakes and learning from those mistakes and being changed by what we learned.  What if those things were a part of Jesus’ own life?

          To sharpen the question, who is the screaming Canaanite woman in your life whom you are being called to listen to and learn from?  Everyone wants you to dismiss her or him (or it...if it happens to be not a person but an issue or a dilemma.)  You can ignore it.  You can snub it.  You can offer a rational for why you just really aren’t required to care.  However, what if, like Jesus, you are meant to listen, even when it’s hard?  What if you’re meant to melt, to learn, to care.  What if that struggle is put in your path precisely so that you will grow?

“The Servant Leader”

John 13:1-16

August 1, 2010

           Let me build a foundation for an interesting “tidbit” that I’d like you to ponder this morning.  Obviously, we have four Gospels:  Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  Mark was written first.  Matthew and Luke were written not long after.  Those three Gospels were written with specific audiences in mind.  So, although they share common source material (a source that scholars have called “Q” but have never found), they each tell some of the same stories with their own twists and each tells some stories that are unique.  The Gospel of John, written significantly later, tells a story that is largely unique to that Gospel.  If you read the other three Gospels first and then read John, you will think to yourself, “Wow...this is different!”

          Here’s the interesting “tidbit:” in the Gospel of John, there is no familiar “Last Supper” moment, the moment that theologians call the “Words of Institution” when Jesus sits down with the disciples and says, “This is my body, broken for you...This is my blood, shed for each of you.”  Instead, while presumably sitting at that table with the disciples, Jesus speaks at length about what is about to happen and what it means, about Peter’s upcoming denial, and about the coming of the Holy Spirit.  Finally, Jesus prays for the disciples.  Then, Jesus is betrayed and arrested.

          Now, this may seem like the kind of detail that only a theologian or a Biblical scholar could love, but bear with me.  Think about how central the sacrament of communion has been in two thousand years of church history.  Think about how central sharing communion is in the life of most contemporary Christians.  Along with baptism, communion is one of those things we do because it was one of those things Jesus did.  And yet, here is the Gospel of John which essentially doesn’t bother to tell us that he did it at all.  The cornerstone ritual of the church simply is not there.

          Now, my point this morning is not to challenge the historicity of the last supper.  Nor do I have any interest in somehow “letting go” of the sacrament as a practice of our church.  Communion has a power of its own in our lives.  Communion doesn’t need an appearance in John’s Gospel to be valid.  My point this morning is that John made a choice and that choice was to tell us something else.  What he wanted to tell us is embedded in our text.

          John sets the stage.  The festival of Passover is about to take place.  Jesus knows that his betrayal and arrest and death are near.  Judas knows that he is the betrayer.  John is also clear that Jesus knows what the results of all this will be:  “He had come from God and was going to God.”  The bottom line though, I think, for John is buried in a line early in our text:  “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”  Jesus is with the people he loves most.  What unfolds is Jesus’ answer in the midst of those heartbreaking circumstances to the question, “What is the loving thing to do?”

          Here’s the scene that John chose to include rather than the Words of Institution.  Jesus gets up from the table, takes off his outer robe and ties a towel around himself.  He kneels down.  He pours water into a basin.  Slowly, he begins to work his way around the room, washing each disciple’s feet and wiping them with the towel tied around his waist.  The loving thing to do, what Jesus chooses to do in one of his final moments with the disciples, is to humble himself and become their servant.

          Presumably, there is a tense, uncomfortable silence in the room until Jesus approaches Simon Peter, the kind of guy who never met an uncomfortable silence he wasn’t willing to break:  “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”  Peter doesn’t call him by his name.  He calls him by his title:  “Lord.”  In essence, Peter invokes Jesus’ status.  Jesus answers, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”  In other words, if you think this is an act of humility or maybe even an act of humiliation, wait until you see what happens on the cross !  Peter doesn’t even pause to consider Jesus’ words.  He doesn’t even consider that if he is a follower of Jesus then perhaps he ought to allow Jesus to do what he was choosing to do.  Instead, Peter cries out, “You will never wash my feet!”  Jesus says, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.”  Then, Peter does one of his not-so-subtle “flip-flops:”  “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!”  It’s as if Peter is saying, “If this is about a bath and somehow that’s about getting to follow you, then, Lord, by all means, bathe me!”  I like to think Jesus might have been smiling a wry smile as he explained to Peter, “No, the feet will do...”

          Finally, having washed a dozen pair of feet (yes...Judas is sitting with them), Jesus explains himself and his actions.  Let me paraphrase:  “I am your teacher and your Lord.  So if I have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.  What I have done is set an example.  If your master is willing to be your servant, then how could you refuse to be servants yourselves?  Having shown you what I’ve been willing to do, do you really think that there is anything that you should be able to claim is just ‘below you?’”

          Now, let’s pause for a moment.  When I was living in Japan, one of the customs that just made so much sense to me was that you took off your shoes when you entered someone’s home.  In fact, there were a lot of places in which you took off your shoes when you went from the outside world and stepped indoors.  There is dirt out there!  Why drag the dirt in?  In addition, as a matter of courtesy and hospitality, there were usually slippers provided for you when you took your shoes off.  (Unfortunately, those slippers were usually no less than four sizes too small for me!)  I got used to this practice to the point of it feeling a little barbaric when I returned home and everyone just wore their shoes wherever they went.

