The Rules of Improv: Take Action!

Mark 1:14-20

Every year around this time the family of Calvary Baptist Church takes a step back to think about what it is we are doing here on this corner of Washington, DC, trying our best to be followers of Jesus and to live together in Christian community in such a way that how we live, what we do, who we are, makes and impact in the world around us.  This is no small challenge, so today we think again about our individual commitments to life together in this place.

As in weeks past, guiding our consideration are the rules of improv, the rules you would follow were you in the middle of an improvisational comedy exercise.  I myself am not a professional actor, but the rules of improv have been widely considered helpful guides for life in general, and in our case, life in Christian community.  Today’s rule of improv is “take action.”

It seems that if we are engaged in an improvisational scene on stage in front of an audience, the audience will get a little bit bored if the actors in the scene are sitting around doing nothing.  Riveting dialogue or suspenseful action doesn’t really ever happen, you know, if everyone in the scene is sitting on the couch, say, watching TV.  The “take action” rule of improv is the essential, underlying truth that everyone on stage should be always working to contribute to the scene. 

We talked last week about the rule that anything is possible.  If we’re following that rule and have opened ourselves to accept any eventuality that a scene may present, well, then, today’s rule—take action—is about jumping in with both feet to contribute.  Everyone in the scene must contribute.  Everyone on stage is important if the scene is going to move to its next chapter. 

Of course, this rule of improv is a rather risky one.  When you jump right in and take action you are giving up your safe spot on the couch.  And you are trusting that the other actors on stage will also take action in response to yours.  It is very true that you could lose your spot on the couch.  It is also true that others might greet whatever action you take with apathy. 

But consider the alternative. 

You could sit on the couch and talk about why you are not taking action—that you need to wait for the right moment, or you have to see what the other people do—but the truth is that the scene on stage is not going to go anywhere at all until you get up off the couch and start singing…or announce that you are joining the army…or climb up on the coffee table and do a short but impressive tap dance.  Until the actors actually take an action, the scene on stage will not go anywhere; it will just sit there, stagnant.

One commenter describes it like this: You could sit around and pretend to smoke a cigarette while waiting to see what the other actors do (although, as we all know, smoking is bad for your health), or you could throw out open ended, inconsequential questions like, “So what should we do now?”—neither action adding anything at all to a scene

The opposite to this passive approach, of course, is to jump right in with some directed action.  For example, while you sit on the couch, you could say something like, “I’m so glad our hot air balloon was able land here in theSaharadesert;” or “Hi, I’m Amy and I don’t think I’ve ever met an alien like you before.”  See the difference?  The best improvisational actors continually step up to the plate, take clear and assertive actions, and do their part to move the scene along. 

Those improvisational actors who kill a scene every single time are the ones who refuse to make a clear choice, who are unsure about their commitment to the scene, who wimp out and go back to sitting on the couch.  If the scene doesn’t fizzle out after that, the actor who is unwilling to take action to move the scene forward has, in effect, placed all of the responsibility for the success of the scene on the other actors up there on the stage. 

That’s not funny, and it’s not fair; a lack of investment and action on the part of any actor in a scene can cripple the production altogether and make pulling off successful improvisational interplay even more difficult for everyone.

Informing our consideration of how this rule might apply to Christian community is a familiar passage from the Gospel of Mark, the calling of Jesus’ disciples.  Mark is a perfect Gospel for the “take action” rule of improv because Mark is the Gospel of urgent and immediate action.

Just look!  The Gospel of Mark doesn’t even bother to tell the story about the baby and the shepherds and the star; Mark starts with the baptism of Jesus and jumps right into the story of Jesus’ ministry with both feet.  The first words Jesus says in the Gospel of Mark, even, are immediate: “The time has been fulfilled”—in other words, it’s time to get busy.  No more sitting around waiting.  Jesus doesn’t let anybody wait, either. 

Just look at how urgent his call is!  He calls for specifically two courses of action from everyone who is listening to him: “repent” and “believe”.  For the call to repent, Mark uses the Greek word “metanoia,” which means something rather different than feeling bad about what you’ve done and hoping you do better in the future.  The word actually means to turn around.  It’s an action word that means facing in a new direction and going in a different way from the way you were going before.

And for his challenge to believe, we might think of Jesus’ call as an intellectual assent to a set of ideas—we decide we believe in a certain ideology or set of doctrine.  But that’s not what Jesus meant when he called on the crowds to believe.  His idea of believing was more an action word, the act of placing your whole life into the hands of God and trusting God’s direction for every part of who you are.  Taking action.

To take Jesus up on his urgent direction was going to require getting up off the couch and doing something.

…which is, of course, what happens immediately next in the Gospel story this morning. 

Jesus was passing along theSea of Galilee, Mark tells us, and he called to the folks who were on their boats, fishing.  He capped off his call to repent and believe with an even more radical call to action: he invited them to follow him.

True to his urgent style, Mark writes that immediately Simon Peter and Andrew, James and John, put down their nets and follow him.  They took action; they left something behind; they went to follow Jesus.  And, don’t you know, their action of following set a whole new scene in motion, the unfolding of God’s kingdom starting right there, with them and the action they dared to take.

This week I will travel toOrlandoto meet with a group of American Baptist pastors from all over the country.  For the past year and a half we’ve been meeting via phone and in person to talk about the Baptist version of the crisis of the mainline church.  That is, over the last 40 years there has been a steady decline in church attendance which leads some of the bigwigs to conclude that something is wrong.

Everybody has their own theories about why church attendance is in decline across the board; one commentator I read this week highlighted a couple of theories.  One was his contention that we are the end of the age of duty.  That is, nobody thinks you are a bad person if you don’t attend church regularly.  Which I find to be true.

But on this Sunday of considering Jesus’ call to take action, why would we passively allow the standards of our society to dictate our actions one way or the other?  The call of Jesus is immediate and urgent.  If you are being called to invest your life in a community of faith, then it’s time to take action, don’t you think?

The second reason this commentator highlighted was a little more serious.  He says that many people have a hard time understanding how the Christian narrative helps make sense of their lives.  In other words, many people feel that what happens on Sunday mornings has no tie or relevance to the rest of their lives.

What a sad state of affairs.  In the face of all of this, we could sit back on the couch, cross our arms and passively say things like, “So what should we do next?.”  But if it is our conviction that our faith actually does inform our lives, that worship with and membership in a community of faith have direct relevance and impact on our lives, well, then, it’s time for us to take action, isn’t it?

Today is membership rededication Sunday.  I often say that everyone is always welcome to come and worship with us, but being a member in this community of faith is something that requires action.  In this scene we’re living together, the day by day and moment by moment scene that is the community of faith here atCalvaryBaptistChurch, we cannot afford to sit back, passively. 

If we do that, pretty soon exactly what church specialists have noticed will happen…our scene as the people of God will stall.  It won’t go anywhere.  And as we’ve already noted, a scene with no action, no relevance whatsoever, is a scene that surely does not depict the radical unfolding of God’s kingdom for which Jesus came to earth and so urgently called for action.

Today is membership rededication Sunday.  Perhaps you have been a member here for over 60 years.  Perhaps you are a little newer.  No matter how long you’ve been around, it never hurts to reevaluate what we’re doing here, to ask ourselves if we’re willing to get up off the couch and take action, if we are ready to really invest our lives, our money, our time, our intention, in the work of God in this little community of faith.

In a few moments we will add our prayers to the different pieces of theCalvaryquatrefoil, as the children did a little earlier.  What is your prayer for this family of faith in the year ahead?  As you write a word or phrase, a prayer for the church, you are actually getting up off the couch, uh, pew, and taking action.  You are adding your voice to all of our voices and signifying your own willingness to take action, to be an active part of the work of God in this place.  Shall we pray?

Gracious and loving God, you who call us to follow,

Today, this day, we join the company of every disciple, every outcast, every doubter, every hesitant follower, with whom you shared a meal and to whom you offered grace.  We join the company of the poor, the sick, the blind and lame, with whom you laighed and wept and whom you healed.

We join the company of beggers, prostitutes, and outcasts, sneered at and rejected, haunted by guilt and pain, and to whom you gave dignity, freedom, and life. 

We join the company of the self-seeking and unscrupulous, those who were hated by others and who hated themselves, into whose homes you were welcomed and whose lives you transformed.

We join the company of the zealous, the disciplined and the dedicated, those who have insurrection in their thoughts and revolution in their dreams, those utterly impatient for the overthrow of oppression.

