You are What You Eat

In a book on physiology published in 1826, Anthelme Brillat-Saverin wrote, “Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.”  It took almost 100 years for this statement to be refined when in 1932 the Bridgeport Telegraph, in an advertisement for United Meat Markets, made the claim “Ninety percent of the diseases known to man are caused by cheap foodstuffs.  You are what you eat.”

I learned this the hard way back in 1998 when, over the course of a few weeks I suffered a series of gall bladder attacks.  I didn’t know what was happening or why, but after the second one I went to see my doctor.  He asked me what I had had to eat in the twenty-four hours leading up to the episode.  I hadn’t really thought about my diet much, but having to lay it out for another person was as painful as a public confession: a candy bar for breakfast, fast-food cheeseburger and fries for lunch, and a pizza for dinner.  You are what you eat and what I ate made me a gall bladder attack waiting to happen.  I may not have the best of diets even today, but it is vast improvement on twenty years ago.

You are what you eat.  I think if Jesus knew of this phrase he would have built it into today’s gospel reading.  “I am the bread of life.  Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you do not have life within you.” 

John’s gospel is different from the other three in terms of style and thinking.  This is especially clear when it comes to Eucharistic theology.  The other three gospels ground the Eucharist in the Last Supper, the Passover meal Jesus shares with his disciples the evening before he is crucified.  Jesus takes bread, gives thanks, breaks it, and shares it with his friends, saying, “This is my body broken for you.  Do this in remembrance of me.”  Likewise with the wine, he gives thanks and shares it, saying, “This is my blood which is shed for you.  Drink it in remembrance of me.”  Linking the meal with the Cross ties the Eucharist to the Atonement, Christ’s sacrifice for the sins of the world.  With this as its theological grounding, the Eucharist is a penitential moment where participants confess, repent, and receive forgiveness.

This was my understanding as I began seminary.  I came to the Eucharist week in and week out confessing my sins and promising to do better, only to return the next Sunday to confess the same sins and shortcomings.  The Eucharist became a torturous experience making me feel more and more unworthy every time I participated in it.

The gospel writer John knew a lot of people just like me; people who were coming to communion for solace only and not for strength, for pardon only and not for renewal.  So he grounds his Eucharistic theology not in the Last Supper but in the feeding of the 5,000.  John talks not about Christ’s body broken, but about the bread of heaven, the bread of life. 

For John, the Eucharist is an infusion of divine life.  At the beginning of his gospel he writes “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  And now Jesus says, “If you eat my flesh you have life.”  So, if you are what you eat, when you receive communion you receive the eternal Word.  You receive life.

I recall vividly how this Eucharistic theology came alive in me.  I enrolled at Virginia Seminary and was sent to interview with a priest to see if he would supervise me in what was called “field education.”  This involved working and worshipping at the parish ten hours a week while being trained by the priest.  Well, we hit it off right away and launched into a two-year relationship that enhanced my life and ministry in innumerable ways.  The first Sunday I worshipped there I knelt at the rail in my typical penitential mood and held out my hands to receive communion.  The priest put the wafer in my hand and held my hand for a brief moment the way I hold yours when I give you communion.  I looked up at him and he was looking down at me with a warm smile on his face.  He said, “Keith, the body of Christ, the bread of heaven.”  No one had ever called me by name at the communion rail before.  There was something about that, and the touch, and the smile, and the words “Bread of heaven” that broke through my penitential spirituality and broke me open.  It was for me a moment of incredible joy because I realized for the first time in the Eucharistic moment God loves me and gives life to me.

In truth, the Eucharist is both a penitential moment as well as a celebration of the life God gives to us.  It is not one or the other.  I suspect many people come to this moment as I once did, exclusively focused on the penitential.  If this is true for you, I invite you to shift your spirituality to the bead of heaven giving life to the world.  You are what you eat.

Bread of Life & Risk of Loss

Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.  Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

I have been re-reading Scott Peck’s book The Road Less Travelled.  Published in 1978, it is a classic work on healthy living.  Let me read for you a passage from the chapter where he makes the case genuine love involves a willingness to risk loss:

If you move toward another human being, there is always the risk that that person will move away from you, leaving you more painfully alone than you were before.  Love anything that lives – a person, a pet, a plant – and it will die.  Trust anybody and you may be hurt; depend on anyone and that one may let you down.  The price of [loving] is pain.  If someone is determined not to risk pain, then such a person must do without many things: having children, getting married, [intimacy], the hope of ambition, friendship – all that makes life alive, meaningful, and significant.  Move out or grow in any dimension and pain as well as joy will be your reward.  But the only alternative is not to live fully or not to be alive at all.

“The price of loving is pain.”  How true does this ring with your experience?  It sure rings true with mine.  Some pains and disappointments are minor and easily dismissed or forgiven.  Others are more significant and require mature work to overcome, while some experiences are completely devastating.  The price of loving and living is pain.  You can resist this truth or you can resent it if you want, but its reality will not go away. 