          In the ancient world, things went a step further.  In entering a space, not only would shoes be shed but feet would be washed.  That might have been as simple of a matter as providing a basin and a towel at the entrance to a home and everyone knowing that there was an invisible sign hovering there that read, “Wash your feet!”  Of, if you were entering the home of a wealthy person, a servant would be provided who would wash your feet for you.  (Do you remember the story of the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her hair?)  So, you can wash your own feet or if you’re traveling though life in “business class” then you’ll be provided a complimentary foot washer. (“Would you like a refreshing hot towel?”)  What wouldn’t even have occurred to anyone is to have the “pilot”--(whoever was “above” you)--actually wash your feet for you. 

          Why does John choose to place foot washing at the center of the last days of Jesus’ life?  Here’s a theory.  By the time of the writing of John’s Gospel, Christianity has had some time to develop.  Christians are still being persecuted and would continue to be for several hundred years.  However, the life of the Christian community is beginning to take shape.  One of the things that develops in any community over time but especially develops when the culture surrounding that community is very status oriented is hierarchy.  What’s my place?  Who is above me?  Who is below me?  What am I willing to do?  What’s just plain below me and ought to be done by someone else?  Early on the Christian community was known for being very egalitarian.  (Do you remember Paul’s words about there being neither Jews nor Greeks nor slaves nor free nor women nor men in the community?  How long was that going to last?)  I think John put Jesus’ foot washing front and center because I think he believed that it was what the community in his day needed to hear and take to heart.

          Being a Christian doesn’t make you better than anyone else.  Being a Christian makes you a servant, not a master, makes you someone who simply does what needs to be done rather than having the luxury of deciding whether what needs to be done should be done by the likes of you.  Being a follower of Christ means that you must choose to humble yourself.  And by all appearances, humbling ourselves is something that human beings struggle mightily to actually do.

          One of the great things about being a small church pastor is that being the pastor doesn’t mean that you’re “above” anything.  If the toilet is clogged or the light bulb needs changing or the grass needs to be mowed, you don’t have the luxury of waiting for some “servant” to come get it done.  You just do it.  And, of course, there are plenty of things in any given moment that you just don’t have time to do (such as pull each of those weeds in the front garden that taunt me each time I walk past.)  Of course, the good news is that there are wonderful people who have the same attitude and approach whenever there is a need in the church’s life:  they just show up and get things done.  How many times have I heard a noise downstairs only to go down and discover that Bud Beattie is into another painting or repair project?  How cool was it the day after a big snow when I went up on the flat roof to shovel the snow off and I found a member of the church already up there and shoveling!  I think it is a really healthy thing that we do a lot of things around here ourselves.  They are the daily, weekly, monthly “foot washings” that keep us from getting too full of ourselves.

          In fact, I find myself actively seeking out the least glorious jobs because of the power that such moments seem to carry.  If you’ve ever been on a work trip with us, you know what I mean.  Somehow, it is in sweating and doing what anyone else might call “grunt work,” that the greatest satisfaction is found.  Maybe it is in the simple knowledge that faith must have something to do with what I’m doing because I’m pretty certain that I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t believe what I believe.  The more sweat involved, the better the opportunity.  The less people who ever know about it...all the better.  Somehow, in rolling up our sleeves and getting dirty, we feel close to the man who took off his robe and tied on a towel and went to work as a servant.

          Here’s a point to ponder:  How much better off would the church be in this world, if its leaders were less insulated from such opportunities to serve?  Think about it...the examples that we all admire--those who are caring for the poor, the sick, the outcasts--are all in direct service.  One way or another, they are all washing feet.  It is when the leadership and the members of churches become insulated from such concrete needs that the faith is skewed.  We start to ask what God (or the church) has done for us lately.  We start to expect to be served, rather than to serve.  We begin to court the notion that there are just certain things that we ought to be entitled to, based on our title or our status or our past service.  And slowly, we begin slip/sliding away from faith.

          What if this morning, instead of communion, I kneeled down to wash your feet?  What if this was your morning to do the washing?

“Let the Waters Calm…”

Romans 8:31-39

July 25, 2010

          The only problem with a great vacation is coming back to work.  I trust you know what I mean!  It’s not that there is anything wrong with work.  I love my job.  It really does feel like a privilege to do what I do.  It’s more a pacing issue.  I’ve said to several people this week who have asked how re-entry is going that it feels a little like trying to step onto the treadmill but it is already going at top speed.  You step on and “Boom!” you just get shot off the back side. 

          Part of this feeling certainly has to do with the kind of vacation that Tracy and I choose to take.  I know that there are folks who go new places and do new things every day.  They are going, going, going all the time.  That’s just not what we do.  We go to the same place and spend time with the same friends because we love that place and those friends.  While we’re together, the time is filled with traditions and rituals:  the occasional breakfast at our favorite little breakfast place; time spent singing (and sweating) in the sauna; reading great books late into the night.  Vacation for us is all about slowing things down.  It’s about rest and restoration.  It works for us.

