[QHC] We are the Body of Christ

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 (NRSV)

Content notes: mention of (no dwelling, no details) suicidality, self-harm, eating disorders, getting kicked out by your family, sexual assault

Now, will you pray with me? May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of all our hearts, be acceptable to you oh God, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

You've probably heard this list of spiritual gifts many times before, but I want to focus on this verse near the end, verse 27 -- "Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it."

YOU are the Body of Christ.

The 16th-century Spanish mystic Teresa of Avila wrote:

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

She is asserting that we are the means by which Christ's ministry of good work in the world continues:

Yours are the eyes with which [Christ] looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which [Christ] walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which [Christ] blesses all the world.

All the work that Jesus did -- siting at table with people, healing people, blessing people -- we are called to continue that work.

Paul is clear that we all have different gifts -- prophecy, teaching, healing, assisting, leading...

But I think that two of the gifts that Teresa of Avila highlights -- looking compassion on the world and blessing the world -- are gifts that we can ALL cultivate.

In her book An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith, Barbara Brown Taylor asserts that, “a blessing does not confer holiness. The holiness is already there” (p. 203).

Can we look with compassion on all that is around us and recognize the holiness therein? Can we recognize that holiness in ourselves? She suggests practicing by blessing everyone and everyTHING that you come across -- it doesn't have to hear you, the important part is cultivating a practice in yourself of acknowledging the holy.

"Notice what happens inside you," she writes, "as the blessing goes out of you, toward something that does not deserve it, that may even repel it. If you can bless a stinking dump, surely someone can bless you. (p. 203)

Of course, the Beatitudes we are all so familiar with -- "Blessed are the meek," etc. -- do not merely say, "The meek are holy," they contain promises -- "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." Taylor writes, "To pronounce a blessing is to participate in God's own initiative. To pronounce a blessing is to share God's own audacity." (p. 206)

These promises are glimpses of Kindom life, of what the fully redeemed Creation we are all working toward will look like.

Blessed are the sex workers, for they shall know pleasure without obligation.

Blessed are the queer kids kicked out of their homes, for they shall know the deep love of found family.

Blessed are the trans women of color, for they shall know bodies in which they are truly safe and at home.

In the long farewell discourse in the Gospel of John, Jesus is reported to have said, "Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these" (12:14).

It's easy to explain this as meaning that the later generations would convert even greater numbers of people or something like that, but I don't think that Jesus was so limited about what great works would entail.

I think that Jesus meant that we who came after would go even farther into radically transforming the world into one of God's delight, one where each and every one of God's children grows up in a community of care, with emotional support and health care and joyful play and meaningful work, with enough resources to comfortably sustain ourselves and those we love.

And we are all, together, the Body of Christ, reaching out our calloused hands and nursing breasts and singing voices, bringing the Kindom of God, little by little, closer to reality here on earth.

And even though we or others might say that we are not really part of the Body, because we are not like other parts of the Body -- we don't look like them, we don't act like them, we don't have their gifts -- Paul asserts:

If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. (vv. 15-16)

If someone says: Because you are not heterosexual, you do not belong to the Body...

If you say, Because I am suicidal, I do not belong to the Body...

If someone says: Because you have sex in exchange for drugs, you do not belong to the Body...

If you say, Because I cut and starve myself, I do not belong to the body...

Paul is there to say, no, you have been baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and you are a new Creation in Christ Jesus. You are God's beloved.

And Paul even goes so far as to point out here that "the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect" (vv. 22-23).

It is precisely those the world seeks to dismiss that God says are most precious.

If we are the Body of Christ, then that means that our bodies are the body of Christ. Our queer, female, Black, brown, disabled, trans, bodies.

Jesus walked the earth as a particular Palestinian Jew read by the culture as male, but the Body of Christ is our body.

Jesus brought something of that consciousness -- of what it is to live our particular embodied experience, our sexuality, our chronic pain, our gender, our sexual assault, our trauma -- to Jesus' time on earth two thousand years ago. In the way that only God can do, Jesus carried the experiences of billions of humans in one body. And in the way that humans are limited, Jesus didn't necessarily always get it right -- we can talk another time about how I'm not in love with Jesus -- but still, however so slightly, something of each of us informed the Jesus we read about in the Gospels.

Paul says in Romans, "For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another." (12:4-5)

We are members of one another. We belong to one another. We are responsible to and for one another.

