Inner & Outer Growth in Following Christ 8/23/20 Pentecost 12A

 

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

INNER & OUTER GROWTH IN FOLLOWING CHRIST

8/23/20     Pentecost 12A

            I don’t like the kind of press that Christianity has been getting in the media, nor the reputation of Christianity among people who have quit going to church - or never started, because our witness of Jesus as Messiah and Savior, and our portrayal of life in the kindom of God, instead of drawing them to God, has put them off from God.  It makes me wonder if we who DO follow Christ are not presenting the truth that Jesus taught, or are presenting it in such a way that has belied the message of freedom, hope and vision that Jesus brought. 

Yes, there IS the fact that even Jesus was rejected by the larger society, and even by the religious leaders of his time - I mean, he was killed.  And it’s still true that the message of Christ and the love of God is often counter-cultural, and may well be rejected by those invested in the ways of the world and profiting by it. 

The teachings of Christ and the place of Christ’s church does not have the value that it once had here - somehow God and Jesus have been made to look hateful, judgemental, legalistic, racist, contentious, less than authentic, and no answer to issues people face. 

Yes, Christ-followers are just humans, and will be fallible; we will be tempted and sometimes deceived; we may be short-sighted about various ills of society that we aren’t conscious of yet, that the Holy Spirit still is reforming us about.  It’s not that Christ-followers are going to be perfect examples, all the time, of love, peace, kindness, patience, & steadfastness, for example.  And yes, it sells papers and draws viewers to reveal failings in dramatic ways.

Yet, do we need to give them so much ammunition? 

It bothers me that the name “Christian” is linked with narrowness of thought, rejection of differences, one-issue judgementalism, a freedom to make sexist and racist comments - and behaviors; a covering up of blatant sin; a rejection of scientific exploration and knowledge; and even a rejection of scholarship and good thinking.  Christianity has a reputation nowadays that is not attractive to thinking and caring people.  Many of our own children, raised in our congregations, don’t like what Christians have come to represent.  Sometimes I don’t like saying that I’m a Christian - not because I’m ashamed of my faith or of Jesus, but because I don’t want to be lumped with those more extremist folks who make the news.  Reporters and bloggers seem to think all Christians are summed up in these limited views, and don’t see that there are other Christians who reject that way of being Christian.  Somehow, we are not communicating or living the beauty and depth of Jesus’  truth, and the transforming message that he taught.

I’ve found myself wishing there was another name I could call myself, as the name “Christian” has become so stereotyped, and in a negative way.  Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry likes to say he’s part of the Episcopal branch of the Jesus Movement. You may have noticed that I often use the descriptive  phrase, “Christ-follower.”  Early converts to following Christ called their new lifestyle of God’s kindom, “The Way,” ie the Way of Jesus, the Jesus Way.  I’ve heard some believers in Christ talk about being on the Jesus Path.  After all, the name “Christian” was coined in the town of Ephesus, by that city’s population in talking about the gathering of folks Paul converted in his missionary work there.

I admit that I do feel some shame in wanting to distance myself from some who also claim to follow Christ - although I don’t like the way Christ’s message is being presented by them.  I’d like to feel a greater unity of purpose with those who do theology differently; I almost feel more tolerance toward those who don’t attend worship but are truly seeking a path to wholeness and living in ways that treat people right and value the environment - than I do with some other Christians who I feel are bringing our faith into disrepute, and misrepresenting the life I feel Jesus calls us to. 

 

Another problem I see in what is called mainline Christianity is that of yet another stereotype - the well-dressed, two-parent suburban family,  middle class, white, culturally conservative, nice people who attend worship pretty regularly  - - but who don’t seem to carry what they hear over into their ways of doing business, or their respect of people of different races or genders, who don’t feel the need to confront their own angers, or sexual behaviors, or greed, or other ways of living that are not according to what Jesus says about the kindom of God. 

In fact, they may not even recognize these things as problems in their lives.  Not that we don’t all have our blind spots, and not that we grow into a greater sensitivity as we walk longer with God. 

            It’s more that being a Christian has become a rather shallow stereotype - a nice person who doesn’t rock the boat, is a good citizen, gives to charity, loves their children, helps some neighbors - it’s like attending worship and being a nice person has become what a Christian is… and which is NOT all that following Christ means at all!  Many of these good folks were baptized and confirmed, and seem to think they’ve done the Christian thing and don’t have to worry about it anymore - don’t need any more knowledge of Scripture, don’t need any more wrestling with issues, don’t need to look inside any more as to their values & behaviors, don’t need to question any more, don’t need to be challenged any more, because “been there, done that.”  