          In all honesty, it always takes a little time for it to work on the front end.  There is a challenge in slowing things down.  Lots of people don’t like quiet because they are afraid of what they might hear when the noise that surrounds them dies down.  Part of what you hear in Northern Minnesota when things quiet down are the late night calls of the loons, which isn’t all bad.  Part of what you hear, though, too, is the voice from inside of yourself that is conducting the annual life review:  “How’s the church?  How’s our family?  How am I doing here?”  It would be no surprise to anyone who knows us that part of that review this year is the simple question, “Where did the time go?” as we get ready for Emma to head off to college.  I made the mistake of asking myself that question just after turning out the lights one night.  That night didn’t feature all that much sleep!

          In “Taoism” there is a bit of wisdom that I’ve always carried with me, mostly to challenge myself.  A question is asked, “Who can make the muddy water clear?”  Then the question is answered:  “Let the water calm and it becomes clear.”  It is entirely possible to live at such a pace that we are constantly thrashing and making the water muddy.  And when we do, it is really tempting to think that the way to clear the water is to pick the mud out... which of course just makes for more thrashing, which of course just makes the water even muddier. 

          My sole vacation goal is to let the muddy water clear.  What makes that spot and that time and those friends so sacred to me is that somehow, sooner or later, that clarity does happen.  I remember a trip up there a few years ago when I was utterly exhausted, not just from the drive but from the challenges that had been faced in previous months.  I arrived and my friends weren’t home yet.  I walked down to look at the lake.  I stopped at the screened porch of the sauna house and sat down in my favorite chair.  There was a little chill in the air.  After a moment or two, I just closed my eyes.  What I heard was the incredible sounds of the woods:  the rustling of the popple leaves; the clicking of branches, the calls of more birds than I would ever be able to name.  I could literally feel the peace washing over me.

          This year, the moment when the muddy water cleared was out on an island in that lake.  My friend and I had gone to do a little late afternoon blueberry picking.  We had picked some earlier in the day, fighting the flies and sweating in the heat, picking plenty of berries for the much anticipated first wild blueberry pie.  At the end of that excursion, we had stopped at another island, just to scout things out.  My friend was the scout.  I heard him groan with delight.  That island was brimming with berries.  For the rest of the afternoon, each time there was a lull in the activity, he would look at me and whisper, “Blueberries!”  And I would playfully suggest that there was probably a family of 8 people picking the island as we speak.  The urge to go got the best of us.

          We got to the island.  The day had cooled.  The flies were gone.  There was a wonderful breeze.  We grabbed our pales and went to work.  Now, blueberry picking is always work.  You have to climb hills and climb over deadfall trees.  You have to bushwhack your way to the perfect patch.  I was doing this by myself when I came upon the mother of all patches.  Like most blueberry patches up there, it was surrounded by sweet fern, which is one of the most fragrant smelling plants you can imagine.  These plants were even kind enough to grow in a spot with a really nice view of the lake on a hillside that was at a perfectly comfortable angle to recline.  I laid on my side on that hill.  I looked at those wonderful plants that were bent over with the weight of the berries.  I just absorbed that beautiful blue of the berries which is nothing like the blue of the berries in a store.  And then I closed my eyes and smelled the sweet fern.  I could feel the muddy waters clear.

          When the muddy waters clear, what we do see?  I can only tell you the truth to which those times of clarity lead.  Almost always, what I am led to is a world that is much broader and deeper and larger than the world of my concerns.  I didn’t turn on some sprinkler or some sun lamp to make sure that the berries would be there and be ripe at that moment.  Nature took care of that.  (And, of course, there are years that the berries don’t ripen.  Somehow, though, that makes the years when they do that much more precious.)  I didn’t plant the sweet fern.  I didn’t spray to keep the flies at bay.  All of these things together were a gift, a gift received in part because we were willing to do a little bushwhacking, but a gift just waiting to be discovered.

          The message for me has never felt like, “Don’t bother doing what you do.”  Rather, the message seems to be a reminder that what I do or what you do or what the loon or the blueberry plant does are all part of something so much larger and perhaps even so much more dependable than how I or you or the loon or the blueberry plant do today.  All of God’s creatures need to do what we do.  Yet, every now and then, we need to remember that we are one more small and occasionally wonderful part of the order of things and not the one who orders them.  We need to remember how much of life is a gift and how much appreciating those gifts matters.

          The challenge, of course, it to see that the stream of gifts in this life are not limited to vacations but are flowing our way every day.  Tell me about a day when you weren’t blessed?  (Let’s start here:  “Did you wake up?”)  Tell me about a day that was so bad or so hard that there weren’t blessings that came your way. ( I spend a lot of my life with people who are going through hard times.  What they speak of again and again is not being alone abandoned but of the caring people who come their way, of the comforts that reach them even in the greatest distress.)  No matter where you go, no matter what you have to go through, blessings will come your way.  I say that with utter confidence because it has happened over and over again in my life.

          Of course, we can be deaf and blind to those blessings.  We can be so busy manufacturing and manipulating people and things and situations to be what we want them to be that we can’t see what we’re being given.  Of course, we can be so stubborn that we refuse to accept what we’re being given because we liked what we were given yesterday, better.  (Think of me rising each morning after vacation for a few days, muttering to myself, “Today would be a good day to go fishing!”)  Of course, we can be hurt enough by what we’ve done to ourselves or what someone else has done to us that we are lost in a sea of pain.  Yet, even awash on that sea, sooner or later, some little “bird” will fly over us, reminding us that “land” is near, that the pain won’t last forever. 