We join the company of the doggedly loyal, unwilling to settle for second-hand faith, of those who betrayed you and were welcomed back into your loving embrace, covered by grace.

We join the company of the church through the ages.  We share their need, we have their doubts, we know their failures, we are also sinners hungry for grace. 

With courage and renewed commitment we take up the call to be your people in this place, for this time, so that those who come after us will see our lives, transformed by your grace, and also summon the courage to join us.  And for courage and faith ourselves, we ask this day as we pray the prayer that Jesus taught us:

 

The Rules of Improv: Anything is Possible

Listen here.

The Rules of Improv: Anything is Possible

1 Samuel 3:1-10

Who would have thought, just a few years ago, that a pastor would arrive at church on Sunday morning, having emailed herself the sermon for that day…only to find that the Internet is completely down at church.  So, she takes a very small jump drive and walks a block to find her friend, Rachel Johnson, at Starbucks, where she attaches the jump drive to her friend’s machine, downloads the sermon, walks back to church and prints it out—all in time for 11 am worship.  Just goes to show that anything is possible….  Truth be told, that pastor was really relieved, because even though she planned and is preaching a whole sermon series on the rules of improvisational comedy, she is not interested at all in improvisational sermon delivery. 

We’re talking about the rules of improv this Epiphany, that is the rules one would follow were you in the middle of an improvisational comedy exercise. 

It might sound strange that this is the starting point for considering our texts in these weeks, but it seems that there are rules that must be followed in order for improvisational comedy to be a success, and (who knew?) many of these rules are also applicable to the creation and nurture of Christian community. 

Twentieth century theologian Karl Barth is famous for often saying we Christians should always think about God with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.  I am not sure that Karl Barth would approve, but as we look for the light this Epiphany—as we try to figure out how exactly we live in community together—we’re taking the Bible in one hand and the advice of comedienne Tina Fey in the other.  Together I think we have something to learn about life in Christian community. 

Remember as we do that the underlying principle guiding the success of improv and, one might say, Christian community, is the determination to say yes…to assume a stance of openness to whatever may come and, in the case of Christian community, to the ongoing and often unexpected work of God’s Spirit.  I will make the assumption again this morning that we are willing to say yes as we move forward toward an examination of our text and our rule for today.

Last week we welcomed Epiphany with the story of the wise seekers come from the East, following a star.  We recalled that God very often shows up to fill in the blanks in our lives, introducing possibilities we never could have imagined.  This rule has prepared us for today’s text and today’s rule of improv.  Today we read about the call of Samuel and are considering the rule: anything is possible.  Anything is possible.

Today’s rule is important because in order for an improvisational comedic interplay to begin, build, and play all the way out, every one of the actors involved has to maintain the stance that anything is possible.  Anything.  Tina Fey describes it this way: “…[I]f we’re improvising and I say, ‘Freeze, I have a gun,’ and you say, ‘That’s not a gun.  That’s your finger.  You’re pointing your finger at me,’ our improvised scene has ground to a halt.  But if I say ‘That’s the gun I gave you for Christmas!’ and you agree, then we have started a scene because we have AGREED that my finger is in fact a Christmas gun.”

“Anything is possible” is the approach we must take if we want to start an improv scene or move our community to a new level of understanding and living out God’s call for us, because as we learned last week, we never know how God is planning to fill in the blanks, to lead us to a new expression of life and faith.  Anything is possible. 

What would it mean to live as if we truly believed that rule?

Guiding our consideration today is that text from the book of 1 Samuel chapter three, the very famous text about the calling of the prophet Samuel.  As you recall, the Israelites were in very desperate straits at that moment in their history.  They had lived through forty years of the Exodus and settled in the Promised Land, led by Moses and Joshua.  In the intervening years, they were governed by a series of judges—individuals in whom God placed authority and power to communicate to the people what God expected of them.  But the age of the judges seemed to be running out; there was no clear leader emerging who could take charge anymore.  And as a result, the Israelites were a largely unorganized group surrounded by increasingly fierce enemies who were often on the offensive. 

Who knew where the next leader might arise?  The people lived everyday in the quickly fading memory of the miraculous leadership of God, who had taken them out ofEgyptand into the Promised Land, but in the distance it was easy to forget God’s providence, to become complacent about their identity as God’s people.  Fear, the push to assimilate with their neighbors, the loss of memory when it came to God’s providence…all of these issues plagued the people ofIsraeland kept them from seeing possibilities. 

Anything is possible? 

No, that’s not the way they saw things.  Instead, the possibilities seemed to be getting smaller, the limits were closing in around them.  They couldn’t see a future because they could not imagine anything other than their very limited present.

We know things were tough for the Israelites as soon as we read the second sentence in chapter three, “The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.”  The regular routine, the status quo, was the silence of God, and the people ofIsraelhad come to expect and anticipate that turn of events.  Either God was silent or they were not listening, but because God equaled silence in their minds, they came to stop expecting God to show up…and so they were not ready…not in the least…when God did.

Into this dismal situation a little boy was born—Samuel—born against the odds to his mother Hannah, who had tried for years to have a child but couldn’t.  The text says she struck a deal with God, promising that the child she would have would be dedicated to the Lord.  And God showed up when Hannah became pregnant and Samuel was born.  Because anything is possible, remember?

And you can read more about the story in the two preceding chapters, but Hannah took her son Samuel, a young child, and indentured him to service in the temple, working for the priest Eli as a helper.  Eli needed Samuel because Eli’s sons—normally the ones who would take over as he aged—were good-for-nothings who would never become priests if they kept going the way they were.  Samuel was very young and doing his best when, as we read in chapter three, one night he heard a voice.  He heard a voice calling him and Samuel, the ever-diligent temple assistant, assumed the voice was Eli’s. 

You know what happened: the voice calling Samuel turned out to be God’s.  Eli was the one who started to suspect that, even though the word of the Lord was rare in those days, perhaps it was the word of the Lord that called to Samuel in the temple that night.  Maybe it took so long to dawn on him because he’d forgotten that anything is possible—anything—even a middle of the night voice of God calling a young child to lead his people.

Could Eli allow for the unlikely possibility that God was showing up?  Could he help Samuel answer the unlikely call of God that seemed to come unsolicited from the darkness that enshrouded the temple?  Who knew?  Who knew that God could be calling a young boy to respond to the possibilities of his hope for the peopleIsrael?  It didn’t seem likely, but, as Eli knew…things can change and change dramatically when you live as if anything is possible.

If you happen to be a fan of YouTube, you might already be familiar with a video of Sarah Churman that has gotten millions of hits since its posting in September of last year.  Sarah was born with a rare genetic deformity that means she’s missing the hair in her inner ear that transmits sound to the brain. She was fitted with her first hearing aid at age 2, but even with that technology she could only hear some vibrations and loud noises. She compensated throughout her life by becoming adept at reading people’s lips.

In late 2011, Sarah was fitted with a device called the Esteem Inner Ear Stimulator, an implantable hearing aid for the specific kind of hearing loss Sarah suffered.  On the popular YouTube video, you can see a video of Sarah Churnam hearing for the very first time.

Even if you’re unfamiliar with all the details of Sarah’s situation, the video is quite moving.  What would happen if Sarah could suddenly hear?  She’d worked so hard to compensate in other ways; the thought of being able to hear just seemed out of the realm of possibility.  Yet there it is on video–Sarah Churman hearing…her own voice, the voices of others…a reality she never could have imagined, not under any circumstances, not in any amount of time.  She could hear the voice of her husband.  She could hear the chatter of her children.  She could hear.  Anything, after all, is possible.

“The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread…”.

What if, in a world in which no one expected God to speak, that one night, late at night, God did—God spoke?  And what if God spoke, not to the status quo who had lived for so long with things just the way they were, but to a child who had no status and no power, who no one with any reasonable approach to life would expect to be the receiver of a message from God? 

The people of Israel were living day to day expecting nothing but silence from God, living in fear of the next attack by their enemies, limited by their lack of expectation so much so that they couldn’t even allow for the possibility that God’s word might come in a way that was different and unexpected, unlikely and out of the norm.

We can’t blame them, because the truth is that we do it, too.  It’s easy to get caught up in the minutiae of life as it unfolds around us, never expecting anything other than what we experience day in and day out.  But as a community of faith, we profess that God is at work in and among us, throughout the entire world.  And if there’s anything we know about God, it’s that we can never predict when or where God will show up, what crazy adventures of faith we’ll be invited to embark on, how in the most unusual possibilities we will unexpectedly see our next steps unfolding before us.

