Sometimes God Just Hands Me a Sermon

Acts 11.1-18//John 13.31-35

 

While there are many preachers who have their sermons written and ready weeks in advance, that just isn't me. My approach is more "organic" (a current buzz word, that also fits! How convenient!). Not real sure whether I should be embarrassed about this, or not, but I usually don't know what the next Sunday's assigned texts are until the Monday before (i.e. Today is Monday...I will read the lessons for next Sunday, today...Except that next Sunday is Youth Sunday, so I won't preach...But, usually.). I will read and pray and check out what is going on in the text surrounding our specific lessons; I'll do some on-line work (actually quite a bit of this); check out what some favorite authors and theologians have to say about the texts; see if there are any words that "jump out" as unique - if so, I'll do a little word-study on them to see if there is a "more accurate" translation; try to determine whether I will focus on just one lesson (or part of a lesson), or if there is more than one that work well together; that type of thing. I'll really dig in to the studying hard on Monday and Tuesday (on Tuesdays I cheat and join several other clergy-type folks and we sit around and pick each other's theological brains regarding sermon-prep for the upcoming Sunday. One of the pastors at this gathering is always full of insight, because she is one of those who has had her sermon written at least one week in advance - but she only preaches every other week!). And then, I live life through the lens of the scripture for the rest of the week. And ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I see God showing up as if to say: "See? This is what I'm talking about" (Just to be clear, I am certain that God shows up 100% of the time...But every now and then the "divine 2x4" just isn't big enough to get my attention!).

So, this past week, the lessons that "grabbed me" were from John 13: "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another," and Acts 11: "What God has made clean, you must not call profane (unclean)."

Personally, I think it is instructive to point out the amount of ink that has been spilled by some (quite honestly, more conservative) scholars trying to determine just who it is Jesus is talking about. Who exactly are "one another"? Is that just "us"? Or does it include "them"? You know there are only a few people with him at the time of his speaking this. Maybe Jesus just means "you few gathered here are to love one another"\...Right? Well, except for Judas...Because it can't include him, he, after all, has just 'gone out' to betray Jesus. And Jesus wouldn't want us to love betrayers. And probably not Peter, who is fixing to deny Jesus...but the rest of us! We are the 'one another.'" Yeah...couple this reading (John 13) with the Acts reading, and I think that logic proves to be, in fact, illogical (to say the least!)! 

So, I do the more intensive part of my sermon-prep on Monday and Tuesday, and then, when I got to the office on Wednesday morning and was met by Sandra (our secretary) who wanted to share a story with me about something she had done, I just started smiling (it quickly became evident that God was handing me a sermon on a silver platter). A member of the congregation named Johnny who is 88 years old, fell about a week and a half ago, and broke his hip. Surgery was followed by hospitalization, and now he is in a rehab facility. Now, it's important to know that Johnny's daughter lives pretty far away and doesn't get here as often as she'd like. It's also important to understand that many years ago, Sandra "adopted" Johnny as her "father." Their relationship has grown even stronger since Sandra's own father died. Sandra visits Johnny like she would visit her own father...that is, daily (sometimes in the morning and the evening). The story she told me that morning started something like this: "Pastor, I think I may have done something bad." I took a deep breath and said, "Okay???" She went and saw Johnny. His daughter and son-in-law were there, as was Johnny's roommate, Chuck (the plan was for Johnny to have a private room...didn't happen). None of them knew each other particularly well. They all chatted, Johnny was getting tired, and Sandra announced that it was time for her to leave, but that she was going to pray first. Then, apparently, she just stuck her hands out and said (Sandra can be very direct), "When I pray with people I hold hands." And they all held hands, including the un-expected roommate, Chuck, and she prayed. It was only afterward that she realized "I have no idea what anyone else's 'beliefs' were. I don't even know if they are 'believers' (Sandra's not Lutheran...she uses that "believer" language much easier than I do. She's a good model for me.)! I just started praying," she said. "Is that okay?" I just smiled. And there was my sermon! One author (Lewis Mudge) says it beautifully: "In Acts 11...the notions of clean and unclean as ways of separating people from one another are ruled antithetical to Christian faith forever, invalidating any attempt on our part to reinstate them, in any form, ever again."  