Today’s first reading is riddled with hurt and loss.  King David’s son Absalom revolts against him.  David must flee for his life.  Can you imagine the hurt of having your own child overthrow you?  Once David and those loyal to him regroup, he launches a military offensive to take back the throne.  He instructs his commanders to deal gently with Absalom when they capture him.  David is unimaginably merciful in the face of betrayal.  Still, his orders are not executed and Absalom is needlessly killed.  The father of the rebellious son is crushed.  Absalom gets what he deserves, but not what the king desires.  “Love anything that lives – a person, a pet, a plant – and it will die.  Trust anybody and you may be hurt; depend on anyone and that one may let you down.” 

When we face of such an experience we face a choice.  Either we can give in to fear and try to wall off ourselves from all suffering or we can seek the courage to live and love to the fullest knowing there are times we will be blessed and times we will be broken.  Jesus beckons us down this second path. 

Today’s gospel reading continues to develop the implications of the miraculous feeding of 5,000 people.  This particular portion harkens back to the manna given by God to the Israelites as they wandered forty years in the wilderness.  The people in the wilderness complain to God because they are hungry.  God provides them with a flaky substance in the morning dew.  The people have no idea what it is and call it “manna” – a Hebrew word meaning “what is it?”  Today’s reading has parallels.  First, people are complaining.  This time they object to Jesus saying “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”  Next, while they think they know who Jesus is – the son of Joseph – in reality they do not understand the true nature of Jesus’ bread.  He truly is “what is this?”  Finally, whereas the wilderness manna sustained physical life, Jesus’ bread gives life in all its fullness.  His body broken for us becomes the food we need to sustain us as we seek life and risk loss.

Jesus is the one we can move toward with confidence he will not pull away.  He is the one we can trust with the assurance he will not hurt us.  He is the one on whom we can depend and know we will not be let down.  This is the bread that gives us the courage to love and risk loss because we know we have a sure place to turn for healing, comfort, and mercy.

Scott Peck begins The Road Less Traveled with a three-word sentence, the only sentence in the opening paragraph: “Life is difficult.”  Far from being pessimistic and depressing, it affirms something we all know but perhaps do not want to acknowledge.  Peck states only by accepting this great truth can we hope to transcend it.  Here is a second truth I would add to it: Grace happens!  And it happens all the time.  While life is difficult and full of challenges, so too is it rich and beautiful.  There is so much so rewarding in life that engagement is more than worth the risk involved.  Pain and hurt happen.  So too do joy and happiness, friendship and fun, inspiration and creativity.  Jesus the bread of heaven symbolizes all the grace and goodness we receive in this life.  It points to the reality God nourishes and nurtures us in our journey.  Jesus is the one who sustains us as we wander through the wilderness of life. 

And this bread gives us a hope and foretaste of life to come when the last word of the sentence “Life is difficult” will be dropped and recast as “Life is.”  Years ago Ann Lander’s published a column titled “The best is yet to come.”  I want to read it for you:

A woman was diagnosed with a terminal illness and given three months to live.  She asked her pastor to come to her home to discuss her final wishes.  She told him which songs she wanted sung at her funeral, and what scriptures to read, and which outfit she wanted to be buried in.

Then she said, “One more thing.  I want to be buried with a fork in my hand.”

The pastor was surprised.  The woman explained, “In all my years of attending church socials and pot-luck dinners, I always remember that when the dishes of the main course were being cleared, someone would inevitably lean over and say, ‘Keep your fork.’  It was my favorite time, because I knew something better was coming, like velvety chocolate cake or deep-dish apple pie – something wonderful.  So, I want people to see me there in that casket with a fork in my hand and wonder, ‘What’s with the fork?’  Then, I want you to tell them, ‘Keep your fork, because the best is yet to come.’”

The pastor’s eyes welled up with tears of joy as he bid the woman goodbye.  He realized that she had a better grasp of heaven than he did, and knew something better was coming.

At the funeral, when people asked him why she was holding a fork, the pastor told them of the conversation he’d had with the woman before she died.  He said he could not stop thinking about the fork, and knew they probably would not be able to stop thinking about it, either.  He was right.

Keep your fork.  The best is yet to come.

We are painfully aware many in our parish are suffering today.  Over the years I have served as your rector I have come to notice how our pastoral pains seem to come in bunches.  The risk of loss and the confronting truth that life is difficult hits our faith community with the force of a tsunami.  The remarkable thing is it does not seem to tax or test our compassion.  Just the opposite occurs.  We marshal our energy and resources and respond.  And what we offer is used by the bread of life to do remarkable things.