What would it be like if we took the “anything is possible” rule to heart and lived expecting, well anything?

For one thing, it would be awfully risky.  When you apply a guideline like anything is possible, you automatically give up any hope of controlling a situation.  And this can be scary, especially for a community like ours, with years and years of history and structure underpinning our life together.  Can we readily accept the possibility that anything could happen?  You are wearing roller skates…sure.  The sky is purple…okay.  There’s a chicken on your head…naturally.  Anything is possible. 

When anything is possible, then the old structures by which we have ordered our lives and our life together suddenly become incidental.  They do not restrict the possibilities of an improvisational scene or of life in Christian community.  Instead, when the old way of seeing the world gets pushed to the side and new possibilities become opened, you never know what might happen next!

Though Eli and Samuel had been living within the constraints of life as they knew and expected it, for some reason they had the courage to live the “anything is possible” rule that night when they heard God’s voice calling Samuel.  You can see what happened to the people ofIsraelwhen they did, too, because Samuel became the greatest prophet of the Israelite people, ushering in the monarchy andIsrael’s greatest king, David.  Who would have thought that life for the Israelites would unfold in such a strange and unexpected way?  But they never would have found their way without the courage they displayed when they believed anything was possible—anything—and God showed up.

What about you, what about us?  Do we have the courage to live as if anything is possible, to cultivate hearts and spirits that are open to anything that might arise?  If we can somehow live together as if anything is possible, then the church might become a way station in which God’s unexpected work in the world unfolds. 

What would happen, say for example, if we imagined there would be equal opportunity for everyone in our country, no matter race, color, or ethnicity? 

And what might happen if we had the courage to speak out on behalf of peace and justice, insisting that an end to the civil war inEl Salvadorwas possible after all?

What would happen?

We never will know what can happen unless we have the courage to imagine…that anything is possible.

Amen.

The Rules of Improv: Fill in the Blanks

Matthew 2:1-12, Epiphany

Happy new year to you all.  It feels great to be here in worship beginning the new year together after a hectic holiday season.  Welcome back, and a special thank you to all of you who were with us in worship on Christmas and New Year Days.  I found it a particularly meaningful season because I got to worship with so many of you on both holidays.

So.  We begin the new year, as is our tradition, with an examination of what it means to live in community together, to be the family of God here atCalvary Baptist Church.  Part of this emphasis has to do with the new year—it’s a new time to think about what we hope and plan for the year ahead, and to ask: are you ready again to make the commitment of life in Christian community? 

And part of this emphasis has to do with the season of Epiphany, which began this past week.  Epiphany is a time in the church year where we get up and follow the light, like the wise men we read about today.  And as we follow, sometimes shielding our eyes from the glaring brightness of God’s presence and sometimes squinting with concentrated effort trying our very best to make out even one little glimmer that will guide our next steps, we consider yet again what it means to be followers of Jesus Christ, and what it means to create a community of faith together, one that reflects God’s best hopes and dreams for the world. 

So, welcome to Epiphany.  In the next few weeks you’ll be challenged to think about what church membership means, to consider what degree you have and you will invest your life in a community of faith, and specifically this community.  And, even more daunting, we’ll be considering together what it means to live as the church, how we best reflect the light of God’s presence on earth through our life together.  It’s a big task we’re taking on!

To help us with what seems rather daunting I, naturally, turned for help to comedienne Tina Fey. 

It’s true.  I am not embarrassed to tell you that sometime last year, when it first came out, I purchased and read Tiny Fey’s book, Bossypants.  Perhaps it’s not among the most foundational of civilization’s literature, but you have to admit that Tina Fey is a comic genius and, well, the book was a pretty funny read.  In part of the book Tina Fey talks about the rules of improv—that is, the rules actors follow when they are engaged in improvisational comedy.  Fey contends that some of these rules are good rules for life in general, and I immediately thought they sounded like a pretty good guide to life in Christian community, too.

Readingabout improvisational acting has led me on quite an adventure of learning.  The sum total of my understanding of the craft when I began was limited to Tina Fey’s book and occasional viewings of Whose Line is it, Anyway?, but since then I have learned so much more, thanks in large part of Calvary partner The Washington Theatre Lab.  After careful tutoring from directors Buzz and Deb, I learned that there are, in fact, foundational rules for improvisational acting.  But following the rules for engagement in a scene together is critical to moving an improv act—or any scene at all, really—to the next level.

Sounds like Chrtistian community, right?

Over the next few weeks as we learn the rules of improv, uh, Christian community, we’re going to be assuming that we understand the main principle underlying everything—that is, SAY YES.  Turns out you cannot have improvisational interplay unless everyone involved is willing to say yes.  Tina Fey calls it the Rule of Agreement, but that makes it sound like you have to surrender your own opinion.  That’s not it.  Rather, it’s more like you pledge to live with the promise of possibility…that there just may be something to that crazy idea someone else had…and that together you will find your way to something wonderful in the end.

So if we’re going to examine the text these next few weeks using some rules of improv, we’ll have to assume that we’re willing to say yes—to say yes to the crazy possibility of Christian community, to say yes to the coming of God’s kingdom…which, as you know, is regarded by most as one of the strangest realities one might ever hope for: a world where everyone has what they need, where peace and justice are the orders of the day, where goodness and grace reign supreme.  If you’re serious about Christian community, then the thing we must assume as we begin is that we’re all willing to take a leap of faith, to say yes to all the possibilities God wants to create in us and in our world. 

So let’s try it; I don’t want to be assuming something I shouldn’t.  Can I hear you say yes to this exploration of Christian community?

Today’s rule of improv is FILL IN THE BLANKS.  Along with our text this morning we’ll consider how this rule of improv might be part of successfully creating and sustaining healthy Christian community here in this place.

As you recall, our gospel text this morning comes from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter two.  It’s unique in the gospel writers’ accounts of the birth of Jesus, and it’s one of the strangest chapters in the whole story.  There was a star, you see, and far, far away from Bethelem/Nazareth, there were wise men, Magi, foreigners from the East who studied the stars and who were so taken with the appearance of that one bright star that they set out on a long journey to find the baby whose birth, they believed, was foretold by the presence of the star.

As with many stories of our faith, the church has embellished the story of the star followers from the East.  Tradition has even assigned them names.  The truth is that we don’t know much about them, other than they were students of the stars and they observed a disturbance, an out-of-the-norm celestial event, which they believed foretold the birth of a king. 

And here, right here, is where we find the intersection of our rule for today, Fill in the Blanks, and what the story of the Magi might have to teach us about God.

See, improvisational acting is, surprisingly structured.  There is, my actor friends would say, about 90% of the structure already in place, in a sense.  Improvisational acting is not just getting up on stage with no preparation and hoping for the best.  When you do that, the audience can always smell a rat, and you can’t really appreciate the surprising ways improv allows you to fill in the blanks of new possibility if there is not some structure, some preparation, already there and waiting in expectation for the arrival of the unexpected.

The writer of Matthew’s gospel had an agenda, a structure, and his agenda was to tell the story in such a way that we readers would know Jesus was the king, the promised Messiah come to save his people.  So when Matthew tells the story of the Magi, he talks about them coming to worship Jesus, using the word for worship in Greek that would only be assigned to the worship of God.  In other words, Matthew puts the structure in place from the very beginning.  Anyone reading his gospel account would know that he believes Jesus is Messiah—there’s no question about that. 

It’s structure.

But God arrives unexpectedly in the birth of a baby in a manger, in the coming of the strangers from the East.  These wise seekers didn’t know the culture into which they were coming; they didn’t understand that their appearance would add a whole layer of disturbance, of dis-ease, to an already tenuous social and political situation.  They believed enough to set out to worship him, and when they arrived in the region ofGalilee—almost certainly years after Jesus’ birth—they went directly to the palace to check in with Herod, the ruler of the region.  After all, if you were looking for a baby king, it would make sense to start your search in the palace, right?  Just think about it, first from Herod’s perspective…you are the ruler of a region and someone comes to your door asking about the new king in town…a new king about whom you have no knowledge.  This would be a disturbance of the highest order, and in Herod’s mind it was.  It sent him into a panic and the threat of these strangers’ arrival, asking about a king, resulted in oppression of the Jews taken to a whole new level.  Dis-ease, uncertainty, disturbance as the blanks are filled in with kings from afar.