This may mean blessing silently from a distance, this may mean offering the work and kindness of our hands, but whatever it is, it is always embodied, for we are embodied. And Paul's use of the image of the human body to describe the church universal, to describe our union with Christ, reminds us that our bodies are precious gifts from God, deeply beloved by God, and reflected in Jesus Christ. In this broken world, our bodies often fail or frustrate us, but let no one tell you that your body, or what you do with your body, makes you any less precious to the God who created, redeemed, and sustains us.

Amen.

[Jesus and Kink] Thomas and Jesus' wounds

Apparently our current Rest and re/New series topic is "ways to/of faith," and this Wednesday (April 11) we began with our bodies/senses.

This upcoming Sunday (Easter 2), the lectionary Gospel is the story of Thomas who refuses to believe without touching the wounds of the Risen Christ.

Jeff said he thinks Thomas gets a bad rep. (I was reminded that at EDS' Second Sunday ~service on Easter Sunday, Eda said she wishes we would call "Doubting Thomas" e.g. "different epistemology Thomas" -- he just has a different learning style :) )

First he pointed out that no one else in John's post-Resurrection story had believed without evidence. Mary finds the empty tomb, runs and tells Simon Peter and the beloved disciple, who come to the empty tomb and also do not believe.

(I pointed out that John tells us the beloved disciple believed, he just didn't understand -- at H!PS on Monday, Becky had preached on Ecclesiastes 3 and John 20:1-16, and in reading the John I was struck, as I always am, by John telling us that the beloved disciple believed and then in the very next sentence telling us that they did not yet understand that Jesus had to rise from the dead [which makes me ask: so what did the beloved disciple believe?!].)

Jesus appears to Mary in the garden, who goes and tells the disciples: "I have seen the Risen One!" John doesn't explicitly tell us that the disciples don't believe Mary, but the next story we read is of Jesus appearing to the disciples locked up in the room, who THEN go on to proclaim, "We have seen the Risen One!" And Thomas just has the misfortune of not being in that room.

Jeff M. went on to say that Thomas wants more than to just see -- Thomas also wants to touch; Thomas wants a Close Encounter not just of the First kind but of the Third kind (though looking at that scale, I think it maybe doesn't mean exactly what Jeff M. was presenting it as meaning).

He said there's lots of art of the scene -- with Thomas sort of poking at Jesus' wounds, and that seems almost pornographic to him... that he imagines it as more of an embrace.

He talked about Jesus' willingness to let Thomas touch Jesus' "most intimate, most vulnerable, most wounded places," which I found a really powerful framing.

I was reminded of the "Jesus and Kink" series we'd talked about last week*, and the thoughts/conversations I'd had since then about how to do such a series. I'm less interested in proof-texting that Jesus condones/endorses kink than I am in the really queer ways people have engaged with Scripture/Divinity -- like the polyvalences of Christ's wounds ... interaction with bodily orifices as sexual, interactions with wounds as kink, the ways in which Jesus' blood on the Cross can be coded as generative/reproductive, the ways in which fluid-producing orifices can be coded as feminine, etc., etc.

I'm making my way through my best friend's copy of Queer Theology: Rethinking Western Body (ed. Gerard Loughlin), and in Chapter 7, Gerard Loughlin says, "for all these elements [Averil Cameron's 'central elements in orthodox Christianity -- the Incarnation, the Resurrection, the Trinity, the Virgin Birth, and the Eucharist'], the body is not just a symbol of their truth, but the site where it is realized."

---

*Before Rest and re/New last Wednesday (April 4), Keith and Jeff M. were talking about doing a Mindfulness series next (in a way which suggested it was continuing a conversation they'd had previously). Keith talked about maybe using the upstairs Sanctuary space. And then I don't know how we got there exactly, but Keith was joking about Jesus on the cross and hitting people with reeds.

me: "I don't think that would exactly draw the kind of crowd you're looking for."
Jeff M.: "Oh, it would definitely draw a crowd. (This is Davis Square, after all.)"
me: "Oh, I know -- that's what I was getting at. I just don't think it would be quite the crowd you're looking for."
Keith and Jeff M.: [make noises about being an inclusive and welcoming, big tent kind of church]
Jeff M.: (deadpan) "Jesus and Kink is our next series after Mindfulness."
me: "If I thought you were being serious, I would be so excited -- but you're not."
Jeff M.: "How do you know I'm not?"