Last Sunday, of her own initiating, Sandi Rekkedal, provided cards for us to write notes to some of our parishioners who are going through a hard time.  I was privileged to deliver packets to Connie and Cindy.  From their reactions I felt as if I was handing them the bread life.  God’s grace worked through your goodness in the midst of life’s difficulties and reminded me the risk of loving is absolutely without question the way of the Kingdom of God.  The best is yet to come.

Silencing the Familar & Welcoming the Strange

At our last Vestry meeting we had an interesting discussion centering on the boundaries of helping people asking for a handout.  I am sure you have been here on a Sunday when a person has come in looking for “work”.  They come to my front door as early at 7:00 in the morning and as late at 10:30 at night.  If you live in downtown Suffolk you probably have similar experiences.  And if you help a person he is likely to return sooner rather than later to ask for more. 

I have mentioned before the “Bee Sting” theory of poverty.  Being poor in our country is akin to being attacked by a nest of bees.  A social program may take care a bee or two.  A church food pantry takes care of another bee.  A private handout takes care of another.  So a handful of bees have been swatted away, but there is still a swarm attacking.  If you help people in this position, their understandable response will be two-fold: gratitude and a request to take out another bee.  Take out a second bee and you will be asked to take out a third.  And on it goes until you come to a point where you have to say no more.

Jesus feeds 5,000 people, many of whom are poor and all of whom are hungry.  Suddenly he is the solution to all their worldly problems.  They want to make him king, but Jesus did not come to be a discount grocery store manager.  He slips into hiding.  By nightfall, his disciples decide to sail back to Capernaum, their base of operations.  A few hours later Jesus walks to them on the water.  In the morning the crowd recognizes they are gone and sets out to discover where they are.  They look for Jesus because he has been healing the sick and now feeding people.  He is the answer to their most basic needs.  He is making the bees go away.

Over the next four Sundays our gospel readings are drawn from the chapter in John where Jesus teaches about the meaning of the feeding.  Throughout the chapter different groups and people ask him questions.  The first question they ask when they find him in Capernaum is this: “Rabbi, when did you get here?”  For good reason Jesus does not describe for them his curious method of transportation. 

“You are following me not because you saw a sign, but because you ate your fill,” Jesus says to them.  “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life.”  Jesus is speaking to people who have been beaten down by life and overwhelmed by its challenges.  Yes, he took away their hunger for a day, but even more important he lifted up their spirits.  Now they face a critical moment.  Either they can come alive or they can become dependent.  Jesus is willing to support them in the struggle to take responsibility for themselves, but he is not able to be responsible for them.  He is not going to be a daily source of perishable bread sustaining the body.  Rather, he is going to give them eternal bread to nourish the spirit.

Craig Satterlee, a Lutheran Bishop from Michigan, writes, “I do not think Jesus was scolding the crowd for seeking bread because they were hungry.  I think Jesus was disappointed that the crowd did not expect more, not more bread but something more.”  Sam Keen, in his book To a Dancing God, writes about why expecting something more is so challenging:

Awareness of what presents itself to me involves a double movement of attention: silencing the familiar and welcoming the strange.  Each time I approach a strange object, person, or event, I have a tendency to let my present needs, past experience, or expectations for the future determine what I will see.  If I am to appreciate the uniqueness of any datum, I must be sufficiently aware of my preconceived ideas and characteristic emotional distortions to bracket them long enough to welcome strangeness and novelty into my perceptual world…  Without this discipline each present moment is only the reception of something already seen or experienced. 

It is a very human tendency to see only what you are looking for while missing entirely something readily available.  This, I think, is why Jesus answers the second question as he does.  “What must we do to perform the works of God?”  His answer, while appearing to be simple, is in reality incredibly complex: “Believe in the one whom God has sent.”  By this he means, “You must see me for who I am, not for who you want me to be.  You must look with eyes of faith in order to see what this moment truly is and can be.”

They ask Jesus “What work are you performing?” and remind him how God fed their ancestors in the wilderness.  One of the real challenges we religious folks face is a temptation to think God only acted back then.  The big stories of the bible are so big it is difficult to think anything we experience is on par with them.  I have never walked on water or seen it parted.  I have never tasted water turned to wine or sat down with 4,999 other people and eaten my fill of a meal consisting of five barley loaves and two fish.   It is easy to think God did spectacular things back in the day and our job today is to believe they happened and to be filled with awe.

Jesus shreds this notion by saying to the people then and to us right now his work is to provide the bread of heaven which gives life to the world.  It is a work God is doing here and is doing now.  Each person Jesus is speaking to and each one of us is invited to receive spiritual nourishment.  It is not intended to solve your problems, but to give you the spiritual resources you need to face them. 

I think about the people who come to my door looking for help.  I try not to judge them.  I don’t know their entire stories, but what I do know is at points horrifying.  I don’t believe I could overcome all they have been through.  I invite them to come to our Food Pantry on Monday evenings.  It is just one meal, but we also provide information about where food or meals are available in downtown Suffolk every day of the week.  Sadly, my most frequent visitors do not take advantage of my offer.  I suspect, to use Sam Keen’s phrase, they struggle to silence the familiar in order to welcome the strange.  They do not sense how these efforts can meet their most basic needs and become a Living Bread allowing them to move forward in life.