          Paul asks, “What can separate us from the love of God?”  The Taoist answers, “Only our own thrashing.”  A key part of training a life guard is teaching them how not to drown in the panicking hands of the drowning person whom they are trying to save.  Thrashing is a serious hazard, to ourselves and to those who would save us.  “Let the water calm.”  Sometimes the right thing to do is to do nothing, or at least to do what looks like nothing which is often, in fact, listening or feeling of just doing whatever it takes to get back to the present moment.  It is standing and actually feeling the point of connection between your feet and the rest of the earth.  It is breathing and realizing that you are sharing that breath with all the other creatures who breathe on this earth.  

          Paul asks, “Who can separate us from the love of God?”  He asks that question of people whom he knew and loved who were deathly afraid of the power of those in authority.  Paul had once been one of those people, the people who hunted Christians down and persecuted them for what they believed.  They all knew someone who had lost a brother or a sister or a friend.  Most of them would have lost someone dear, themselves.  Awash in a sea of grief and pain and fear, Paul offered these words:  “I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  “Who can separate us from the love of God?”  Paul answers, “No one!”  What can separate us from love of God?  Paul answers, “Not a thing in this world!”

          Hearing that truth from Paul, I’d like to invite you to do two things.  First, do some inventory work.  What it is that helps the muddy water clear for you.  What helps you calm things down?  What helps you focus?  What are the experiences and practices that have allowed you to remember that life is not just one big “to do” list.  Now ask yourself, when is the last time you gave yourself permission to experience or practice those things?  What are you waiting for?  How long will you be content to thrash?

          Second, nothing probably blocks us more from being receptive to the blessing of this day than fear.  Paul meant to speak to the people whom he knew and loved about their fears.  To a persecuted people, he spoke about the “powers that be” and death.  Ask yourself, if Paul knew you as well, what would he be saying to you?  “Not even drop off day for college can separate you from the love of God!”  “Not even having to change jobs or even losing a job can separate you from the love of God!”  Not even failing to get everything done that you absolutely, positively had to get done yesterday can separate you from the love of God!”  It’s not that life will be easy or that it will work out exactly as you want.  The promise is that even the things you fear the most cannot change the fact that you are not alone and that you are and always will be loved.

          “Let the water calm and it becomes clear...”

  

 

“Sinners and Saints”

Luke 19:1-10

July 18, 2010

          I haven’t offered a sweeping generalization form this pulpit for a while.  This morning, let me break with that trend.  Let me offer two.  First, although Jesus taught and preached and healed, what united those very different activities was redemption.  Someone had a problem, either through no fault of their own or through years of poor choices.  Someone had a misunderstanding, either because some authority had taught them some untruth or because they came up with their own “truth” to justify their prejudices and hates.  Somehow, in some way, things were less than what God intended them to be:  a man was blind or a person was blinded with hate; a woman was sick or Jesus was sick of seeing how women were treated.  Jesus waded into whatever was wrong and did what he could to turn things around.  Wherever he went, whomever he touched, his efforts were redemptive.

          Here’s the second sweeping generalization:  trying to be a redemptive force in life is perhaps the main calling of a Christian.  Knowing that we are, ourselves, less than we could be, knowing that we live in a broken world that is filled with broken people like us, even if they are broken in different ways, knowing that some of what is broken is built into the very fabric of our institutions and our understandings, nevertheless, Jesus calls us to wade into the mess, to roll up our sleeves and try to make ourselves, or someone else’s life just a little better.  We are called to believe in the possibility of change.  We are called to offer the chance for change to those who, to the rest of the world, seem hopelessly stuck.  We are called to never forget who it is that we follow:  the man who stood between the adulterous woman and those who would have stoned her, who tried to heal a blind man and when it didn’t work, tried again, who took plain old, weather-beaten fishermen and turned them into disciples. 

          This morning, we are called to remember what Jesus did when all he had to work with was a mean-spirited little tax collector in a tree.  By all accounts, Zacchaeus was a lousy rendition of a human being.  To start with, he wasn’t much to look at:  a short, ugly man.  Well, he was short, anyway.  To tell the truth it was hard to tell if the “ugly” part was a physical attribute or was a character trait, discovered almost as soon as you met him.  His eyes would shuffle from side-to-side, signaling the way in which he was always “angling” for a way to take advantage of the situation.  Because Zacchaeus would cheat his own mother not to mention his best friends, he had no mother who cared about him anymore and certainly had no friends.  His only companions were the coins that he assembled and counted nightly, the riches he had hoarded by acting as the local tax authority and mercilessly cheating the masses.  He gave Rome what was Rome’s (even Zacchaeus realized that you don’t cheat those boys!).  All the rest, he kept for himself.  He was a selfish, self-centered, lonely man.  If you find yourself wondering occasionally at this world that seems so full of sinners and saints, trust me, when I tell you that Zacchaeus would occupy most anyone’s category of “sinner.”