I sometimes ask myself, where are the elders in faith who have wrestled with life’s problems who have faced the disorders of loss or grief or other challenges to faith, and have come out with a deeper love and understanding, a stronger trust in God?  Our children need to see that there’s more to God than attending worship and being a nice American.  Where are those who have done even what the 12-step groups see as basic to turning one’s life around -

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Where are the Elders who are seeking authenticity with God, who are seeking a vision of unity and peace and justice?  Who are following the Jesus Way - letting God’s Spirit transform their hearts, heal their hurts - and resisting being conformed to the world?  Who are cultivating a relationship with God through prayer and reflection, who are working to let their life be that holy sacrifice to God, wholly submitted to God?

So many seem to look at Christianity as a box to be checked off, a creed learned, a set of precepts nodded to.  Following Christ is actually a life-long journey, a path with curves and stumbles and sometimes a wonderful vision - a dynamic, unfolding path of Christ being formed in us, and bringing that inner transformation out into the world not just in our personal life, but in our living and seeking of justice and peace in the world.  Christianity tells of who we are, how God means for us to live for the world to be saved; and it tells the truth about how difficult this is, struggling with how our inner nature wants to go its own way; and how God continually reaches out in love so that this new life may become a reality. 

I have some hope that this covid-19 crisis might be a time when the church of Jesus Christ finds a new vision of what it means to follow the Jesus Way; what it means to be Christ’s body - the Church; that perhaps in the changes forced on us we don’t just settle for going back to the way we’ve always done it, but that the Spirit uses this time of upset to reorder our understandings, reorder our thinking, reorder our inner and outer living of the kindom.  AMEN.

From Order to Disorder (a la Richard Rohr) 8/16/20 Pentecost 11A

 

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

FROM ORDER TO DISORDER ( a la Richard Rohr)

8/16/20    Pentecost 11 A

Our texts this morning have to do with two people who have deep encounters with their own mortality and human suffering, and yet their trust in God carries them to a deeper place of relationship and trust.

The first text is about that cosseted and beloved youngest son named Joseph, who in our text last week was taken from the bosom and the security of that family where he was favored and given gifts, and then seized by his envious siblings and almost killed - but instead was sold as a slave to merchants in a caravan headed to Egypt.  Last week we imagined what it must’ve been like for Joseph to unexpectedly have his safe, normal world shattered, and find himself in a threatening and unknown place.  The Bible gives us no glimpse into what kind of despair he may have fallen into, what kind of anguish and betrayal he felt; and we compared it with the disorientation and crisis we felt, waking up in a different world of Covid-19.  The passage this morning about Joseph's revelation of who he is to his brothers could have been one of anger and revenge - we are almost shocked that instead he offers welcome, and forgiveness with tears - and surprisingly is able to say that though they meant it for evil, it was God who sent him before them in Egypt to prepare the way for  saving the whole tribe.  How did he get to this deep level of trust in God?

I think we can assume that Joseph’s initial reactions to his brother’s betrayal and slavery in Egypt were more along the lines of “Why me, God?” and anger and even despair of faith and life. He was still a young man, and his reactions were probably what ours would be. That he comes out in such a faithful and believing place years later tells us that he did some wrestling with God in the tradition of his father whose name was changed to “Strives with God,” Isra-El.  He’s come out at a very deep, deep place, a very mature place.  One doesn’t get to this level of acceptance by trite phrases and pretending, nor by denying the pain - one only comes out here after great struggles, honest prayer; bringing all one feels to God.  Evidently Joseph found a deep well of faith - a deep trust that God cared and heard his cries. 

The Canaanite woman, from our Matthew text, is also facing a difficult thing and crying out to Jesus. No parent wants to face what she did - the suffering of her child, especially when she can do absolutely nothing about it. This kind of thing wrings a parents’ heart, a mother’s heart, when some part of us that is so beloved is beyond our help. The Scripture says her daughter was possessed by a demon, which we don’t quite understand, but we DO know that the woman feels so helpless before her daughter’s suffering that she comes to this Jewish healer to cry out, cry out, cry out for help.   That she is Canaanite, and therefore a Gentile, doesn’t deter her - her distress about her daughter sends her calling out to Jesus, AND THEN SENDS HER TO HER KNEES BEFORE HIM.