They are not alone in this struggle.  Although it manifests in different ways, I too struggle to silence the familiar in order to welcome the strange.  I suspect often times I fail to see the wonder and grace right in front of me because I am so locked in to what I know, I experience, and I understand.  If I take Jesus at his word, “I am the bread of life.  Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” – if I take Jesus at his word – then I must conclude I am missing something because there are times when I am famished and there are times when I am parched.  God has not failed me.  I have failed to perceive what God is offering to me and to receive it.

This morning’s reading encourages us to ponder when, where, and how we approach God looking for a morsel when God is offering us a banquet.

May You Know You Have Enough

Let me reset the stage from the last few Sundays’ gospel readings.  Jesus sends his disciples out in groups of two to preach, to teach, and to heal.  They fan throughout the region of Galilee and do some really good ministry.  When they gather again with Jesus in the countryside a whole lot of people follow them.  Jesus, seeing the crowd is like sheep without a shepherd, begins teaching them.  This goes on all day. 

What happens next is recorded in all four gospels.  Jesus manages to feed 5,000 people with only a few loaves of bread and two fish.  It is an event so significance the assigned readings for the next four Sundays will explore its meaning in greater depth.  Today’s reading from John has several details not found in the other three versions.  It is the only one to describe the boy who supplies the loaves and fish.  Next, it tells us the bread is made from barley. About a third of the cost of wheat, this is the bread of the poor.  Jesus’ miracle of abundance begins with the cheapest food possible. 

Finally, while all four versions have the disciples picking up the leftovers, only John records Jesus saying, “Gather up the fragments so that nothing may be lost.”  Jan Richardson, on her blogsite paintedprayerbook.com, writes Jesus “sees the abundance that persists, the feast that remains within the fragments.”  It is so consistent with his life view – the worth of the widow’s mite, the value of the lost sheep, the possibility for good within a single talent.  There is a feast to be had with these fragments, but what?  How?

Did you notice in the story how the disciples fill twelve baskets with crumbs and leftovers?  There is one basket for each disciple.  This means each of them carries the tangible remains of the miraculous grace they have experienced.  Each of them holds a basket of possibility in their hands.  Each of them possesses potential beyond their imagining.  What will the disciples do with the basket of fragments they are stewarding?  Unfortunately, none of the gospel records focus on this aspect of the story, so we are left to wonder and to imagine. 

And we are left to ponder the “fragments” of potential grace we possess.  Do we perceive in them a feast waiting to happen?  If so, what will we do with them?  After her reflection, Richardson posted this poem titled Blessing the Fragments:

Cup your hands together,
and you will see the shape
this blessing wants to take.
Basket, bowl, vessel:
it cannot help but
hold itself open
to welcome
what comes.

This blessing
knows the secret
of the fragments
that find their way
into its keeping,
the wholeness
that may hide
in what has been
left behind,
the persistence of plenty
where there seemed
only lack.

Look into the hollows
of your hands
and ask
what wants to be
gathered there,
what abundance waits
among the scraps
that come to you,
what feast
will offer itself
from the fragments
that remain.

Do you discern your life to be a “persistence of plenty where there seemed only lack”?  Do you have a sense of how “abundance waits among the scrapes that come to you”? 

St. Paul’s Food Pantry is one place where I see this kind of feast happening.  We average about 60-70 clients each Monday night who select up to five items from our well-stocked shelves.  Some weeks we can even offer an extra item and most Monday’s we are able to serve some kind of food to those who join us when we open the doors at 4:30.  Some of our clients are here every week, others only every now and then.  We are blessed with great leadership and terrific volunteers (especially our teenagers).  Your designated contributions fund our ministry, along with the support we receive from a couple of civic organizations you direct toward us.  Over the course of a typical month we distribute 1,500 food items.  While not nearly as impressive as what Jesus did, it still is remarkable.  It is a ministry of abundance made possible because a number of people make small contributions of money and time. 

The belief fragments matter is behind this morning’s drive for household items for ForKids.  Among the things in does, this Suffolk organization helps to settle homeless families in a place to live.  Often, members of these families have little more than a backpack each of personal items.   They arrive to a new home with no soap, detergent, paper towels, toilet paper, trash bags, napkins – you name it; all those things we use every day and never think twice about their availability.  So today’s drive invites each of us to contribute just one thing to help ForKids make life a little better and a little easier for the families they serve.  All we ask of you is a fragment of grace.