          On the day when Jesus came to town, it is hard to know what was motivating Zacchaeus.  Clearly, he climbed the tree to get a better view of the proceedings.  Yet, you have to wonder what he was looking for.  Was he just scoping things out, searching the crowd for data that he could use about who might have more money to squeeze?  Was he watching for the authorities and their response to this Jesus so that he could match their response and stay in their good graces?  Or was there somehow, against all odds, some rumbling deep inside him, some flicker of hope that there might be something less lonely, that there might, in this life, just be something more? 

          For any human being, if we walk a wayward path long enough, there is a transition that happens.  At first, we might work our denial as long as we can:  “I’m just doing what I have to do and what I’m doing’s not so bad;  I can stop any time I want.”  The transition that comes at some point is grounded in despair:  “Who am I kidding?  This is just who I am.  I don’t like it but it is what it is and I am what I am.”  Resignation is a powerful thing, powerful enough to keep a person stuck for a whole lifetime.

          If the denial was working for Zacchaeus that day, maybe he had no problem leaving his home and wading into that sea of people.  After all, he had done nothing wrong.  The contempt filled glares of the people would have bounced right off of him.  After all, who would feel shame when you’ve done nothing shameful? 

          What if, though, the shields were down?  What if Zacchaeus couldn’t keep the shame at bay?  What if every glance that came his way screamed the truth that Zacchaeus couldn’t deny?  What if Zacchaeus was at the peculiar moment in life when denial is in the rearview mirror and the only thing he can see ahead is resignation?  “Okay, crowds...your looks, your spitting, your gestures all are correct.  You are the saints and I am the sinner.  So what...nothing is going to change.” 

          Now, step back for a minute and consider just how toxic the presence of someone like Zacchaeus can be for the community.  Yes, it’s true that he cheated them each out of some money.  Yes, it’s true that he was in “cahoots” with Rome and everyone hated the Romans.  It wasn’t that their frustrations weren’t legitimate.  It wasn’t that they hadn’t been wronged.  However, the insidious, poisonous truth was that having someone like Zacchaeus in their midst distorted the vision of truth for them all.  If they all could join together and hate this man then they could all avoid taking a hard look at themselves.  After all, Zacchaeus was the sinner, the broken man, the one who wasn’t what any person should be.  Conveniently, by comparison, that made them saints.  As long as there was someone so contemptible in their midst, they didn’t have to worry.  There was someone worse.  As long as there was someone worse, they didn’t have to take responsibility for what kind of people they were.

          Think of reality television and the way that it puts pathetic people in front of us whom we can laugh at and ridicule and who leave us feeling better about ourselves.  Think of the cruelty that you watched on whatever playground in which you grew up and the closeness that folks felt when that one kid was picked on and everyone else was in.  Think of the craving that happens in a nation for a common enemy, the enemy whose presence out there somewhere in the world leaves us feeling a little better about ourselves and a little closer to one another.  Consider, for a moment, that the Zacchaeus story may not just be about Zacchaeus but may be our story, that for as long as there have been human beings, the “saints” in order to feel like saints have always needed to find a good sinner.  And, if you’re following me, consider how the community can have a real stake in subverting any chance that the sinner might change.

          In walks Jesus...  He sees the saints and walks right by.  He offers a few words here and a smile there.  Somehow, though, in retrospect, it seems like he was making a “bee line,” straight to the tree where Zacchaeus was, straight to the man who most needed him, maybe to the one person in town who actually knew that he needed to change and who was ready to jump at any glimmer of hope.  Jesus looks up into that tree and speaks to Zacchaeus:  “I want to come to your house for dinner.”  Other visitors might have sought out the nicest house, the nicest person, the nicest dinner.  Other, visitors might have sought out “four star” accommodations.  Jesus was looking to spend the evening with the town’s “trailer trash.”  Other town residents might have been ranking everyone in his or her mind’s eye to see who would have the honor of being Jesus’ host because, after all, that honor was supposed to go to the “best” person.  Jesus was having none of that.

          Jesus choice should not have surprised anyone who had been listening to what he had to say.  Jesus kept telling people that he had come to save the lost, that he was like a physician who came to heal the sick, the he was like a shepherd who left the ninety-nine sheep behind to find the one sheep who had strayed.  Jesus is all about inviting people to discover what it means to really live, to see that change is possible, to discover that hope is real.  Jesus sought out people who were broken and marginalized: the poor, the sick, the despised.  He started with the people who knew that things couldn’t continue the way they were even if they struggled with the notion that things might actually change.  Like Zacchaeus, these people jumped at the chance to change when that change was put in front of them.

          Zacchaeus takes Jesus home with him.  He shows Jesus real hospitality.  He shows every sign of changing, of choosing to no longer be Zacchaeus, the cheat.  Shockingly, Judas even says that he’s going to make amends, that he will repay everyone he has ever cheated fourfold.  The cynical listener, aware of the power of relapse in people’s lives, might well, say, “Well, let’s check back on Zacchaeus in a few weeks.”  An A.A. veteran might hear about Zacchaeus’ effort to make amends and recognize one of the steps.  A casual listener might hear the story and think, “How nice!  Jesus cared.”  The community, though, is furious.

