Advent 3C - December 16, 2012 - Gaudete Sunday

Today, we light a rose colored candle.  In the middle of our advent wreath resplendent in purple, we have a single rose candle.  Its roots date back to ancient customs of the Church taking a break from the penitential Lenten season with a joyful Sunday break, when the Pope would give a pink rose to a citizen halfway through Lent.     Advent, fashioned after the season of Lent, also has a break in the royal and penitential purple color, and  apocalyptic prophetic and dire readings.  Today is that break.  Today is known as Gaudete Sunday.  Gaudete is the Latin word for Rejoice, a word that is sprinkled all over our readings today.

 

This has been a hard week.  By hard week, I mean contentious, tiring, startling, horrific.  Friday’s massacre in Connecticut leave many with horrible doubt, fear and sorrow.   Newtown, is a small town of about 27,000, about the same size as Grant’s Pass.  Newtown is listed in the top 100 safest cities in the US, and yet Friday, dozens of people were senselessly killed.  In our own beautiful corner of the country, in our own backyard, this past week we experienced a shooting at a mall in Portland.  Add to that personal drama that seems to escalate during December, and this has been a hard week.  

So what about these events?  Where do they fit, given what we hear on Sunday? 

I can’t make sense of, or explain why evil and suffering persist.  I will offer a few practical suggestions about grief and suffering. 

 You know that moment when you’re trying to console a friend who’s been through something horrible, and through their tears, they suggest you don’t know what it’s like, because you’ve never been through what they’ve been through?  That is so true.   We hurt because they hurt, but we don’t really know their pain, personally know it.

Unless you have a shared experience, you can feel bad for someone, or sympathize, but it’s difficult to really feel the same things, to feel bad with someone or to empathize. 

As gut wrenching as grief is, as  Christians, we are not alone.  Our whole faith is symbolized by the cross, an instrument of senseless, humiliating, tortuous death.  With Christ’s death, God has been through the same human suffering.  God didn’t avoid that part of this life.  But rather, through Christ, shares it with us.  Be horrified.  Be sad.  And know that through Christ’s suffering, God knows that human raw grief.  We who sit with grief are not alone. 

But sitting with grief is not the same as steeping yourself in it.  Our bodies respond to stress with an involuntary natural physiological reaction.   The more repeated exposure to those stressors, the more practiced our body becomes at that fight or flight response.  Eventually, our bodies are so trained to that physiological unconscious response due to that repeated stress, that we become hypersensitive. Smaller and smaller things can us off.  Pretty soon,  we are  constantly in that state.  It happens to combat veterans, and it can happen to us, if we voluntarily bombard ourselves with stressful images and stories.  Try not to steep yourself in those stressful images.  It truly is not good for body, and cannot be good for your soul.  

I believe today’s readings and focus on rejoicing do tell us something about grief, evil and stress.  The readings today are full of beautiful rich images of joy and rejoicing.  And they provide a road map of how to experience that joy.  As humans, if we go the other way, the way not spelled out today, that’s when fear, anger, and evil can occupy the space otherwise reserved by God for the joy and love and happiness. 

The readings tell us to

Rejoice in the Lord, again I say rejoice.

Ring out your joy.

Rejoice and exult with all your heart. 

These joy-full sentiments are the destination, and the readings give us the road map on how to get there. 

First, we need to trust in the Lord.   As the psalmist says, I will trust in the Lord and not be afraid.  We need to trust.  Whether it’s a situation in the nation, our state, your work or your head, imagine for a moment that God really does have it in control.  That God will be with you through it.  That it’s not your problem to control or connive or direct or save.    You don’t get to take yourself out of this scene, but rather realize that you’re not the director of the show.  So for a moment right now, trust in the Lord.  Trust that God is in charge.  God, not you, will script this. Christ, not you, is the savior.   Trust that you’ll get through, however things turn out, but trust that God is with you.    

When we can trust in the Lord, then we can truly experience the peace of God, or “the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, another great snipit from today’s readings.  We can experience a deep seated, incomprehensible and illogical peace with the world.  Not because you’re happy.  But because from that place of trust, you are at peace.  I have experienced that peace once in my life, and I know it was a peace from God, and it came after I stopped pretending to be in charge. 

