May 17, 2015--An Altar in the World: The Practice of Encountering Others: Community

Rev. Tom Ott

Matthew 25: 34-37

Last week we celebrated One Body worship by canceling both of our normal Sunday morning worship services and inviting everyone to come together at 11:00AM. We were celebrating confirmation last Sunday and it felt right to assemble the whole congregation to lay hands on the five young people who joined their lives to the life and ministry of the Christian community.

Many of us really look forward to our One Body celebrations. There is lots of energy in the room because the sanctuary is filled with people. We get to see folks who don’t normally worship with us on Sunday morning. And we get to experience more variety in our worship ritual as we incorporate elements from two very different services into one celebration. Inevitably after one of our One Body services, several people will come up to me and say “We need to do this more often.”

But the number of people who come to our One Body worship celebrations is always less than the number of people who come to our two different services. Sometimes people just forget about the schedule change and show up too early or too late for the service that day, but a significant portion of the congregation doesn’t want to cancel the service they prefer in order to be together with everyone.

Last week I was following an interesting Facebook thread about Sunday’s One Body service. It started out very complimentary with one person posting a message about how much she appreciated a song that was sung by a soloist. Several others echoed her appreciation but then the comments took a more evaluative tone. One person observed that we seem to be finding our groove for One Body Worship. To him, last week felt like the best one we’d ever done and that sparked some conversation about what made it better: maybe it was because of the special occasion that provided a good reason for the whole community to be together or maybe it was because it wasn’t like either of the two regular services but had elements that were new to everyone.

And then the conversation became more critical. Some of the elements that had been planned for the service didn’t work out the way they were planned and that felt disappointing. Some people wondered who we were trying to reach with the service and whether or not the target audience found the experience meaningful. Some suggested that more people ought to be included in the planning of One Body worship. Some admitted they don’t ever come to the One Body services because it doesn’t give them the kind of worship experience they value like the one they have when they attend the service they prefer.

Here at First Congregational Church one of our core strategic priorities is to embody difference faithfully, but as I followed all the twists and turns of last week’s Facebook thread on our One Body Worship service, what I realized is that we are all drawn to people who like what we like. Whether we are young or old, conservative or liberal, traditional or modern, 10 o’clockers or 11:45’ers, we are most comfortable being with people we have the most in common with: people who dress like us, talk like us, behave like us, believe like us.

The truth is, there are multiple cultures within our faith community: not just the 10:00 worship culture and the 11:45 Koinonia culture. Within each of those bodies there are multiple cultures. There are some who value pageantry, formalized ritual, robes, vestments, candles and sacred symbols. It inspires awe and reverence in them and makes them mindful of the transcendent power and majesty of God. There are others who value simplicity, for whom the casual intimacy of worship makes them mindful of the imminence of God in the ordinary affairs of daily life.

There are some for whom the sound of a pipe organ inspires a worshipful spirit. There are some for whom the throbbing sound of a bass guitar and the driving beat of percussion produce a worshipful spirit. There are some who are moved to pray by sitting still and being quiet: they communicate best with God by bowing their heads, folding their hands and closing their eyes. There are others who pray best by moving their bodies, raising their arms, calling out to God with their own voices.

There are some who cherish 19th century hymnology: hymns that sing our theology and remind us of our connections with our parents and our grandparents who sang the same sacred songs. There are people for whom contemporary metaphors, common language and the rhythms of music they listen to every day helps them connect their daily life experiences to their life with God.

There are people for whom this sanctuary has become sacred space, who feel the presence of God most fully in their lives when they take their places in the pews that they have returned to week after week seeking solace, comfort, inspiration and hope. For them, this is the place where all of the most significant experiences in their lives have been celebrated: it is where they grieved the death of their parents, joined their lives in marriage and rejoiced in the birth of their children. There are others for whom this place is nothing more than a convenient place to gather because for them, it is the relationships that are sacred. They feel the presence of God embodied in the connections they have formed with the people they meet when they gather here: people they have grown to know and trust, people who have been there for them in times of sorrow and joy, people who have prayed with them, laughed with them, wept with them and rejoiced with them.

There are lots of different cultures within this congregation, and each cultural group has its own reasons for wanting things the way they want them, but this week as I followed the Facebook thread on our One Body service, I found myself wondering whether we really want to know each other well enough to understand and appreciate those differences?

Here is what usually happens in any organization, including churches, whenever different cultures begin to emerge: we sort ourselves into groups of people who are like us, who see things the way we see them and want things the way we want them. And then, before long, the different groups become competing factions. They develop an “us” and “them” mindset and begin to keep score of who gets their way when. When did they win and when did we win? In the best case scenario, people in the different competing factions learn to accommodate each other. They try to balance out the wins and losses and learn to tolerate each other. In the worst case scenario, the competing factions destroy each other. It becomes a battle for power that eventually results in one faction winning and the other being banished.

But this week the spiritual practice that Barbra Brown Taylor introduced encourages us to consider a different way of being in community; one that moves us beyond tolerance and inspires us to cherish our differences.

In her book, An Altar in the World, Taylor writes:

“…encountering another human being is as close to God as I may ever get-in the eye-to-eye thing, the person-to-person thing-which is where God’s Beloved has promised to show up. Paradoxically, the point is not to see him. The point is to see the person standing right in front of me, who has no substitute, who can never be replaced, whose heart holds things for which there is no language, whose life is an unsolved mystery. The moment I turn that person into a character in my own story, the encounter is over. I have stopped being a human being and have become a fiction writer instead. (102)”

Barbra Brown Taylor calls us into a different kind of community: one that sees God in the distinctiveness of each individual. Instead of isolating ourselves into groups of likeminded individuals, Christian community calls us to embrace the beautiful diversity of the world that God has created. Instead of making assumptions about why people do and say the things that they do, followers of Jesus are challenged to learn each other’s stories and become curious about the experiences that shaped each other’s lives.

Most of us are familiar with the words that Jesus said in the 25th chapter of Matthew’s gospel. Usually we hear those words as a call to respond to those who are in need. Our shorthand translation of Jesus’ message is: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick. But that misses the true focus of the teaching. The phrase that gets repeated over and over again in our text for this morning is the phrase, “When was it that we saw you…when was it that we saw you…when was it that we saw you…?”

It is our capacity for seeing each other that is at the heart of authentic Christian community. That is what makes it possible for us to move beyond the divisive “us and them” mentality that permeates most social organizations. That is what moves us beyond competing factions that, at best, learn to tolerate their differences and at worst, end up destroying each other.

Authentic Christian community isn’t rooted in consensus of doctrine, or worship practices, or programs or polity. Authentic Christian community is rooted in the knowledge that God is most fully present when we see each other fully. Amen.

May 3, 2015--An Altar in the World: The Practice of Walking on the Earth - Groundedness

Rev. Tom Ott

"A riot is the language of the unheard." MLK 1968. Recovering the spiritual practice of walking on the earth may be next right step forward. Here are some reflections on the possibilities:

Matthew 6: 25-33

Some of my favorite memories from childhood are my overnight visits with nana and pop-pop Savage. They lived in half of a twin home in Mountainville on the south side of Allentown. Back then, South Fountain Street was a quiet residential neighborhood anchored by an ugly modern church building at the intersection of Emmaus Avenue and an underground reservoir at the other end of the street, higher up the south mountain. There wasn’t a lot of through traffic on South Fountain Street; mostly just neighbors heading off to work in the morning and returning home in the early evening. Occasionally there would be a delivery truck bringing milk or delivering parcels, but on most days there were more people walking on the sidewalk than driving in the street.

On most of my visits Nana and I would go for mid-morning walks together. After pop-pop went off to work and the breakfast dishes were washed and put away, before we got into any serious card games of “go fish” or board games of Parcheesi, we would head up to the street for a stroll around the neighborhood. Inevitably we would stop and visit with neighbors who were out digging in their gardens or sweeping off their sidewalks and Nana would embarrass me by showing off her grandson and remarking about how much I’ve grown or bragging about my latest elementary band concert or little league ball game.

