Happily Ever After...

Lectionary Passage: John 42: 1-6, 10-17
To read this passage online, go to http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=218124859

We come to the end of the Book of Job.  Job has suffered.  He has lost everything.  He has questioned God and expected God to give him reasons for why all these horrible things have happened to him.  But the actions of God are not centered in conventional responses to wickedness and righteousness.  The universe is, instead, filled to the brim with mystery and surprise and wonder.  God’s answer to Job is:  “Think again, Job.  Open your eyes wider to the whole of the cosmos.  Redirect your attentions away from what you have done to what I am doing.”  This is the turning point—Job now has received a new vision of God as YHWH, creator and sustainer as well as struggler with a complex and mysterious order.  It is that new vision of YHWH to which Job responds here.

Job inhabited a closed-minded world of retribution and distributive justice, where people get what they deserve, where there is a just God to see that all get what they earn based on who they are and what they do.  But then Job is invited out to a new world, a world not based upon simple, distributive justice.  And Job sees now that he is not the center of the world—that his relationship with God is found in his interconnectedness to all of the cosmos—that he is but a small, albeit essential, part of the wisdom of God.  In other words, Job has found not an answer but a true relationship with God.  In her book, Sometimes I Hurt:  Reflections on The Book of Job, Mildred Tengbom says it like this: "No one could tell me where my soul might be; I sought for God, but God eluded me.  I sought my brother out and found all three—my soul, my God, and all humanity."  (Page 200)

So some would like the drama to end here.  After all, hasn’t Job gotten the point?  But if Job has become new, we must see him act out of his newness to discover if that newness is genuine.  We need to see Job back in the world again.

And so the Lord restores Job’s life.  Some of us struggle with this.  It gives it a sense of some sort of fairy tale ending and we all know that that type of ending is seldom, if ever, realistic.  It also gives us the image of that all-too-common presumption that God somehow rewards us, accepts us, or even (as horrifying as this notion is to me!) loves us based on what we do or who we are. But think about it in the context of the larger vision to which Job and we as readers have been invited.  God does not just put Job back together again.  It is better.  If we read it literally, it is better because Job is given more.  But, again, step back and look at the larger picture.  Perhaps it is a metaphor of what is to come.  It says that Job’s days were blessed but it doesn’t say that others were not.  Perhaps it is a vision of what the world can be when we allow ourselves to look at it through the lenses of God.  It is a world of plenty in which all of Creation prospers.  It is a world where we recognize family and our interconnectedness.  It is a world where all receive the inheritance of the world.  It is a world where we all die, old and full of days of a life to come.  “And they all lived happily ever after…”

God has allowed Job to be the hero.  God lets us struggle and win and when we lose our life, God gives it back to us.  The point is that Job actually encountered God and his life changed.  Catherine Marshall once said that Those who have never rebelled against God or at some point in their lives shaken their fists in the face of heaven, have never encountered God at all.” 

God remains Job’s God.  There can no longer be any talk of “reward” here—we have dispensed with that way of thinking.  God has blessed Job because God loves and wants to bless Job.  There is no other reason.  It is not for us to ask why.  Restoration is a feature of life; restoration is what God can do and does.  At the end, I don’t get answers.  I get a deepened relationship with God.  God doesn’t come with easy answers; God comes offering presence.  THAT is the Wisdom of God.

The story of Job is the story of life—our story.  It does not travel in a straight, easy-to-follow line.  It is not level or soft or easy.  It means much, much more than that. If someone tries to present it in some other way, they just don’t get it.  Sometimes life is chaotic; sometimes it’s just hard; and sometimes, through no fault of our own, it’s downright unbearable.  Answers are not what we need. That’s why I like Job.  It DOESN’T give you answers; it teaches you how to journey through life.  So, here is what I get from the story of Job:

1. Life happens (but we are never alone.)
2. Some things just don’t make sense.  (Perhaps we are reading them through a clouded lens, or even too MUCH correction—try wearing your contacts AND your glasses)
3. We need to make sure that our images of God do not stand in the way of God’s presence in our lives or in the lives of those around us.
4. God desires to be in relationship with us more than God desires for us to figure God out.
5. Sometimes we need to just shut up and listen.
6. Sometimes we need to just give up and let it be.
7. Everything comes from God.  God breathed life and it was so.
8. The future is an enigma.  Our road is covered in mist.  There will be times when the journey seems perilous and filled with despair.  But when we fling ourselves into what seems an impossible abyss, it is then that we will finally meet God.
9. God is God.  We are not.
10. And then we will die, old and full of days, and realize that life has only just begun.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Finally God Speaks!

"After the Whirlwind", by Nigel Wynter

Lectionary Passage:  Job 38:1-7, (34-41)
To read this passage online, go to http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=217564661

Boy, thirty-seven chapters is a long time to wait!  Job has waited, begged, screamed, and threatened to just throw it all in and walk away and finally, in this 38th hour, God speaks.  Now you could read it as if God is some sort of tease dangling hope in front of us until we just can't take it anymore and then suddenly stepping in as some sort of pumped up superhero.  Or you could read it as if God had some permanent unyielding plan that outlined when it was Job's turn for God's time and when it was not.  Or perhaps you could read it that the omnipresent God is not, that God comes when God comes and the rest of the time God eludes us.  I think, though, that the problem rests not with God but with us.  And rather than God teasing us or avoiding us or eluding us or existing as some sort of passive-aggressive super-deity, perhaps we are somehow blinded to that ever-presence of God.

Maybe God had been speaking the whole time.  Maybe in the midst of Job's pleas and Job's demands, God really was speaking.  Maybe Job was just so wrapped up in trying to figure out an answer that he missed God's Presence in his life.  Maybe the only answer for which Job was listening was not the answer at all.  Maybe Job was so sure what the "right" answer was that he wasn't open to what God was offering in his life.  But when Job reaches the depths of despair, when Job is silenced by everything that has happened, when the noisy friends finally shut up, it is there, there in the silence, that God speaks.  But rather than a booming answering voice demanding apologies or repentance, once again God speaks Job into being.  It is not the voice of the judging God that Job's friends had claimed would come and set Job straight but is instead the eternal voice of the Creator, once again speaking all that is into being just as God did in the beginning and every moment since.  The whirlwind is not to be confused with a tornado or a hurricane or some other destructive phenomenon.  It is instead the creative, life-changing force that, though undefined and unexplained, is the very voice of God speaking us into being.

And Job is reminded to look around, to look at all of Creation that has been laid down, to breathe in that which Job cannot make and cannot control.  Long ago, the rabbinical teachings noted that of all the animals listed as God's handiwork--lion, raven, the wild ass, the wild ox, the ostrich, the hawk, the eagle, etc.--none had any real use to humanity.  In other words, the ordering of Creation is not about us; it is about God.  God doesn't punish Job but rather subtly (well, as subtle as a whirlwind can be, I suppose!) reminds him that God is always present, always speaking Creation into being.  God doesn't offer answers, as much as we think that would clear everything up.  Rather, God offers Presence and Love.  And that's probably all God needs to say.