From that place of peace that passes human understanding, we can get to the place where we fear disaster no more and where we stop worrying, more wisdom from today’s readings.  Being in a state of worrying is opposite to being at peace, so when you’re truly at peace, you don’t worry.  Because if you are worrying, you’re not at peace.   Getting to the “don’t worry about anything” isn’t so much another  mile marker on this journey, but it’s more like a landmark when you’ve arrived at the “peace which passes all understanding”. 

Only after we trust and experience that peace, then can we rejoice in the Lord.  Please do not misunderstand.  This is not happiness, like the old Bobby McFerrin song, “Don’t worry, be happy”.   This isn’t a feeling you put on, or something else to do, to achieve or attain.  Rather, the joy comes from a deep letting go, starting with that trust in the lord.  And while experiencing the joy, then you can let your gentleness be known to everyone, another great phrase from today’s readings.  I’ve known people like that. People who have deep seated joy, and are serenely gentle.   

Just like our bodies learn to respond to too much stress, we can practice getting to Rejoicing.  Maybe only little day trips to begin with.  Trust in the lord.  Experience the peace.  Rejoice.  Pretty soon, the trusting can get easier and it’s easier to get to Rejoicing.  If we’re lucky, we’re able string together more and more, and longer and longer episodes of trust,  peace and rejoice, spending less and less time in that other dark place. 

That’s other dark place is where people are when evil surfaces through them. 

Where we strive for trusting in the lord, some trust in themselves or their paycheck, or their drugs, or even family members.  They place their trust in any number of things that in the end may not prove trustworthy.   When their misplaced trust is broken, it’s crushing. 

Where we obtain peace stemming from that trust, others experience worry and anxiety.  

If we follow the trust and peace route, we arrive at rejoicing.  When we follow doubt and worry, we arrive at despair, and anger. 

It’s when people don’t trust in an all-loving, absolutely trustworthy God, when they don’t experience the liberating peace and don’t find joy in the Lord, that’s when there are holes in the soul where darkness enters. 

It has happened this week in big, awful events.   It happens all the time in littler ways in my life. 

Next week, we celebrate Christmas, we celebrate God’s entrance into our lives again in human form.  Today, on Gaudete Sunday, that falls after a really hard week, grieve. Realize you’re not alone in your grief.  More importantly, trust in God, experience the peace, the peace that passes all understanding.  And rejoice in the Lord.  Again I say rejoice. 

Amen

Proper 28B

It’s football season at the Hawley house.  I love football season, but probably not for the reason you’re thinking.   Yes, I like watching football.  But even more, I like what football season represents.   I love Saturday and Sunday afternoons, with the fire going, a little knitting in my lap, maybe a mid-afternoon popcorn snack, a pot of soup on the stove, and my husband and I sitting together.  I love football season because of what it stands for, for the inherent family time and coziness of it all.   For me, football afternoons are an icon, or symbol of all that’s good about autumn.    I imagine that the disciples do the same thing with the temple – it’s a thing that represents something else.  In today’s Gospel, the disciples are walking out of the temple, talking to Jesus about how great it is.  It’s big, and strong and mighty.  We worship here, we give honor here, the Law is here.  The temple represents all that is powerful, righteous, mighty.  It is the icon of hope.  And they proudly show this hope, this power and might to Jesus.  Instead of supporting their vision or offering encouragement, Jesus dashes their hopes, saying the Temple will be destroyed and these big massive stones will be reduced to rubble.  Is Jesus trying to tell them to not have hope? Not take refuge collectively in their temple?   Or just predicting massive earthquakes and turmoil that are going to take place.   

Hearing about the temple in ruins, I am reminded of the town of Cusco, in Peru.  Cusco is in the heart of the former Incan empire.  There’s a fortress there overlooking the city, that’s over 1000 years old, a former Inca stronghold. Huge boulders  polished and cut to fit together perfectly with no mortar.  Hundreds of Incans would all pull these massive rocks up to the high point of the city.  Some of the rocks are estimated to weigh 256,000 pounds.  They’d use small river rocks to carve the rocks to fit perfectly.  The stones are so closely fit together that a single piece of paper cannot be slipped between them.   This fortress is an amazing thing that looks as eternal as the Grand Canyon.  When the Incas were conquered by the white man, the Spaniards did not need this fortress, and they started taking this amazing wall apart, to use the rock for other buildings in the City.  Much of still the fortress still stands, and it still looks permanent, like it’s always been there.   