"Therefore we should have priests appropriately ready to recognize and accept the Son of God when he returns as a daughter."

FCS's Advent theme this year is "misrule" -- about holy upside-downings, "turning our ideas about power and privilege upside down," to quote from Molly's Advent and Christmas 2011 letter.

One of the themes of Advent is that Christ doesn't come in the way we expect.

I've told just about everyone about my best friend's lesbian Christology, but I was definitely pleasantly surprised to encounter something like it in my Pauli Murray reading.

Back in 1973, in my first interview with the suffragan bishop of Massachusetts. the Rt. Rev. Morris F. Anderson (known as "Ben"), in charge of candidates for Holy Orders, made a comment to me, and he repeated this comment at the time of his retirement in his reflections "On Being a Bishop" (Massachusetts Episcopal Times, November 1981, 7). He writes:

At New Orleans I made my first speech in the House of Bishops. I followed [Bishop] Kim Meyers [who has died since then], who was at the time speaking against the ordination of women. I said just as I envisioned the Second Coming of Christ in terms of a person of a different race, in order to proclaim the fullness of God and his love, I could envision the Second Coming of Christ as a member of a different sex. Therefore we should have priests appropriately ready to recognize and accept the Son of God when he returns as a daughter. This is a bit radical for the House of Bishops in those days.

-p. 49 of Pauli Murray: Selected Sermons and Writings, selected and edited by Anthony B. Pinn; from a sermon Pauli Murray preached on September 12, 1982, at the Church of the Holy Nativity in Baltimore, Maryland (located in the Pauli Murray Papers, box 65, folder 1106, Schlesinger Library, Harvard University)

My denomination is now the behindest.

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) approves change in ordination standard
‘submission to the lordship of jesus christ’ replaces ‘fidelity and chastity’

Yeah, I have lots of thoughts about that :D

John 4:5-42 (in which Jesus does not have to be male)

I would like to tell you a story.

This story begins with a well. It’s called Jacob’s well. It’s in the Samaritan city of Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob gave his favored child, Joseph -- Joseph who was the youngest but one of twelve sons, but the firstborn of Joseph’s favored wife, Rachel. The story doesn’t tell us why this well was called Jacob’s Well -- though its listeners might have recalled how Jacob met his beloved wife-to-be at a well. Tomorrow’s lectionary* brings us the story of Abraham’s steward finding a wife for Abraham’s beloved child Isaac at a well -- Isaac who would be Jacob’s father.

This story begins with a person named Jesus, tired from a journey, sitting by this well, at noontime.

This story begins with a Samaritan woman. She has come to the well at noontime to draw water.

Jesus says to the woman: “Give me a drink.” The teller of this story informs us that the disciples, those who have been companions with Jesus on this long journey, have gone into the city to buy food.

Now maybe this Jesus was a man -- and listeners’ expectations were that this would be a marriage story, like Jacob and Rachel, like Isaac and Rebekah. Maybe this Jesus was a man, and the woman felt unsafe, alone out there on the edge of town with a strange man.

Maybe this Jesus was a woman. Maybe the Samaritan woman felt safe from threat of violence because this was another woman. Maybe the Samaritan woman felt apprehensive, wondering what would bring a woman alone to this well at midday (her knowledge of why she came not keeping her from speculation about this stranger).

Maybe this Jesus was a large cat like C. S. Lewis would write about so many centuries later, and the woman was afraid, because Aslan is NOT a Tame Lion.

One might expect any of these things. But what this woman saw, the piece of Jesus’ identity that spoke to her so strongly that she spoke it aloud, was that Jesus was a Jew.

Jesus was a Jew, and she was a Samaritan. Both peoples claimed Mosaic lineage, but the two peoples had broken off long ago, and now they didn’t so much as speak to each other.

This woman says to Jesus, “YOU? ask ME? for a drink of water? Do you not notice who we are? We haven’t invented segregated drinking fountains yet, but that’s basically what’s going on here. What do you think you’re doing?”

Jesus patiently replies, “If you knew the generosity of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked me, and I would have given you living water.”

The woman bites her lip on the ridiculousness of this. She calls Jesus, “Sir,” or, “M’lady,” or some other honorific to soften the scoffing remark she is about to make -- “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and who drank from it with his children and livestock?”