And after the speech, Job is changed.  He doesn't have any more answers than before.  But what he does have is the realization that in all things, there is a God who is waiting to pick him up or hold him or cradle him in the arms of Love.  The realization came not because Job had faith and not because he believed in some rumor of a God that he learned in Sunday School but because in the depths of his life, he met God and finally the two began to dance.  Perhaps God does not desire our allegiance or our belief or some sort of blindly obedient faith.  Maybe God's deepest desire is for us to make room in our lives and in our thoughts and in our prayers for God to speak us into being once again.  Shhhh!  God is about to speak...

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

The Silence of God

Lectionary Passage: Job  23: 1-9, 16-17
To read this passage online, go to http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=216907967


You know, when you think about it, most of spend a good part of our lives looking for answers. We look for answers about what to do with our lives, how to prepare for our lives, and where to go with our lives. We search for answers about the weather, the stock market, and the highest-rated sports team. If we wonder about anything in this world, all we have to do is “Google” it (“Google” now being the catch-all answer to finding the answer to pretty much any question that you have.)  Even much of our faith has to do with a quest for answers. We search for answers as to what we should believe, how we should understand God, and what type of person we should be. And we wait, sometimes with an almost desperate impatience, for answers to our prayers. But sometimes, those just don’t seem to come.

Maybe that’s why this Book of Job is so hard for us. After all, we have grown accustomed to the notion that somewhere in the Scriptures, we will find the answers that we most desire and that will make our life full (and probably a little easier!). But contrary to what we may hope, Job offers no real answers to life’s suffering or life’s heartaches except faith. In fact, the writing takes all of those contrived images of God and shakes them at their core leaving nothing for us but a relationship with God. And maybe on some level, that IS the answer.

But, in all truth, this section of Job is even harder to read than the one last week.  After all, it almost seems like our good friend Job is throwing in the towel.  Here he is suffering beyond all reason and he's done nothing!  He does not deserve this! WHERE IS GOD?!?  Good grief, at least show up so I can complain to you!  And give Job a little credit. After all, his complaint is not that he is suffering—he seems to have resolved himself to that. He doesn’t even seem to be questioning why God would do such a thing. Perhaps he is more comfortable with some of that mystery that is God than many of us. Job’s biggest complaint is that he feels God has deserted him. He feels that God is absent in his life. And yet he still holds his integrity, unwilling to sin before God.  And then, jumping to verse 16, his tune changes a bit. He admits that he is a little afraid of God, afraid of what God will do. He wants desperately to vanish into darkness and away from God. His image of God is falling into one that could quash him, could crush him. He almost sees God as an enemy and, yet, he is still not willing to sin before God. He is holding out for one small vestige of hope.
To understand how Job got here, we probably need to look at the mounds of answers that he has been fed from those that count himself as his friends. First, there is Eliphaz. Eliphaz probably sees God as “The Fixer”. You know the type. “Look, Job, if you just submit to God, if you just have faith, God will fix it.” And then there’s Bildad. Bildad is one of these people that sees God as “The Judge”. “Well, Job,” he says, “I don’t what you did wrong, but it must have been pretty bad because we only get what we deserve. After all, God is just, right? So you must be guilty.” And, lastly, we have Zophar. Interestingly enough, Zophar assumes that whatever he says must be what God is saying. “So, obviously, Job is wrong and I am right.” Good grief, no wonder Job opts to just sit in silence. You know, when you think about it, these are understandings of God that are alive and well today. In fact, there are probably few of us who haven’t at some time in our lives, fallen into these understandings. After all, they put us in control. If we do right, then God will fix it or reward us or somehow give us proof that our faith is working. And, yet, faith is not about being in control. We cannot save ourselves. That’s the whole point. Faith may not even be about trust that it will turn out alright. Maybe faith is instead about trusting that one will find God, even in the midst of the darkness.

So Job admits to being faint of heart, to not understanding at all why all of this has happened to him. Because, after all, it makes no sense. Job was good. He was righteous. He did nothing wrong. Why is this happening? He wishes that he could just vanish, wishes that the darkness would just take him. But instead, he waits. He waits in the silence and trusts that God is there--somewhere.  Job is essentially letting go--letting go of his need to understand God and understand life.  He is letting go of his need to figure it all out.  He is letting go of his need to have all the answers.  After all, faith is not about having all the answers or being certain of what's going to happen.  As Richard Rohr, says "faith is having the security to be insecure." (From Job and the Mystery of Suffering)

Sometimes life doesn’t make sense.   Maybe in those spaces when no answer is given is the God who is keeping silence and maybe God is more present in the silence than even in the answers that we have.  When you think about, do you think that sometimes our answers and our language about God get in the way of how God is being revealed in our life?  Austrian-born Israeli philosopher Martin Buber once wrote that “an eclipse of the sun is something occurs between the sun and our eyes, not in the sun itself.”  Perhaps our faith and our understanding of God is the same way.  Maybe we're seeing all we can handle for now.  Maybe our questions are a whole lot more important for us than having the answer to it all.  (And here's a hint:  We'll read the story of our friend Job fo two more weeks.  I have it on good authority that it all turns out OK.  It just doesn't look like what we thought it would.  Hmmm!  Isn't that amazing that that keeps happening?)

Let go of your need to have all the answers and just be with God--there, there in the silence and hiddenness of a God who is waiting not to be defended by our answers and our words but to be given the space to say us into being once again.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli   

Our Just Reward

Lectionary Passage: Job 1:1; 2:1-10
To read this passage online go to http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=216363206


This week is the first of several weeks that our Lectionary includes passages from the Book of Job.  I love Job so I have to warn you that you may get your fill!  Someone asked me the other day why I loved this book so much.  I'm not sure.  I also don't really know what that says about me.  I think it's because it's real.  There are no pretenses that are left about God or about ourselves after we read Job.  In fact, Job takes all of those contrived images of who God is and shakes them at their core.  We stand there, like Job, stripped of all we know leaving nothing for us but a relationship with God.

The story begins like a fairy tale usually begins:  "There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job."  You could just as easily say, "Once upon a time in the land of Uz, there lived a man named Job."  Job is depicted as righteous, blessed, and happy.  Every thing had gone well for Job.  He has a comfortable house with a large, roomy chef's kitchen and a terrace overlooking a lush green valley.  His wife is happy and they've never had an argument.  His children are perfect.  There has never been a problem with drugs or behavioral problems or kids that just can't seem to make it work.  And Job--he is healthy, happy, and has lovely straight teeth.  Life is perfect.  Job is righteous and upright and God has blessed them all. 