What I remember most about walking with nana was the pacing. We were never in a hurry to get anywhere. It wasn’t a power walk for cardio-vascular conditioning. It was more of a leisurely stroll through the neighborhood. We would venture out to discover what there was to see. Eventually we would head up to the reservoir, which was nothing more than a grassy field with lots of ventilation pipes sticking up out of the ground, but knowing that there was a huge cistern filled with water right beneath my feet was intriguing to me as a child. Without a stop watch or a prescribed course, we were free to take whatever detour presented itself and linger as long as we wanted. There was time to search for the perfect walking stick, pick up and examine the colors and textures of rocks before chucking them deep into the woods, admire the flowers and tree blossoms and to catch up with neighbors we encountered along the way.

I don’t remember the particulars of any conversations that we had during our mid-morning walks together, but I remember the experience. I remember feeling included in nana’s world when we were out walking together. I wasn’t just a visitor in that Mountainville neighborhood, I felt connected. I had a place there beside my nana as we strolled through the neighborhood.

This week when David Sweitzer sent out an email about the bread he was baking on Friday, he shared a story about walking with a guide in Nepal. The guide had accompanied David and some friends who had gone hiking in the Himalayans and carried their supplies. There aren’t many roads in Nepal and many areas are only supplied by Sherpa carrying loads weighing as much as their own body weight on their backs. David remembered how attentive their guide had been to them during their walk together. He frequently encouraged them to slow down their pace as they climbed in the high mountain altitude. He accompanied them all the way of their trek and walked back to the airport with them, refusing to leave until he had seen them safely on their way even though he faced a week long walk to get back to Kathmandu for his next job.

There is something about walking that connects us more deeply to each other and the world around us. This past week when David learned of the earthquake that devastated Nepal and caused so much death and destruction, the tie that he still felt to the guide that had accompanied them compelled David to respond to the crisis in Nepal. All of the proceeds from Friday’s bread bake were dedicated to an NGO that has a good history of working effectively in Nepal. If you would like to contribute to David’s Nepal relief effort there are special offering envelops in the pews. You can make your check out to the church and mark the memo line for Nepal Relief.

We don’t spend very much time walking anymore. Most of the time we get into our cars and speed across town to get to wherever we want to go. Even when we travel out of town, we roll up the windows get on the highway and speed across country as quickly as we can. We don’t really see any of the places we pass bye. We don’t appreciate the beauty of the countryside. We don’t take in the unique character of the communities we pass through. We don’t enter into conversation with anyone we encounter along the way. Most of the time we rush from one place to next without noticing much of anything along the way.

But Jesus walked everywhere, and most of the stories that we have about his life are stories about encounters he had with people he met along the way: blind Bartimaeus calling out to him as he passed by, the woman with a flow of blood to reached out and touched his robe, a tax collector named Zacchaeus who climbed a tree to get a better view of Jesus. They weren’t people that Jesus had appointments to see. None of them were on his itinerary. They weren’t people he had intentionally set out to visit. They were all people he encountered while he was out walking. Most of the lessons that Jesus taught were not sermons carefully crafted in his study. They were observations he made about the things he notice while walking through the Galilean countryside:

“…do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? …Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?

In her book, “An Altar in the World,” Barbara Brown Taylor points out that, “While many of (Jesus’) present-day admirers pay close attention to what he said and did, they pay less attention to the pace at which he did it. Jesus was a walker, not a rider. He took his sweet time.”

More and more that feels like a spiritual practice that we need to recover. If we have any hope of ever living peacefully with each other in a multi-racial, multi ethnic world, then we are going to have to spend a significant amount of time walking with each other, strolling through the different neighborhoods we live in, opening ourselves to the detours, discoveries and chance encounters we might have along the way.

In 1968, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., speaking in Grosse Pointe, Mich., made an observation that we have continued to ignore at our own peril. He said, "I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard...What is it America has failed to hear? ... It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity."

Instead of driving through the blighted neighborhoods of Baltimore, Ferguson, and New York City, and even Battle Creek, we are going to have to get out our cars and take to the streets. We’re going to have to recover the ancient practice walking together and slowing ourselves down to a pace where we can actually talk with each other and learn each other’s stories. Instead of waiting for rioting and looting and then labeling people thugs, we’ll have to walk together through the neighborhoods that they live in and listen to the frustrations of the chronically unemployed, get in touch with the hopelessness of people who feel they have no opportunity of improving their lot and hear the resentments of those who are target by police for pat downs and searches because of the neighborhoods they live in or the color of their skin.

Something happens when we get out of our cars and walk. We get oriented to the world around us. We notice things that take time to see. And we become more accommodating when we walk together. We match our pace to suit the people we are accompanying. We look each other in the eye, talk more authentically and care more deeply. We get close enough to really see each other, hear each other, smell each other and touch each other. Walking together is a much more intimate experience than getting into our cars and driving to visit each other.

And walking takes time. It is a spiritual practice that slows us down long enough to be present with each other, to be attentive, to explore each other’s neighborhoods, and to care more deeply about each other’s welfare. Some of Jesus’ most significant encounters happened while he was walking through the foothills of Galilee. Perhaps the same will be true for us as we resume the ancient practice of walking on the earth together through all the different neighborhoods of Battle Creek: Urbandale, Washington Heights, Park Hill, Freedom Acres, Merritt Woods, Garrison Hills, Piper Park, Post-Addition, Springfield, Prairie View, West Lake, Riverside, Cascade Hills, Windamere, Minges, Pheasant Run.
Walking on the earth is the spiritual practice that grounds us and makes it possible for us to feel connected, included, at home on each other’s streets. Amen.

April 19, 2015--An Altar in the World: Paying Attention

Rev. Tom Ott

Exodus 3: 1-5

One of the ways we maintain the illusion of control in our lives is by shrinking the world down to a size that feels manageable.

We bring the sky down to a ceiling just a few feet above our heads, which, in most cases makes us the biggest thing in our world. We wall off the space that we live in so that we can arrange everything in our world to be exactly the way we want it to be. We choose the colors that we look at every day and the texture of ground beneath our feet: soft pile carpet in one area, smooth polished boards in another, hard glassy tiles in another. We arrange the furnishings to suit our preferences, we decorate the space to reflect our aesthetic sensibilities, and we control the light illuminating the world that we live in. By shrinking the world, we can keep everything relatively clean and neat. We can filter the pollen and dust particles out the air and set the temperature to our own liking. We can choose what to bring into our world and what to exclude.

Shrinking the world down to a more manageable size allows us to maintain the illusion of being in control of our lives. And when we have to venture outside, we enclose ourselves in a mobile miniature world that transports us from one shrunken world to the next.

But in between those places, on our way from one shrunken down world to another, if we step outside and look up, we are suddenly struck by the realization that the world is a much bigger place than we imagine.

There is an oak tree growing next to my house that is over 70 feet tall. It is probably closer to our house than it should be. Every once in a while, a branch will break off during a storm and impale itself in our roof. Twice since we’ve been in our house I’ve had to patch holes in the roof over our living room made by limbs the size of my forearm that penetrated the shingles and roof decking and were protruding down into our attic space.

I’ve been aware of that huge oak tree for the last seven years, but that tree has lived near the stream that flows past our house for more than a hundred and fifty years. Its canopy towers over the house I live in. Its lowest branches are so high that they have been inaccessible to anyone for a long, long time. Its trunk is so wide that my two arms won’t reach even half way around it. That tree has endured countless long cold winters and hot scorching summers. Every spring it buds with tender shoots of new growth and every fall it blankets the ground with its leaves and its acorns sustain another generation of chipmunks, squirrels, raccoons and deer.

I hold deep reverence for the huge oak tree growing beside my house. I don’t worship it or idolize it or attribute any divine powers to it. But I am in awe of it. When I stand next to the trunk of that beautiful tree and look up at its limbs towering above me, it makes me dizzy. It was alive even before my grandparents were born and in all likelihood, it will still be standing long after I am dead.