And, you remember, that the wise seekers finally also made their way to the baby and his parents.  They probably weren’t in the stable still, but they were living the life of peasants in the Galilean region.  They did not typically entertain rich philosophers from the East; they did not often receive luxurious gifts like the ones the wise travelers brought, even they weren’t quite sure who this baby was and why there were so many strange things associated with his birth, and now his life.  And you know the neighbors took note when the entourage of camels and wise travelers showed up.  It was a strange turn of events, for sure, a disturbance unlike any they expected or anticipated.  A strange way, for sure, to fill in the blanks.

They were all looking for the same thing…the structure of God’s promise and hope informed them all, even Herod, who was so scared of the thought of God’s coming that he lashed out violently to try to stop it.  God is here, God is at work, God has sent a promise.  That is the structure.

Beyond that, it’s anybody’s guess.

Why?

Because you can never predict how or why or where or when God will show up.  God might show up in a stable, or a star, or the presence of far-off travelers, or …who knows?  God’s always up to something, filling in the blanks in ways we never, ever anticipated.  Ever.

And so it is in Christian community.  We have considerable structure—not just in this 150 year old congregation, but in the Christian Church as a whole.  There is orthodoxy and theology, liturgy and tradition.  And all of these things provide structure for our life in Christian community.

But we should never get so comfortable in our lives as the church that we are not expecting God to show up—somehow, in some (usually unexpected) way, to fill in the blanks of possibility and hope, more creatively than we could ever have imagined.

Because the life of faith in Christian community is not a prescribed, static list of procedures.  We are engaged in relationship with the living God, and this beloved community in which we live and thrive must always reflect the prophetic wonder of a God who is constantly showing up in the strangest places in the most unusual ways.  A star?  A stable?  Where on earth will God show up next???

This is the question we must ask ourselves over and over again as we fill in the blanks of the life of faith.  Will we have the courage to leave the blanks open—room for God to show up even in the structures we have created, even in the flawed and often broken system of the church, of Christian community?  Because we need the structure; the church is a holy opportunity for us to find relationship with God and remember our callings with each other.  But we can’t forget to leave room for the improvisational God, who will always fill in the blanks in ways we never, ever expect.

I leave you today with words better than any I could come up with, written by theologian Frederick Beuchner:

“Those who believe in God can never in a way be sure of him again. Once they have seen him in a stable, they can never be sure where he will appear or to what lengths he will go or to what ludicrous depths of self-humiliation he will descend in his wild pursuit of [us]. If holiness and the awful power and majesty of God were present in the least auspicious of all events, this birth of a peasant’s child, then there is no place or time so lowly and earthbound but that holiness can be present there, too. And this means that we are never safe, that there is no place where we can hide from God, no place where we are safe from his power to break in two and recreate the human heart because it is just where he seems most helpless that he is most strong, and just where we least expect him that he comes most fully.”

Amen and amen.

Poetry Corner

for the week of Epiphany…

Hello, sun in my face.

Hello, you who made the morning

and spread it over the fields

and into the faces of the tulips

and the nodding morning glories,

and into the windows of, even, the

miserable and the crotchety –

 

best preacher that ever was,

dear star, that just happens

to be where you are in the universe

to keep us from ever-darkness,

to ease us with warm touching,

to hold us in the great hands of light –

good morning, good morning, good morning.

 

Watch, now, how I start the day

in happiness, in kindness. 

 

~ Mary Oliver ~

 

(Why I Wake Early, 2004)

It’s All About You

It’s funny to me.  Today is all about you, Jesus, but we never hear how you felt or what you did.

Joseph packed up the family and traveled to Bethlehem; Mary gave birth; the shepherds watched their sheep and the angels sang; the wise men traveled from afar.

But what about you?

How did you feel, being so suddenly pushed into a dark world, held in the arms of bewildered and scared young parents, burdened so suddenly by all of the hopes of an oppressed and weary world?

It’s all about you today, but nobody recorded what folks normally say about babies…did you have a lot of dark hair?  Were you born crying?  Did you clench your little fingers into fists and wave them frantically?  Did you snuggle up next to your Mama for warmth and comfort?  Did the cold air on your skin make you cry?  Did you look all red, wrinkly, and smushed from the trauma of being born?

It’s all about you, but to hear the story you would think it is all about us.  We who received your birth, who were here waiting when you arrived in this world, all of us who peered over the manger to get a glimpse of your baby self…we’re the ones who so desperately need a Savior.

And so, we wonder.  How will a little baby like you, born in a stable, child of desperate circumstances help US?  We’re tired and desperate, sad and lonely, war-torn and hopeless…we feel most days like this situation in which we live is all about us.

But today we remember the truth: it’s all about you.  Little baby, asleep in a manger, born this night, come to save us.  While we celebrate to excess and become distracted by the shiny façade of the holiday, help us remember tonight that it’s not really about us at all.

It’s all about you.

Amen.

Art, Darkness, and Advent

I am feeling disgustingly culturally savvy since taking in the Rembrandt in America installation at the North Carolina Museum of Art recently.  I took Art Appreciation in college, of course, but didn’t really appreciate anything artsy much until I happened to (strangely) birth a son who is a very gifted artist.

Who knew?

And so, I try to be as conversant as I can, which is usually not that much.

Thanks to the NCMA show, however, I had the opportunity to get really close to some actual paintings of Rembrandt’s, and even in my own limited awareness I marveled at the passage of time between when his brush touched that canvas and when I stood there staring at it.

With about 50 paintings in the total installation, the display was very accessible for someone like me—a novice art critic—and presented in such a way that I learned quite a bit about Rembrandt, his life, his style of painting, his influence on the world of art.

The paintings in the exhibit were mostly portraits—apparently that was in vogue at the time Rembrandt was working.  It was his business to realistically paint people while they sat for him (like taking a photograph), but he also painted quite a few biblical figures and characters from Greek mythology.

Even I could tell why he was so popular: the people he painted told stories.  Their faces and expressions, the look in their eyes, the posture of their bodies…all of these told the truth about their lives.  In a self portrait painted shortly before his death, for example, even the most inexperienced art critic could look and see a man bearing the heavy weight of life—in Rembrandt’s case it was the deaths of his children, romantic problems galore, and personal financial ruin.  Can you see it in his eyes?  Masterful.

However, the most striking thing in the works of Rembrandt, the images that stayed with me as I left the exhibit to head into the reality of Advent, was the light.

Rembrandt was a master of the light—he showed light and darkness with such radiant clarity and precision that it was easy to see the edges on which the people he painted walked.  By using the light and the dark, Rembrandt showed the reality of life—the real thing, not just a vague representation.  He painted grief and pain, hope and promise, the contrasts telling stories far more detailed than a portrait would normally tell.

I thought about that after I left the museum—the stark contrast between light and darkness, and how the contrast is critical if you want to tell the story.  Shards of light in between the shadows highlight marks of joy and grief that decorate Rembrandt’s subjects…that surely decorate our own visages, even though we may not be able to translate them with the drama and precision he did.

This Advent, while we wait for the light, I think there’s something to be said for welcoming the darkness, too.  Painful as it is, without the darkness the light can’t tell a story.  Without the falling of the night, new dawn can’t creep over the edges to discover anew what seemed lost before.

Rembrandt painted and lived with heavy darkness, but he never stopped depicting the light.  He knew that even with the shining of a very small ray of light, the story could be told.

Light and darkness, living in tension together.  They tell stories about our lives that we may not ever be able to say out loud with words.  By their contrast they remind us that hope is coming, that the abyss does not tell the whole story, and that the story will be told, finally, with the coming of the light.

Chasing Sainthood

Matthew 5:1-12

Today is a special Sunday in the life of the church—we’re celebrating All Saints’ Day today.  We Baptists are not overly observant when it comes to excessive High Holy Day celebrations, but today we join Christians all over the world to think about what sainthood means.

The concept of saints who have gone before is not new to the Christian community, and not, as some believe, the sole property of the Catholic tradition.  In fact, the definition has changed over the centuries.  Here’s how the church began marking the lives of saints:

In the first 300 years after Jesus lived on earth, a saint was someone who lost his or her life for the cause of Christ.  We know these folks as martyrs and their willingness to give up their lives for what they believed was the foundation of this fledgling movement called the Christian church.  Church father Ignatius said, “the blood of the martyrs was the seeds of the church.”

Around 300 it finally became cool to be a Christian and no one was getting killed for the cause of Christ anymore.  Thus, to be a saint during this time in history was pretty synonymous with being famous.  If you died a famous person and had enough money, a chapel would be built in your honor and people could come to your chapel, light a candle and pray to you—hoping of course that your success on earth would translate into a particularly close relationship with God, you know, up there.  For 1300 years that’s what it meant to be a saint.