          They are furious at Jesus for caring about someone who clearly was not worth caring about:  “Why would he be dining with sinners?”  Any messiah worth his salt would care about them, not him.  The crowd is furious at Zacchaeus for daring to change:  “Where does he get off thinking that you can just suddenly change?”  And yet, whichever direction the crowd’s anger runs, an outside observer can’t help but wonder if the real function of their anger doesn’t have less to do with who Jesus is or who Zacchaeus is than it has to do with who they are.  Without the convenience of a Zacchaeus worth hating, they are cordially invited to take a hard look at themselves and what might need to change.  They would love nothing more than to refuse that invitation.

          Maybe there is value to the notion of a “saint.”  Maybe hearing about a noble life lived faithfully can inspire us to try to live something more.  However, that value is lost the moment when we are ready to see ourselves as the saints and some person near us as the sinner.  Not for the sake of guilt but simply for the sake of honesty, we need to be able to tell the truth:  we are all broken; we are all less than what we are called to be.  That truth can set us free, free from searching in life for someone whom we are better than, free from spending our lives trying to prove something about ourselves.  Rather than trying to prove ourselves perfect or trying to prove some other to be perfectly imperfect, the truth that we are broken can free us to work to make things a little better.  How can I help this person in front of me grow?  What do I need to take responsibility for in my life so that I can grow?  How can God be a partner in that growth?

“Born to Run”

Luke 9:57

June 27, 2010

          I like to read books about people doing things that I could never do.  For a long time, I read a lot about mountain climbing, specifically, books about Everest and K2.  I love to read about the superhuman determination of those climbers and the risks that they are willing to take.  I’m pretty sure I couldn’t come close to what they do physically.  What I know for sure is that I couldn’t leave my family waiting and worried in the face of the risks I was choosing to take.  Still, the human spirit of those climbers makes for a wonderful read.  I love the pictures they take at the summit with smiles that are a mile wide.

          Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of running books.  Knee injuries in basketball ended my running days long ago.  Nowadays, I go and “run” on my arc trainer at the rec. center.  The books I’m reading are ultra marathoning books, most of which are shared with me by a friend who actually has run ultra marathons.  His races were 50 miles.  Some of the races are well over a hundred miles, often through the mountains.  One of those races takes place in Death Valley, where temperatures reach 130 degrees and the runners have to run on the white line on the side of the road or their shoes will melt on the scorching asphalt. 

          The best book that I’ve read along these lines is called, “Born to Run.”  The author, Christopher McDougall, has never been much of a runner himself.  However, he hears about a tribe in Mexico that runs incredibly long distances through the mountains together purely for fun.  In fact, he hears a story about a 90 year old member of the tribe who comes in third place in one of their 50 mile races.  (And, by the way, they run either in very thin sandals or barefoot through some of the world’s toughest terrain.)  In relative isolation from modern civilization, this tribe has almost no cancer, no heart disease, no blood pressure problems--none of the plagues of modern life.  McDougall is intrigued enough to go spend time with them.  The lasting impression for him is the smiles on their faces as they run.

          Later, the author goes around the United States finding the great competitive ultra marathoners.  He meets a woman from San Francisco who treats herself (her words) to two twenty mile runs a day.  He meets the greatest ultra marathoner in the competitive world, a man from Minnesota who was the worst runner on his cross country team until one day as a high schooler he entered a fifty mile race and won going away.  Cross country races were just too short!  Now, that man wins every race he enters but stands at the finish line and congratulates every runner who finishes.  He stands there until the last runner crosses the line--often hours upon hours after his victory.  In the cast of characters that he meets around the country, the one thing the author notices is the look of joy on the runners faces as they are running.  70 miles into a race, these elite runners are beaming!

          I won’t spoil the ending of the book, but I will tell you that the author manages to gather the best of the best in this country and stage a race with the tribe in Mexico.  Despite all the differences between all those runners, they share a common passion:  the simple joy of running.  Because they share that passion, there is a powerful connection that is built across cultures.  Even the author runs the final race.  For a while, he too, discovers that joy.  Running long distances is what those people were born to do.

          My question for you this morning is this:  “What were you born to do?”  The Population Reference Bureau estimates that in the history of the earth, there have been 106,456,367,669 humans born.  (We’ll grant that as a “ball park” estimate!)  Of those 106 billion or so humans, there has not been one exactly like you.  This statement is genetically true (unless you have an identical twin.)  Even if you have that twin, personalities are different.  Each of us is unique.  You are the one chance the world will have to experience you!

          At the same time, we share things in common.  The distinguishing thing we share as human beings is the awareness that we will not live forever, that the world existed before us and that it will exist after us.  That awareness, whenever it fully enters our hearts and minds (and based on the teenaged driving I see, it does take time to grasp the whole notion of “mortality”), becomes a driving force in our lives.  We can deny it.  We can be haunted by it.  Or, we can decide to live as fully as we can for whatever time we might have.

 

          Of course, “whatever time we might have” is the key part of the great unknown.  We know our lives will have a beginning, a middle and an end.  However, since we don’t know the end, we also don’t know the middle.  That’s why, on behalf of all of us “50 somethings,” I want you to know that 60 is the new 40!  There is a fundamental insecurity to being a human being.  Everything that is alive will also die.  We seem to be the clearest example among living things of the beings who are both blessed and cursed with this knowledge.  It is a really human thing to ask oneself at 3:00 a.m., “I wonder how much more time I have?”  And a question like that can start a person on quite a slippery slope.