This text has always kind of bothered me… Jesus’ disciples want to send her away, and even Jesus seems to be rude to her.  I’ve not known how to take his words that seem to point out the cultural divide between Jews and Canaanites. I'm more comfortable with the story of Jesus and the woman at the well, who’s a Samaritan - another cultural divide - but Jesus asks her to draw water for him and talks with her.  In this encounter with the Canaanite mother, however, Jesus is rather confrontive - and yet, she comes back at him!  Sometimes I think I can hear Jesus’ words in a way similar to the way a boyfriend’s dad told me gruffly, “Shut the door, were you raised in a barn?” My boyfriend said that meant he liked me.  What I DO see is that she persists -  She challenges Jesus with his own words. “I can’t give the children’s food to dogs,” he says; she quips, “Even the dogs get crumbs that fall from the table.” And then Jesus acknowledges her deep faith - and her daughter is healed.

**********************

           

            I'm going to come at this from a different place for a minute - this week we tallied the 62 surveys that you all have returned (and will get the summaries and observations out pretty soon).  Some things won’t be a surprise, like that over half of our congregation are over 70.  If we add in those in their 60s we get close to ⅔; add in those in their 50s and we get over ¾.  Looking at this statistic, it's probably safe to assume that many of us have experienced life-shattering events like Joseph and this Canaanite mom.  We’ve done our own wrestling with fears and doubts, we’ve felt hopeless and perhaps despairing of life. We’ve come face to face with our own mortality.  The covid-19 crisis is probably not the first time we’ve feared death, although the national and global aspects of this pandemic are new and also fearful.  We’ve faced cancer and other diseases, we’ve felt helpless about a beloved child’s situation, we’ve been through sudden changes and loss. Knowing somewhat about people, I might guess that we haven’t talked out loud about these deep and scary feelings with other people, but kept them private. 

Yet it's true that we’ve had times when our own anguish has been cried out to God, when we’ve wrestled with the “Why me?” question, when our faith and trust in God has been challenged by our loss, our anger, or perhaps feelings of betrayal.  Maybe we’ve had to quit going to church for a while; maybe we’ve not been able to pray the way we had before, and we’ve just not prayed.   

            I hope, friends, that we HAVE been bold to cry out our pain and fears to God, like that Canaanite woman did.  I hope that we have had the courage to be like our faith ancestors Jacob, who wrestled with God - and earned the name Isra-el, “Strives with God.”  We can tell that Joseph followed in his father’s path, because we can see its results in the words of faith and trust that he speaks in today’s texts.  People don’t get to an authentic trust like that without struggle.  Even our own Jesus wrestled in the garden before he was arrested, and the Scripture says he even sweat drops of blood - I can’t imagine what that would be like.  He didn’t try to ignore or deny the struggle - he endured it, spoke it, wrestled with it.  And finally Jesus found that place of submission where he could say, “Not my will but yours be done.”  And to be able to say later, “Into your hands I commit my spirit.”  That’s a deep and mature faith.

            We don’t get to that level of faith by denying our pain; we don’t find that level of trust by saying  a trite, “Just praise the Lord.”  We don’t gain that place of resting in God by repeating phrases like ‘I guess it's God’s will,’ or ‘God needed another angel,’ or ‘every cloud has a silver lining.’  We only get there through bringing to God the cries of our heart, the anguish of our spirit, the despair of our gut, the pain of our confusion and loss.  Only this honesty before God in prayer is the path of insight and deepening faith.  Only this trusting of God with our harshest feelings, trusting that God can take it and that God won’t abandon us - only this authentic crying out, like the Canaanite woman, only this level of encounter with the source of life and our creator leads to the ability to say with Joseph that God’s hand was in this; and leads to the place where Jesus could say, Into your hands I commit my spirit.      

So we’ve come to a very deep place following these texts today.  We’ve talked out loud about some very private things.  We’ve touched on some scary thoughts and feelings that come from our deepest places inside, from when we’ve had to face those scary moments of helplessness, lack of control, imminent danger of loss of life. I remember the fear and confusion and denial when I heard the “cancer” word...and I certainly wrestled with God about it.  This hospitalization the other week was another reminder of my mortality - when  I read my discharge papers,  it hit me that things could have gone really bad really quickly, and I could have died.  Suddenly, no warning, no time to prepare.  I think I’m still processing that - it’s still new.          