Next, the Catholic Church put an official process of canonization—the process of naming a saint—into place.  This process must begin at least 5 years after a person’s death and involves a complicated investigation of a person’s life, approval by a panel of theologians and church leaders, and evidence that the person performed a miracle before and after his or her death.  That’s all!  This process remains in place today, but in the Protestant tradition we have adopted another idea of sainthood, one that came out of the Reformation.

When Martin Luther started causing trouble for the church and the Reformation began, the idea of praying to saints fell out of vogue among his group of radicals.  And so, the concept of sainthood changed again.  This time a saint became someone in your life whom you loved who had died.  Family members, like mothers, sisters, brothers, grandmothers, etc., who died and went to heaven before us were now known as saints—sort of like scouts who got to the end of the trip first and were saving us a spot. 

These days we speak of saints as those who came before us, whom we loved and who loved us, whose memories spur us on to faithful living and give us hope that we’ll encounter a friendly face or two on the other side of this life. 

The scripture text that frames our consideration of sainthood this morning is a familiar one—the Beatitudes, they are often called—a part of what we know as the Sermon on the Mount.  Picture this: Jesus has gained quite a following among the common folks.  Crowds gathered around to hear what he had to say.  His disciples, confused fishermen for the most part, were standing there watching, taking at least mental notes so they could remember later what Jesus said.  After all, they were all used to hearing lists of rules, instructions for how one would go about making God happy, being holy, maybe even achieving a status something like sainthood…. 

And so, Jesus spoke the Beatitudes—you remember how they go—“blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted….”  Really?  A recipe for sainthood?  Become all the things on this list and you’ll achieve platinum Christian status?

Robert Schuller thinks so.  Schuller, you might remember, was a popular televangelist, host of The Hour of Power, founder of the Crystal Cathedral, and prolific writer over the last forty years.  He wrote a book on the Beatitudes and called it The Be Happy Attitudes.  His point was, obviously, that Jesus was, in fact, giving us a list of things we needed to do to be holy—to be saintly, you might say on a day like today, when we’re celebrating All Saints’ Day.

While the disciples were certainly paying attention that day as Jesus preached and they clearly thought his words notable (they wrote them down fifty years later, so they must have made an impact the first time they heard them), I am not so sure that the Beatitudes are a list of how one might take the fast track to sainthood.  As one commentator on the text points out, “I’ve been around enough to see the merciful get trampled, the mourners commit suicide, the pure in heart walk away from God, and people who hunger and thirst for righteousness sometimes die of hunger and thirst.” (Mike Baughman, The Hardest Question).

Instead of a list of directions, I wonder if the Beatitudes weren’t just what the words say that they are: a blessing.  I wonder if Jesus didn’t look out over that crowd of hurting, oppressed, tired, hopeless people, and know that giving them yet another list to accomplish wouldn’t be much help to their desperation.  They were people longing for a life of following God—if they weren’t they wouldn’t have turned up in droves that day to hear what he had to say.  But life was hard, and circumstances were punishing.  They didn’t need more rules; they needed a blessing.

And so, to aid them in their quest for sainthood, for lives lived reflecting God’s grace and love, Jesus raised his voice and blessed them.

All of them.  The whole crowd.  In all of their desperation, poverty, powerlessness, pain…in their quest to live lives that mattered, to please God even with the limited resources and unlikely success they had, Jesus blessed them.

They were chasing sainthood, you see, even though the term in Christian practice hadn’t actually come into being yet.  They wanted to live lives that reflected God’s engaged relationship with all of humanity; they were chasing sainthood, and it was hard.

It’s easy to feel rather desperate about our own personal pursuits of sainthood, to think that we’ll have to be long gone before we ever have a shot at saintly status.  But if we listen to Jesus’ blessing today, we might begin to realize that chasing sainthood is part of who we are as Christ-followers.  And we’re living the life of saints, pointing people toward God, even here and now.  Even as we struggle.

So with Jesus’ blessing, we can redefine sainthood this morning, as something we do together, right here and now.

Consider this: the Greek word for saint, haggio, is used throughout the Bible only in its plural form.  In other words, nowhere in the Bible would you or I find a reference to St. Mark orSt. John orSt. Paul.  The only time we ever read the word “saint” it is in the plural form—referring the Christians as a group.  Remember some references in scripture? 

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are also faithful in Christ Jesus.  Ephesians 1:1; or, I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints.   Ephesians 1:15; or, I pray that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of God.  Ephesians 3:17b-18.

I not sure what we were thinking, singling folks out like we have over the history of the church.   It seems that the scriptural concept of sainthood is always a sense of group identity—a concept we discover and live out with others.  In other words, to be a saint is to be part of a community—to live out the mandate of the gospel with friends and partners who spur us on to discover and embrace God’s work in our lives and in this world.

This is a new and problematic concept, then, if all the folks we regard as saints are dead.  This is what we generally understand a saint to be—someone who has lived a notable life and gone on.  We just sang, “For all the saints, who from their labors rest . . . .” 

But as I began to look at what the Bible says about saints I realized that the folks who are called saints in the New Testament not only form a group, but they are still alive and kicking.  Our modern conception of what a saint is: a martyr, a canonized VIP who has the ear of God, even a deceased loved one . . . these are ideas we’ve come up with—but not concepts we find in the Bible. 

Yes, we give thanks for those who have gone before us, we’re grateful for their examples and their faithfulness.  But it seems that the idea of what it means to be a saint it more immediate for us; it’s something we’d better attend to right here and now and not wait for the rosy memories of those who love us to reconstruct our witness after we’re gone.  Sainthood is a way of life, a way of living out our faith together, right now. 

If you are like me, you’re probably don’t think often about the details of medieval history, but I am betting that most of you remember who Johannes Gutenberg was.  Gutenberg lived in the 1300s inGermanyand he was one of those folks who was constantly coming up with the next great invention.  We remember him, of course, as the inventor of the printing press, and invention that totally revolutionized the church—by making the Bible accessible to common folk.

What most folks don’t know about Johannes Gutenberg, though, is that before his invention of the printing press, he tried one hare-brained scheme after another to make his living.  Truth be told, most of his business ventures were related to the church; he knew that people were desperate to forge some tangible connection to the holy, and he was determined to make a living by discovering ways to help people do just that.

While working as a goldsmith and inventing on the side, Gutenberg had an idea that manufacturing metal molds of letters which could fit into a frame might possibly have some potential as a lucrative invention.  He was anxious to try his idea, but he did not have the funds to create his new machine.  To make some quick start-up money, Gutenberg wracked his brain to think of something that would sell quickly. 

In the church inMainz, where he was living, he heard that there would be a festival in which relics from theHoly Landwould arrive and be on display.  He knew that people would flock from all over Europe to get a chance to see these holy relics—a fragment of bone from an apostle, a vial of dirt from the ground beneath the cross, a scrap of cloth from a shroud Jesus wore—whatever the relics were, they were holy objects that faithful people wanted just to get a glimpse of—to have some connection to the holy.

Here was the problem that Gutenberg thought he might solve: with the press of all those people who flocked from everywhere, it would be hours, days even, of waiting in line to get close to the relics.  And even upon getting close, chances are the crowd would prevent getting a good look at the holy relic.  Gutenberg thought if he could somehow provide a way for the pilgrims to see the relics, he might make enough income to build his printing press.

Gutenberg got busy then manufacturing small mirrors.  He mounted the mirrors on poles and sold them by the hundreds to the pilgrims, who, upon getting relatively close to the relics they wanted to see could raise their poles and look into their little mirrors, which would then be reflecting a clear view of the relic they longed to see.  As they gazed into their mirrors they would see then, just a little bit of the holy, enough to bolster their spirits and punctuate their long waits and their dismal lives with a little bit of the divine.

What does it mean to be a saint?  The word means, “God’s holy ones”, and I am thinking, knowing myself and knowing all of you, that if we’re going to be called saints the word certainly cannot mean that we are perfect people.  We’re called saints not because we’re particularly or exceptionally holy, but rather that we’re followers of a God who is holy.  Our lives, our sainthood, you see, is a reflection of the holiness of God. 

That’s what it means to be a saint—a living, breathing group of people whose lives reflect the goodness and grace and, yes, the holiness of God.  Maybe, like Gutenberg’s mirror on a stick, our reflections are distant, rather small and sometimes far away.  But as saints, when the world looks at us they should be able to see, even if only very faintly sometimes, a reflection of God.