Really?  Oh come now!  Yes, my friends, it IS a fairy tale.  I mean, get real, no one's life is perfect.  If they say it is, they are either lying to you or lying to themselves.  Life just doesn't work like that.  Life is not perfect.  Instead, it is rich and deep and profoundly full of abundance and poverty, joy and sorrow, health and sickness, hope and despair, life and death.  And in those crevices between all of this emotion and all of this stuff, we find God.

We are uncomfortable with this idea of God "testing" Job.  I mean, really, do you like tests?  What kind of God does that?  But, remember, testing is not just about right and wrong.  If life becomes a focus only on getting the right answers, then there is no hope for any of us.  Think of testing more like a chemical test.  The outcome is not good or bad as outcomes go; rather, it is different, changed, something new.  So maybe God does allow this hassatan character to "test" Job a bit.  Keep in mind, this has nothing to do with either the first century notion of "satan" (notice there's no capital letter--this is not a title or a person or even a being) or the later-contrived notion of a little red man with horns messing up our lives.  (I mean, personally, I do a good enough job of that myself!)  Rather, this more of an adversary operating on God's behalf.  And the test proves that, even changed, Job's integrity and Job's love of God is intact.  When all that he knows and all that he relies upon is whisked away, Job still loves God.  But the adversary claims that Job would give all of this for his life.  He proposes a "skin for skin" challenge.  So, what would Job do if YHWH attacks Job's life?  There is Jewish midrash that claims that God's directive to spare Job's life actually outwitted the trickster and skewed the whole question.  The command was like saying, "you may break the wine bottle, but you must not let the wine spill." 
So the satan afflicts Job with foul boils that cover his body.  It was more than painful.  You remember the cultural understanding of that.  He would have separated from the community and shut away with the other unacceptables.  Job's wife begs:  "Stand up for yourself!  Curse God!  DO SOMETHING!"  But Job remains steadfast.

SO, the prosperity gospel is not some new notion!  How many of us fall into the trap of thinking that if we just live right, eat right, vote right, play right, act right, worship right, and pray right, then God will reward us with prosperity or ease or eternal life.  You can fill in the blank.  Whatever it is, we will receive our "just reward".  But then the story of Job drops into our lives like a cannonball.  Job's story reminds us that God never promised us ease and plenty.  Rather, God promises Presence, Grace, and a Love more incredible than we can ever fathom--now, tomorrow, and every tomorrow thereafter.  No matter what we do, God keeps God's promises.  Isn't that better than worrying about whether or not we'll be rewarded or punished in the future?

5th century theological St. Augustine of Hippo laid out two types of love--uti and frui.  Uti is essentially the love of use, the love for something because of what it gives you.  Admit it, you love money.  Now you're not IN love with money.  You don't look at a pile of green paper (or now a bigger number on your electronic bank statement) and love it.  But you pursue it because of what it will bring you.  That is "uti" love.  But "frui" love is loving something not because of what it will bring you but for the subject of the love itself.  It is unconditional.  Augustine maintained that our problem was that we often love God with "uti" love.  We love God because God will reward us (or because we are afraid of losing God's support in our lives.)  But God desires something different.  God desires to be loved not because of what God can do for us, not because of any reward we hope to gain, but because in the deepest part of our being, we are made to love God and enjoy God forever. 

So, why do bad things happen to good people?  I don't know.  Why do bad things happen to bad people?  I don't know.  Why do bad things happen at all?  Job gives us no answers.  The story just reminds us to love the questions and the journey and the God who walks with us through it all.

So, go and love God...just love God.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Room for Us

Esther and King Ahsuerus
Dura Euopos, Syria, 3rd century
The Jewish Art Museum of Minnesota

Lectionary Passage: Esther 7: 1-10, 9: 20-22
To read this passage online go to http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Esther+7:1-10&vnum=yes&version=nrsv and http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Esther+9:20-22&vnum=yes&version=nrsv.

The Book of Esther is a strange and difficult book for several reasons, first and foremost because it seems to be non-theological. There is no mention of God or God’s Presence.  There is no praying or worship.  But the book is very important to Jews because it records the deeds of a woman who was prepared to risk everything to save her people from the threat of genocide.  She is a heroine and her story is the basis for the Festival of Purim, at which time the whole book is read in the synagogue. 

On that holiday, the story is told of a beautiful young Jewish woman in Persia named Esther and her cousin Mordecai, who raised her as if she were his daughter. Now the king has divorced his queen, Vashti, and wants to take a new virgin bride. Esther was taken to the King’s house to become part of the harem, where she was loved more than any other woman by the king and made his queen, because he did not know that she was a Jew. The villain is Haman, an arrogant advisor to the king, who plots to destroy the Jewish people because Mordecai will not bow to him.  Mordecai persuades Esther to intercede for the Jewish people with the king even though this was very dangerous for her. Esther fasts for three days to prepare herself and then goes to the King. The Jewish people were ultimately saved and Haman was hanged on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Esther is depicted as a hero, a clever and faithful model of courage.  Rather than staying in the comfort and safety of her life, Esther stood up and spoke out in truth and love.

As I mentioned before, there is no mention of God.  There is no real religious motivation for anything that anyone does in the story.  So what do we do with a Biblical story where God is NOT inherently and obviously made know?  What do we do with a place where God is not?  Well, the truth is that God probably was not missing from this book at all; rather, God’s Spirit and God’s way of moving us to be who God envisions us to be is sometimes not as obvious as wind or fire but is rather embodied in the very Creation, the very humanity that God shaped into the image of the Godself.  It is, then, a story of God, embodied.  God is always and forever still God but maybe this story is a reminder that God does not control the world with seemingly robotic movement but rather breathes a piece of the Godself into each of us.  Perhaps, then, the will of God has nothing to do with fate or plans or some sort of pre-ordained destiny that is laid before us and on which we must tread but is instead handed to us for such a time as this.  Perhaps those places where it seems that God is not are the places where we are called to be.  Because, when you think about it, if we truly believe in God as an omnipresent otherness in our life, then how can there ever be places where God's Presence is not?    

In her book, When God is Silent, Barbara Brown Taylor talks about another book by Hebrew scholar Richard Elliott Friedman entitled The Disappearance of God.   In it he chronicles what Taylor calls the “divine recession.”  “Working his way from Genesis to the minor prophets, he paints a portrait of God that fades as it goes.  Divine features that were distinct at the beginning of the story grow blurry as God withdraws, stepping back from human beings so that they have room to step forward.”