There are times when our faith requires us to be all in, like when the boy gives five barley loaves and two fish - literally everything he has.  Moments like this, thankfully, seem to be rare.  Most often the life of faith asks us to believe in the fragments we possess and to be generous with how we use them.  We are asked to believe God will bless the potential of our material gifts.  We are asked to believe God’s Spirit will move through the fragments of the time we are able to offer in service to our church and our community; through our kind words and patient attention to the concerns of others.  We are asked to believe our unique, if unspectacular, gifts and abilities contribute something essential to the common good.  We are asked to believe God has given us a basketful of grace and will continue to bless what we do with it.

There is an old Irish blessing that goes…

May you have enough…

enough happiness to keep you sweet,

enough trials to keep you strong,

enough sorrow to keep you human,

enough failure to keep you humble,

enough success to keep you eager,

enough friends to give you comfort,

enough wealth to meet your needs,

enough enthusiasm to look forward,

enough faith to banish depression,

enough determination to make each day

better than yesterday.

May you have enough.

To this I would add only one thing…

May you know you have enough.

The theologian H. Reinhold Niebuhr noted, “The great Christian revolutions come not by the discovery of something that was not known before.  They happen when somebody takes radically something that was always there.”

Jesus said, “Gather up the fragments so that nothing may be lost.”

Resting When There is Work to be Done

Jesus said to his disciples, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.”  For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.

Every person here knows what it is like to be swamped at work, to be overwhelmed by the tasks at hand, and to have people coming at you from all directions.  At times like this you say to yourself, “I need a vacation” or “I need an assistant” or even better “I need a vacation and an assistant.”

This morning’s gospel reading comes in the midst of a very busy and hectic time.  Jesus has sent out his followers in groups of two to preach and teach and heal.  They fanned throughout the region and did some impressive work; so impressive that when they re-gather in the countryside, 5,000 people follow them there.  Jesus teaches all day.  And then, because the people have no food, he takes what is available – five loaves and two fish – and uses it to feed the multitude.  Do you remember how in the story the disciples distribute the food?  12 disciples, 5,000 people – that is 416 people per disciple.  Now, I have never worked as a waiter, but serving 416 people strikes me as being a monumental task.  Jesus says to his followers, “We need to go away.  It is time for us to rest.”

It is worth noting this invitation does not come once all the work has been completed.  People are still coming and going and the disciples are so busy feeding folks they themselves do not have time to eat.  When Jesus says lets go away for a while there is still plenty of work that needs to be done.  I once served a bishop who said the reason he scheduled a clergy conference in the fall at a time when church activities are ramping up and priests generally are really busy is because this is precisely the time when we most need to get away.  Resting when there is work to be done.

The 10 Commandments are recorded in the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy.  Each contains the command to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy, but the rationales differ.  The Exodus version is grounded in creation: six days God worked and on the seventh day God rested.  We humans who are created in God’s image are to follow this pattern in order to express who we are and to preserve what is holy about us.  The Deuteronomy mandate to honor the Sabbath is grounded in the experience of slavery in Egypt.  Forced for generations to make bricks day after day after day, God’s children became valued only for what they can do, not for who they are.  Sabbath rest is a tangible affirmation we are more than just machines; that there is more to life than constant productivity.  When observant Jews light two candles on Shabbat they do so to remember they are created in God’s image and they are free. 

Eugene Peterson, a now retired clergyman and author, once wrote about his Sabbath practice:

Monday is my Sabbath.  Nothing is scheduled for Mondays.  If there are emergences, I respond, but there are surprisingly few.  My wife joins me in observing the day.  We make a lunch, put it in a daypack, take our binoculars and drive anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour away, to a trailhead along a river or into the mountains.  Before we begin our hike my wife reads a psalm and prays.  After that prayer there is no more talking – we enter into a silence that will continue for the next two or three hours, until we stop for lunch.

We walk leisurely, emptying ourselves, opening ourselves to what is there: fern shapes, flower fragrance, birdsong, granite outcropping, oaks, and sycamores, rain, snow, sleet, wind.  We have clothes for all weather and so never cancel our Sabbath-keeping for reasons of weather…  When the sun or our stomachs tell us it is lunchtime, we break the silence with a prayer of blessing for the sandwiches and fruit, the river and the forest.  We are free to talk now, sharing bird sightings, thoughts, observations, ideas – however much or little we are inclined.  We return home in the middle or late afternoon, putter, do odd jobs, read.  After supper I usually write family letters.  That’s it.  No Sinai thunder.  No Damascus road illuminations.  No Patmos visions.  A day set apart for solitude and silence.  Not-doing.  Being-there.  The sanctification of time.

How does this sound to you?  Perhaps the specifics are not for you – the walking, the silence, the weekly repetition – but don’t you think you would feel a lot more human if you found your own nourishing way to keep the Sabbath?  I know I would.  A famous opera singer once noted half of Beethoven’s music is silence.  It is the empty spaces between the notes that distinguish music from noise.  What do you do to create empty space in your life?  