Feel like you’re not making much progress in your efforts at chasing sainthood?  Well then, on this day, hear the blessing of Jesus, who looked out over the crowd on the hillside one day and saw a people heavily burdened by the life they lived.  They wanted to be reflections of God’s holiness, but they were carrying pain and desperation, hopelessness and a total lack of power.  In their efforts to chase sainthood they were stumbling, doubtful.

And Jesus blessed them.

It’s understandable this morning as we celebrate years of faithful commitment atCalvaryto think about all those who have gone before us, what they accomplished, how they lived, the legacy they left.  Thanks be to God for those amazing lives. 

But don’t forget they stumbled on their way to sainthood, too.  And from their eternal rest you can bet they are blessing us like Jesus did, encouraging us to remember that the work of sainthood is now!  Right here!  In this very group of people!

Don’t be intimidated by the expectations of those who have gone before.  We are the saints, living and breathing reflections of God’s love for this world.  We’re chasing, not special status for ourselves, but God’s biggest hopes and dreams for the whole world. 

And in our efforts, we are blessed.  Thanks be to God.

Amen.

 

 

Better Together: Follow Directions

Matthew 22:34-40

We’ve been listening for the past few weeks to passages from the Gospel of Matthew about Jesus tangling with the leaders of the Jewish community in Jerusalem.  Remember, in Matthew’s account of the way things went down the last week of Jesus’ life, Jesus was making his presence known all over town.  Today’s passage, also from Matthew chapter 22, is the final public conflict Jesus had, the argument that tipped the scales and sent the leaders of Jerusalem to Plan B, their plan to get rid of Jesus once and for all.

To understand better what is happening here at the end of Matthew 22, we must remember that the Roman government occupied Jerusalem and surrounding regions.  In order for Rome to exert control of the area, the Romans assigned a governor, who at the time happened to be a guy named Pontius Pilate.  After hundreds of years of domination, it was not the Jewish tradition to submit quietly to an occupation like this, but that’s what had slowly happened.  The Jewish high priest, Ciaphas, had established an alliance with Pilate; they worked together to insure each others’ interests. 

And Jesus, the radical upstart who had gained such a following among the average Jew around town, was not amused.  There was too much power concentrated in one place, and the end result of that trend was things like we talked about last week: crushing tax burdens; unfair legal systems; a whole class of people who struggled for day to day economic survival.  In this system, while life was hard for so many, there were a few—including those in power—for whom life was just fine. 

Great, really. 

And any voice that challenged the system was a voice that needed to be quieted before anybody got too upset.

Jesus was one of those voices.

Jesus’ adventures of this week began on the occasion of his entry into Jerusalem.   You remember that story, right?  Everyone was cheering Jesus on, waving palm branches, and calling him Messiah—Savior.  What you might not know is that that week when Jesus came into Jerusalem on the donkey was the very beginning of the celebration of Passover, one of the most holy weeks of the Jewish year.  Because of that holiday, the city of Jerusalem was bursting at the seams; its normal population of about 40,000 people had swelled to over 200,000 for the celebration.  To take advantage of the pilgrimage of people from all over the region, Pilate, the Roman governor had the custom of staging a military procession on the Western side of Jerusalem.  It was like a celebratory parade, but it was staged and timed to be sure that everyone there felt the display of power.  In full military dress, chariot and horses, a procession of military precision began and continued through the city.  The message was clear: I am in charge, you are my subjects, I have the power.

You recall, then, that on the Eastern, mountainous side of the city at the same exact time, there was Jesus.  He was also involved in a staged entrance to the city, but he wasn’t wearing armor.  And he also was not riding in a chariot, accompanied by impressive war horses, military regalia, or formations marching in precision.  It was just him, remember, on a donkey, making his way into the city and being cheered by a crowd—the crowd that chose specifically to attend this entry parade and not the other one, because they knew exactly what Jesus was up to.  Pilate and his parade were showing the power of the Roman establishment, of royal palaces and oppressive laws, of people oppressed by powers they could not overcome.  Jesus, on the other hand, was preaching a completely different message: that true power came from love of God and love of neighbor, that change can happen on a donkey to the sound of children singing, that there is no need for fancy trappings, only sincere hearts.  Two entries into the city, happening simultaneously.  Two completely different messages they sent to those who watched them.  And a sharp conflict of ideologies happening in those very public demonstrations.  With all the might of the Roman army and the joint power of the Jewish leaders, what possibly could have been so threatening about this one who talked constantly about a different way to live?

Two kingdoms were colliding, two very different views of how life should be lived.  And now that Jesus was in the big city with a clear influence on many people who had begun listening to his message, well, that felt threatening to all of those who held the power monopoly. 

You’ll remember that Jesus was everywhere: turning moneychangers’ tables over in the temple, telling radical stories about the Kingdom of God, and generally antagonizing the religious leaders, who over and over got embarrassed in front of the whole crowd as they tried to trick Jesus into saying something that would end his career as a celebrity once and for all.

The scripture we read this morning was the final public test.  The Pharisees put their heads together again and decided they would test him with a question to end all questions: they decided to ask him to tell the crowd what the most important commandment is—the one everybody had to obey or else. 

The religious leaders and also the people who were listening were very interested in rules and commandments; rules were the foundation of their faith practice.  And so, everyone (even the ones who didn’t support the Jewish leadership) would want to know what Jesus had to say about this question.

And Jesus answered, though I am quite sure he was annoyed.  “Love the Lord your God,” he said, and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

This sounded very good, how could they argue with an answer like that?  But the way Jesus meant it, it somehow stood in contrast to the list of laws the Jewish leaders required.  It was simple and clear, challenging and applicable to everyone.  And it was hard.  So hard.

The problem was that everyone trying to meet the standards of the Jewish leadership around town was struggling with the challenge of loveless law.  That is, there were rules, you know, and they had to be followed forever and always.  Even if the following of the rules hurt other people.

In a society in which everyone depended on everyone else, a ruthless rule following, while seemingly admirable, ended up not healing communities and deepening individual lives, but instead becoming a weapon by which some people were good and others were not good enough.  The adamant following of laws ended up creating a situation in which there was a loveless law—laws followed no matter what, just for the sake of following the laws.

Jesus wasn’t interested in an elaborate law if it wasn’t infused with love.  Instead, love was his law: to love God and to love your neighbor.

I am quite sure that all the people in Jerusalemwho heard Jesus that day felt overwhelmed by what they’d heard.  I know I do.  It must have seemed easier, in some ways, to have a whole list of behavioral rules to follow to the letter.  Love God?  Love your neighbor?  These are clear directions that are often way too hard to follow.  Way too hard.  Could Jesus have meant that we should try to do them?  Could really loving God and practically loving our neighbors actually change things?  Could following directions as simple and as radical as these really change the world?

So, here we are on stewardship Sunday.  Today is the day that, as a community of faith, we come together to offer our lives in the efforts we make as a church to follow Jesus’ directions. Coming together to share what we have and who we are is not a rule that you have to follow or else you’ll get kicked out.  It’s much bigger than that.  It’s a challenge during which you are called to dedicate your life…to give all that you have and all that you are to this effort of being the church in this time and place…because you believe with all that you are that this community of faith is a our corporate expression of following Jesus’ directions to love God and love our neighbors.

Like Jesus, we want to be people who live the law of love, a community that is structured and defined by radical love.  As Jesus told the Pharisees that day, every other rule or law hinges on the law of love.  It’s a foundation we’re building together.

This week while I was perusing Facebook, I saw a picture posted by some of my friends that reminded me of the directions Jesus gave.  It was the picture of a sign in the door of a Durham, NC, dry cleaner.  The sign reads: “If you are unemployed and need an outfit cleaned for an interview, we will clean it for free.”

In an interview with the owner he expressed sympathy for all of those looking for work, as he had been at one point.  Cleaning folks’ professional attire for free was an expression, he said, of “being a good neighbor.”

Indeed.

While I am not sure what the exact motivation of this business person was, I think this may, in fact, be a really good description of following directions.  Jesus’ directions.  There were not loveless laws…a list populated by so many things we have to do…or else.  Rather, Jesus was more about lawless love…that is, that our lives are ruled by love, not law, and it’s the standard of love that demands our response, ever and always.

Today as a community of faith we have the opportunity to make a commitment and participate in a cause larger than ourselves.  Together we are people who can live the radical witness of Jesus, who can be agents…not of a loveless law…but of a reality in which love is the main deciding factor of what we do and who we are.