I’m sure the Incas believed their fortress would always stand, and that they’d be standing behind their it forever.  They put their trust in the bricks and mortar, or in their case, just really big rocks.  They were conquered, and now, their mighty stones are more like rubble. 

I can imagine that the disciples had a similar sense of comfort, and pride and security, in the Temple which served as their spiritual fortress and their icon of hope.  The disciples note the size of the big stones.  Aren’t they grand?  The Temple, to the disciples represented all things holy, all things spiritual, all things powerful.  How could Jesus believe that this perfect center, this holy ground would be destroyed?  And what’s all that talk about wars and famines, and false leaders?

At the time today’s Gospel was written, things were in flux, they were chaotic.  There were occupying and armed forces controlling places where people had previously lived without their help.  There  were wars, famines, power struggles, political strife.  Like the times of the disciples, we live in times that are chaotic.  The fighting is escalating in Palestine, and children of Abraham, Jews and Muslims alike are locked in deadly armed conflict.  In Afghanistan, our American brothers and sisters serve as the foreign armed forces for our Afghani brothers and sisters who live there.  In this country, people go hungry, droughts have created near famine-like conditions, hurricane Sandy has devastated the East Coast, and the South still has not recovered from Katrina.   In many ways, we are in the same chaotic unnerving times.  

And chaos, back then and now, gives rise to apocalyptic outlooks and perspectives.  People seek an end to the trouble, an end to the uncertainty.  They pray that the bad guys will get their righteous punishment, and they take stock in what makes them safe.  Or at least in what they think will make them safe. 

We, like the disciples take comfort in things we know to be solid.  And by “we”, I mean you and I, our society, our government, our parish, our tradition, our families.  It’s a universal natural reaction to hold on tightly to what is known, and what seems certain. 

In the case of the Incans, that certitude turned out to be false.  That’s not because the fortress was weak.  Their position of comfort and relative security was directly the result of their position of power.  They were the mighty Incans.  But the Incans lost that power, when forces with bigger guns, more men, new strategies came to town.  And when the Incans lost power, their mighty fortress was toppled.   They were defined by the position of power they’d gained and maintained and their fortress was an icon of that power.  The disciples basically did the same thing.  Their icon was the Temple, and Jesus was telling them that at some point, their position of relative security and power would be stripped, and their iconic Temple would be rubble.

So far, this doesn’t sound like good news.  If only there were a way to retain or guarantee that worldly power.  That would be good news.   But the good news really comes when we realize that worldly power is fleeting and arbitrary. 

Acknowledge that, and behave as if it’s true and you win.  Worldly Power will change hands.  On any day, we may wake up victors, and go to bed as conquered.   We may wake up one morning as BCS contenders, and go to bed with our hopes dashed. 

Power is fleeting and arbitrary.  The victor, as defined by that worldly definition of power, is equally arbitrary.    Because we know that, we can change it.  It’s when we begin to change how we define power, and who the victor is, that’s when we win.  Every single time.

After smashing their vision of the power of their Temple, Jesus warns the disciples that many will come to lead them astray.   And they lead us astray still by playing to our deep-seated, unquenchable desire for attaining and retaining worldly power, of being the victor  Why is that astray?  Because we cannot truly act in love, loving God and our neighbor, if we put our faith first in worldly power.  When all our focus and attention and actions and beliefs are on worldly power, all our focus and attention and actions and beliefs are on worldly power. We may win, and obtain or retain power, but again, it’s fleeting. To remain as the king of the mountain, we’ll either always be fighting to retain it, or at some point, we’ll lose it. And our temples will be reduced to rubble.  We know that.  And yet, we all strive to stay on top.

Most everyone has seen a track race.  The goal is to get a medal, be the fastest person on the field, and you enter the race to win.  During last summer’s Olympics, Oscar Pistorius from  South Africa ran the 400 meter.  He was a double amputee and he brought his own rules to the world’s stage.  While he didn’t win the race by the world’s standard, he absolutely won.  He finished the race.  Because he started the race with a different goal, he didn’t lose because he didn’t get a medal.  He won, because he raced.  It’s all about how we engage, how we play.  And the good news is that we do get to set those rules.  We get to decide that we aren’t going to strive for worldly power and we aren’t going to be led astray by people who encourage us to take one power trip or another. 