Room to step forward…maybe that’s the whole point.  Maybe that’s what the Book of Esther is about—the story of one who responded to the room God made to step forward, to act not upon our individual understanding of God but rather to respond to who God envisions God to be.  And maybe that's what this dance with God is.  We don't "get to" God and then check it off our spiritual "to do" list; rather, we let ourselves feel the rhythm of a God who sometimes holds us, sometimes takes us by the hand, and sometimes steps out onto the floor with a new beat and a new song and waits on tiptoe hoping that we might courageously and faithfully move to a place we've never been before. 

There is so much work to be done.  I don't really think that God ever envisioned doing it all for us; otherwise, we would have been mere robots in the world and God would have instead sat there as some sort of divine programmer.  And, really, if that were the case, why would God have had to walk with us on this earth at all?  I mean, really, that was a whole lot of trouble for God to go to if God was just going to do everything anyway.  Instead, God created time and space such that we are experiencing now, stepped back, and called us to fill it with God’s love and God’s grace and the piece of the Godself that we are called to show to the world.  God not only gave us the gift of God's Presence but with a wisdom only God could know, also gave us the gift of a holy absence that makes room for us.  You see, that IS the very Presence of God.  So what are you going to do with the room God made for you?

Grace and Peace,

Shelli 

The Wisdom Ideal

Arthur Kolnik
Woman Blessing Sabbath Candles

Lectionary Passage: Proverbs 31: 10-31
To read this passage online, go to http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Proverbs+31:10-31&vnum=yes&version=nrsv

We often don't know what to do with this passage.  It's just so odd.  I mean, here we've had thirty chapters of these little snippets of wisdom, a veritable checklist of the characters to which we should aspire and now, in the last chapter of Proverbs, they start talking about "a capable wife".  What is that about?  I suppose it would be easy to dismiss it as some sort of archaic remnant of another time, when women stayed locked in their domesticated, caring roles and almost never ventured beyond, when the ideal was the perfect wife and the perfect household and the perfectly well-manicured children.  And in doing that, we've set up an ideal that when set against our lives, we would surely fall miserably short.  But I'm not so sure that was the intent at all.  I mean, really, do you think things were all that easy for women when this was written?  Do you think that living in a culture where women were subordinate if not meaningless really made it easy for them to get to the "ideal" described here?  In fact, do you really honestly think ANYONE in the thousands upon thousands of years of humanity ever really got to this?  Doubtful, very doubtful... (I mean don't you think those cave-dwelling women had just as much trouble keeping their abode clean as we do?  And they didn't even have the advantage of a Swiffer or Pledge All-Surface Cleaner!)

So what if we thought about it another way?  What if rather than wondering what in the world this odd little passage laying out an impossible ideal has to do with all the depictions of Wisdom that came before it, we looked at it in light of it all.  I mean, think about it, Wisdom literature by its very nature is not random.  It's very intentional and very all-encompassing.  Perhaps rather than some sort of odd little tag on, this passage was meant to be the climax of the whole Proverbs collection, a sort of all-encompassing depiction of what it all means.  In fact, maybe it's not really meant to be gender-specific at all!  Yes, before you men dismiss this as having nothing to do with you, what if you think of it as a metaphor for the composite that IS Wisdom, that IS the ideal to which we should all aspire?  I mean, there are numerous places in Scripture that carry feminine imagery--Lady Wisdom, Bride of Christ, the mothering, nurturing God.  They are not talking about women!  Why, then, would this particular one be limited to females (and wives and mothers besides)?  I guess I just don't think that the Scriptures were intended to be gender-specific or even that life-situation-specific. 

Maybe it’s a metaphor of who we are all called to be—trustworthy, of strong character, and deep and abiding faith.  The “capable wife” is meant to convey the full significance of the wise, well-run household, the household that is run within the wisdom of God.  It is the household that is a powerful emblem to teach and guide future generations.  It IS the Household of God, our very lives.  And Wisdom calls us to follow in her ways.  It is a portrayal of faithful living, a depiction of the ideal believer to which we can all aspire.  It is not meant to set us up for failure.  I mean, have you read the Bible?  Stuff just keeps getting in the way.  (Thank God that Grace stuff also continues to show her lovely face!)  But this is an image of a different way.  That's what our faith journey is about--finding that different way to relate to others, to live, to love.  It's about finding the way to become Wisdom, to become the very image of God in which you were created.  It's about letting go of the "ideal" that this world has fabricated and journeying into the Wisdom of God.

Don't think of the Scriptures as a perfect "plan" laid out by God.  Think of it as the story of a journey that sometimes takes us through wonder and beauty, and sometimes through muck and crud.  We experience joy and grief in the same lifetime or we just aren't human.  And sometimes we don't make our beds every morning.  Thanks be to God!  But always, always there is more to come.  The journey is not about perfection; it is about longing--longing to be with God, longing to be the one who God envisions you to be.

When all work is brought to a standstill, the candles are lit.  Just as creation began with the word, “Let there be light!” so does the celebration of creation begin with the kindling of lights.  It is the woman who ushers in the joy and sets up the most exquisite symbol, light, to dominate the atmosphere of the home.  And the world becomes a place of rest.  An hour arrives like a guide, and raises our minds above accustomed thoughts.  People assemble to welcome the wonder of the seventh day, which the Sabbath sends out is presence over the fields, into our homes, into our hearts.  It is a moment of resurrection of the dormant spirit in our souls.  (Abraham Heschel, The Sabbath, p. 66)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Freedom of Speech

Lectionary Passage: James 3: 1-12
To read this passage online, go to http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=James+3:1-12&vnum=yes&version=nrsv


I love words.  I like them alone or strung together into some semblance of a sentence or just a random thought.  I like learning new words.  And I am well on my way to becoming addicted to online Scrabble.  Words are powerful things.  They can soothe.  They can heal.  They can encourage. They can show love.  They can also hurt feelings, belittle, incite violence, or cause irreparable pain.  Words can destroy life and they can give life.  That's really pretty incredible, when you think about it.

This passage from the epistle James is the longest in the Bible about the role of speech in our lives.  In a nutshell, it is telling us to "bridle our tongues". (Which, I suppose is a little odd that there is this much talking about it!)  (Oh, forget the semantics.  Yeah, it's telling us to shut up!)  But lest we get offended by the writer's somewhat austere and offputting choice of words, it's also about something deeper.  It's asking us to look at the base or the foundation from which our words come.  It's about how we relate to others and how we depict who we really are in the deepest core of our being.  "Taming our tongue" is more than just shutting up; it is more than merely being tactful or knowing the right thing to say at the right time.  Rather, our words point to who and what we really are.

This an interesting passage to read in light of what goes on in our world today.  We read of bullying by children toward their classmates.  We know that there is bullying in the workplace, when one who has power inflicts that power in force rather than wielding power as a creative and life-giving force.  And in the midst of this campaign year, we know that the rhetoric that we hear is anything but conducive to good human relations.  There are often times when our speech and our words in this world and society are indeed toxic.