In her book An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest and author, said much the same thing as Peterson:

At least one day in every seven, pull off the road and park the car in the garage.  Close the door to the toolshed and turn off the computer.  Stay home, not because you are sick but because you are well.  Talk someone you love into being well with you.  Take a nap, a walk, and hour for lunch.  Test the premise that you are worth more than you can produce – that even if you spent one whole day of being good for nothing you would still be precious in God’s sight.  And when you get anxious because you are convinced that this is not so – remember that your own conviction is not required.  This is a commandment.  Your worth has already been established, even when you are not working.  The purpose of the commandment is to woo you to the same truth.

She quotes Meister Eckhard who said, “God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by subtracting.”  What do you need to subtract from this day in order to allow it to work on you?

I think it is telling Jesus has to call his disciples to follow him to a place of rest.  The harder a person pushes himself or herself the more alienated he or she becomes to needs of his or her own body and soul.  While the command to honor the Sabbath is in the same list as ‘Thou shalt not kill’, we hardly treat it as seriously.  But it is every bit as important because without a regular pattern of rest and restoration we engage in killing ourselves.   In a very real sense, the Sabbath is not a commandment, but holy gift.  Jesus offers you this gift with the invitation to step away for a while and rest.  Will you accept?

The Lord of the Dance

I first learned to dance in an etiquette class in 6^th Grade.  We learned the Box Step (1-2-3-4).  We were instructed where to place our hands and where not to place our hands, as well as how close but no closer we could be to our partner.  Every year our Youth Group had a square dance.  Here I learned how to allemande left with the lady on my left and the Virginia Reel.   This is the end of my formal dance training.  I can do the YMCA (who can’t?), but not the Macarena.  Every now, if I have some music on, I cut loose in my kitchen while making dinner, but at moments like this I am grateful I live alone. 

My aunt and uncle’s Saturday schedule revolved precisely around watching The Lawrence Welk Show.  They commented constantly and critically on the dancers and their outfits.  It is hard fathom how at the same time our culture produced Elvis Presley and his gyrating hips.  I think back over movies and moments that transformed dancing in my lifetime: Saturday Night Fever, Grease, Flashdance, Dirty Dancing, Michael Jackson’s Moon Walk, and Left Shark at the Super Bowl.  Today, Dancing with the Stars is a cultural phenomena with millions of passionate followers.

After I moved into town my first introduction to Suffolk life was the 2007 Shrimpfest.  Terry and Irma Mottley were there and at one point with the music playing they broke into a shag.  I can still picture it in my mind.  They seemed so free and connected and graceful at ease with one another and in love.  It reminded me of something a seminary professor once told me.  She teaches pastoral theology and from time to time does marital counseling.  She advises couples in distress to sign up for dance lessons.  In her experience, if they are not willing to engage in this intimate and vulnerable activity there is little chance counseling sessions will save their marriage.

Dancing has been around for a long time.  Social theorists believe well before we honed our verbal skills early human beings used dancing as a method of communicating with one another.  The earliest record of dancing is found in a cave painting in India.  Dating back 9,000 years, it depicts a celebration after a successful hunt.  Dancing seems to be an important element in every religious tradition in our world.  Some Episcopal churches incorporate what is known as liturgical dancing in their services, but, as a friend of mine once opined, “When it comes to liturgical dancing, less really is more.”

In today’s first reading we find King David dancing before the Lord “with all his might”.  He and the people are celebrating the return of the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem after it had been lost in battle to the Philistines.  Most likely his dancing is not akin to the highly choreographed dancing of Viennese Waltz, but a spontaneous, free-form, energetic expression of passion and joy.  It is what basketball players do when they nail a game winning shot at the buzzer and baseball players do when they hit a walk off homerun and soccer fans do when their team wins the World Cup.  Jumping up and down and screaming at the top of your lungs may not seem like much of a dance, but it does combine movement and celebration.  Outside of perhaps the Pentecostal church tradition, we people of faith in the Christian west do not dance like this in religious settings and ceremonies.  If I broke loose with leaping, shouting, and dancing in today’s service, you all would give me the same look David’s wife gave him and call the bishop. 

Years ago I attended a service at a Charismatic Episcopal Church where we were directed to stand, raise our hands to the Lord, and sing “with all our might”.  Those of us who did not raise our hands were chastised for being “stumps”, not “trees” – raised arms being the limbs.  Then and there I discovered I do not come to worship to be drawn out of myself – to be released from constrictions so I can let it all out in an emotional outpouring – but rather I seek a kind of worship that draws me inward to a place where I can hear the still, small voice of God’s Spirit speaking to my deepest concerns, sorrows, hopes, and joys.  I don’t despise the David’s in this world who let go when they worship God, but it is not me and it is not what I need from this experience.