What might that other-than-worldly power look like?  Here we are, a few weeks before the start of Advent, of our new Christian year.  With his entrance into this world, his teachings throughout his life, and his death, resurrection and ascension, Jesus offers another set of rules, another definition of power.   Follow the man we claim as the ultimate victor.  The man who was born homeless, to an unwed mother, imprisoned, tortured and killed.  He clearly didn’t use the world’s definition of worldly power, or of the victor.   And yet ultimately he won.  He turned the world right-side up.   

If we put our faith in buildings, in institutions, in worldly power we’ll lose.   If we follow people calling us to those things, they may call us to war, to do horrible things to retain that worldly power.  But.  We are the victors when we follow Christ, the homeless and tortured man who helps us see another way of being, another way to define the victor. 

In the old testament story we hear about Hannah.  Hannah’s song gives us a vision of that other way of being.  She said that there is no rock like God.  The bows of the mighty are broken, the hungry are made fat. God lifts the needy to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor.  This is a different vision of power, and of the victor.  This is a vision that leaves room for all,  that encourages love of all.    

The icons of worldly power will crumble.  They always have, and they always will.   We have an eternal win when we redefine power, and follow our victor, the God who came to us as a homeless infant.     The God who loved all, and in the end, wins all. 

Proper 23B

Proper 23B

October 14, 2012

I had a friend whose little girl was very sweet, but her manners were not.  Long past the time when parents stop prompting their kids to say “please”, the little girl would frequently miss the chance to say please or thank you.  Her mom talked to her about being considerate, and how ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ were both polite, and conveyed to the other person you were trying to be considerate.  The little girl got better.  But one afternoon, the little girl, with markers in hand, damage already done,  and a twinkle in her eye, looked at her mom, and said, “Mom, can I draw on the tablecloth?  Please?” 

At that moment, the mom felt like she’d won the battle, but might be losing the war.  Her daughter knew the rule, but entirely missed the reason. 

Her story reminds me of the wealthy man in the Gospel today.  

This man comes to Jesus, asking what I’m guessing he hopes is a rhetorical question.  What do I need to inherit eternal life?  He’s hoping, if not secretly certain, that he knows the answer.  Jesus quizzes him on law.  Honor your mother and father.  Check.  Don’t steal or commit adultery. Check.  Don’t bear false witness.  Check.  Check. Check.  I’m imagining the wealthy man is so happy that this was Jesus’ line of questioning – following the law.  He was good.    Check. Check. Check.   

Jesus tests him.  He responds, thinking he’s passed the test with flying colors.  Waiting for the accolades and affirmations from Jesus, he is startled by Jesus’ response.  And the response from Jesus startles us still.  You lack one thing.   Go sell what you own, and give the money to the poor.   What?

The man has been following the law, doing what he ought to do.  This must certainly feel like an instance of bait and switch.  Nowhere did it say anything about selling everything and giving the money to the poor.  Or did it?

We’ve all heard about the two great commandments.  Jesus explains that all the Jewish laws could be summarized these two great commandments.  First, love your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.   The second, love your neighbor as yourself.   In the Decalogue or the 10 commandments, the love your God commandments are all at the beginning.  Keep the Sabbath.  Don’t worship idols or say God’s name in vain.  After those, come the love your neighbor commandments.   Honor your mother and father.  Don’t murder.  Don’t covet. 

Maybe it’s coincidence, but in today’s Gospel, talking to this wealthy man, Jesus mentions only those portions of the law that can be summed up with “love your neighbor as yourself”   Jesus pointedly asks the wealthy man if he’s been keeping the laws that are our charge to show our love for our neighbor.  And the wealthy man believes that he has. He’s kept the law.   Done it all.   But Jesus still says he’s lacking one thing. 

This is exactly why he reminds me of my friend’s daughter.  He follows the laws, but has missed the fundamental principle that the rules are trying to point to. 