Covid continues to be a reminder of mortal issues, too - reading the stories of people’s suffering and struggle to breathe, reading the heart-rending accounts of people dying without their families - and families unable to be with their own beloved ones.  Those fears linger in the back of our minds, especially if we don’t talk about them.

            I hope, my friends, that we are bringing these kinds of cries to God, and not glossing over them with trite sayings and pretended assurances.  This time is an opportunity for us to pray in depth, and wrestle with our creator about ultimate issues, cry out our fears; and find beneath our feet the rock of our salvation, find the depth and solidity of faith, the assurance of trust in God’s care and love.  When we are moved by the stories we read, I hope we are sharing that with God.  When we cough and are suddenly afraid we’ve caught the virus, I hope we’re taking all that fear to God. 

            God loves us, God cares for us, God knows our standing up and our sitting down, our going out and coming in (Ps 139), the words that are on our tongue before we say them.  God knows the number of hairs on our heads and the number of stars in the universe. God even came to our suffering world in Jesus, to show us the vision of living in God’s kingdom and offer us restoration.  We are not alone, and being in God’s hands is the safest place to be ever.  Joseph remembered that and held onto it.  The unnamed Canaanite mom reached out for it.  We can, too.  AMEN.

A Crisis Can Grow Faith 8/9/20 Pentecost 10A

 

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

A CRISIS CAN GROW FAITH

8/9/20     Pentecost 10A 

          It's great to be back with you all again in this online gathering this week and next week - and I look forward to gathering in person for worship in the parking lot comin up in a couple weeks, the 23rd and 30th of August!  Obviously I didn’t plan to be away for the last 2 weeks - things happen to people, one of my favorite phrases in life - things happen, unanticipated, unplanned, and throw normal things into crisis and change. An infection I was treating suddenly took a turn, and my body’s response to the infection took a turn, and there I was in the hospital and even the ICU for a few days.  Whew! 

            It happened to Joseph, favored son from a favored wide, the last & youngest son of Jacob, of whom we’ve been reading in our Hebrew Scriptures the last month.  Jacob the trickster, whose wrestling with God gave him the new name of Israel - Isra-el - one who wrestles with God.  And, of course, the names of the large group of ancestors known as Israelites, and even in our day, the name of a middle-eastern nation, Israel.  Joseph’s brothers resent him, as the favored and youngest; and in the text we read today, when dad sends Joseph out to take his brothers some food, they decide they’ve had enough of Joseph and think about killing him and blaming  it on wild animals.  Brother Reuben succeeds in mitigating it a bit, so they just throw him in a pit with no water - which probably will result in Joseph’s death unless someone finds him - but at least they won’t have done murder with their hands…..Then a caravan or merchants on the way to Egypt is sighted, so they pull Joseph up and sell him, make some bucks.  Whatever, Joseph is out of their life. 

            Imagine being Joseph - things happen to people indeed!  He’s been a rather self-assured young man, he’s had some dreams that seem to mean folks will bow down to him someday, so he might be rather pompous about it...who knows.  Imagine that Dad sends you out with some food to where the older brothers are watching herds, and suddenly your special coat is stripped off you, and your life is in danger. Your brothers’ hatred of you rises up and gets acted out.  Then, when you are despairing of your life, suddenly you are hauled up and out of the pit and given to merchants as a slave to sell in a foreign country.  What a crisis in Joseph’s life indeed!  One day a favored son who gets special presents from Dad, the next day marching with slavers to who knows what. 

            Joseph’s story goes on, and we might remember it from Sunday School.  We’ll be reading some of that story over the next weeks.  Lots of changes happen to Joseph, but it seems his faith in God endures, and he ends up, yes, in a position where he actually saves his whole family.  Years later, of course. 

            In our text from the gospel of Matthew, Jesus’ followers are suddenly in a crisis - crossing the sea of Galilee, they are suddenly in a squall and being battered by wind and waves - and Jesus is not there.  Jesus had stayed behind to pray, and would be joining them later - if they make it, that is! Jesus further freaks them out by walking on the stormy water to get to them - and when he gets in the boat, the storm calms.  They are not really without Jesus. 