On Thursday, I got a call from a member of the congregation who is a cop. He's started volunteering at the Urban Ministry Center (urbanministrycenter.org), working with the chronically homeless. What a lovely picture of the Kingdom, the cop and the homeless person, figuring out life together ("the notions of clean and unclean as ways of separating people from one another are antithetical to Christian faith").

On Saturday, I went to a fashion show by Clothes for Change (a program started by students of Myers Park High School in Charlotte, NC. Check them out on Facebook). They work to raise awareness and money to fight the oppression of women across the world and give women education opportunities. (I am humbled by the work of these high school students). The speakers talked openly about human-trafficking and abuse (locally and globally). They addressed our presumptions (i.e. "the prostitute is a prostitute because she is choosing to be a prostitute, and so the hardships of her life are her own fault."). And, even though they never used the word, they spoke about "resurrection" (new life, liberation, education, dignity-regained). "Love one another" Jesus said. "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples (followers), if you love one another" (John 13.35). Gary Jones says this: "How embarrassing it is for many of us who call ourselves Christian to recall that Jesus wanted to make it easy for us by having us focus on this one thing; yet we...often have a hard time putting this commandment into practice even in our own family lives...Jesus did not say, 'They will know you are my disciples if you believe the right things.' ...Jesus does not talk about the importance of the Bible or a carefully constructed creed. The New Testament would not even be written until two generations after Jesus' death, and the Nicene Creed would be hammered out by combative theologians over the next 350 years. The Bible and the creed would become terribly important to human beings over the years, while the one thing most important to Jesus would get lost as Christians wrestled with power and [propriety]."

"As we go about our business in the church, the world is watching. Do we have anything to offer that differs from other groups characterize by dissension and division" (Joseph Harvard)?

One of my colleagues lamented having to preach on this text yet again. She said, "it's just so 'blah, blah, blah, love, blah, blah, blah, love.'" Really? I think it's incredibly daring and extreme. "Love one another." Love Judas who has just betrayed me. Love Peter who will deny me. Love the kid who is behind bars because he helped blow up some bombs at the Boston Marathon. Love the NRA members. Love the gun-control lobbyists. Love those you consider most "unclean." Reach out your arms and hold hands with whomever is next to you, and love them. I dare you.

 

 

The 23rd Psalm...A lesson in perspective

When I called Katie Church (she is the "Tenant Service Coordinator" for Moore Place) to discuss just what I had agreed to, she told me to only expect a "handful" of participants. Months earlier, Katie had sent an e-mail out to area pastors requesting volunteers to lead weekly bible studies with tenants at Moore Place. You can learn more about Moore place at urbanministrycenter.org. In a nutshell it is brilliant ministry that began with building brand new condominiums to house Charlotte's most desperate and chronically homeless. The paradigm is the opposite of the "get sober and get it together, then we'll find you a place to live" paradigm. It is a ministry that offers security FIRST, then support for re-building lives and relationships. And it is working!

Anyhow, I signed up to lead. And this past Wed. was my time. I asked Katie what she thought about Psalm 23 as a point of study and conversation. Was it "overdone"? Would the folks talk to me? She said, "Oh yes, they'll talk...and you can do any bible study you want...just, please, look at something other than the story of the Good Samaritan - every pastor thinks these folks need that story!"

So, I was feeling pretty good about the 23rd Psalm. It was the assigned psalm for this past Sunday - I'd need to do some studying on it for my sermon-prep anyhow. May as well share my well-educated and informed insights with others. I determined to give my Wednesday morning/afternoon to preparation and gleaning bits of wisdom from various scholarly resources from hither and yon (mostly from the internet!). Then Henry (my son) got sick - nothing scholarly about vomit! So, Wednesday evening, I walked into Moore Place completely unprepared - but it's the 23rd Psalm. Not much new, there (yeah, right!).