Love God, love your neighbor.  These are truly the directions Jesus left for us.  The question for us this day is: will we follow the directions of Jesus?  Will we give our lives in service and love to God, and in the love of our neighbor?  These are hard things, standards to which most of the world does not subscribe.  Will we try it?  Will we commit to following Jesus’ directions or not?

As today is Stewardship Sunday, I get to finish my sermon today by giving you some directions.  They are not as simple as Jesus’, but I do think these directions are easier than loving God and loving our neighbors.  Who among us today has a smart phone?  May I ask you to pull it out (and we can pretend you weren’t checking email, etc., during the sermon?)?  Please pull it out and open the application that reads QR codes.

QR codes are those square codes (see one in your bulletin?) that apparently your smart phone can read.  And when you read such a code with your smart phone, the code will take you directly to the Calvary stewardship page.

Smart, huh?

To give you and me a chance to follow directions, I am going to give you a minute to scan that QR code and actually make a donation—it could be 5$–not all that much…but you will have followed directions to scan the code and make that donation.  Try it!

Aren’t we so technologically savvy?

If you don’t have a smart phone, or if you just think I am crazy, now would also be the time to open your stewardship brochure and fill out your pledge card.  Let’s do either one of those or both together now….

Clear, concise, easy to understand: when Jesus answered the Pharisees he was telling everyone what the basics were.  Follow directions, friends.  Love God, and love your neighbor.  That’s it.  It’s love without the law, a radical way of living in the world.  And Jesus the radical parade leader, was there to show them that there was another way to live.  Love God, love your neighbor.  Follow those directions and you’ve got it all covered.  All of it.

As a symbol of how we are better together when we join each other in following Jesus’ directions, we will have the opportunity to come forward and place on the altar the pledge cards we’ve filled out.  If you have already turned in your pledge card, no need to fill in another one, just bring your stewardship brochure up front to the altar.  These are financial commitments as part of our membership in this community of faith, of course.  But more than that, they are a symbol that we—together—are ready and willing to follow directions, to allow our lives to reflect this very high standard of loving God and loving our neighbor.

Do you think we can do it?  Do you think we can follow directions?

In the moments that follow we will bring our pledge cards to the altar, our corporate acknowledgement that we are better together, and that together we are determined to follow this Jesus who gave us the most difficult and wonderful directions: love God and love your neighbor.

Let us truly and tangibly do that now.

Amen.

Job Description

As we’re heading toward the end of the year, with job descriptions under review and evaluations beginning, I read this description of a good pastor:

The qualities of a pastor are impossible to describe. We can only see them in action.  No noise of clamor, but a careful manner of moving through the daily parish activities; clear eyes steadily seeing to the heart; kindness and humility in the presence of others, needing to defend nothing, prove nothing–therefore able to respond with the sureness of the flowing river.  Hiding nothing, therefore able to speak truthfully with ease.  Can you do this?  Can you wait patiently until all the voices that clamor for action settle down?  Can you resist the temptation to do what the parish seems so desperately to want you to do until the Spirit of God reveals naturally and gently the next step, and events unfold as they should, without pushing or shoving?  The pastor does not seek success.  She does not see people as tokens to be collected.  Since she does not seek these things, she is available at the level of the soul to all who seek.”

William C. Martin, The Art of Pastoring: Contemplative Reflections, page 15.

No pressure.

Better Together: Trick Questions

Matthew 22:15-22

 Just the other day my son Sam said to me, “Hey Mom, tell me a knock knock joke!”  I was game, of course, so I complied.  “Knock knock,” I said.  “Who’s there?”  He answered. 

And then…nothing. 

I wasn’t sure what to say.

Since I asked the question, it was my job to follow up with the actual joke, which of course I did not have ready.  I wasn’t paying close enough attention, as usual, and I was tricked. 

Sam thought it was hilarious.

It’s a very good thing that Jesus was smarter than I am, because in our Gospel passage today Jesus was asked a question asked for the sole purpose of tricking him, but he didn’t fall for it.  Instead, he gave the people listening to him in the crowd that day…and he gave us…a deep and profound challenge to consider, the challenge of asking ourselves to what or to whom we cede our allegiance, who it is exactly who rules our lives.

Our lectionary passage today continues in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 22.  Within the context of the Gospel story, it will be helpful to remember that all the passages we’re reading during these three weeks of stewardship come from Matthew’s account of Jesus’ last week.  In chapter 21, in fact, Jesus comes into the city to a public demonstration of palm waving and admirers calling him king.  If the Jewish leaders and the Roman authorities weren’t worried about him before then, they certainly were after that.  That demonstration only ramped up the anxiety and whatever plans the Pharisees and other Jewish leaders had to get rid of Jesus surely swung into full gear.  In other words, things were tense.

The way Matthew describes that week, though, it seems like Jesus was only fanning the flames of a potentially very big and very dangerous fire.  He went around Jerusalem teaching, as was his custom, but he was telling stories that were inflammatory and surely helped to raise the tension even more.  It wasn’t really that he was saying anything different than he’d always been saying, it was just that the revolutionary nature of his message had somehow begun to be planted in the hearts of the people.  They were listening very carefully to what he had to say.  They were beginning to see that a living faith changed everything about the lives they lived day in and day out. 

And this shift of public opinion was not a good one from the perspective of the religious leaders.  If people started interpreting faith as a call to justice, to peace, to a world in which all people are valued and where power is used for peacemaking and the healing of inequalities…well, that might result in a serious inability to control the masses.  The people who had the power were not amused, in other words.  In fact, they were alarmed.

If I were Jesus, I would think that this state of affairs might call for a strategy like…getting out of Jerusalem, going underground, hiding for a bit, at least until things calmed down a little.  Don’t you think?

Well, Jesus did not take this approach.  Instead, at least in Matthew’s memory of the way things unfolded, Jesus was very visible—hanging out in public places around Jerusalem, telling parables that were only making an already incendiary situation much more explosive.  You recall that he’d gone to the temple and turned over the tables of the money changers.  He was telling parables about wicked tenants and a wedding banquet open to everyone, not just the special people.  And none of this was helping Jesus divert attention away from himself.  Crowds followed him everywhere; people were hanging on every word.

It was in this touchy situation that the Jewish religious leaders—all different factions—joined forces and decided their best bet to discredit Jesus was going to be to ask him a trick question—to catch him up in public—to watch him trip over his own feet in front of everyone.  If they could manage that, well, then, they felt sure that the adoring public would realize Jesus’ message was not worth believing. 

Once they settled on that strategy, they decided that the perfect trick question would certainly be a question on the topic of taxes.  Nobody I know particularly likes paying taxes, but in the climate of Jerusalem the week before Jesus was crucified, the topic of taxation was especially controversial.  You remember that Jerusalem was occupied by the Roman government.  And all the Jews who lived in the region had to pay punishing taxes: there were taxes to the government of Rome; taxes like land and custom taxes, to Herod, their local Roman leader; and a temple tax to support the religious community and practice in Jerusalem.  One commentator says that things were so tense when it came to required taxes that, if a Galilean farmer were to pay what was expected of him, he would surely have very, very little left over to support his family.  The oppressive tax requirements of the government, in other words, would send an average citizen into financial ruin.

The Jewish leaders’ trick question then, as you see, had nothing to do with lofty theories of government policy or separation of church and state or even the ethics of taxation.  Their question touched on an issue of survival for most of the folks in that crowd.  The people listening that day were utterly crippled under the heavy, heavy burden of the taxes they had to pay and the desperation they felt as they tried to provide for their families and meet government expectations, too.  As the pressure of taxation increased and they found themselves wondering whether their children would eat, you can see that any conversation about taxation would be controversial.  And a good riot was exactly what they needed to take care of Jesus, that troublemaker.

So they crafted the question very carefully.  After pretending to show deference to Jesus, calling him “teacher”—a sign of respect—even though they really didn’t mean it, they asked: “What do you think, Jesus?  Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?”

This was a really, really good trick question…some might say the perfect trick question.  Not only was the topic of taxation a controversial one, the question as they posed it was a lose/lose question…a trick question!  If Jesus said YES, one should pay taxes to the emperor, then it would have been obvious to everyone there that Jesus was an agent of the state—that his messages of freeing relationship with God and the end of oppression for all the people were empty, meaningless platitudes.  They would quickly become tired of listening to him, because they would know he was just like all the other power-grabbing public figures, who said one thing but did another. 