          Of course, the much more fruitful question in life which is actually in our control to answer is, “When am I going to start really living?”  Yes, that can lead some folks to make some pretty self-serving, narcissistic choices.  It is possible to mistake pleasure seeking for really living.  However, I don’t think we should throw out the question because some people answer it incorrectly.  “When am I going to start really living?” 

          The goal isn’t to stay alive forever.  Yes, we have to take care of ourselves.  However, like most everything else in life, when it comes to time, quality, not quantity seems to be what matters.  The goal should be to live with purpose and meaning, to squander as little of this precious life as I can, to stuff as much life into this life as possible.  And to do that, we have to watch very carefully for the clues about what we were born to do.  Maybe you weren’t born to climb.  Maybe you weren’t born to run.  However, the smile on those runners’ faces has been on your face, too, however fleetingly.  There was a day when you were doing something that was hard, that many people would never want to do, that required you to pour out your energy.  And yet, what you felt was not drained but fulfilled.  You felt whole!  And when you felt that way, you beamed.

          What if it is not too late to feel that kind of wholeness again?  One of my favorite runners didn’t run until his 30th birthday.  He was depressed and just started running into the night.  He called his wife in the morning because he had run too far and couldn’t get home.  Much later, he ended up running a 212 mile relay race.  The other teams entered had 12 runners who alternated legs of the race.  He ran by himself--non-stop for 212 miles.  (He consumed over 27,000 calories while he ran!)  I suspect that you might well have a clue as you sit here this morning to the answer to the questions, “What is it that I would do if I could do anything?  What would I love to do?  What would make me feel whole?”  Of course there would be sacrifices if you tried, for you and for those who love you.  Of course there would be defeats along the way.  Could you give yourself permission to find out what it was that you were put on this earth to do? 

          Again, we don’t have to be talking about climbing mountains and running ultra marathons.  What if you feel whole helping kids?  What if you feel whole caring for senior citizens?  What if you feel whole when you fight against some injustice?  What if you feel whole caring for and connecting with a friend?  The question I’m asking this morning is, “What if your particular source of wholeness in life is your calling?”  And the question that goes with it is, “What if you don’t have forever to respond?”

          A lot of what stands between us and our calling is our desire for security.  We want to be safe.  We want the people we love to be safe.  We don’t want any bad things to happen.  The truth though is that beyond the reasonable, responsible measures that we can take, security is really an elusive thing.  I remember a tacky poster that was in my junior high counselor’s office.  It had a picture of a ship tied up to a dock and it said, “Ships in harbors are safe but ships were not made to sit in harbors.”  It is really easy to live our lives as if our goal is to just keep checking the lines that hold us to the dock.

          In our text for this morning, Jesus offers one of those phrases that ought to haunt us.  Someone cries out to him, “I’ll follow you wherever you go!”  Jesus answers, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”  Now, often when we hear a reference to the Son of Man, we think of Jesus.  However, that is not the original meaning.  The Son of Man was a reference to all human beings.  All the other animals have a place to lay their heads.  They get to feel secure.  They get to live worry free.  Of course, any of us who have ever watched a nature show know that they are not secure.  The wildebeest doesn’t know the crocodile is only inches away.  The baby bird can’t see the snake coming.  Try as we might to convince ourselves otherwise, we know that we are fundamentally insecure.  Jesus is saying, “If you’re ready for life to be about more than security, then come and follow me.”  What if the reason to follow him is not that you’ll live forever but so that you will discover what it means to really live?

          Obviously, this last week has been driven by thinking about David Genger and his completely unexpected death.  He was 47 years old.  There’s nothing right or fair about a life ending like that.  I spent a lot of time at Woodland’s basketball games with David because Emma and his daughter Coley played together.  He was a friend.  He was a Dad.  He was a husband.  He was a teacher.  He loved being all of those things.  There were times when being all those things made life very difficult and challenging.  And yet, at his memorial service, what a wide array of people kept discovering was how much life and how much living he just plain stuffed into his 47 years.  He wasn’t a saint.  None of us are.  What he was, though, was a passionate, caring man who really lived. His life was full of life until the very day he died.  And what everyone talked about what his smile, not unlike the smile of those born to run or those standing on the world’s peaks who were born to climb.

          The world needs someone just like you...or you...or even me.  In the lazy days of summer, in the wake of the loss of a dear friend, it is time to take stock.  How much energy is going into checking the lines to the dock, into looking for a place to lay my head, into making sure things are secure?  What would it take to really give yourself permission to do what you love and pursue your passion?  What stands between you and your calling?        

 

“Children of God”

        On Father’s Day, we also need to acknowledge all of the folks who might have been better off (seemingly) if their fathers had been absent.  We remember those whose fathers were physically or emotionally or sexually abusive.  (After years of life as a therapist, I am still appalled at the prevalence of such issues.)  We remember those whose fathers were held by the throat by addictions who had to absorb the consequences of his life.  We have to remember those whose fathers simply were not up for the job.  Let’s be honest:  just because you grew up with a male in the house doesn’t mean you had a Dad.  It’s just the truth...