So, in light of this passage, what does it mean to exercise "freedom of speech"?  Does it mean that we are allowed to say whatever we want to whomever we want whenever we want and for whatever reason we choose?  Well, that's sort of the way our society lives.  Is that OK?  Is it alright for a random real estate developer to make a movie depicting Islam as a hateful religion?  Well, I suppose in the words of our law, it is.  But what does that say about us as a people, as a country, as Christians?  Just because a word can be uttered does not mean that it should be.  With great freedom comes great responsibility.  Perhaps freedom of speech is not about saying everything that comes to mind.  The writer of James would probably say that it is more the freedom to say yourself into being.  Because, when you think about it, that was done once, way back there, before you spoke your first word.  God spoke you into being, bringing life.  And God gave each of us the freedom of speech to say ourselves into being again.

Words are indeed powerful.  They are an expression of who we are.  They depict our character, our knowledge, and our command of the language with which we have been gifted.   Who do your words say that you are?  What part of the Godself in you do your words depict?  Shhhhhhhhh!  Listen...You know, that's as powerful a word as any you might hope to utter.  Perhaps the wisdom of words is about knowing when to use your tongue and knowing when to use your ears, or your brain, or your heart.  Words are deeper than we usually let them be.  They have power.  And in between them, in the listening and the silence, comes the voice of God saying you into being once again.  Shhhhhhhh!

Last evening, I received a gift.  I visited two people who know each other, who have helped and supported each other.  And while visiting the first, he gave me the gift of words--words of affirmation, words of thanks, words of respect, words of love.  They were not for me.  Rather, I was gifted with the opportunity to carry those words to the other person.  I did.  There were tears when they were uttered and tears when they were heard.  They were life-giving words.  That is what they should be.  What words do you utter?  What words do you hear?  And what words do you carry from one heart to another?  Do this in remembrance of me.  What we say and what we don't say are part of who we are and who we are called to be.  The Word of God for the people of God.  Thanks be to God.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli 

Open Table

Lectionary Passage:  Mark 7: 24-37
To read this passage online, go to http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=213945074.

I love being a United Methodist.  I probably take what could be considered an almost unhealthy sense of pride in the fact that we believe in an open table, that we believe that the Feast of Holy Communion, the Eucharist, is not "Methodist" but is instead an open table to which all are welcome.  It sounds good.  It makes us sound like a community in which one would want to be.

But this week's Gospel reading begins to make us squirm a bit.  After all, we look to Jesus for this model of open invitation, for the depiction of compassion and mercy to which we all aspire.  And then we read this.  I mean, really, is he calling her a "dog"?  Now, with apologies to Maynard, my four-legged roommate, this was NOT a nice thing to say.  And yet, remember, Jesus understood his mission (in fact, EVERYONE understood his mission) as Messiah, the one promised to the chosen people.  Jesus' mission was to the people of Israel.  There was nothing bad or closed-minded about that; that's the way it was. So does that mean that this passage depicts a turning point, a veritable transformative moment for even Jesus?  Well, that's bothersome.  After all, if Jesus needed transformation, where does that leave us?

Well, really, did we think that Jesus was just plunked down on this earth in ready-to-wear form?  After all, remember, he was human, "fully human" we are told.  Transformation is part of our humanity, being transformed is how we become fully human, fully made in the image of God.  It is how we become who we are supposed to be.  Maybe that was the point.  Maybe Jesus was not pushing us at all here, but leading us out of the box that we have built, leading us to who God calls us to be.  Maybe Jesus was showing us that even well-meaning and well-constructed boxes are meant to come crashing down when the time is right.  And the time was right.  This was not a diminishment of Jesus' power; it was an expansion.  At this moment, the mission began to move and God's Kingdom began to spread beyond the tight shores of the Galilean Lake and into the Decapolis region.  The Kingdom of God was at hand!

God cannot be contained.  Perhaps this story was Jesus' realization and affirmation of that very notion.  After all, if Jesus experienced transformation, we are called to do the same.  Once again, Jesus takes a cultural norm (actually several of them!) and turns them on their ear.  It was his awakening to a new reality.  And it was the impetus that pushed the morality police known as his Disciples right out of the box with him.  The walls crash down, the table is set, and all are invited.  Come and feast with your Lord!

But it's still a hard Scripture.  I mean, really, who did this foreign nameless immigrant think she was?  She was the voice, a voice for all foreign nameless immigrants that dare to claim their crumb at the table, that dare to go where God calls.  You see, the table is really open--not merely to us but by us.  We are the inviters, the ones transformed by relationships with "them".  What do you bring to the table?  And who do you invite to sit down with you and share the bread and drink the cup?  Who belongs in the Kingdom of God? The Body of Christ given for you. The Blood of Christ poured out for you. And you and you and you and you and you and you and you.....Well, you get the idea.  Did we think this was about us?

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.  And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matthew 28: 19-20, NRSV)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Falling in Love With God

Lectionary Passage: Song of Solomon 2: 8-13

To read this passage online, go to http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Song+of+Songs+2:8-13&vnum=yes&version=nrsv

Do you love God?  Sure you do!  That's the whole point, right?  But here's perhaps a harder (or at least a weirder) question:  Are you in IN love with God?  After all, being "in love" seems to be something so profoundly human, so earthy, so "fleshy", so intimate, so private.  It’s more than just loving.  It’s more than just being together.  It’s almost a completion of who you are called to be, an entirely different way of being.  It really is more about being one than being two that love.  We proper Western Protestants understand loving God (and, certainly, pleasing God).  But do we let ourselves fall, with utter abandon, into love with God?    The Old Testament passage from this week's Lectionary selections is from the wisdom writing known in Hebrew as the Song of Songs.  It's not the usual fare for our lectionary.  I mean, it borders on what is sometimes characterized as almost erotic imagery and it doesn't even mention God.  So, as you can imagine, there were lots of debates about whether or not it belonged in the canon at all.  The matter was settled by Rabbi Akiba, the great teacher and mystic, who said this: “The whole world is not worth the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel, for all the Scriptures are holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies.   The Holy of Holies?  Wow!  We'll have to think about that one.  I mean, really?  We struggle with that, as if our relationship with God should be proper and acceptable, as if it should be reverent of the One in whom we live and breathe and have our being.  So what is reverence?  Is it standing away, removed from the One whom we revere?  Or it is realizing that every molecule of our being desires to connect with God, longs to return to the One who created us.  Or maybe, just maybe, it's falling in love with God.   Implicit in this poem is a sort of pining absence, a longing so deep that the poet cannot be complete without the One that is loved. I think that’s the way we’re called to be. I mean, think about it, we were created in the image of God, made with a shape and a sense into which only God fits. And we struggle. We struggle to find what fits into that shape. And in the absence, in the longing, we finally find that Presence of God, we finally find that One in whom we are destined to fall in love. Seventeenth century mathematician, Blaise Pascal spoke of it as a “God-shaped vacuum” in every human, a hole that only God could fill. It’s like being in love.