There is a perspective that I recover every time I see the huge tree growing next to my house. It is impossible to feel too self-important in the presence of such a mighty oak. I am dwarfed in its shadow, I am humbled by its beauty, I am overawed by its enduring strength.

The great oak tree next to my house never goes away. It doesn’t ever shrink back down to a sapling, it doesn’t uproot itself and wonder around the neighborhood. Its beauty, stature or strength doesn’t diminish with the changing seasons. The great oak tree next to my house is always there but I am not always in awe of its majesty. In fact, most of the time I’m am completely unaware of its proximity. Even though it stands little more than 10 feet away from the living room couch where I sit, relaxing, practically every evening of my life, it has little impact on me most of the time.

In order to experience the reverence inspired by the oak tree next to my house, I have to turn aside and pay attention to it. I have to get out of the shrunken world that I have created inside the four walls of my home and look up. I have to pause on my way to and from the busy activities that fill my days and stand still long enough to notice what is always there, standing right next to me.

Today in our scripture lesson from the book of Exodus, we heard part of the familiar story of the call of Moses. Usually when we hear that story our attention is drawn to the spectacle of the burning bush. It was on fire but it was not consumed by the fire, and the voice of God spoke to Moses from out of the burning bush. It was such a profound spiritual encounter for Moses that he felt compelled to take off his shoes because he realized that he was standing on holy ground.

Most of the time we move very quickly from the encounter with the burning bush to the activity that was inspired by it. From the burning bush, God called Moses to a ministry of liberation saying, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey...come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”

The burning bush encounter profoundly changed the trajectory of Moses’ life. Instead of tending the flocks of his father in law Jethro, he returned to Egypt, confronted the mighty power of Pharaoh, liberated the Hebrew people from their slavery and accompanied them throughout the forty years of their wilderness wandering.

Without the burning bush encounter, there would be no exodus, no gathering at Mt. Sinai, no tablets of stone, no Torah, no conquests of Joshua, no throne of David, no holy city of Jerusalem, no temple, no Israel, no Christianity, no conversion of Paul, no mission to the gentiles, no congregational movement, no pilgrims, no New England missionaries traveling to the Midwest frontier, no First Congregational Church in Battle Creek. It is not inaccurate to say that one bush is responsible for our being gathering in this space today offering our worship to God.

But as Barbra Brown Taylor points out in her book, An Altar in the World, the bush that was burning but not consumed was not right in front of Moses. It wasn’t blocking his way. It didn’t top him in his tracks. It was off to the side somewhere. Moses had to turn aside in order to investigate this thing that had caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. He could have easily gone on about his business without stopping. God didn’t yell to Moses from out of the burning bush. On the contrary, God was just waiting to see if Moses would pay attention. The text says, “When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘here I am.’”

That is what reverence requires. In order for us to become aware of anything greater than ourselves, we have to be willing to turn aside and pause long enough to see what is beyond our control and to notice what transcends our understanding.

This past Tuesday, Emily Joye and Tom and I were on retreat down at the Gilchrist Center just north of Three Rivers. It is a beautiful place to turn aside and become mindful of the full extent of our limits. In a meadow next to the house where we were staying there was huge labyrinth that had been mowed into the underbrush. It took us about an hour to make our way through the labyrinth, walking with our prayers, moving back and forth, in and out, sometimes walking away from each other, sometimes approaching each other.

When we all reached the center of the labyrinth we ended up laying on the ground on our backs looking up into the late afternoon sky. It was deep blue with high wispy clouds. Our eyes had been looking down most of the hour as we made our way through the undulating terrain of the labyrinth and the world had shrunken down to a few footfalls in front of us. But laying our backs looking up suddenly filled us with reverence and awe as considered our own size and the enormity of the world we live in.

This week I want to challenge you to turn aside and pay attention to a burning bush, or a towering oak tree, or billowy clouds drifting in the afternoon sky. Wednesday is Earth Day. Take some time to notice the miracle of life springing forth all around us: green shoots pushing up through the ground after lying dormant in the earth all winter long, the melodies of song birds, the soft warm flesh of another human being created in the image of God.

Don’t be content to live your life in a shrunken down world. You don’t have to go anywhere special or practice any complicated ritual to be reverent. Just step outside and look up, or turn to the person next to you and see their beauty. This week, turn aside and practice paying attention. Amen.

An Altar In The World: Vision Rev Tom Ryberg 4-12-2015

April 5, 2015--Easter: How exclusive is your Alleluia?

Rev. Tom Ott

Matthew 28: 1-20

If I didn’t know better, I would assume that we are in the exclusion business here in Christ’s church. All around the country states are rushing to pass legislation protecting our religious right to exclude.

No one else can get away with it anymore. Civil rights protections prevent state and federal governments from passing laws excluding people from services and opportunities. Discrimination laws prevent businesses from excluding customers from access to the goods and services they provide. School board policies prohibit educational institutions from excluding students from educational programs or services.

Today religion holds the exclusive right to exclude. If you want to say “no” to someone, you can only do so in the name of God: God insists that I say “no” to providing pediatric medical care to the children of same gendered couples, God insists that I say “no” to health insurance that covers birth control for my employees, God insists that I say “no” to entrusting unwanted children into the loving care of same gendered adoptive parents. If students publically condemn their peers at school, it isn’t bullying as long as it is based on their religious convictions. If parents deny their children access to vital medical treatment, it isn’t criminal child neglect as long as it is based on their religious convictions.

Does it surprise anyone that fewer and fewer people want anything to do with religion today? Only 46% of Americans attend church on a regular basis. “I’m spiritual but not religious” has become the watch cry of the post-baby boomer generations. The fastest growing population in America is the group that checks the box “none” for religious affiliation. Churches are closing every day and those that are still open are populated by people in their 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, but all across America state legislatures are rushing to safeguard our religious right to exclude.

If I didn’t know better, I would assume that we are in the exclusion business here in Christ’s church. That is really only time I hear the voice of the church speaking in public today. That seems to be the mission we are most committed to serving. That is what everyone is seems afraid of questioning or challenging. In America we respect the rights of religious people who claim that they are ordained by God to exclude.

But that is not our religion. Today on Easter Sunday, we have come together to proclaim God’s emphatic “YES” to the world. The fear and the hatred and the hypocrisy and the violence that had sealed the tomb holding the brutalized body of Jesus three days earlier was broken open by God on Easter morning.

God said “YES” to the world early that morning on the first day of the week, even after the world had said “no” to God. Even though jealousy, insecurity and fear had hardened people’s hearts, even though they harassed and threatened and betrayed and arrested and denied and humiliated and condemned and tortured and killed Jesus Christ, whom God had sent into the world as the incarnation of God’s love for the world, God refused to say “no.” God refused to give up. God refused to exclude. God refused to withhold the gift of life everlasting.

Easter is God’s unequivocal “YES.” Yes to life. Yes to everyone. Yes for all time. The rumble of the earthquake dislodging the stone and unsealing the empty tomb was the sound of God’s YES reverberating throughout the universe.

And those who were the first witnesses of that Easter event became God’s yes people. Simon Peter, who had earlier said “no” to Jesus three different times when questioned in the high priest’s courtyard, got to say “yes” three times over when the resurrected Jesus met him on the shore of the Sea of Galilee: “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? Yes, Lord; you know that I love you…Yes, Lord; you know that I love you…Lord; you know everything; you know that I love you (John 21: 15-17).”

Instead of being excluded for his previous failure of nerve, Peter was rewarded with apostolic authority and became a great leader in the church. Later during an encounter with a Roman Centurion named Cornelius, Peter recognized the Holy Spirit at work in the life of his adversary. Instead of perpetuating the pattern of exclusion that always said “no” to contact with gentiles, Peter baptized Cornelius and his entire household and was inspired to proclaim God’s emphatic “YES” with these memorable words: “I truly perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation, anyone who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to God (Acts 10: 34-35).”