Jesus says, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

This sounds intriguing. A little impossible, but intriguing nonetheless. This time the woman’s use of an honorific is less sarcastic, more petitionary. “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Jesus smiles at her unreadably and says, “Go, call your spouse, and come back.”

A bit downcast now -- or perhaps a bit on-guard, a bit cagey -- the woman replies, “I have no spouse.”

Jesus says to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no spouse;’ for you have been married five times, and you are not married to your current partner. What you have said is true.”

Taking a deep breath and using the honorific one last time, the woman says, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet.” And what do you do if you end up in conversation with a prophet? Why not ask them for a decision on the major schism in your religious life? So she says, “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but your people say that the place where everyone must worship is in Jerusalem.”

Jesus says, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Parent of us all, Maker of Heaven and Earth, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we Jews worship what we know, for God's way of salvation is made available through the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Divine Parent in spirit and truth. Indeed, it is just such worshipers whom the Divine Parent seeks. God is spirit, and those who worship God must worship in spirit and truth.”

The woman says to Jesus, “I know that the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One, is coming -- who upon arriving will proclaim all things to us.”

Jesus replies, “I who speak to you am the Messiah.”

The dramatic pause here is interrupted by the return of the disciples. They are astonished that Jesus is speaking with this woman, but no one comes out and says, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?”

Taking her cue, the woman leaves her water jar and returns to the city. She says to the people, “Come and see someone who told me everything I have ever done! Could this be the Messiah?” The people leave the city and go to Jesus.

Meanwhile the disciples are urging Jesus, “Rabbi, eat something.”

But Jesus says, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

So the disciples ask one another, “Surely no one has brought Jesus something to eat?”

Jesus says to them, “The food that keeps me going is doing the will of the One who sent me and bringing this work to completion.

“Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor at harvest time.”

As if to explain this saying of Jesus’, the story returns us to the people of the city. Many Samaritans from that city believe in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony, “This one told me everything I have ever done.” So when they come to Jesus, they ask Jesus to stay with them; and Jesus stays there two days. And many more believe because of Jesus’ word. They say to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

***

*For values of "tomorrow" that are true if you are using the RCL and are operating as if I'm telling this story on Sunday Lent 3A 2011.

One of these days I will have a sermon for Lent 3A 2011, but today is not that day.

My best friend’s lesbian christology is what first started me thinking of Jesus as other than always-default-male, and continues to be foundational in my continuing explorations of that.

For helping to spur and/or shape this particular retelling, thanks also to: Molly’s friend Val (who told a folktale at Molly’s Peach Fuzz Party on Saturday), Support Pastor Ian H., Chris D., and Julia W. (and Ian T. for Lenten weekday morning prayer).

Thanks to The Inclusive Bible and Eugene Peterson’s The Message for some phrasing assists (and to the NRSV for providing the base text).

God as Lover

At Sacred Eros last night, we talked about language, and one of the topics we got onto was language for God. The facilitator mentioned America's Four Gods: What We Say about God--and What That Says about Us and the fact that one model that wasn't present was God as Lover.

One participant mentioned that she was raised Catholic and she thinks many of the greatest saints understood God as Lover. I was dubious/surprised and asked whom she would list. (In my head I thought, "Julian of Norwich? John Donne?")

She listed:
* St. Francis of Assisi
* St. Thérèse of Lisieux
* Thomas Aquinas (I might be remembering this one wrong -- could be another Thomas; edit: though another person has since confirmed his inclusion in this list)
* St. Catherine of Siena
* St. Faustina

The facilitator mentioned Milton.

In conversation today, bff listed:
* Gregory of Nyssa
* Teresa of Ávila

I'm now really curious whom else people might list -- and they don't have to be canonized saints (or even operating within the Christian tradition -- we discussed Sufi mystics a bit last night).

Feel free also to just discuss the concept of God as Lover -- historically, personally, whatever (bff and I discussed nuns as Brides of Christ, for example, which moved into discussion of women's sexuality and self-understandings thereof).