The bible study was to begin at 7:00, and I walked in the front door precisely on time. Katie welcomed me and showed me the room where we would meet (there was even a chalkboard placard with "Tonight at 7:00 - Bible Study with Pastor Sara!" announcing my presence). Then we stood there and looked at each other. Just me and Katie. No one else. Eventually, someone walked by. Katie recruited, "Ms. Von (her name is "Veronica," but everyone calls her "Von") are you coming to Bible Study?" "Yes ma'am, I just need to go get my bible." I asked Katie, "will she come back?" Katie said, "I don't know." Katie and I went into the room and sat at the empty table. A few minutes later Von did come back. I immediately noticed her very well worn, dog-eared bible. I was immediately intimidated (she can probably quote book, chapter, verse way better than I can!). Before long she told Katie who to call. "Ms. Katie, you called Glenda?" Katie said "Ms. Von, you've got a phone. You call her!" Von said, "No ma'am I don't have my phone. I don't bring it to Bible Study." Katie went and called Glenda. "Ms. Katie, you called Annie?" Katie called Annie. This went on several more times, and before long, as promised, we had our handful of people.

We began with a prayer and I told them we'd be looking at the 23rd Psalm. Then, because none of them made a move to open their bibles, I (with, what I realize now, was a probably a quite condescending voice) proceeded to tell them how to find the psalms in their bibles (open your bible to the middle and odds are good you'll hit the psalms!). Ms. Von opened her bible out of courtesy, but no one else did. And Von never looked at hers. At some point, it occurred to me: "It's the 23rd Psalm for God's sake! When they had no place to live and nothing in their lives to call their own, they called this psalm and this LORD their own ("The LORD is MY shepherd" - only time in the Old Testament the the LORD is called MY shepherd - everywhere else it's plural - like OUR shepherd)!" 

For the next hour, these simple scholars gently schooled me in perspective. I, who have never come face to face (in a very literal sense) with evil - "I will fear no evil" - was given a broader understanding by them who have had guns held in their faces and/or pimps controlling their every move. They schooled me in what it means to live in the "valley of the shadow of death." They opened my understanding of what it is to know "thou art with me."

By the time we got to the next verse, "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies," I just said, "That's is a really hard verse for me. What does that mean for you?" And I let them speak first. I think it was Annie who said something like, "I think Jesus must have known that verse. The way he always eating with everybody, even prostitutes. And then, the way he ate with Judas and Peter and all the rest - those people who betrayed him and denied him and ran away. They were his enemies - but he just kept feeding them and loving them. Just like he do for us."

We closed with prayer and I realized that I had been sitting or "dwelling" in the "House of the LORD" that evening ("I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever." Forever doesn't wait to start until we die. We're in it right now...otherwise, it wouldn't be "forever."), gathered around a table with people who, while they certainly were not my enemies, are not folks I would "naturally" find myself with - divided by culture and attitude and "evil/enemy" type things like preconceptions and fear. And people who showed the wear and tear that resulted from combat with the enemies of homelessness, and exploitation, and addiction, and "invisibility," and injustice, and ignorance, and hunger, and violence, and on and on and on. And darned if God, the Shepherd, didn't just go ahead a spread a table right there in the the middle of it all.

The next day the House of the LORD appeared at the Taco Bell in Yadkinville where a table was spread before me and my friend Rick (He came to St. Luke's through our Drop in Center - an outreach ministry to the mentally ill of Charlotte. He now lives in a "housing project" in Yadkinville).

Later that evening the House of the LORD appeared in our Fellowship Hall during the Volunteer Appreciation dinner for Loaves & Fishes of Charlotte/Mecklenburg County (a ministry founded more than 25 years ago, to confront hunger.). There were more than 300 people there - Christians and Jews and "non-religious" types, people who volunteer their time to spreading tables right in the presence of the enemies of hunger and loneliness.

And you know - since we are still in the season of Easter - it seems right to point out, that wherever the House of the LORD shows up, resurrection is going to show up, too! In new relationships and banished fear and understanding and friendship and hunger relieved and beds provided and dignity given and voices heard and thoughts shared and enemies overcome with love.

After all, this is NOT a psalm for the time of death (except as regards the death of evil), it is a psalm for the time of deliverance (which is just another way to say "resurrection.").