On the other hand, if Jesus said NO—you shouldn’t pay taxes, they are unlawful and discriminatory, then the Roman government would do the distasteful work of getting rid of Jesus for them.  To go around suggesting that a Roman tax was unlawful, see, put Jesus in the camp of the seditious rabble rousers who were trying to stir an uprising against the Roman occupation of the region, and Rome would never let that continue.

Jesus was caught between a rock and a hard place—either way he answered he’d be in trouble.  See what I mean?  The perfect trick question!

But did you hear his answer?  It was genius! 

Jesus not only successfully deflected a question, a one-sided answer to which would not have helped dialogue, but he also gave those who were listening a very deep and profound challenge—something they’d perhaps never considered before in all their lives.

Do you remember what he said?  “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and render unto God that which is God’s.”

Huh?

The Jewish leaders who were busy rubbing their hands together with the gleeful anticipation of sweet victory—finally—were flummoxed.  This wasn’t any kind of answer they were expecting.  It was an answer, even, that set the world spinning for them again and showed the crowd that Jesus had an agenda that was bigger and even more profound than any political position any of them held.

What Jesus recognized in his answer to the religious leaders was that the one whose life is ceded to God is the one who lives in two worlds—the temporal world of human society and the world governed by God’s best hopes and expectations for God’s creation.  We do what we have to do to be part of the society in which we live, of course.  But the one who is a true follower of God is one who understands the bigger picture: that everything we are and everything we have and everything we do…belongs to God.  We live in human society contributing our part, but we offer always to God that which is rightfully God’s.  And that would be, well, everything.

Go, Jesus, for catching the religious leaders in their trick questioning.  But wait just a minute…the answer Jesus gave was not an easy-out, thumb your nose at the government kind of answer.  No, his answer laid down the gauntlet for everybody in the crowd, and insisted that if we want to claim we live as God-followers, we have a much higher standard to meet.  The way of God is a way of justice and peace, and it flies smack in the face of the world around us.  If we give to God what is God’s, we might be uncomfortable or unpopular.  We may have to choose a way that is not the easy way, to challenge the status quo.  We will probably be sharing to a degree that not many consider smart.  And, as Jesus soon demonstrated for them all, we might even be called upon to give our lives in the process. 

Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s—that’s the easy part. 

Give to God what is God’s?  That could hurt a little bit.

As many of you know, a group of 14 Calvary folks traveled to El Salvador this past week.  We got home very late last night, so all of you who were on that plane with me and are here this morning—you get extra church attendance points (give to God what is God’s, etc.).  Would you raise your hands so folks can be reminded who was on that trip?

As a group, we had a very powerful experience in El Salvador, an experience you can see and hear more about next week at the Shalom Scholarship Luncheon and Calvary’s Got Talent! show next Sunday after worship.  As we talked about what we experienced, we found it difficult for all of us to sum up the full experience we had—it was so powerful and multi-layered, filled with people and places that touched our hearts and changed our minds about a lot of things we thought we knew.

I think we would all agree, however, that one very powerful moment of the week was our meeting with Merardo Gomez, the Lutheran archbishop of El Salvador.  Archbishop Gomez, an old and very dear friend of Pastor Edgar’s, invited us to his office to talk with him about his life and work in El Salvador over the last 35 plus years.

The best way to describe Archbishop Gomez was voiced by Laura Canfield, who upon meeting him exclaimed, “Oh my gosh, he’s a Lutheran Pastor Edgar!”  And he was.  Imagine, if you will, a man who looks and sounds quite a bit like our own Pastor Edgar, except with a clerical collar.  We visited with Archbishop Gomez for a couple of hours, during which he told us the very moving story of the subversive cross.

When tensions were running very high in El Salvador in the late 1980s, with the civil war in full swing and violence erupting all over the country every day, religious leaders were increasingly being targeted for preaching messages that the government perceived to be subversive.  One Sunday, as part of worship, Archbishop Gomez led his congregation in a time of worship during which they placed a large wooden cross, painted white, at the front of the church.  During worship people were invited to come forward and to write on the cross the sins of their country, those parts of day to day life that bred oppression and pain, that were sin-filled and tearing their country apart.  One by one people came forward and wrote things on the cross like: injustice, hunger, the murder of children, the oppression of women—things like that that they all experienced, every single day, in their violent and war-torn communities. 

The purpose of the exercise, Archbishop Gomez explained, was to put upon the cross of Christ the corporate sins of the country, declaring that God was bigger and more powerful than all the sins of this world and asking that God take the sins that were keeping their people in bondage and forgive them…heal them…make a change in the way things were.  It was a corporate prayer, acknowledging Jesus’ radical call to justice and peace and begging God for that to happen in their country.

In mid-November of 1989, as resistance forces prepared to attack San Salvador, government forces were sent out with a specific list of social leaders to assassinate. Both Bishop Gomez and Pastor Edgar were on the list: they were warned of the danger and sought refuge in the German embassy, where a German missionary working with the Lutherans had made arrangements for their safety.

Shortly thereafter, Resurrection Lutheran church was raided by government troops.  A group of 16 foreigners, who were worshipping with the community as witnesses, were arrested and taken to jail.  When the soldiers saw the cross covered with the sins of the country, they “arrested” the cross, too.  Along with the prisoners, soldiers took the cross to prison, where it was installed in a torture chamber and displayed while people were being brutally tortured.  The government soldiers thought, you see, that it was a subversive cross, a call to resistance and opposition of the government.

And it was.  A subversive cross, that is.  The truth is, as that cross spelled out, that every cross is subversive.  That being a follower of the way of Jesus Christ will always run you into conflict with powers that seek to dominate, oppress, marginalize, and destroy.  Every cross is a subversive cross.

In the light of the story of the subversive cross, I thought about what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 22.  “Give to God what is God’s…” this is no small thing.  In fact, it is everything.  It is the eternal, perpetual message of the cross that calls us to give everything we have and everything we are to the high calling of God’s work in this world.

Today as we think about stewardship, about what we give in terms of our lives and our energy, our time and our prayers, our money and our possessions, we hear again the call of Jesus—the one who died on a subversive cross.  It’s a call to think long and hard about our level of commitment, about what we give…because the way of Jesus is a way that will lead us to stand in often painful opposition to the world around us, advocating for unpopular positions, working for peace and justice when it seems so elusive, giving our money and our whole-hearted commitment to be part of God’s biggest dreams for the world.

Archbishop Gomez, after he told us the story of the subversive cross, gave us a replica of the cross, which you see here on the altar this morning.  After years had passed and countless horrific and violent tragedies had occurred, Bishop Gomez, along with Pastor Edgar, was taken out of the country by the United Nations because they were targets for certain assassination.  When Archbishop Gomez finally was able to return to El Salvador he was accompanied by high international government officials, and his plane was met by the American ambassador to El Salvador.  As Archbishop Gomez deplaned the ambassador greeted him, and Archbishop Gomez quickly told him about the cross, still locked away in the torture chamber of the prison.  He asked the ambassador to help him free the cross.  Eventually the cross was freed, returned to Archbishop Gomez by the American Ambassador to El Salvador. 

Today the cross is kept in a glass case on the wall of the sanctuary in San Salvador’s biggest Lutheran church—a run-down building on a corner in downtown San Salvador.  We went to see the actual cross, and there it was, right up front by the altar, in a sanctuary where people of faith gather every week to remember that they are followers of this Jesus, who gave his life following his own advice to “give to God what is God’s.”

The people of faith in El Salvador who managed to find a way to live the subversive message of the cross, to give their lives in the strong conviction that everything they have and everything they are belongs to God, imprinted their dedication on our hearts and minds this week, too.  With the subversive cross now displayed in our sanctuary today we have the challenge and opportunity now to ask ourselves: “Will we be people who give to God what is God’s?”

It was a pointed comment Jesus made, a reminder that if we call ourselves Christians we have a high and rigorous call to answer.  And in the way of the cross, this radical invitation, we will certainly find ourselves living lives that seem different, even offensive sometimes, to those around us.  If we intend to answer this call—if our lives will really reflect the challenge of Jesus—it may be…it will be…much better not to walk this way alone.  In the discouraging, sacrifice-filled way of the cross, in other words, we are better together.  Much better together.  Because together we can call each other to answer the trick questions of the world around us with the wisdom of Jesus…and to remind each other of the subversive cross—the way of Jesus that calls us to give everything we have and everything we are in the service of God’s best hopes for the whole world.

May it be so.  Amen.