Edit: Running list of mentions by other people:
* Margery Kempe
* Hildegard of Bingen
* St. John of the Cross
* "My Beloved Is Mine and I Am His" by Francis Quarles
* St. Augustine
* Patti Smith
* Mechthild of Magdeburg
* Gertrud of Helfta
* Agnes Blannbekin
* Heinrich Seuse ("who is particularly interesting as one aspect of how he understands his relationship with Christ in terms of a knight serving a lady")
* the "Jesus is my boyfriend" subset of contemporary Christian music
* Robinson Jeffers's "Roan Stallion"

"In filling a role that is part pastor, scholar and community organizer..."

Seen on facebook:

"Hendricks Chapel's first female dean is committed to social justice"

Jeremy: "Yea for T.L.!!"

Jeremy: "And wow...the comments are RIDICULOUS on that article."

Jeremy: "Oh man. Comment of the day RE: Cambridge Welcoming Ministries : "this group appears to be an informal front group for various labor unions and environmental groups." LOL!!!!"

Sean: "This is one of the best thing anyone has ever said about my church!"

***

I told my housemate, who literally went \o/ and said, "Yeah! You're a socialist front!" and told me I needed to blog this :)

I'm going to have to make this myself, too, aren't I?

Thanks to a conversation with a friend, I now want a website with the official polity, judicial precedent, etc. of all denominations on full inclusion of GLBT persons (ordination, membership, etc.).

[unpreached sermon #7] Last Sunday of Year B - November 22, 2009

Last Sunday of Year B - November 22, 2009

2 Samuel 23:1-7
Psalm 132:1-12
Revelation 1:4b-8
John 18:33-37

I forget that the Sunday before Advent is "Christ the King" or "Reign of Christ."  Apparently I also have a Thanksgiving option, as my country observes that holiday this coming week.  But of course you know which one I picked.

The Transgender Day of Remembrance was this Friday.  I admit to DateFail and had longstanding plans to go see a folksinger perform, having forgotten that November 20th is the Transgender Day of Remembrance.  My privilege, let me show you it.  And I chose to keep that commitment -- in part because I was going with my mom, whom I wanted to spend time with; and also because I know I'm antisocial and probably wouldn't hike out to Allston even if I stayed in town.  But I felt kind of guilty about my choice all week.

I know at Cambridge Welcoming Ministries we have talked about how it's problematic that the one time that we (the queer and allied community) specifically remember trans people is at a memorial service.  What kind of message does that give our young people (and our not-so-young people, for that matter)?  Hence our having a TranSpire service in February of 2008.  (I had forgotten, actually, that April 6 is Transgender Day of Empowerment.)

My best friend lives in Kansas City, and she was noting the lack of community events around the Transgender Day of Remembrance this year.  She realized that probably the people who would be involved in creating those events are the same people who are involved in the World AIDS Day events -- which is happening in just over a week on December 1 -- and commented on how it's unfortunate that these two events often get lumped together.

This season in the Northern Hemisphere already feels like a season of death -- less sunlight, colder air.  We wrap ourselves up in so many layers that we are barely recognizable, and we spend as little time as possible outside of temperature-controlled environments.  We hide from each other and from ourselves.

Having read all the week's lectionary readings, one thing that struck me when I was reading up on the Transgender Day of Remembrance was the statement: "Although not every person represented during the Day of Remembrance self-identified as transgender [...] each was a victim of violence based on bias against transgender people.."  [cite]

Our Gospel reading today is from Jesus' trial before Pilate.  Pilate keeps asking Jesus, "Are you the King of the Jews?" and Jesus never answers.  Jesus asks, "Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?"  Jesus says, "My kingdom is not from this world."  Jesus says, "You say that I am a king."  But Jesus never says, "Yes I am" or "No I am not."

Jesus wasn't necessarily crucified for who he was but rather for who he was perceived to be.

Which I think is an interesting "in" into "Christ the King" Sunday.  Jesus is not who we expect him to be.

There are things we think of when we hear the phrase "Christ the King," but that isn't necessarily what Jesus has in mind as to who he is.

(And wow do I feel really uncomfortable with all these male pronouns for Jesus.  I mean, I know that the historical Jesus was incarnate in a male body -- though one of these days my best friend's gonna write a lesbian christology -- in epic prose poem format -- and it's gonna be awesome -- but still.  I really hope someone somewhere is preaching today on a Jesus who is Sophia Wisdom as a drag king.)