 

153 Fish...Mystery Solved!

The congregation I am serving in Charlotte, NC (St. Luke's Lutheran Church, 3200 Park Road) is more obviously diverse than any congregation I have yet served. We are a multi-colored, multi-language, multi-orientation, multi-aged, multi-income, multi-education, multi-health/or lack of health/physical or mental, multi-faith, multi-everything congregation. We are active in the Room in the Inn Ministry of Charlotte (and were actually instrumental in beginning that ministry of shelter for the homeless). We have an intentional outreach to the mentally ill of the community. We welcome folks who are actively in recovery from addiction and those who continue to try to "find their sobriety" (as one recovering addict/friend states it). There are brothers and sisters in this place who have served time in jail and prison. There are folks who are conservative that share pews with folks who are liberals. The diversity is a true glimpse of the Kingdom of God, where all are embraced and all are loved.

Now, I've only been here slightly more than 2 years, which means that this is my third Easter Season, which means that this is the first year that I have dealt with John 21:1-19 since I've been here (we follow a list of "assigned readings" which is in a 3-year cycle). Left to myself - if I am honest - I would not likely choose to preach on John's gospel very often. He can be so dualistic and heavenly minded that he sometimes seems to be "no earthly good." He comes across as an anti-Semite (which he is not. Unfortunately the anti-Semites of the world have sometimes exploited his gospel to their own unfaithful ends). But, assigned readings are assigned, so John it is! The significance of this has to do with John's mentioning that the disciples caught 153 large fish on their post-Easter fishing trip. Specifically, verse 11 says, "[Simon Peter] hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn." Maybe that's not odd to you - but it is to me...153. Weird!

Apparently others, across the ages, have also thought that the specificity is weird, because volumes and volumes have been written attempting to explain the significance of the number 153 - all to no avail. Even the most scholarly end up saying, "but we just don't know what the number means." They never asked my daughter. Ask her what it means, and she'll tell you that it means that there were A LOT of fish! Ask her if she thinks they were all the same kind of fish, she'll say, "no way. There were a bunch of different kinds!" Ask her how come the net didn't break and she'll look at you like you've just asked a ridiculous question. "Why would it break?! There is no reason it should break!"

We have several African-American families as part of our church family. They tolerate my questions about growing up black in the South. "What was it really like?" "But you never experienced that in a congregation, did you?" One black woman (who has two gorgeous bi-racial daughters) told me that ours was the first church they'd been in where people didn't openly stare at them. She lets me ask a lot of questions. We have one woman who was one of the first black children in her high school. She told me about her first day on the bus. She grew up to be a pharmacist. We have people who campaigned for Obama and others who campaigned for Romney. We have people who insist that Mary was a true virgin and others who think that God coming through the pregnancy of a teen-aged mother is every bit as miraculous an incarnation. We have openly gay couples who share pews with heterosexual married couples, with both couples celebrating their 40th anniversaries (actually, it’s longer than 40 years…but I don’t remember exactly). We have a few life-time Lutherans (but, most of us come from other "predecessor" denominations) and a couple of Jewish brothers and sisters, who feel more welcomed here than anywhere else. I tell people fairly often, "If you don't want to be part of a church where you are immediately embraced and loved, then you may not want to be part of this congregation. But if you do...we will love you."

Ask my daughter what the significance of 153 fish is..."It's a lot of different fish."

Ask her why the net was not torn..."What a ridiculous question! Why would it tear?"

The verb for "torn" is "schizo" in the Greek. It is the same root as the noun "schisma" which is always used in John to refer to divisions (schisms) among the people (cf. 7:43; 9:16; 10:19).

I think that these schisms make the church, writ large, seem irrelevant and inauthentic to those outside of it. How can we preach/proclaim "that we are one and welcoming" (cf. John 17:11) when we are constantly running away from one another. “Is it possible,” a friend of mine asks, “for the church to be composed of 153 different types of people and not break into divisions? What about 153 different views on issues, such as abortion, homosexuality, biblical interpretations, etc., and not break into factions?” It seems to be possible. Not easy. Sometimes messy. But possible.

There is a poster on the wall of our house. It’s covered with different colored hand-prints. Underneath, it says: “Children instinctively know what most adults have forgotten. Diversity is not something to be tolerated. It is something to be celebrated!”

 

Resurrection comes on wounded feet

John 20.19-31

Maybe it's just because of "where I am" in life right now, that I am focused this year on the woundedness of Jesus in his post-resurrection appearance in John's gospel. It's the passage that is usually dubbed "The Story of Doubting Thomas." Well, obviously, it has to be me, because the story hasn't changed, and we hear it EVERY SINGLE YEAR, on the Sunday following Easter (that's part of the "kick" of God's living word - it lives, as I live...make sense? It doesn't change - but I do. You do, too.).