To be described as a wealthy man, we know that on a socio-economic scale of his time, this man was up here.  To be up here, means that there are some who are a little lower, some lower still and some all the way down here.  Regardless of the rules he has followed, how much good he has done, how much of his wealth he has given away, he has retained more.  He followed the rules.  Maybe he loved his neighbor.  But did not love his neighbor as himself. 

But God always leaves room for redemption, and so the story continues. 

It continues with an opportunity for the wealthy man to inherit eternal life, which is, afterall what he came to Jesus seeking.  And Jesus shares this really difficult message in a beautiful, tender way.    

Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said.. 

What a great way to share hard news, huh?  Looking at someone, loving them, and saying..  If we could all remember the “loving them” part, when we’re talking with others, how much nicer all our interactions would be.

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Jesus sees that the man has followed the law, but up until now, the man has missed the point.  He has not loved his neighbor as himself.  So looking at him, loving him, Jesus gives him another chance to act – to love his neighbor as himself.  He asks him to sell his belongings and give the money to the poor. 

Jesus has shared with that man exactly what he needs to do.  The man’s response?  He is shocked at Jesus’ pronouncement.  Shocked and grieved.   And he walks away.   Despite having lived a life of following the law, still seeking eternal life, asking all the right questions of all the right people, he chooses to walk away.  

Interestingly, this is the only healing story in the Gospel of Mark that is unsuccessful.  Jesus meets people who are blind, who have apparently died, people who are possessed by demons.  Jesus heals and restores them all.  The wealthy man does not leave healed or restored.  Rather, he walks away grieved and shocked.  This failure isn’t because of Jesus.  The man walks away.

This man may not be possessed by demons, although demons may have been easier to fix.  This man is possessed by something so powerful he gives up.  He walks away, after a law-filled life.  He is possessed by possessions. 

Even back then, thousands of years ago, our stuff got in the way.  Just like it does today. 

And the most ironic thing about stuff is that it is all a gift from God.  The man in the story had wealth.  We don’t know if he worked hard and saved, or inherited his wealth.  But in any case, it is because of God’s grace that he had wealth.    And in return for providing the wealth, Jesus asks him to love his neighbor as himself.  To use his wealth to help level the playing field.  

We all have wealth, although it’s not all financial.  Some have a wealth of talent, or time, or compassion.  Some have a wealth of resources.  If we have “more”, than obviously someone has less.  We cannot honestly say that we love our neighbor as ourself, if we don’t continually try to level those imbalances.  Provide for those who have less from our wealth. 

It is so easy to get trapped, or possessed by our possessions.   In 1950, the average home size was 1000 square feet.   Just fifty years later, our homes had doubled in size to 2000 square feet.  At the same time, family size decreased.  We have more space for smaller families.  Nationally some call this an epidemic, this being possessed by our possessions.  They’ve coined a term, “Affluenza”, and can cite health, social economic problems caused by our need for working to make money to acquire, maintain, insure and store our stuff. 

Lots of people are nervous about this passage, and go between feeling guilty  about wealth, to being angry about feeling guilty about wealth.    But like the man in the story, he’s given a chance.  We’re given a chance again, and again and again.   Having wealth is not the problem.  Wealth, like everything we have, is a gift from God.  We are stewards of God’s gifts here and now.  So now we’re like the man who’s tried to follow the law, has wealth, and asks Jesus what he needs to do. 

Love your neighbor as yourself.  Right now, next time you have the opportunity to volunteer, at tonight’s dinner, you have a choice.  

Don’t feel guilty or angry about wealth.  It’s a gift from God.  The problem is not the wealth itself.  The problems arise in the choices we make when we steward those gifts, steward that wealth.  When we prioritize our wealth and our belongings before God and before our neighbor.   

While here, we are stewards of God’s gracious gifts – the time, and talent and wealth we have.  Our challenge is to hear and see Christ clearly telling us what we need to do to have eternal life.  Our challenge is to choose life.    Our challenge is to choose not to walk away.

Regardless of who you are and what gifts you’ve received, whether that’s money, or talent, or time, or compassion, in order to have eternal life, we need to use what we have here and now to help bring Christ’s  kingdom here and now.  To love our neighbors as ourself.  Our job is to take the gifts and abundance we have, and help make that happen.  Here and now.