And honestly, there's almost nothing about "kingship" in the actual lectionary.  Our Psalm today includes God swearing to David:

One of the children of your body
    I will set on your throne.
If your children keep my covenant
    and my decrees that I shall teach them,
their children also, for evermore,
    shall sit on your throne.
-Psalm 132 11b-12

Well, David's children didn't sit continue on his literal throne forever, so we're already operating at some sort of metaphorical level -- some level of "When we say Jesus is 'King,' we don't mean it in the way you would normally understand that word."

It feels weird to me that Christ the King Sunday comes right before Advent, and then I remembered that this is the last Sunday of Year B.  It makes sense to end the church year commemorating the fullness of the central figure of our faith.  Though it makes for a bit of whiplash that we then move in to reenacting the expectant hope for the newborn Messiah (with a side of eschatology -- awaiting the Second Coming as well).

But the fullness of the central figure of our faith is not a reification of the structures of power and hierarchy we see operating in our world.  To proclaim that Christ is King is to proclaim that Caesar is not -- to proclaim that all which has power over us now will not ultimately conquer us.

One of the things that struck me in the daily lectionary readings was from Zechariah -- Chapter 12, verse 10; and Chapter 13, verse 1:

"And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a Spirit of grace and supplication.  They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for me as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for me as one grieves for a firstborn child.  [...]  On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity."

This struck me particularly being so close to the Transgender Day of Remembrance.

One of these days, the perpetrators of violence will recognize what they have done and will mourn their actions.  We suffer, but that suffering will end.  This is the theme of a lot of the daily lectionary readings -- often phrased in ways that are uncomfortable for us, with its language of one's enemies being crushed and etc., but an overarching message which I think is important for us to hear.

In 2 Samuel, God says to David: "One who rules over people justly, ruling in the fear of God, is like the light of morning, like the sun rising on a cloudless morning, gleaming from the rain on the grassy land."  This is the kind of ruler we are supposed to see in Christ -- one who is like the light of morning.  Light in the darkness.

In the daily lectionary, we have 2 Kings about Hilkiah finding the book of the Law, and it's mostly a story I'm not all that interested in, but I like that we have a story about finding the Word of God.  Admittedly, in this story it's very Law-centered, and the punchline is about routing all the idolatrous priests, but I still like this story about finding the Word.  As our friends in the UCC say, "God is still speaking."

There is also stuff about the dwelling place of God.  In the Psalm today, I love that David swears, "I will not sleep until I have found a dwelling place for my God."  It is important for God to dwell among us.  And it is important for us to make space for that.  RJ of "when love comes to town" blog says, "There are two models of transformation in Advent: John the Baptist and the young Mary," and invites us this Advent to learn from the Marian model, to bear Christ for the world.

We are ending the Christian year and looking ahead to the next year -- Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, Ordinary Time -- periods of preparation and periods of action, periods of mourning and periods of joy, periods of confusion and periods of clarity.  This is what it is to be alive.  This is what it is to be a Christian.

As the Christian year draws to a close and we prepare to begin anew, I invite us to reflect on what it means to claim Jesus Christ as the central figure of our faith -- what it means to make a dwelling place for this figure of light and healing.

Amen.

[unpreached sermon #5] Salvation Through Relationship (Pentecost 23B)

Salvation Through Relationship

Pentecost 23 (Year B) - November 8, 2009

Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17
Psalm 127
Hebrews 9:24-28
Mark 12:38-44

In beginning to prepare for this sermon, I was reading The Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings, which summarizes Ruth 3:1-5, 4:13-17 as "Ruth wins the favor of Boaz."  I was really not excited about that, but it's not actually an accurate representation at all.

Naomi her mother-in-law said to her, "My daughter, I need to seek some security for you, so that it may be well with you.  Now here is our kinsman Boaz, with whose young women you have been working.  See, he is winnowing barley tonight at the threshing-floor.  Now wash and anoint yourself, and put on your best clothes and go down to the threshing-floor; but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking.  When he lies down, observe the place where he lies; then, go and uncover his feet and lie down; and he will tell you what to do."
    Ruth said to her, "All that you tell me I will do."

So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife.  When they came together, the Lord made her conceive, and she bore a son.
    Then the women said to Naomi, "Blessed be God, who has not left you this day without next-of-kin; and may this child's name be renowned in Israel!  This child shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age; for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has borne him."
    Then Naomi took the child and laid him in her bosom, and became his nurse.
    The women of the neighbourhood gave him a name, saying, "A son has been born to Naomi."  They named him Obed; he became the father of Jesse, the father of David.