Anyhow, this year I am struck with Jesus' intentional showing the disciples his hands and his side (John 20.20). Jesus intentionally reveals (brings focus to) his wounds. He intentionally stands before them and says (if not in his words, then in his actions), "I understand pain." "I STILL understand pain. I didn't leave that behind in the tomb." And then...and ONLY then (following two not insignificant "speakings" of peace - which is for another "blog") does he send them out saying: "As the Father has sent me, so I send you."

Okay - this is what I am seeing/hearing..."AS the Father has sent me, knowing pain and woundedness, full of the experience of vulnerability and betrayal...That is how you are sent." Do you see? We, in the church, spend a lot of time and energy denying our own pain and woundedness and vulnerability (that which we have experienced, and that which we have caused). Jesus says, "If you are to be authentic, then you need to be 'transparent' (an over-used word) about those things." If resurrection is to be relevant, at all, then it must address that pain and those wounds and the death they reveal - or else it has nothing significant to say right now.

Now, like I said, I'm sure that my "take" on this is a result of things going on in my world. For example:

My childhood friend, Susan Wendel-Spencer (same age as me), has just published a book (I commend it to you), titled Until I Say Goodbye. Susan is a journalist, who writes like a journalist. The story she tells is gritty and real (and not for the faint of heart). She was diagnosed with ALS a couple years ago and decided that, instead of "fighting" the disease, she'd really live the life she has left. The book chronicles "a year of joy." The last one for which she had the ability to actively interact with those around her. The disease has shriveled her body and taken her ability to walk and talk. It's effects are very apparent. Her vulnerability is completely exposed to all whom she encounters. All that she knew before has died. She is wounded AND she is experiencing (and giving others the experience of) resurrection...Life, connection, love, peace, grace, new relationships RIGHT NOW (a MAJOR pet-peeve of mine is when folks only use "resurrection" talk to refer to life in heaven, when we die, in the sweet by in by. NOT! Resurrection happens anytime there is new life, springing from all of the deaths we face every day.). Because of Susan, a bunch of "childhood" friends who had lost touch with each other, have reconnected (Pretty good example of resurrection/new life, showing up right in the face of death).

"[Jesus] showed them his hands and his side." "AS the Father has sent me." "Precisely like this...wounded and vulnerable and bearing new life."

So, I finished Susan's book, worshiped and preached through Holy Week and Easter, then - with family in tow - headed to my folks' house in Tennessee, where we were to collect their (my folks') 30-foot camper/trailer. Why? Because my parents don't (can't really...that reality "catches" in my throat) use it anymore. My mother's cancer has weakened her and made her unsteady. It has become "obvious" that she is "walking on wounded feet." And as my dad handed my husband the deed to the trailer and we drove away, this became (for me, at least) the first "physical," "visual," "public" admission of that reality (The wounds which reveal the "death" of what had always been - parents who travel all over the country and world easily and frequently.). And in the recognition of that death-revealing woundedness, there is resurrection (New life with a trailer! New stories, and laughter and adventures!).

See? The wounds are real. They hurt. They make us cry. They make us viscerally aware of the reality of death. BUT they do not keep life/new life from taking shape.

When we deny the wounds, we deny the death. And when we deny the death, we deny the new thing that is coming (like the seed that falls to the ground and dies, in order to become a piece of fruit - which brings nourishment to others - ala John 12.24).

It's not easy, the world tells us to deny our wounds at all cost - because otherwise, "they will be the end of you!" So, we spend way too much time and money and energy on image, and make-up, and wearing masks of all sorts...which is kind of ironic - because, let's face it, we are all wounded. THAT reality has the power to bind us together, if we're brave enough.

I believe, with all my heart, that if we (who are "the church") would have the courage to go into the world AS Jesus went (wounds exposed and the memory of pain still real), then we would have a more hopeful, honest, real, authentic, and transformative word of hope for the world, which needs desperately to be freed to confront its wounds (collectively and individually) and the death they reveal - so that new life (i.e. resurrection) can begin.