Today’s gospel reading describes a different kind of dancing.  This one is not religious in nature, but rather erotic.  By all accounts, King Herod is a foolish and brutal ruler.  What sort of father asks his teenage daughter to dance provocatively for him and his male guests?  His taxation policy squeezes the life out of the Galilean region in order to build his palaces and support his sumptuous lifestyle.  His powers are many and broad and he wields them arbitrarily for his own benefit to the detriment of others. 

Herod’s daughter Herodias appears to have only one source of power – her sexuality.  Like most young women, she realizes she has the ability to manipulate men with her beauty and her body well before she discovers what she wants to do with her power.  As such, she is in a vulnerable position.  She has the ability to hurt others and most likely she will be hurt multiple times in her life by using this power.

I dated a young woman in college who told me her secret to getting an A in an economics class of over 100 students.  The professor knew none of us by name and surely never took the time to read our papers word for word.  Our final grades seemed arbitrary at best.  This young woman figured out how to break through.  First, she always dressed up and wore a skirt to class.  Next, she sat in the front row and paid attention.  She intended to catch the professor’s eye, but he still didn’t know her name.  One day, after class, she approached him to ask for the name of a book and author he referenced during the lecture.  Then, at the final, she wrote on the top corner of her paper a note in red ink: “Thank you for directing me to the author and name of the book.”  Because she connected her paper with her face she got an A and deserved it.  The professor was unwilling to do the actual work of reading papers and assigning grades based on merit so he opened himself to being played, although nowhere near as badly as Herod.

This week I asked a few women about their experience of using the power of their sexuality.  I learned it can be effective, but also is fraught with peril.  Our society is not much help.  Either we encourage women to flaunt their power to the fullest, or we attempt to shame and suppress it - think about the churches that ban dancing and the religious traditions requiring women to cover their bodies.  The example of the mother seems to play a key role in shaping the practices of the daughter – how to dress and how not to, how to act and how not to.  More than anything else, if a woman’s only power is her ability to use her looks and her sexuality to get what she wants from men, she is opening herself to a lifetime of pain. 

History does not record any other details of Herodias’ life, just this dance and the role it plays in a gruesome and unnecessary execution.  Sadly for her, it is an auspicious beginning to her formative years and it strains the imagination to conceive who might have guided her from viewing herself as being only a seductive object in the eyes of men to an authentic human being deeply and dearly loved by God our Creator.

When she was five, we enrolled our daughter Abbey in a dance class at her daycare.  Like all such things, there came the day for a recital, with its obligatory stopping of the world for every relative in the same time zone to attend… and videotape.  Most of the routines were cute, uncomplicated, and somewhat mechanical.  At one point the instructor told us it was time for a freeform dance where the girls move to music in anyway they desire.  At this point, in my eyes at least, the most amazing thing happened.  It was as if Abbey connected to some deep inner place allowing her soul and her body’s sinews to interact with the holy and mysterious rhythms of life.  She appeared free of conscious restriction as she flowed and drifted with the music; no longer concerned about the steps and stops of the previous dances, just her body and soul’s relationship with the music.  It was incredibly beautiful, deeply spiritual, and a moment I will cherish forever.  It is for me a witness to what all life can and should be.    

Jesus never actually said “I am the Lord of the Dance,” but I bet he wished he had.  Life definitely is a dance.  Sometimes it looks like the awkwardness of a 6^th grader’s box step.  Other times, such as when we pass the peace, it feels like the joyful interaction of the Virginia Reel.  There are moments of spontaneous joy and celebration.  And there are times of rare, fleeting, and precious sacred connection and expression. 

Dance, then, wherever you may be,

for I am the Lord of the Dance said he.

Is it Time to Cut your Losses and Move on?

My old high school building is no more.  The city of Akron tore it down several years ago and rebuilt it.  A group of us got to take a tour of the new facilities the day before our class reunion.  The main entrance is a three-story atrium and contains an alumni Hall of Fame – about a dozen or so graduates who went on to do notable things, such as becoming rock stars, Olympic champions, an astronaut, a TV star, a Blue Angel pilot, a concert pianist, and a world renowned expert in microbiology.  Generally speaking, we Americans are proud of our local kids who make good.  If you drive into most any small town in our country, chances are good you will see a sign reading something like, “Welcome to Walton, the childhood home of the inventor of the Slinky.”     

Today’s reading makes it abundantly clear there will be no sign reading, “Welcome to Nazareth, the hometown of Jesus the Messiah.”  The people who watch Jesus grow up have heard about his recent exploits in other parts of the region and are not impressed.  When he teaches in his hometown synagogue those who hear him are “astounded” and take “offense.”  “Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary?” – because it does not mention the name of his father, this question indicates the locals believe Jesus to be illegitimate.  That they refer to him as “the carpenter” suggests they want him to remember his role and station in life.  Apparently the Senior Class did not vote him Most Likely to become the Savior of the World.