These Sunday readings are also excerpts from Tuesday and Friday's daily lectionary.  As my best friend commented: Clearly they were the important parts of the story :)

I could do a whole annotated Book of Ruth highlighting the (potential) queerness, and that IS my preferred reading of the text, but I don't actually need to do that here.  This story isn't about Ruth and Boaz perpetuating heteronormativity; it's about Ruth becoming more fully integrated into the family; it's about restoration and sustenance for Naomi, who might otherwise have been left alone.  The Old Testament is full of exhortations to care for the widow and the orphan, because they are the most vulnerable.  Earlier in the Book of Ruth we have seen Boaz indeed be kind to Ruth, but I love that it is Naomi who makes this happen -- Naomi who has rejected her name and told those who knew her in earlier times to call her "Mara," which means bitter.  She says that she is bitter, laments that God has brought her back empty -- and yet she still seeks to provide for this foreigner who has returned with her, and tells her exactly how to go about it.

Last week we read about Ruth choosing to go with her mother-in-law rather than returning to her own people.  Here, she becomes more fully integrated into Naomi's people by partnering with Boaz.  I could use this as a segue into talking about modern life, about how regardless of the pledges you and someone else have made to each other with your hearts and souls, in order to access full legal protections, society requires something more official, like marriage -- and I hope that someone did preach that sermon, this Sunday after Election Day 2009, after the referendum on Maine's same-sex marriage law -- but that's not the sermon I'm interested in preaching right now.

She will become the ancestor of David, the greatest of all the Israelite kings -- and we Christians can't hear about Jesse and David without thinking of that other Davidic king: Jesus the Christ.  If this were a different church, I would interrupt my sermon to play part of the Hallelujah Chorus -- king of kings, and lord of lords, and he shall reign for ever and ever.  I am really really excited about Advent.

I know, I know, we don't like kings and lords -- ours is not a hierarchical God with power-over, but rather a God of an egalitarian Kin-dom.  But I can't help but be thrilled not only by the music of the Hallelujah Chorus but by its idea -- of the Creator of the world once again reigning over it, of the world being as it should be.  When I think about prayers of confession, I think about turning back to God, of the Jewish concept of teshuvah.  I think about walking with God, of God's will and our will being aligned.  And so the idea of the Reign of God doesn't necessarily conjure up for me images of some enthroned guy in the sky waving a scepter.

We're still in Hebrews for the Epistle reading.  It's getting to the point where I'm not sure which I dislike more -- that I keep having to deal with what reads to me like substitutionary blood atonement or that each week's lectionary passage seems to say the same thing.

I read Marcus Borg's The Heart of Christianity this week, and Borg argues that in the first century CE, the statement "Jesus is the sacrifice for sin" had quite a different meaning than the one that is common today.

According to temple theology, certain kinds of sin and impurities could be dealt with only through sacrifice in the temple.  Temple theology thus claimed an institutional monopoly on the forgiveness of sins; and because the forgiveness of sins was a prerequisite for entry into the presence of God, temple theology also claimed an institutional monopoly on access to God.
    In this setting, to affirm "Jesus is the sacrifice for sin" was to deny the temple's claim to have a monopoly on forgiveness and access to God.  It was an antitemple statement.  Using the metaphor of sacrifice, it subverted the sacrificial system.  It meant: God in Jesus has already provided the sacrifice and has thus taken care of whatever you think separates you from God; you have access to God apart from the temple and its system of sacrifice.  It is a metaphor of radical grace, of amazing grace.  (p. 94-95)

God in Jesus has [...] taken care of whatever you think separates you from God.  I really like that.  God is always with us ("close to us as breathing and distant as the farthest star" as a UCC prayer puts it -- which reminds me of the Quranic statement that Allah is closer to a person than that person's jugular) and it is we who build up walls and stumbling blocks, it is we who think that anything -- death or life, angels or principalities or powers, things present or things to come, height or depth, or any other created thing -- can separate us from the love of God.

Critiques and rejections of the exclusive temple system also evoke this week's Gospel passage -- where Jesus warns against the scribes who gloat on their appearances and then notes the widow who gave her last two coins to the treasury.