Like I said, this poem is not your usual reading from the Bible. There are no parables, no words of judgment, no promises of future and unrequited redemption. Rather, there is presence; there is reverence; there is a depiction of the most joyous and incredible love imaginable. It is flirtatious, and playful, and filled with utter joy. It is the very love of God. And the poet depicts it as transforming, a veritable spring at the end of winter, when life bursts forth from lifelessness and literally consumes death.  (Sounds like resurrection to me!)

Perhaps it is the language that makes us bristle, that makes us squirm a bit in our pews.  Perhaps we are even a bit uncomfortable with a God who is so intimate, so a part of us, that falling in love is all we can do.  Perhaps we really haven’t thought through what it means to be created in the image of someone else.  It means that we have to let ourselves go, that we have to become who God called us to be, that we have to realize that there is something more, that WE are something more, that we are created in the image of our Beloved, that we are created to fall in love with God.  It is about completion; it is about wholeness; it is about being who we were created to be.  It is about falling in love with God and falling into God.

Our lectionary probably doesn't do us any favors because it doesn't even allow us to finish the poem.  The next four verses go like this:

O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the covert of the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely. Catch us the foxes, the little foxes, that ruin the vineyards— for our vineyards are in blossom.”   My beloved is mine and I am his; he pastures his flock among the lilies.  Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, turn, my beloved, be like a gazelle or a young stag on the cleft mountains.

My beloved is mine and I am my beloved's.  That's a whole lot different than an image of a seemingly-removed deity sitting up somewhere waiting for us to get our act together and catch up.  And it flies in the face of us spending our earthly lives wallowing in chaos and muck, hoping against hope that we will finally rack up enough points to make it to heaven someday.  Once again, it's present tense.  We are God's and God, in a show of grace more amazing than we could ever sing, becomes ours.  We are not just called to love and support and please God and try to figure out who or what God is; we are called to let ourselves go, to fall into love with God and fall into God with utter abandon and profound joy.

Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, turn, my beloved…My beloved is mine and I am [my beloved’s].  Thanks be to God!

There is only one love.  (Teresa of Avila)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

 

To The Cloud

Lectionary Passage: 1 Kings 8: (1,6,10-11), 22-30, 41-43
To read this passage online, go to http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=1+Kings+8:1-43&vnum=yes&version=nrsv

The Cloud...what IS that?  Where does your data actually go?  Now, don't get me wrong.  I think it's pretty cool that you can save it on one thing and then see it on another.  It's as if it's known and not known, here and not here, controllable and out of control.  But, really, what is that all about?  Where does it go?  Do we just put it out in cyber-space and hope it returns?  Or does cyber-space actually somehow identify with us, offer us a claim of sorts to store our data and then actually be able to retrieve what we need?

It's an interesting name for this thing that we know but we don't.  After all, we've encountered clouds before. Remember the Israelites escaping the Egyptian army when Moses went up onto the mountain, out of sight, out of what they knew, and received the Commandments as a gift from God?  And then there was the Cloud that descended onto the tabernacle, the very Presence of God.  The Cloud was there, following them through the desert, always there, and, yet, it was different.  They didn't understand it.  It was beyond what they could control or even imagine.  And now...again, the Cloud comes to dwell, the holiest of holies, the thing that, though unknown and unimagineable, is the very crux of life itself.  This Cloud, the God who brought them out of the land of Egypt, is still here, dwelling with them.

For us in our Christian understanding, it is difficult to understand the significance of the Temple in Jewish theology.  The Temple is the place of which God says, “My name shall be there.”  It is the place where heaven meets earth and where God’s glory appears.  It is the place of The Cloud, the thing that we do not understand, that makes no sense, but that gives us life.  And yet, Solomon’s prayer does not confine God to the Temple.  He acknowledges that the “house”, the Temple, cannot contain God.  For this reason, even though the Temple is central to Israel’s worship, it is not essential.  God is there, so Solomon bows and prays.  He prays to the God that he cannot know but is open to knowing, the God who cannot be contained but who he can depict in a cloud, the God who is here and for whom he searches. This is God known and not known, here and not here, controllable and out of control.  It's not about the Temple or a God contained.  In fact, when the Temple is destroyed (twice to come), God is still present and attentive to the people.

Solomon’s words bring us an important understanding of prayer.  The Lord is not just the property of Israel (or, for that matter, any other one group of people).  Solomon alludes to the incomparable and magnanimous grace of the Lord which extends beyond the imaginations and beyond any disagreements with neighbors that we may have, which extends into the world, the just and the unjust, the wise and the unwise.  Realization of this and prayers for wisdom and justice drive home the notion that God is God, that God is not our property or our agent, that God is not on our side or on the other side or even on some side that a third party is inventing.  It is finally getting us to the point where we figure out that the way we connect with this God is to leave our alliances, our riches, and our own sense of who we think God is on the ground beneath us, repent, and then, finally, turn toward a new perception of reality that we cannot control or contain.

Maybe we systematic, dogmatic, and pragmatic followers of Christ have it wrong.  Perhaps there is a cloud after all.  Perhaps when we understand faith not as belief or knowledge but as gaining the insight to walk into the cloud, to walk into the unknown, the uncontrollable, then we will finally be on our journey toward Communion with God.  It's not a new concept.  Others have said the same thing--for centuries.  Most of them draw upon the work of an anonymous 14th century mystic, who saw Communion with God not as a pursuit to attain but, rather, a way to become.  Maybe that's the problem--is your spiritual journey headed toward something or walking in clouds, embracing what you do not know but know has been there all along?  I mean, after all, The Cloud is always there, always present.  So, for whom are you looking?

 Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Flesh and Blood, Literally...

Lectionary Passage:  John 6: 51-58
To read this passage online, go to http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=John+6:51-58&vnum=yes&version=nrsv.

Yes, more about bread!  But we can't help but read this passage and think of our own Eucharistic language.  That is probably intentional.  Commentators think that this sixth chapter of the version of the Gospel story by the writer that we call John might have actually been composed over time and that the implications to the Eucharist might have been added later.  It, like our participation in Holy Communion, is an opening of oneself to a life in Christ.  The bread and the cup are lenses through which we can see things differently.  When taken literally--the notion of eating flesh and drinking blood--, they are downright shocking to the ears of this world.  So, if not literal, then are they merely symbols?