Paul of Tarsus was a young Pharisee who had committed himself to excluding followers of Jesus from the Jewish community and had been given special dispensation to hunt down and persecute members of The Way after his role in instigating the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. But while Paul was on the road to Damascus, his life changed forever when he was blinded by a bright light and heard the voice of the resurrected Jesus inviting him to say “yes” to the all-inclusive love of God. From that day on, Paul dedicated his life to sharing the good news of the gospel with those who had previously been excluded. It was Paul who penned the beautiful affirmation of God’s emphatic “YES” to the world:

“If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? …Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ...No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8: 31-39). “

Those who first witnessed God’s emphatic “YES” on Easter morning went on to found a community of people who said “yes” to the world. They had a radically different orientation to the world because, like Jesus, they embodied God’s “YES” in their daily lives: yes you are welcome in my home, yes I will share what I have with you, yes I will pray with you and study with you and serve with you, yes you matter, yes you can make a difference, yes you have unique gifts to share, yes you can be like Jesus, yes you can change the world, yes faith, hope and love endure forever.

That religious community, founded on the resurrection “YES” of Easter morning, is our religious community. For 2000 years God’s “YES” has been proclaimed and embodied and shared with the world through those of us who have been gathering every Easter morning to sing our joyful Alleluia’s.

I don’t know whose religion needs special legal protection to preserve their right to exclude, but it isn’t ours. We people of the resurrection know that nothing has the power to exclude anyone from the love of God that was revealed to all the world on the day when the earth shook and the stone rolled and the empty tomb of Jesus was unsealed forever. Amen.

March 29, 2015--The Moment of Entry

By: Rev. Emily Joye Reynolds

Mark 11:1-11

I've got a  two part disclaimer. 

First: I try not to put disclaimers on any sermons i preach because i'm of the opinion that preachers ought to trust the congregation to receive what they have to say if they really believe that God has put a truth on their heart. And while I do believe that God has put this upcoming truth on my heart, this one is just risky enough, that I've gotta say up front that I'm tender on this one, so be gentle with me okay? That's the first part of the disclaimer. 

The second part of this is that I try really really hard to never liken myself to Jesus in any of my sermons because, well, idolatry. I know I'm not him and even the thought of comparing myself to him makes my guts rumble. So please know that the story i'm about to share is about community, entrance and humility--the most profound learning moment of I've had on that, and that I in no way compare that moment to Jesus' journey to Jerusalem. Totally different contexts. 

Let us pray.

Now if you know me well, you know that I struggle with the institution of marriage. Like not a little. Like a lot. I struggle to believe that institutional marriage is a worthy endeavor for human beings. Given the statistics of divorce, domestic violence and the sheer volume of people living in unhappy matrimony, for most of my life I told myself I would never ever get married. The fact that the version of marriage we inherit today was built upon the premise of men owning women as property and that I have no intention of being owned by anyone but God, it didn't strike me a good idea to get married. I've met and known way too many women in my life who appeared to get smaller in their marriages while their male spouse counterparts got bigger and bigger-so big sometimes that they felt the need to step outside the marriage and get their "needs" met somewhere else. My own family history is full of that very dynamic and I'd been on the receiving end of the pain of that dynamic. Didn't exactly give me a fairy-tale version of marriage to believe in. Add to that for a large portion of my late adolescence and twenties I didn't identify as a heterosexual or with heterosexuals and therefore knew that if I partnered with a woman, marriage wasn't legally available to us even if I wanted that--so why bother? Add to that that I've officiated so many weddings that felt more like a hollywood drama than a meaning-filled worship service. I struggle with the institution of marriage. Not a little. A lot. 

Next month is my second wedding anniversary. I'm no pro at being married and I still question the validity of it all the time, not because I don't love J.R. but because I'm not sure love has to equal marriage or that marriage even lives up to love. But I'm not here to preach about that. I want to tell you about a moment at my wedding. 

I stood at the back of the sanctuary, outside that door, before the processional knowing that I was walking into something that I had great ambivalence about. Again I love J.R. with my whole heart. That wasn't the source of my ambivalence. I could look across the columbarium glass and see him standing there with Rev. Tom Ott, his best friends and mom which calmed my anxiety, but it didn't die down for long. I was there with my two best friends Wade and Anna, my Pastor Rev. Marjorie Wilkes Matthews and my mom. Though we'd thought very intentionally about the service, I didn't want a huge production. I had on a very simple dress. My bouquet was a uncomplicated arrangement of red roses. I had one layer of mascara on with lip gloss. My mom looked fabulous, but she's my mom and she always looks fabulous. Music was playing. There were several moments when I thought to myself "what am I doing?" And then eventually Marjorie, Anna and Wade had all gone forward and it was just me and my mom. Soon she was tugging my arm and I was stepping past the threshold. There was no going back. 

Now I mentioned earlier, right, that I've officiated a lot of weddings, yes? That comes with the job and that's true. What's also true is that because I've officiated a bunch of weddings I know that when the bride enters the room, the congregation stands up. But for the life of me I cannot figure out why it surprised me that day, but it did. I walked in with my eyes nailed to the floor because my anxiety was through the roof. But then I heard all this rustling as people were getting to their feet and so my eyes shot up to see what was going on. And that's when it hit me: I caught the collective gaze of adoration and support. I felt them honoring me with their eyes. I even had direct eye contact with Marjorie and Tom, then looked over at my mom, who held so much pride in her eyes that I couldn't help but cry. Then J.R. and I caught each other from across the room and those tears increased. It was this feeling of being completely held by the community in one of the most vulnerable and scary moments of my life. It silenced my fear and deepened my faith. I kept thinking to myself, they're standing for me. They're holding honoring silence for me. I've never felt more sacred and trusting of God than I did in that moment. And it's because those specific people on that specific day held me in their sacred and trusting regard.  

Entrances into profoundly important moments have spiritual import and high implication for the future. They are not neutral in getting people ready for what's to come. If you are a committed and engaged Christian you know that we here in the Church take preparation seriously. We prepare for Christmas for an entire month during Advent. We prepare for Holy Week for 40 days and nights during Lent. It's true for our religion and it's true in life in general, that if something of significance is going to happen, you better prepare yourself. And not just for a little bit--for as long as it takes to get ready. 

Think about it, we ask doctors to go to medical school for almost 10 years because we believe that much preparation is necessary for them to deal with the responsibility of caring for people's bodies. We pastors have about 8 years of formal training in order to prepare for the responsibility of caring for people's souls. Athletes train extensively before their athletic seasons begin, often going through rigorous rituals of mind and body testing, in order to prepare for opening game day. Musicians who perform for a living spend countless hours practicing, rehearsing and honing their craft before opening night. 

But there's preparation and there's entry. They're not the same. One leads to the other.

We've been preparing ourselves in Lent for five weeks. Holy Week is when we enter. The moment of entrance is unlike the weeks of preparation that precede it because it's the "go big or go home" moment, it's the "do or die" moment, it's the "no turning back now" moment. When Jesus crossed the threshold into Jerusalem he was entering something he'd been preparing for ever since John baptized him in the river Jordan. But all that praying, traveling, preaching, teaching and healing couldn't confirm this moment in the streets of Bethpage and Bethany, near the mount of Olives. When he untied and sat on top of that colt as it took its four legs into the center of power while people all around dropped their cloaks and shouted praise--Jesus was entering. He was entering what he'd been preparing for and there was no turning back now. This was The Moment. 

Now, let's be honest. The crowd depicted in this story is one that often gets a very very bad wrap/rap. Many of the best sermons I've ever heard are about this crowd that waves branches and sings praises on Palm Sunday but jeers and shouts "Crucify Him" on Good Friday. God knows we human beings can be fickle fickle fools when we get into packs and herds. God knows this crowd deserves the critical analysis it gets. But this morning I'd like to pay attention to what this crowd did right, about how their collective support, adoration and love of Jesus might have just enabled him to enter The Moment with sacred faith.   

