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.

Light a Candle

Last Sunday a colleague of mine served as a guest preacher at an Episcopal church in another state.  Like many pastors in recent weeks, her sermon addressed our current immigration situation.  She posted it on-line and I read it.  It was thoughtful and articulate.  She built on the scriptures for the day and the theology of our baptismal covenant.  She was respectful of those holding a different opinion.  She invited parishioners into a place of reflection and conversation.  Still, two people walked out of church during the sermon and two other people waited until after the service to “lambaste” her before storming out in a huff.  The experience left my colleague shaken, anxious, and fearful.  I have other colleagues who have been criticized from the opposite direction by people who believe they have not preached strongly enough about objectionable things happening in our country.

Increasingly, preaching, like many other forms of communication, is becoming caught up in the growing incivility of our national discourse.  Our minds are made up, our positions solidified, and our defenses are on heightened alert to reject anything not in accord with what we believe.  Given this, what is a preacher to do?  Well, in an article this week, one minister suggested we clergy should preach the Gospel.  Now there, I thought, is a novel idea.  How much trouble can one get into if he or she sticks to the Gospel?  Well, Jesus was executed for it and all but one of his Apostles were martyred for their faith.  Still, I am willing to give it a try.

In today’s Old Testament reading, God states a decided preference for the most poor and vulnerable people in society – widows (at that time a group with absolutely no status or rights), orphans, and strangers.  “You shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”  The New Testament reading describes how directs God Abraham to pack up his family and belongings in order to move from a land where they are threatened to a place where they will be safe and can prosper.  Jesus ratchets up the Gospel imperative to a level almost unimaginable: “You must love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you.” 

The readings challenge us to acknowledge the humanity of the person who is other and the person who is against us.  It is easy, Jesus says, to find humanity in the person who looks like you and talks like you and thinks like you.  If you want to be my follower than you must find the humanity in the person who does not look, talk, or think like you. 

And if you manage to see the other as human, what then do you do with this?  What should our actions look like?  Here is one suggestion with deep roots in the Christian tradition: while we fail to recognize him at first, most often we meet Jesus in the person who is other.  Offer to the other what you would offer to Christ.  So, for example, if you own a Colorado bakery and a gay couple asks you to bake a cake for their wedding, bake them the kind of cake you would give to Jesus himself.  And if, for example, you own a Lexington restaurant and an administrative staffer sits down at a table, make her the most delicious meal you can and offer to her and her companions the best service ever, just as you would do if you were preparing a dinner for Christ. 

It is time for us in America to stop pushing each other away and pull closer together, to talk about our differences in a way that is articulate, civil, and respectful, not hateful, accusatory, and divisive.  We need this from our elected officials, people in the media, and from ourselves. 

I have had several very interesting Facebook threads discussing some of the current issues facing our country.  I try to be honest about what I don’t know (immigration law and statistics about crime) while lifting up what I do know – a moral and spiritual perspective.  I am learning a lot and I think what I have contributed has caused some people to think in slightly new ways.  There are disagreements, but no one has been disagreeable. 

At the end of the day, I will have only one vote to cast in a general election, so I don’t believe I alone have the power to change the world.  Still, I believe my opinion matters and I believe how I express my opinion matters even more.  How I express my opinion contributes to who we are as a people and influences – for good or for ill – who we are becoming.  Benjamin Franklin famously said, “Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain and most fools do.”  I say in times like these, it takes someone really special to contribute to the common good.  Jesus suggests you can tell who a person is and whose a person is by how that person treats those of whom they differ most.

Are you familiar with an organization known as The Christophers?  Father James Keller founded it in 1945 to counteract a deep-rooted American suspicion the Roman Catholic Church wanted to take over our country.  The name ‘Christopher’ means Christ bearer and the members of this group commit themselves to bring our Lord and Savior to a people prejudiced against them.  Although it is born in the Roman tradition, it advocates for religious tolerance and respect.  It continues on in our own time, guided by its founding motto: “It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.”  Members of The Christophers are encouraged to commit simple acts of kindness and goodness each and every day in order to bring the light of Christ into a dark world.

If ever there was a Gospel message for our time it is this: It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.  In truth, each one of us is going to have to light a lot of candles.  Everywhere we go, with every encounter we have, and especially as we meet ‘the other’, we are going to have to light a candle.  It will be a candle of civility and respect and regard for the dignity of every human being.  It will be a candle created in the theology shop of our Presiding Bishop, who is fond of saying, “If it isn’t about love, it isn’t about God.”