The truth is that this idea of "living bread" is something more.  It is more than just an over-spiritualized connection to the idea of God.  Rather, it is meant as a real, even a physical, maybe EVEN a literal, connection to the real God that is ever-present in our life.  This is hard for us.  We tend to be a little more Puritanical than most of us would care to admit.  We tend to try to separate the spiritual from the physical, perhaps trying to hold off at bay that physical self that is sometimes so raw, so vulnerable and exposed, perhaps even so dirty from that seemingly pristine image of God that we hold so dear.  But is that what Jesus intended here?  Listen:  "Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them."

So what would it mean to connect to God, to literally abide in God, in every aspect of our being?  What would it mean to actually become the living, breathing image of God Incarnate?  We all wear skin.  We all live and breathe and walk around in this absolutely incredible physical body that is not disconnected from our soul or from our spiritual selves but actually part of it.  What does it mean to realize and affirm that God loves all of us--our souls AND our bodies?  And what, then, in turn, would it mean to love God in the same way?

The last things that Jesus did had nothing to do with making sure that the Disciples had all the Scriptures memorized or that they believed the right way or worshipped appropriately.  Jesus did not leave them instructions on how to be righteous or right.  Rather, in those last hours, he fed them bread and wine, things they could see, smell, and taste.  And then he touched their feet, caressing them lovingly, pouring cool water over them and wiping them with a towel.  And, lastly, he said the words that they needed to hear:  "Do this--not BELIEVE this or UNDERSTAND this or SPOUT this to the masses--but DO this.  Do this in remembrance of me."

Stanley Hauerwas claims that "Christianity is not a set of beliefs or doctrines one believes in order to be a Christian, but rather Christianity is to have one's body shaped, one's habits determined, in such a way that the worship of God is unavoidable."  Our faith is not limited to the spiritual.  It really is literal; it really does have to do with the flesh and the blood and sometimes even those funny looking, flat-bottomed things with the not-so-pretty toes at the end of our legs.  God created all of us.  God loves every molecule of our being.  And with every thing we are, we are called to love God, to become one with God, to live in full Communion with nothing left behind.

And, when you think about it, those senses, those very literal expressions of our bodies, are the ways that we connect to each other.  So, stop, and see, hear, smell, taste, and touch and do this in remembrance of me.  Eat this bread and drink this wine--together.  And kneel and wash and serve--together.

The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw--and knew I saw--all things in God and God in all things. (Mechtild of Magdeburg, 13th century mystic)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

As God in Christ...

Ruins of Coventry Cathedral

Lectionary Passage: Ephesians 4: 25-5:2To read this passage online, go to http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Ephesians+4:25+-+5:2&vnum=yes&version=nrsv

I'm not usually a big Ephesians fan.  I mean, first of all, it probably wasn't even written by Paul but rather by a seemingly zealous (and sometimes over-zealous) disciple of his.  There are problems with it--mainly for women!  But this passage speaks something hauntingly real, something with which we can identify regardless of our gender or our place, regardless of where we are in life.  We are called to discard our old nature and don a new one.  Well, there you go!  How easy is that?  We are called to see that we are part of one another, that not speaking the truth to others is the same as not speaking the truth to ourselves.

But lest you think that this is some sort of sappy morality check where we all stand and sing "Kum-ba-yah", think again!  It is not a vision of good or right behavior.  It is not a call to all be the same so that we can all just get along.  It is the call to be something different, to leave our old selves behind and see ourselves anew.  No longer can we dismiss our shortcomings as "only human".  Rather, we are called to see ourselves as fully human, fully living imitations of Christ, and immersing ourselves in the Truth that is God, in the Truth that is who we are called to be.

OK, full confessions....I got mad at someone today.  No, let me elaborate:  I got REALLY mad at someone today.  I felt violated, taken advantage of...you name it.  You've been there.  I thought I had it all figured out.  And then, I began working on the notes for this week's lectionary passages.   And, there, as if our Sovereign Creator saw fit to provide some sort of show of colossal sacred humor, there it was:  "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you."  Are you kidding me?  NOW?  You throw this at me NOW when I'm so incredibly justified????  So, in my own show of incredible restraint, I slammed the book shut and headed off to the sanctuary.  (Now, see, that's the good part of no longer working in oil and gas.  Their sanctuaries did not hold near the draw that ours does.) And I sat there in the darkened sanctuary, struggling to be at peace.  And I saw something that I'd never seen before.  I looked at Jesus in the Gethsemane Window.  I've always assumed that he carried a look of resolve, a look of incredible peace.  But, today, I saw a look of ire.  Spilling out of him was an anger so immense, so intense, that it consumed him.  What were they doing asleep?  Don't they know how hard I tried?  Don't they know what this means?  And then...take this cup, take it from me, so that I can be who you call me to be.

I'm sure it's wrong, wrong to saddle Jesus with so much humanity.  But isn't that why we're all here?  Because Jesus was human, fully human.  Third-century theologian, Athanasius, is attributed with the words, "Christ became human that we might become divine."  To expect yourself to be perfect is not even spiritual, much less realistic.  I mean, if you were perfect, why would you need Christ, why would you need God?

The first time that I ever encountered this passage with any real intent was on a choir trip.  (Because, in my previous oil and gas life, I actually sang!)  Our choir was invited to be part of a national music festival in Coventry Cathedral in England.  Now you have to know that Coventry Cathedral, a beautiful middle-age cathedral, was destroyed by bombing during World War II.  Everything that they knew was gone, burned, ashes....And, so, in 1940, their provost ordered the words inscribed on the altar that was left:  "Father, forgive."  Today there stands a brand new cathedral next to the ruins of the old one dedicated to the work of reconciliation.  And where the altar stands, engraved with those words, are two statues, gifts from two countries celebrating the work of reconciliation that the cathedral had proclaimed.  The countries who gave the statues are Germany and Japan, the very destroyers of what was.

And so, that year that we were there, the festival commissioned a musical arrangement of their own creed, if you will.  It is called their Litany of Reconcilation.  It recognizes who we are and affirms what we can become:
 
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
The hatred which divides nation from nation, race from race, class from class,
Father Forgive.
The covetous desires of people and nations to possess what is not their own,

Father Forgive.
The greed which exploits the work of human hands and lays waste the earth,
Father Forgive.
Our envy of the welfare and happiness of others,

Father Forgive.
Our indifference to the plight of the imprisoned, the homeless, the refugee,

Father Forgive.
The lust which dishonours the bodies of men, women and children,

Father Forgive.
The pride which leads us to trust in ourselves and not in God,
Father Forgive.

Modern Coventry Cathedral

The litany ends with this:

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Mirror, Mirror

Lectionary Passage: 2 Samuel 11: 26-12: 13a
To read this passage online, go to http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=2+Samuel+11:26+-+12:15&vnum=yes&version=nrsv

Do you remember the story of Snow White?  The fantasy begins with a magic mirror.  And every morning, the hopelessly vain evil queen rises, dresses, coifs her hair, applies her make-up, and then admires herself in the mirror.  But as we know, it’s not an ordinary mirror.  This mirror can carry on a conversation.  Better than that, this mirror tells her exactly what she wants to hear.  Every morning the evil queen looks into the mirror and says, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”  And the dutiful mirror, perfectly rehearsed, answers, “You, my queen, you are the fairest of them all.”