        Here’s something else that is true, though:  whether your father was absent or whether your father was not much of a Dad, when people are honest with themselves and with others, even those with the worst of fathers search their whole lives for some way to redeem who that man was.  Those with the absent fathers so often go looking for them or go looking for whatever facts they can learn.  Those with the broken fathers search their memories for some single memory--something to hold onto--that was just positive:  “I’ve learned to be honest about all these broken aspects of my Dad...but there was this one day...”  I remember a person whom I talked to who endured more at the hands of his father than we could ever imagine.  He found that one memory though from that one day when his father was a real Dad and somehow that was healing. 

        The vast majority of us, I suspect, had the good enough Dads, the ones who paid some attention to us, who provided for us, whom we knew cared for us and loved us.  Given everything we know, that ought to lead us on a day like this to say, “Thank you and thank God!”  We were lucky!  As we grow older, those of us who have become fathers ourselves have even grown to understand and forgive and even appreciate the quirks:  “Yes, I am wearing these shorts with these shoes!”  “Yes, I have been assembling this grill for several days now!”  “Yes, I do want you to do this, even if no other kid on the planet is required to do this!”  In retrospect, we forgive the quirks because we realize how impossibly hard the job really is, at least if the job is to get everything right.  We won’t and we know it.  On our best days, we are doing the best we can.

        On all of our days, God is with us, on the days when we mess things up and don’t even have a clue as well as the days when we triumphantly fulfill our role.  God stands beside us, whispering things like, “Take another look” or “Be patient” or perhaps even, “Maybe the kid has a point about the Bermuda shorts and those black shoes!”  Obviously, I’m biased but I think our best work as fathers happens when the internal, prayer-filled, conversation between ourselves and God is alive and well.  There are a lot of good fathers for whom the “mantra” in prayer may be, “Help me to be the best Dad I can be!”  The best fathers are humble.  And, of course, there’s nothing quite so humbling as asking God for help.

        That humility, though, is grounded ultimately in the wisdom contained in our text.  A lot of people’s answer about what it means to be a father would have something to do with being a disciplinarian.  It’s the old, “Just wait ‘till your father gets home” point of view.  (What an awful thing that must have been for a lot of fathers!)  What Paul acknowledges is that there was a time when that was seen as God’s role.  God gave the law.  God punished those who broke the law.  A faithful person’s job was to never break the law.  If you didn’t break the law, then God wouldn’t get mad.  An awful lot of patriarchal homes were based on a similar view of a father.  Dad makes the rules.  We follow them.  The goal is to keep Dad from getting mad. 

        In our text, Paul discards that view of God.  The problem was the same, whether thinking about God or thinking about a home.  People were involved.  People are broken.  People don’t do well following rules.  Besides all that, maybe people were meant to spend their lives doing some positive things other than just trying to keep God (or Dad) from getting mad.  Maybe God (and Dad) really longed for a relationship other than anger on a bad day or on a good day, some form of neutral.

        Paul says that Christ came as a gift into the world so that we might be set free from the prison of the law.  In Christ, we become God’s children.  We are loved.  We don’t have to prove ourselves anymore.   We are free.  Paul says that love changes everything:  “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”  Everyone is loved.  Everyone is in.  For Paul, God seems to have come to the point of deciding that the best way for us to grow is not to t control us or to ask us to control ourselves.  The best way for us to grow is to love us and be with us and see what we become.

        When I think about God as being like a father, I think about the loving God, not the controlling, authoritative God.  A careful reading of the Bible provides ample evidence that not even God could make the controlling, authoritative model work.  People aren’t built to play that game.  Seeing that such a relationship wasn’t working, God decided to love us instead.  I wonder why it has taken so long for our understanding of what it means to be a father to incorporate that truth?

        In the light of our faith, the bedrock foundation of what it means to be a father is that your children are not yours.  Rather, they are God’s children.  They have been given to you in trust.  Your sacred job is not to make them what you want them to be but to help them discover who God created them to be.  They will make mistakes and have bad days and endure setbacks along the way.  They will take steps along the way that are real growth.  Your job as a father is not to control them.  Your job is to love them.  Your job is to help them.  Your job is to do what you can to encourage them to become a person of faith, a person of integrity, and a loving person.  And the best way you will do this is by being that kind of person yourself.

        It’s not that there won’t need to be rules.  It’s not that there won’t need to be consequences when rules are broken.  It’s not that we won’t offer guidance along the way.  Those things (like the religious laws) endure.  However, those things are put into context.  The rules and the consequences and the guidance are not statements about our authority but are our attempts to be helpful.  When they don’t work, our egos aren’t at stake.  In fact, when they don’t work, maybe that becomes something we can discuss honestly.  Maybe we search together at that point for a way of being a parent and a way of being a family that we all think might contain some love and some integrity and some faith.  Maybe fathering as an expression of faith can give us some perspective and can even lead us to value others’ perspectives.

        A few weeks ago, on Mother’s Day, I suggested that maybe it is time to forgive what is past and let it go.  What I’m suggesting this morning when it comes to fathers is that maybe it’s time for fathers to stop trying to control what we can’t control.  The greatest influence we will have will be our example.  The greatest chance we have to shape a life will be by loving our children (however old they might be) as they go through the complicated business of trying to live their own lives.  In a world in which so many fathers are absent, in which so many fathers are a destructive force, the job is to be there and be loving.  The job is to take care of God’s children.