            These seem like good Scriptures for us to ponder with all the changes flying around us, largely due to the covid virus.  It looks like there are still a lot of adjustments to a new way of life - things are going to be different for the foreseeable future.  We’re having to let go of our hopes that things will go back to “normal”... We’re unsure of how the virus is going to be controlled, and how school and work will go, how the economy will go, how racial issues will go, how the election will go…..there’s a lot to worry us and raise our anxiety as the situation changes so rapidly.   We can feel for Joseph; we can feel for Jesus’ followers in their small boat battling the huge storm outside.

 

Where is God when these kinds of crises happen?   Where is God when unanticipated and unplanned things happen, and our plans are turned upside down?  Where is God when things outside our control upend everything, and we feel alone in a little boat on a wild sea, or we find ourselves being taken to a new country and not treated well?  When the skills and things we know how to do to cope, suddenly don’t work, or are not effective? 

We might feel abandoned by God, or let down or angry, because we were not spared or protected.  We prayed, we attended church, we cared for others, we gave offerings - maybe we expected God to make everything okay for us, protect us, spare us, because we were doing the right things.  But it didn’t happen - things happened to us. Perhaps our old way of understanding faith is challenged. 

I think perhaps that’s what’s going on in folks who say it's okay to not wear masks, because God will take care of them - that to wear a mask means we fear God won’t protect us, and is a lack of faith.  They can’t seem to deal with the reality of the situation because they insist on the way they’ve thought of God as protecting them from earthly things - that’s what faith means to them, and they won’t move past that. 

If that’s the way faith has seemed to work in our minds, it’s a difficult challenge to deal with the reality of a pandemic virus that can infect and kill believers in God, as well and easily as it infects and kills anyone. 

These are the kinds of crises that make us wrestle with God as Jacob/Israel did.  Is God at fault?  Has God let us down?  Abandoned us?  Or might it be that our understanding of God and faith was too limited, too small, and mistaken?  That we made assumptions about faith and God and misunderstood?  So then, what IS the right way to walk in faith and trust?  What DOES faith mean?

Faith in God doesn’t make human life and human ills not happen to us - that isn’t what being in the body of Christ means.  We’re humans, and things will happen to us, things in common with all humans.  We can get cancer; we can have a child who is an alcoholic; we might lose our job or be mistreated by a boss or cheated on by a spouse.  If the water is polluted, we as well as all humans take in that pollution and our bodies suffer.  If a hurricane knocks the power out, our power goes out, too.  If some strange virus jumps over the animal to human border, we are part of that humanity.  If our national economy tanks, our own finances take a dive, too.  If the way of life we’ve assumed works well for us is revealed as not working well for people of color, and they rise up in anger, that’s our reality, too.  We live on earth. 

And on earth is where God works, here and now.  Jesus walks through the storm to be with us.  God loves us, and will always be with us.  Nothing can separate us from God -  not grief, nor covid, nor loss, nor betrayal, nor illness, nor anything!  God is with us when things happen to us - we’re not spared any human ills, but God walks through it with us - we are not alone. We can persevere with God in us, among us, with us - we can find creative responses, we can endure and hold onto God’s truth.  We can adapt as needed, we can overcome. 

As a pastor, I've talked with people who have left churches because they prayed for their dad but he died. Or that some other prayed wasn’t answered like they wanted - they prayed diligently, too, and were trying to live according to what the church taught them.  But they couldn’t get past the feeling that God let them down - somehow they couldn’t make that turn to say, “Maybe it’s me that has misunderstood.”  They wouldn’t wrestle; they were too angry. 

Jacob/Israel said to that man he wrestled with, “I will not let you go until you bless me!” He hung in there with God, insisting on working it out.  And God hung in there with him, too, and didn’t just leave and say, “Too bad!”   Job hung in there with God, even with his massive losses and grief that he longed to understand.  Joseph evidently hung in there with what he knew of God, and was able to say years later, “You meant it for evil, but God used it for good.” Jesus’ followers learned to hang in there, too, even trying to walk on water like Jesus did - Peter managed a few steps before he looked too much at the storm. 

So something has happened to us people right now - it doesn’t mean God is punishing us, or God has left us or anything like that - God still loves us, God still is with us. The truths of faith are sure, and God will walk with us through these storms.  Yes, we wear our masks, wash our hands, and stay a certain distance away as ways to mitigate the spread of this thing.  But our call to faith is still true, our call to mission is still true, our compassion for the “least of these” as the Bible puts it, is still true.  We are still Christ’s church, we still gather for worship.  We still love one another.  We still care for our whole community and our country… and our world.  God walks with us and makes us strong even if things happen to us.  AMEN.