Many pastors and people of the Christian faith will tell you that Jesus knew what was coming because he was predestined by God to ride into Jerusalem and get crucified. On some level I believe that too, all except the predestined part. I think Jesus probably had a good idea he was going to get crucified because that's what Rome did to people who got out of line by challenging it's power. And that WAS Jesus' mission: to unapologetically claim God's sovereign power in the faces of those who were attempting to usurp it for their own idolatrous ends. And that's what he did. He claimed "The Kingdom of God is at hand, and no it's not in your imperial power subjecting the people and temple to blasphemy, and yes it is in me a humble servant of the Lord and in all these gathered people who deserve justice and peace. And the Kingdom of God will not be silent until the Kingdom of God has come into it's fullness here on Earth." So they strung him up and did to him what they did to people who dared to proclaim the Good News. I think Jesus knew what he was getting into. Predestined? No. In the know? Yes. 

But just because he knew what was coming didn't mean he didn't have high anxiety and huge ambivalence about being spiritually called into that struggle and victory. If you read the Gospel carefully (and I hope all of you will do that this week as part of Holy Week) you'll notice that Jesus depicts a pretty high level of fear at multiple places on the road to Jerusalem. If he was truly human, and I believe he was, fear had to be at the heart of his Holy Week. No one marches to a political show down and personal blood bath as if it's no big deal. 

So back to The Moment of Entry. If he knew what he was getting into, if he knew that by stepping into that street and signifying to those people what he was about to do and that there was no turning back--can you imagine the fear he must have felt? 

(Pause)

But what about the moment he lifted his eyes and saw them? When he crossed that threshold and saw them offering their animal to carry him in? Saw them waving branches? Saw them laying down their cloaks at his feet? Saw them blessing God's name and claiming that he was coming as an anointed ancestor of David? 

What do you think he felt in that moment? 

Supported. 

Loved. 

Held.

Believed in. 

Cherished. 

We can do anything when we behold our community supporting us, loving us, holding us, believing in us, cherishing us. We can walk through any fear. We can practice faith in the most impossible moments. We can do anything when our community rises to meet us. 

Past personal preparation, we need a community of support at the moment of entry. I needed it on my wedding day. Jesus needed it on Palm Sunday. I bet if you search your life, you've stood at a threshold, at a moment of entry, and needed a community in order to take that first step. 

But here's the thing disciples: we need to be that community of support for others as much as we need that community of support for ourselves. Moments of entry are highly special and spiritually infused, but they are a rarity. What's not a rarity is the calling of discipleship that beckons us to be that community of support for each other. We get to participate in that beyond Holy Week all year long. Who are the people in this church today at moments of entry? Who are the people in your life outside this place who are at moments of entry? 

Let us be reminded today, at the entry moment of Holy week, just how precious and sacred it is to be part of the crowd that rises, the crowd that honors the beauty of the courageous one, the tender and vulnerable one, the perhaps unsure and wavering one, standing with their toes at the threshold while we throw down our gifts, hold them in loving gaze and sing "Blessed is the One who comes in the Name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest heaven." 

Amen. 

March 1, 2015--God on Trial: The Polyphonic Text

By Rev. Emily Joye Reynolds

Job 1:20-22

Sometimes when I listen to our cultural conversations about God, not just in the Church, but in the culture at large, I'm confused. Sometimes when I listen to the music of our tradition, particularly in the first service, but even in here, sometimes, I'm confused. Sometimes when I read the Bible and try to study who God is, how God is portrayed in and through the scriptures, I'm confused. Sometimes when I reflect on my own life experience, how God has shown up over my 33 years, I'm confused. I'm confused because most of the time, it doesn't make sense. Doesn't add up. Doesn't compute.

Theology is not like cooking, or putting together furniture from IKEA, or paint by number. The instruction manuals, the discourse, the resounding claims of truth, when it comes to God, don't lead to some neat and tidy conclusion. There doesn't seem to be an end product, no matter how many of our conservative brethren try to convince us that it's as simple as believing in Jesus Christ in your heart and professing that he is Lord aloud with your lips. In fact, I've found the more you seek, the more you realize you don't know. And not knowing, while a very human experience, can also lead to tremendous anxiety.

The season of Lent is a time of wandering in the Wilderness, intentionally as Christians. For 40 days and 40 nights, we, like Christ, take intentional time and space to honor the trials, the tests, the straight up hard knocks of human life. One of the most common wilderness experiences in human life is not knowing. Specifically not knowing about God, about what is of Ultimate Concern (to use Tillich's phrase). Not knowing who put us here and why and what it all means and how we're supposed to respond. Mind you, I'm not talking about innocent ignorance or the shadows of doubt. I'm talking about the tremendous anxiety that can come when our life experience and what we've known to be true or don't know to be true come crashing in on us. I'm talking about uncertainty that can drive us to the brink of madness. Cognitive dissonance of the highest, threatening order.  Times when not knowing isn't okay, when we demand, body and soul, answers. And what happens, both spiritually and materially, when those answers don't come no matter how hard we seek them.

Today we begin a series of accompanying Job through his wilderness experience. This series will end at Easter, but my hope is that the Book of Job will haunt you and hold you throughout your life. And that in your moments of crashing uncertainty, in your own periods of wilderness, you will return to this text, as a faithful companion. Because if nothing else, and there is so much more, this book of the Bible, offers affirmation to those who are thirsty and cannot ultimately be satisfied. There is no tidying up the paradoxes this text kicks up and acknowledges. There is no theological winner to be had here. And while like I said, that kind of not knowing can drive us to hopelessness and pain at times, there is also something beautiful about biblical confirmation that we aren't the first and won't be the last.

At the end of this series, we are going to try something new. I want to let all of you know about it now so you can start preparing yourselves for how you participate in it. We are going to do a communal, improvisational enactment of a courtroom scene with all the characters from the Book of Job. God will be on trial--hence the name of the series. So as we go along, these next 5 weeks, pay attention to what character grabs you the most. Which character gets under your skin and irritates you the most, or strikes you admirable and worthy of defending?Absolutely every character is up for grabs, yes even God. I want you to choose a character in the next few days and stick with that character throughout Lent. Listen to the sermons with an ear for that character. Do study on your own when you're not in Church.

This is a way of moving with scripture that takes it from the abstract head and places it into the spiral of the heart. If most of you are willing to participate, I guarantee our community will not be the same after this series, and you will never think about the Book of Job or not think about the Book of Job the same, either. In fact, my hunch is that this experience actually has the capacity to change how we read the Bible, think about our tradition, and interact with God--which is all kind of a big deal--so I want to invite yall to go in here. Go.all.in. I'm also invested in taking this book back from the mainstream portrayal of it because it's white-washed and weak. So: put everything you think you know or have heard about the book of Job on hold and let's get busy diving in for ourselves. I'm inviting us to embark on a communal spiritual discipline for Lent together. You with me?

Calendar date for the trial.

Okay. Here's the ark of the story.

Job is a wealthy, privileged man living at a time of agricultural prosperity. Like most patriarchs of the Bible his wealth and privilege come in the form of property ownership. He is the master of his house and his house in on land that he owns, full of humans and animals that he owns. He's married and has seven sons and three daughters. The second sentence of the story tells us in no uncertain terms that Job is "blameless and upright." The opening chapter uses very specific language to let us know that Job is faithful not just on Earth but before God.

All is going swimmingly for ole Job until the Accuser of the Divine Council comes before God. The two of them engage in an ego-driven challenge. God actually starts the challenge by boasting about Job. The Accuser who, duh, is an accuser, challenges God by essentially claiming that Job is only faithful to God because God's been faithful to Job. "Does Job fear God for nothing?" the Accuser asks. Then the Accuser offers to spike Job's punch, so to speak, to see if his faithfulness is the real deal. God gives the Accuser all power to mess with Job--except for causing his death, the Accuser can do anything he wants to bring misery on Job. This is what he proceeds to do for the next chapter and a half. Job’s servants die. His animals are killed. And his children's lives are taken because of a "natural disaster."