Debbie Askew shared with me a Facebook post she had seen and I want to read it for you.

[We went to] a New Mexican restaurant in Suffolk called El Korita.  It is at 200 E. Washington St.  We got there about 12:30 and it was busy.  It is a tiny little restaurant.  Family run, painted bright and clean. 

We were seated right away, one waitress running from table to table, super friendly.  We were brought chips and drinks right away.

I immediately notice what looks like a homeless older lady.  She is pushing a buggy with lots of belongings, she is not well kept, wearing a shirt for a skirt.  She is sitting at a corner table.  She gets up several times, goes to the counter and back.  I pointed her out to Meg and we waited to see what was going on.  Very quickly in the midst of this busy lunch rush, the owner hands her a plate of food.  She goes back to the table and sits down and eats.  When the waitress, who is the daughter of the owner comes over to take our order, we tell her that we will cover her lunch.  She just (literally) joyfully says... we have it!  She is here every day and we feed her.  We know what it is to be hungry, so we make sure she isn’t.

When that lady was finished with her meal, she picked up her plate, took it back to the counter.  The owner came from the back in the kitchen, met her, had a conversation with her and walked with her to the door.  He gently put his hand on her back, opened the door for her and then went back to working. 

When we went up to pay I was talking to his daughter and she thanked me again for wanting to cover her lunch.  She told me that everyone that worked there saved their change and put it aside to cover anyone that came in that was hungry.  She said they do not judge and will feed them.  Meg and I paid our bill and gave them money to put in for that too.

I tell this story for several reasons.  The most important is that this family is showing LOVE with no judgment.  Salt and Light. 
A brand new restaurant that was crazy busy and he could have taken the time to talk to the people that were there in suits and ties and little kids, but he was genuinely loving and caring on her.

It costs NOTHING to love and not judge.  Be salt and light!
OH!  The food was great too!!!!  Go eat there and maybe leave a little extra for their “mission.”

This is the kind of community I want to live it.  This is the kind of community I want to help create.  This is the kind of thing that happens more often and in more different ways than most of us could ever imagine.  These are the kinds of stories we need to share… the stories about people who light a candle rather than curse the darkness.   

I can’t change the world and, like many of my colleagues, I struggle with how to preach about the world today.  But here is one thing I can do and no one can stop me: I can light a candle… and then another… and then another.  The darkness is dark, but the light of Jesus – should you and I choose to manifest it in our lives – will overcome the darkness.  

Does God Care?

I finished reading Nathaniel Philbrick’s book Sea of Glory, which chronicles the story of the United States Exploring Expedition, consisting of a squadron of ships that circumnavigated the globe from 1838-1842.  Among its other achievements, the Ex. Ex. is credited with discovering the continent of Antarctica and mapping more the 1,500 miles of its coastline.  Most of this work was done under extremely difficult and dangerous conditions, including gale force winds and ever-shifting packs of ice.  I come away from the book impressed with the courage and skill these sailors brought to the sea.  Here is one passage to give you a flavor of what they experienced:

Dense fog made navigating the icy barrier a particularly hazardous endeavor.  Instead of their eyes, the lookouts depended on their ears.  When they heard “the low and distant rumbling of ice,” they knew it was time to tack.  Then there were the times when the usual sounds of a ship at sea – the rhythmic slap of the waves and the comforting creak of the rigging (which always seemed magnified in the fog) – suddenly ceased as the [ship] glided into the eerily quiet lee of an unseen iceberg.”  “[T]he transition was so sudden… that many were awakened from sound sleep…  [It is] an occurrence from which the feeling of great danger is inseparable.”  

One of the squadron’s vessels, the Peacock, become so hopelessly ensnarled in the flows of ice its rudder was snapped off.  Unable to steer the ship, the captain and crew labored for hours and hours to direct its movements with a series of complicated, rapid, and demanding raising and lowering of sails.  Attempt after attempt to break free to open water failed and the ship’s haul was in danger of being crushed.  Finally, after more than 24 hours of life and death struggle, the ship broke through and the crew had to sail the battered Peacock more than 1,000 miles to New Zealand for repairs.