As a result, the person who has been so effective in his teaching and healing in other places is rendered largely ineffectual in the town where he grows up.  Jesus is stunned in the face of their unbelief.  It has to be one of the real low points in Jesus’ ministry.  And it reminds us how there is a dynamic relationship between the setting and a person’s ability to function at a high level.

Think about the pitcher who wins twenty games, signs a huge contract with another team, and then can barely keep a .500 record.  Or think about the actress who stars in a blockbuster movie with one director only to bomb in another with a different one.  I have known countless clergy who struggle in one parish and then move on to another where their ministry thrives.  Productivity and the lack there of is tied to setting.  Even Jesus cannot rise above the unbelief of those around him.

But here is what he can do and here is what he does:  he moves on.  He has too much respect for himself and what he is doing to accept the way he is being treated.   He determines his mission is too critical, too important, and too necessary to waste even one single second in a place not open to it or to him.  So, as I say, he moves on. 

It is easy to say, but usually not easy to do.  Economists talk about something called “sunk costs” and how they play an important psychological role in our aversion to letting go of something no longer working, be it a business project, a relationship, or an endeavor in the community.  Sunk costs include the time and energy and emotional resources you have invested in the thing you are struggling to let go of.  They are what you have given that will be lost if you walk away.  

Jesus has thirty years invested in his relationships with his hometown people.  That is a lot of sunken cost.  Still, he knows enough to know when he has had enough.  He knows enough to know there is no point investing another word or action in Nazareth.  He knows enough to know opportunities abound elsewhere, new life awaits, and a greater purpose is on the horizon.

In fact, the possibilities are so great Jesus cannot possibly tend to them alone.  He sends out his followers with instructions to travel light, to invest themselves in those who welcome them and their mission, and to move on quickly when they are not wanted.

If you Google the question “when it is time to cut your losses and move on” you will be led to manifold websites telling you the 5, 7, 9, or 12 signs it is time to move on from a project, a job, a friendship, or a marriage.  Here is a sampling:

When your priorities change and you need to shift your focus on other things, QUIT.

When it no longer brings you happiness, why prolong the agony?  QUIT.

When your current job doesn’t offer you any more growth opportunities and you dread every minute of it, QUIT.

When you are dirt poor because you’ve invested all of your life savings and [are] deep in debt trying to bring your business back to life, QUIT.

When you think you’ve reached the dead-end of your relationship, QUIT.

When you believe you have done everything humanly possible and have exhausted all of your efforts in trying to make something work, QUIT.

I like how these statements recognize and affirm there comes a time when it is time to move on.  Still, the formula for making this determination is far from straightforward.  In fact, often times it is agonizing.  We have been raised in a culture telling us winners never quit and quitters never win.  As John Rector pointed out to me, the reason the cleaning product is called Formula 409 is because the first 408 formulas didn’t work.  We have been raised in a faith tradition promoting the ideal of “until death do us part.”  We people of faith sense a moral imperative to love unconditionally and infinitely, as we hope and pray God loves us.  As a result, most of us – if we are healthy and stable people – are not wired to quit, to walk away, and to move on.

Here is a question to ponder:  What in life is giving you energy and what in life is draining you?  Perhaps you will recognize some of the most draining things once were sources of great energy, but everything runs its course.  If Jesus asked himself this question, his answer might be “I am energized by going from town to town preaching and teaching about the Kingdom of God and I am drained when I go back to my hometown and experience their unbelief.”  What is giving you energy?  What is draining you?  When something does nothing but drain you, perhaps this is a clear sign you need to engage some real discernment.  

In talking with several of you about cutting your losses I have come to learn we have all been there, we have all found the discernment process to be extremely difficult, and self-doubt still can linger even as new life emerges.  I wonder how many times after today’s reading Jesus contemplates going back to Nazareth and giving it another go.

The decision to cut your losses and move on should never be made in isolation.  It is not a brash, knee-jerk reaction to resistance or something you don’t like, but a fundamental question of your personal value, self-respect, and your sense of calling and purpose.  If you are going to move on from all the resources you have sunk into something, you want to do it prayerfully and thoughtfully.  You had better have a good reason for why you are letting go and at least a passionate hope for what might be ahead.  

You will need the thoughts and feedback of someone who is close, wise, and trustworthy – a spouse, a friend, a colleague, a therapist, a spiritual advisor.  You will need a person who can affirm the difficulty of the moment, and can reassure you of your competence, your goodness, your dignity and worth, and God’s promise of a better day to come.  You need a person who can say, “It is OK to shake off the dust on your shoes.  God will give you what you need and I will walk with you to the place where your will be welcomed, embraced, and affirmed.”

Here is my final thought: Life is not for sissies.  For most of us it is a challenge much of the time.  The good news is twofold.  First, God is with us.  What more can we ask for?  Second, God seems to delight in working through those near to us.  We are here for one another and together we will make it.