We as readers know something that Job does not. Job doesn't know that God and the Accuser are caught up in some big cosmic dual; he just thinks that one day, out of nowhere, as if it's some natural thing in life, he loses everything except his health and his wife. But that comes next. The first round of loss comes and goes and Job refuses to blame or curse God. The Accuser returns to God and brings about round two, saying "Skin for skin! All that people have they will give to save their lives." This time the Accuser causes boils to rise on Job's skin, "from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head." At this point, Job's wife intervenes and suggests that Job ought to "curse God and die." But he will not. He rebukes his wife but holds his tongue from sinning against God in response to his suffering.

Next three friends come to visit Job, and can't even recognize him after all this loss and sickness. They perform traditional rituals of grief and loss, then "sat with him on the ground, seven days and seven night, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great." Friends that know how shut up at the right time. What a gift, right? Yeah, but not for long.

The next chunk of the book of Job--and it's a big chunk--is a bunch of speeches from various people. Job's cursing of the day he was born starts in Chapter 3, and then following are speeches by his friends, mostly trying to explain why what's happened to him has happened to him. Not helpful. Job responds with more aggravation, questioning and wrestling. He refuses to accept half-baked answers, refuses to be consoled by nonsense, even if its non-sense dripping with the God language. Later an anonymous dude named Elihu shows up, quoting Job and refuting his earlier speeches. God shows up after that and gives a speech from a whirlwind basically telling Job that his tiny-brain cannot comprehend the Divine Life so his questions are short-sided. God never takes ownership for the calamity that he intentionally brought upon Job. Job, after having heard from God, admits that he doesn't know what he doesn't know and gives a mysterious kind of repentance with his words. God proceeds to let Job's friends know that they were all full of crap, restores Job's "fortunes" twofold and Job goes on to live an even more "blessed" life than he had before. The End.

But not really.

Why is this one of the most popular stories in the Bible? Why does Job’s character hold such prominence in the timeless human mind?  Why does this story stay with us and play with us, confuse, confound and console us?

Biblical scholars have referred to the Book of Job as a "Polyphonic Text." What does polyphonic mean? Poly = many. Phonic = sound/sounds of speech. Right here in this one book of the Bible, we've got many voices. It's a polyphonic book. And let me be clear: it's not just the voices of the characters that are at play here. As we read this book, we are hearing the voices of the authors, their culture, their history, and the interpretations of Job we've inherited implicitly and explicitly throughout our own lives.

Now, if you think about it, "multiple voices" have a mixed wrap in our society. If people hear "mixed voices" in their heads, we often label them, medicate them, and some of them we put away because we consider them dangerous. But when it comes to an egalitarian way of doing things in community, many voices, at the table, or in the circle, or in the kitchen is considered an imperative. Right? We appear to have lots of desire for what's Polyphonic when it comes to community, but less when it comes to the individual. But what about when it comes to our notions of God?

I mentioned earlier in the sermon that part of what's so troubling about human life sometimes is the not knowing. I'm going to push that further. Sometimes when it comes to God, the competing voices in our heads, in our communities and in our traditions, can be deeply disturbing. Those of you who have recently exited Evangelical Christianity are particularly caught up in these questions. Those of us who have been harmed by Christianity's historic intolerance and persecution of the queer are particularly caught up in these questions. Those of us who are learning new concepts, ideas, and realities outside of our former world-views and spiritual frameworks are particularly caught up in these questions. Questions like: Who is right? Who is wrong? Who speaks in truth? Who speaks in the tongues of mortals? Who is trustworthy and who is worth chucking? How do we know? Why does it matter? Does it actually matter? Or is it all relative?

Yes. Yes. Yes.

That's the point of polyphonic texts, but more precisely, this polyphonic life. It's about those questions. It's about the process of hearing the many voices and wrestling. That's the invitation from and in my opinion the point of The Book of Job. I'm not here to tell you that all voices are worth obeying, not in the Book of Job, and not in real life, but they are all worth listening to and trying to understand. That's what the religious journey is all about. So, pilgrims and doubters and sinners and seekers divine, here's a challenge for you to hold and practice during this Lenten season inside and outside of Church, inside and outside of the Book of Job: listen to all the voices, seek to understand them, and when it's impossible to get it "right" or to arrive at a final conclusion, bless yourself because you stand in 2000+ years of wisdom wrestling with itself and you'll blend in among precious, beautiful, flawed and foolish company.

Amen.

March 8, 2015--God on Trial: 3s Company

by Rev. Emily Joye Reynolds

Job 2:11-13

Job 8:2-6

I've been preaching at FCC long enough now that I'm not sure which stories I've already told in my sermons. If some of you have already heard this one, my apologies, however it's such an important one, both for me, personally, and in terms of instructing spiritual companionship that I'm going to offer it again.

When my father got sick in 1994, I was 13 years old. I don't know how many of you remember being 13, but what I remember is the tectonic change. The bridge between later childhood and adolescence is a journey fraught with all kinds of physical and emotional swings. Puberty makes your body get all sensationally different. Social arrangements built on the hierarchies of athleticism and beauty and heteronormativity began to emerge. I couldn't recognize myself in the mirror. I didn't like the friends I'd grown up with. School felt like an exercise in torture. My parents were exhaustingly embarrassing. And then my dad got sick. And he got sick fast. When I look back it feels like his early symptoms, diagnosis, descent into a coma and final death took place in the blink of an eye. But in reality it took about a year and a half for all that to happen. Like I said, my world was already on tilt. So throw a parent dying into the equation and you've got massive destabilization.

My parents had this friend from church named Maureen. She was a white, middle aged lesbian. Quiet. Nose down, work hard type. Medium stature with salt and pepper hair. Tender in her speech and tragic in her loneliness. I'd gotten used to her over years of dinner parties at the house, coffee in courtyard after church rendezvous. She was part of my parent's inner circle. And so in the final weeks of my father's life, she was around quite a bit. Three days before my dad died a nurse had let us know that his time was winding down. We knew the end was near. Everyone had feelings about that except for me. I felt entirely numb. I walked out of the bedroom into the back porch and just sat there. Maureen followed me. With a deck of cards. "Wanna play?" she asked holding up the deck. I nodded. I was good at speed. It'd take my mind off things. It was 8 oclock in the morning when we started our first round. When I came to, we'd probably played more than fifty games of speed. It was mid-afternoon. We hadn't said a word other than the occasional "wanna shuffle?" or "hold on; I gotta go to the bathroom."

When she got up to leave, I had this immense sadness at the thought of her departure. In fact, I felt terrified of her leaving. It was the only thing I could concretely feel. Here my dad was, down the hall dying, which I couldn't feel anything about. And this "friend of the family" gets up to leave the house and I'm a mess? That all makes sense to me in retrospect. She was the one person who knew how to take care of me back then. She offered nothing but presence. No words. No justification. No silly platitudes. Just presence. Everything in my life was changing. Some of that change was "normal" but a lot of it was change that I wouldn't choose. Her steady, staying body represented exactly what I needed. Something to remain. Something that would draw near and stay close without shifting.

One morning and afternoon. Round after round of cards. Maureen taught me more about spiritual care than any book I've read, class I've taken or experience I've had since. I have no idea what happened to Maureen. Our family's lost touch after some years. I don't even remember her last name, but I can tell you that day is probably the single, biggest influence on the way I do pastoral care. She taught me the lesson that I believe the authors of Job are trying to teach us.

After the attack on Job's health in Chapter 2, Job's wife tells him to "Curse God and die" which we will get to in the next couple of weeks. Immediately after this, Job's friends come to town. It tells us that "they met together to console and comfort him." They enact rituals of grief and mourning. And then "they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great."