I share these stories because they describe the hazards of being on the water, something we encounter in today’s reading from Mark’s gospel.  While not nearly as long as the Chesapeake Bay, the Sea of Galilee is nearly as wide.  It is notorious for its sudden and dramatic change in conditions and because it is relatively shallow, strong winds can create formidable waves on it.  

Pairing Mark’s account with Sea of Glory, here is what I sense is happening.  The fishermen in the group are accustom to the conditions and are working hard at the sails and oars.  The land-lovers in the group are terrified.  Most likely they have been ordered to bale water filling the haul at an alarming rate.  Jesus, having exhausted himself with “the crowd” they left behind, is in the midst of what my colleagues and I refer to as a “clergy coma.”  Many of us collapse on Sunday afternoons and do not come close to recovery until after a good, long nap.  Have you ever awakened from a nap completely disoriented; not knowing who you are, where you are, what day it is, or what time it is?  I think this is what happens to Jesus.  He awakes startled and acts before he comes to his senses.  The results are dramatic, to say the least.

It is not clear who wakes Jesus and says, “Do you not care that we are perishing?”  My guess it is the sailing novices, because the fishermen on board would not give up the struggle so easily and admit defeat.  And it is not entirely clear if the question indicates they believe they are doomed, or if they are urging Jesus to lend a hand with the baling efforts.  Either way, there is something universal in what they ask, “Lord, do you not care that we are perishing?”, Jesus’ command, “Peace.  Be Still”, and his response, “Why are you afraid?  Have you still no faith?”

“Do you not care that we are perishing?”  What a profound question!  It has been asked about God down through the ages.  My suspicion is most of us here this morning have asked it in some form or fashion at some point in life.  God, do you care about what is happening to me?  God, do you care about what is happening to us?

I ponder often how the Creator of all reality can possibly care about me, let alone even be aware of me.  I can barely manage to keep track of my own extended family.  I spent two days of my vacation driving to cemeteries in rural Pennsylvania in order to find the tombstones of direct, but distant ancestors.  (I know, many of you must be wondering why I am not willing to charter a bus and make these amazing adventures a parish outing for all!).  I had to carry genealogy charts with me in order to keep straight even a handful of people and still felt confused.  If I can’t do it, I struggle to understand how God does.  

But, my experience matches that of so many of you, and countless throngs of the faithful down through the centuries.  While I can’t explain how it is, I know – I just know – God cares about me.  They only way I make sense of it is to believe the Holy One is something so completely other that human limitations simply do not apply, while at the same time is something so close to us as to be known and knowable.  

This morning’s first reading is one of the best known from the Old Testament – the story of David and Goliath.  We learned it as children, but could spend all our summer sermons pondering what it says to us as adults.  I come away from it this morning with two clear reflections.  First, David trusts how his experiences in the past translate well to the challenges of his present.  He believes in himself.  And second, he believes God cares about him and about his people.  Absent either of these, I doubt he would have stepped forward to slay the Philistine giant.  

Does God care about us?  Think about those times when you have asked this question with every fiber of your being.  Most often the winds and the waves threatening to take you under abated only as God worked through another person or people to restore the peace and calm you needed in your life.  Does God care about us?  On our better days, we step forward to provide the flesh and bones of the answer by challenging the Goliaths of our times in order to bring peace and calm to the life of another.

When I was in Ohio I met with Jon, my friend from childhood.  Along with his wife, we were driving to have dinner at another friend’s house when Jon’s cellphone rang.  His elderly neighbor was in the midst of a family crisis raising concerns about his safety and wellbeing.  Jon was not going to be at peace until he knew his neighbor was OK.  We turned the car around and drove back to Jon’s house where his wife volunteered to give up her Friday night and this social engagement in order to care for their neighbor.  Does God care?  Yes, and I know this because Jon and his wife care.

I do not have an ax to grind with the First Lady.  Still, her fashion decision regarding what to wear while visiting immigrant children separated from their parents invites a moral, Godly, Christian response.  “I don’t care.  Do you?”  Yes!  I do care.  No, to the critics who say “these are not our kids.”  All children are our children.  “Lord, don’t you care about these innocents and what they are experiencing?  “Yes,” God says, “Yes I care with all my Being.  You need to show the world how much I care.  What you do will bring peace and calm.  I will see to it.  What you do will speak of your faith.  I will channel my care and compassion through you.”

Does God care?  How do you know?  Does God care?  How do you show it?