But even brainwashed mirrors can go rogue now and then and one morning when the queen looked into the mirror with the familiar question, “Mirror , mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”, the mirror replied, “Snow White, my queen, Snow White is the fairest of them all.”  You know, the truth hurts, doesn’t it?  Sometimes we would rather just live our lives with a magic mirror affirming that everything we do is the right thing, one that would somehow allow us to hide in a fairy tale.  But life is not a fairy tale.

Our Old Testament passage is the continuing story from last week.  Remember that David, home alone while his armies were out fighting battles, had spied the fair Bathsheeba and, in what can only be described as a colossal failure of leadership and an implausible abuse of  power and authority, had sent for her, slept with her, impregnated her, and then in an attempt to cover up the deed, lied, schemed, and finally murdered her husband Uriah the Hittite.  So, Uriah is now dead and Bathsheeba mourns.  With Uriah dead, David then is free to take Bathsheeba as his wife, bringing legitimacy to their son.   Well, as you know, there are a variety of ways that this story is told.  Some will shift the blame to Bathsheeba, depicting her as some sort of harlot or something that wooed David into the affair.  But that, of course, ignores the fact that it was David that had all the power here.  Others will somehow characterize it as God’s work, as if God would call David to cheat, lie, scheme, and murder to further the building of the Kingdom of God.  Sorry, I don’t really think that’s quite what God had in mind.

So today we have the story of Nathan.  I love Nathan.  He confronts the problem head-on.  And he does it in quite a remarkable way.  He tells a parable.  (Where have we heard that style of teaching before?)  He tells the story of a rich man who possessed many flocks and herds—so many, in fact, that he didn’t even really know them all--and a poor man who possessed one lowly little lamb who the poor man actually had grown to love.   Yet when a traveler appeared, the rich man, replete with livestock, actually took the one lamb from the poor man to feed his guest.  Well, David was incensed.  After all, what a horrible man!  Someone should do something!  That is not justice!  That man should be punished!  That man doesn’t deserve to live!

You know, John Westerhoff once said that “if a parable doesn’t make you a bit uncomfortable, [doesn’t make you squirm a little in your seat], you probably have not gotten it.”  So, obviously, David didn’t get it.  Obviously, it was much easier to hand out judgment for someone else’s acts than to recognize his own failures and shortcomings.  So Nathan, courageously speaking the truth in love, essentially, holds up the mirror.  “David,” he said, “You are the man!”

He then explains in detail what David has done, all the time holding a mirror, forcing David to look at himself, to look at his own actions, to realize that his actions have consequences, that they cannot be hidden from God.  And, maybe even more painful, they cannot be hidden from himself.  David has to face what he has done, look at the consequences, look at the pain and the suffering that he has caused.  And David finally admits his wrong.  He confesses.  It’s a hard thing.  It’s a hard thing to admit when you’ve done something wrong.  It’s a hard thing to be forced to take a good hard look in that mirror and see the reflection not of that image of God in which you were created but rather someone that you’d rather not be around.

Yeah, sin is a hard thing to talk about.  It’s a hard thing to look at, particularly, when that mirror is showing us someone that we don’t really want to be.  Where did we go wrong?  And what will everyone else think?   And, after all, we’re good Methodists.  We don’t need to talk about sin.  We have grace.  Really?  I think Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor has possibly written the most incredible book on sin that I have ever read.  I highly recommend it.  In her book entitled “Speaking of Sin:  The Lost Language of Salvation,” she depicts sin as our only hope.  Well that’s a new spin on it!  After all, aren’t we trying to avoid it?  She says that “sin is our only hope, because the recognition that something is wrong is the first step toward setting it right again.” (pg. 59)  In other words, no longer can we just sweep something under the rug hoping that it will go away, hoping that our good Methodist upbringing will shower us with grace and keep our sins closeted away where they need to be.  It’s a phenomenal way to think about it, to realize that in some way, holding the mirror up for ourselves or, if we can’t do that, hoping that someone in our life will be grace-filled enough to do it for us, can actually bring us closer to God, actually put us on the road to beginning again.

We often talk about sin as that which separates us from God.  Traditional Christianity loves to take it all the way back to Adam and Eve, as if the first couple’s transgression somehow changed the path for us all.  Do you think that’s a way of trying to cover it up?  (OK, I must admit, I'm not really an "Original Sin" type of person!)  Do you think that’s our way of trying to shift the blame from us a bit, a way to somehow transfer over to someone else’s mirror?  Well, I think we may need some sort of holy spurt of Windex or something.  Because tucking it away or covering it up or shifting blame does us no good at all.  It’s still there, still separating us, still standing in the way of the grace-filled relationship that God offers each of us. 

Truth is, the opposite of sin is not innocence.  I don’t even think it’s righteousness.  The opposite of sin is choosing God, choosing to look ourselves in the mirror and finally see that image of God in each of us. We don’t live in a fairy tale.  God did not create a bunch of robotic, perfect creatures and claim them as children.  God created us—sometimes cheating, sometimes lying, sometimes sinful, always wanting to do better, always wanting to find our way, always searching and wondering what it is God desires for us.  I don’t think God wants or expects us to remain innocent.  If God had wanted that, we wouldn’t be here at all.  We would have no reason to be.  Faith would be non-existent.  Innocence has no reason to choose God.  Innocence does not need faith.  Maybe we need a Nathan in our life unless we can somehow learn to look into the mirrors that God provides for us along the way, to truly see ourselves, where we fall short, where we choose darkness over light, where we choose or just acquiesce to those systemic sins that we see (hunger and homelessness over shared resources,  prejudice over acceptance, classism over equality, nationalism over patriotism ) and, most of all, to see that image of God that is always part of us somehow slip through and reveals itself in the most miraculous ways.

We are not innocent; we are forgiven.  But that’s not an eraser on the giant chalkboard of life.  God’s forgiveness comes when we don’t deserve it, when we haven’t earned it.  It comes in the darkness; it comes at our lowest point; it comes when sin is our only hope.  It is grace.  “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest one of all?”  It is that you that is staring back—doubtful and assured, sinful and forgiven, speaking the truth in love with a tiny piece of God in you—only an image, a faint glimmer that holds your whole life in its hands.  That’s all that God needs to create beauty, to create wonder, to create life.  You see, God has done this before—many, many times.  It is the very mirror that shows us the image of God, that shows us who we are really called to be.

Grace and Peace,

 

Shelli