Job had the audacity to open his mouth. The friends do so very very well until Job starts expressing his pain, his anguish, his rage and bewilderment. If they'd just stayed with him on the ashes, lingering in silence and presence, it would have been fine. But no. The next, like 20 chapters of this book, are a big ole back and forth between Job and his friends. Reading it is like being face palmed over and over. It's painful. I mean, Job's situation is painful enough, but then the friends make it worse.

But what's so queerly interesting to me about this section of the book is what the authors of the book are up to. Let me be specific. Those of us reading the story know that the friends are wrong. What they're wrong about I'll get to in a minute. But they are so very very convinced that they are right. And we know that they are wrong. So the authors have tipped us off to a dynamic the friends are unaware of, which is Job's innocence. Job knows he's innocent. God knows Job is innocent. We the readers know that Job is innocent. But the friends don't. They are so sure, so certain, so unwaveringly committed to the notion that Job deserves what he got, that they simply cannot let him go on about his lot without challenging him at every opportunity. They are more convinced with preserving the "seeming" integrity of God than hearing their friend's experience. And because of this they represent orthodoxy.

Every character in the book of Job represents a certain strand of the biblical or theological tradition of the Israelites. The friends represent orthodoxy. What does orthodoxy mean? Ortho = right Doxy = doctrine.  We talked last week about Job being a "poly phonic" text meaning a book of many voices. Orthodoxy would seek to silence those voices in favor of one voice, one truth, one notion, one way of thinking, one way of believing, one way of understanding. Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar represent the orthodoxy in the tradition of the Israelites. And orthodoxy is positioned in this story in response to suffering.

I want to tell you a bit about the content of biblical orthodoxy in order for this to make sense. Throughout a lot of the Hebrew Bible there's this doctrine known as "temporal retribution." It's in the book of Deuteronomy. It's in the canon of history portrayed in books such as 1 & 2 Samuel and 1 & 2 Kings. Its completely apparent in the "Wisdom" literature such as Proverbs and Psalms. Temporal retribution is a fancy term for divine influenced cause and effect. You do good, God rewards. You do bad, God punishes. It's very very simple, actually. The notion is that all things are set up, by God and for God, so that every thing, large and small, is a matter of cause and effect. If bad things are happening, it's because something caused punishment. If good things are happening, it's because something caused reward. If the crops are abundant, it's because God has caused it to rain as reward for good behavior. If the land is dry, it's because God has caused a drought to punish bad behavior. It all happens under a cosmic law that God has set up and perpetually enforces. Temporal retribution. Divine cause and effect.

We see modern day versions of this all the time. When natural disasters happen, there are a bunch of theologians who are willing to step forward and claim that a particular kind of social wickedness caused that Tsunami or Earthquake. When someone we love gets a good job or gets pregnant after trying for a long time, we quickly turn to the language of blessing. We claim that their faithfulness in this life has set them up to deserve such a blessing. If they're a really really "good" person, we emphasize how much they 'deserve' to have good things happen to them.

To put myself on blast here, for a second, whenever I hear that someone has gotten a cancer diagnosis one of my very first thoughts is: what kind of unconscious toxin has gotten lodged in that person's body? Is it unresolved trauma from childhood? Is it an environmental thing, like a bad marriage or an abusive boss? I still to this day will often claim that certain repressive tendencies in my father are what caused tumors to spread throughout his gut. You see, I try to seek to identify and name the cause of the material effect.

The problem here though is what we are implying with this kind of thinking. It usually puts all the responsibility and all the blame on whoever is in question without taking larger realities, including God, into question. Which is what Job refuses to do.

We are in "temporal retribution" kinds of thinking when we assume that someone has done something to bring about their current situation. We are in "temporal retribution" kind of thinking when we secretly or explicitly say things like "well, if she'd been a better wife, maybe he wouldn't have had an affair" or "everybody knows she's hard to work with; that's why she got fired" or "if young black men stopped breaking the law, the police wouldn't be shooting them at higher rates."

Job's friends represent this kind of thinking. They essentially tell Job that none of that calamity would have fallen on him unless he did something to deserve it because God has set the world up that way. Eliphaz, in chapter 8 says to Job "Does God pervert justice? Does the Almighty pervert the right?" These are rhetorical questions, of course. He goes on to say "If your children sinned against him, he delivered them into the power of their transgression." So let's stop right there. Eliphaz is literally claiming that all of Job's kids have died because they sinned against God. But we the reader know this isn't true. Job's kids are dead because God gave Satan the power to take their lives. In fact, we know that Job took extra precaution, according to the biblical law, to protect his children. Chapter 1 verse 5 tells us that Job would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings in accordance with the number of children he had, just IN CASE one of them had sinned. We know Eliphaz is wrong. We know Job's children are innocent and dead, that Job is innocent and barely alive. But Eliphaz is positive he's right.

What are we to make of this?


Here's my hunch. It's too easy to make the friends of this story the villains. I mean, they are. But. We know they're wrong and that they don't know they're wrong. At the end of the story, in chapter 42, God appears and speaks to Eliphaz saying "My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has." I mean it's too obvious. It's too blatant. I'm not trying to let them off the hook. They clearly victimize Job. But what if they are victims too? Stay with me...


Remember how I said that Maureen's way of being with me was lifesaving and is probably the single, biggest influence on the way I do pastoral care? Remember how she was able, by quiet presence alone, to make me feel in the midst of oblivion and grief? Maureen touched the soul of a 13 year old girl in such a way that that 13 year old girl turned adult woman pastor would then go on to touch many other souls in a similar way. I can only pray that I've been half the loving presence to all others that she was to me that day.

Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar don't get to be, don't get to do, don't get to give in the way that Maureen did. Because while their so busy preserving orthodoxy, the possibility for incarnating God's love is lost. While they're busy trying to preserve the reputation of God, busy trying to persuade Job about the traditional understanding of God, the felt presence of God goes undetected, which makes them impossible to actually listen to and believe. You can say words about God and do words about God and be words about God all day long, but if the presence of your personhood doesn't match those words it means nothing.

It says in 1 Cor 13: "If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal." Never a truer word. People preserving orthodoxy lose because they're more concerned with doctrine than they are with love. Job's friends cared more about tradition than experience. Because people like that are so devastatingly annoying, because they wreck sacred moments with their need to be right, I think we forget that their own humanity is lost in those moments. They are victims in the midst of their victimizing.

And I wanna push us further. I think we are them. Often. More than we'd like to admit. We get into cause and effect thinking with people we love and we do it to ourselves too. Think about when something hard, bad, painful or grief-worthy has happened to you. Have you not sought out the reasons why, and wondered if something you'd done had caused it? Or maybe you're one of those who wonders if you're just inherently bad and so anything hard that happens to you is deserved.

My point beloved is that we are Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. And this text is lovingly inviting us to consider what that means. Remember, they knew what to do at first. They knew to share in Job's pain, to make supplication through ritual, to sit quietly with him on the ash heap. But they also messed up and got all argumentative when they should have shut up and remained present. This text puts both of those tendencies in front of us and reminds us that one is better than the other in response to suffering. This text is inviting us to be the wise version of those three that showed up to be with Job in rituals of grief and in solidarity filled silence. The version of them that knew how to be present in body and spirit without having to defend or respond.

Sometimes it's sitting together, quietly, in the ashes. Sometimes it’s bringing over a deck of cards. Sometimes it's eating ice cream and watching funny movies. Sometimes it’s holding someone while they shed tears for hours. Sometimes it’s showing up at the front door with a filled crock-pot. Sometimes it’s sitting in the discomfort of not having the answers but offering the most loving eye contact you can possibly muster.

It's loving presence. Offered freely. For as long as it takes.

March 15, 2015--Blessed are the Persecuted

Matthew 5: 10 Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

All of us have been treated unfairly at one time in or another, but few of us have actually been persecuted. There have been occasions when all of us have felt mistreated by individuals, businesses, institutions, and even government agencies. But persecution involves systematic mistreatment.

If we look back far enough, most of our ancestors came to this country to escape persecution. My mother’s ancestors, the Savages, were Huguenots, French Protestants who were persecuted for their harsh criticisms of doctrine and worship in the Catholic Church, but I’ve been preaching for 34 years and I’ve never been persecuted for my religious convictions. I’ve had people disagree with and even take offense at things I’ve said from the pulpit, but I’ve never been “systematically mistreated” for espousing my religious convictions. My father’s ancestors, the Ott’s, were part of the large wave of German immigrants that came to America because of the persecutions they endured during the 30 Years War and the devastating impact it had on Europe in the first half of the seventeenth century. But today we’ve got reserve military units that routinely travel here to Battle Creek for training at Fort Custer and I’ve never felt threatened when I see their convoys rolling into town.

Most of our ancestors came to America to escape the systematic mistreatment they endured in their homelands where they had property confiscated by marauding bands of soldiers, endured regime changes that resulted in hostile rulers coming into power and implementing policies that deprived them of their civil rights, saw their livelihoods threatened by economies devastated by war, and had their health jeopardized by the plague of diseases that spread through the impoverished populations.

America provided the hope of a better life for our persecuted ancestors and we are the beneficiaries of that hope. We who trace our roots to the devastations of our European ancestors have inherited a life free of persecution. We all get mistreated from time to time. People say and do things to us that aren’t fair but most of us have never been subjected to systematic mistreatment here in America.

Yet, ironically, we who trace our European histories back to ancestors who came to America seeking freedom from persecution have become the persecutors. All throughout our nation’s history we have persecuted and continue to persecute African Americans. For two hundred years, we brutalized them with chattel slavery, generating wealth by compelling them to work without pay, tearing their families apart, depriving them of marriage rights, trading and selling them as property. After slavery we persecuted them with the Jim Crow laws, Klan beatings and mob lynching’s that kept them segregated, excluded, impoverish and terrified. After World War 2, we red lined them and prevented them from moving into our white neighborhoods by denying their applications for the FHA back loans that our parents and grandparents used to buy their homes with low down payments and mortgages amortized over 30 years that made housing affordable to middle class white Americans. Since the 70’s we’ve been persecuting them by declaring War on Drugs which, for all intents and purposes, has become a war on young African American men. Even though study after study indicates that people of every race use and sell illegal drugs at the same rates, three fourths of all people imprisoned for drug offenses are black or Latino.

Fifty years ago on this weekend, hundreds peaceful demonstrators were brutally attacked with Billy clubs, cattle prods, horse whips and clouds of tear gas by Alabama State police on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, on that day that became known as Bloody Sunday.

Many of us are probably familiar with the story of Rev. James Reeb, a 38 year old a white Unitarian Universalist minister from Boston who was among hundreds of clergymen from across the country who heeded Martin Luther King Jr.'s call to come to Selma for a second march in the wake of Bloody Sunday. On March 9, 1965, Reeb, a Father of four, and two other Unitarian Universalist ministers were walking back to Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma after eating dinner at Walker’s Café when a group of four white men approached them from behind and beat them. Reeb was struck in the head with a club and died on March 11 in a Birmingham hospital. President Lyndon Johnson sent yellow roses to his hospital room, made a sympathy call to his family after he died, and referenced him as “a man of God,” in a nationally televised speech before a joint session of congress on March 15th when he introduced the Voting Rights Act.

But there were no calls from the White House to the family of the first martyr of Bloody Sunday. No national attention was given to the death of Jimmy Lee Jackson. He was a 27 year old African American who was shot and killed by an Alabama State trooper while participating in a peaceful protest march in Marion Alabama, 20 miles west of Selma. Jimmie Lee Jackson was an army veteran, father of a young daughter, deacon at St James Baptist Church who had been denied the right to vote on multiple occasions and had become active in voter registration initiatives in Perry County. On Feb 18th a group of 200 protesters were participating in a peaceful evening march when they were attacked by Marion police officers, Perry County sheriff's deputies and Alabama state troopers. Jackson and other marchers sought refuge in Mack's Cafe, along with Jackson's mother, Viola Jackson, and his 82 year old grandfather. Witnesses say troopers entered the restaurant and began beating those inside. Jackson was shot in the stomach with a shotgun at close range by an Alabama State Trooper as he tried to protect his relatives.

It was Jackson's death that led civil rights leaders to call for a voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery. Forty five years later, in 2010, former trooper James Fowler, then 77, pleaded guilty to a single charge of manslaughter in Jackson's death and served five months in prison.

This weekend, forums and workshops, appearances by celebrities and speeches by political leaders, including President Barack Obama will take place in Selma to celebrate the impact of that momentous day and to re-focus the public’s attention on the racial injustices that persist today.

50 years after the famous march, 40 percent of the population in Selma lives in poverty and the unemployment rate is twice the state average. The country club in a county that is 80 percent black still does not have any black members. Selma public schools have been effectively segregated since the early 1990’s with black students making up 99% of the students body and almost all white students attending private schools.
In 2000 a new monument was unveiled in a public park in Selma honoring Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Confederate general who later became the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

As plans were being finalized for this weekend’s celebration, the Justice Department released the findings of their investigation into racial injustices Ferguson Missouri. No charges will be brought against the white officer who shot and killed Michael Brown, but the Justice Department released a 102-page report detailing systemic race discrimination and abuses of power. According to their findings, African Americans who make up 67 of Ferguson’s population, were involved in 93 percent of arrests, 85 percent of traffic stops, and received 90 percent of tickets issued by officers, from 2012 to 2014.
But in spite of the public demonstrations and in spite of the Justice Department’s report, the city’s mayor James Knowles III gave a speech on Friday indicating that he remains unconvinced that widespread problems exist.

Last week the Battle Creek Enquirer ran a front page story showing that African American students in all four of our local school districts are disciplined at a higher rate than white students. It isn’t a southern problem, or a poverty problem, it is a race problem. It isn’t something we like being reminded of, but it is true. We’ve systematically mistreated African American people ever since the days of our nation’s founding. We descendants of the persecuted have become the persecutors.

Jesus said, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.” Persecution is systematic mistreatment. Jesus was persecuted by the religious elite of his day, the Pharisees, chief priests and scribes who felt threatened by his growing popularity and by his stinging critique of their hypocrisy. They harassed him, challenged his authority, spread false rumors about him, bribed one of his followers to betray him, arrested him for heresy, beat him and turned him over him over to the Roman governor to have him crucified. The cross and the lynching tree are both symbols of persecution.

Last week we talked about the two great spiritual awakenings that underlie all religious traditions of the world. The first is the personal awakening, the claiming of our true identity as God’s beloved sons and daughters. The second is a social awakening, the realization that not just I but all people everywhere are also beloved children of God, that we have all been formed from the same sacred dust of the earth, that we are all spiritual siblings.

We said peacemakers are people who have experienced these two great spiritual awakenings in their lives. They know that they are precious in the eyes of God and they recognize every other human being as siblings. Even when people behave badly, peacemakers treat them with dignity and respect because they still recognize them God’s beloved sons and daughters.

Persecution is the opposite of peacemaking. Peacemaking requires our ability to recognize that our lives are connected, that our welfares are linked, that we share a common ancestry. Persecution requires our willingness to strip people of their humanity, to define them as other, to reject our common birthright as beloved sons and daughters of God. Sometimes it seems as though the only way we can feel good about ourselves is by having someone beneath us, someone we can look down on, someone we can feel justified in mistreating.

But remember what we said a few weeks ago when we talked about the beatitude that blessed those who, “hunger and thirst for righteousness.” Righteousness isn’t conforming to an external set or rules or laws or commandments. Biblical righteousness is always relational. It is about seeking “right-us-ness.” That is our highest spiritual calling in life. Blessed are those who endure persecution seeking “right-us-ness” for everyone, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Amen.