I'm not actually sure what to do with this passage, as I'm not really a fan of giving up absolutely everything you have materially -- and giving it to an institution, to boot -- so I'm wary of the apparent exhortation to give everything we have to live on.  I mean, I've talked before about "credo" meaning "to give one's heart to," and I am totally on board with the exhortation to love God with our entire selves, with all that we have.  But give all my money to the church?  I love my church, but I am also attached to making my rent payment, for example.

Last week we heard (from a scribe no less -- they're not all bad): To love God and to love neighbor, "this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices."

So we are called not necessarily to material sacrifice, but to love -- knowing, of course, that the former often comes with the latter.

In this week's daily lectionary, Paul says, "Since we have now been justified by Christ's blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through Christ!  For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of God's Child, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through Christ's life!" (Romans 5:9-10)

Leaving aside the implicit blood atonement theology, I love this idea that even when we were God's "enemies," God so wanted to reconcile with us that God sacrificed SO MUCH.  This is not a God who is going to say, "You didn't hold the proper tenets, too bad for you."  This is a God who, as I say during the Call to Confession every Wednesday, is always reaching out to us.

Our Psalm today begins: "Unless God builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless God guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain.  It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for while they sleep God provides for those God loves."

One thing I hear a lot at the church I grew up in is: "God's work, done in God's way, never lacks God's supply."  Google attributes this quotation to J. Hudson Taylor.

This always makes me uncomfortable because it has the same ideas as Prosperity Gospel -- that your material success (prosperity) is directly proportional to how much God approves of you.

A number of this week's daily lectionary passages are from Paul's Letter to the Romans, exhorting us: "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." (Romans 12:21) and "Love does no harm to its neighbor.  Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law." (Romans 13:10).

A book I was reading recently points out that the famous passage on Love from Paul's letter to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 13) comes after a list of the gifts of the Spirit.  You might get all this awesome stuff which we would parse as Fruits of the Spirit -- prophecy, healing, etc. -- but if you don't have love, it's not worth anything.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.  (1 Corinthians 13:1-3, NIV)

Love is what is most important.

I like to think that is what the Psalmist is talking about about God building the house and guarding the city.  God is Love.  And we can build our insular communities and guard our wealth of privilege, but if we are not working in alignment with God, if Love is not the spirit that moves through our hearts and hands and mouths as we do this work, our work will ultimately crumble.

I'm cheating again, writing the sermon AFTER the Sunday in question.

I've been frustrated recently with sermons that water down the radical, challenging message of the Gospel to make it palatable for middle-class Americans.  But maybe I'm being too harsh.

I mean, I can talk a good game about radical servanthood or whatever, but I'm still a selfish bitch.  How helpful really is it for me to exhort people to do things I'm definitely not doing myself?

The day after the Sunday this sermon is for, I ended up in a fight with one of the people I love most in the world.  One of the things that struck me in processing it was my feeling that THIS of all things is something I want to do right by and yet I can't manage it.  And giving money to the New Sudan Education Initiative or whatever seems so beside the point when I continue to hurt people I love.

We live our lives in the day-to-day.

And we live in a global community, so I'm not suggesting that we turn our back on those concerns, but I wonder if in all the focus on faceless charitable giving we lose our attention to the ways in which we can better live out Love in our daily lives, with those close to us.  Ruth was a foreigner working Boaz's fields, but her mother-in-law was kin to him, and so she was also family, even before their marriage.  And maybe he would have married her even if she had been his neighbor's Moabite daughter-in-law, and I absolutely think that we are called to be radically hospitable to the stranger, but maybe this week we can think a little bit more about how to be hospitable to those we are already in relationship with -- to be more charitable, more gracious, to cultivate a generosity of spirit ... to be kinder and gentler to those around us, to pay attention to where they're coming from rather than making snap judgments and reacting thoughtlessly.

When we sang "Won't You Let Me Be Your Servant?" in morning church on Pentecost 21, verse 3 literally made me cry.

I will hold the Christ-light for you in the shadow of your fear;
I will hold my hand out to you, speak the peace you long to hear.

This is what we are called to do -- to embody the light and life of Christ in the world, for strangers and for those we love (and for those who are neither strangers nor loved ones as well, of course).

Go now, to love and serve God.

National Coming Out Day (unpreached sermon, 2009)

So, a couple weeks ago I was helping my best friend revise a liturgy for a "Service of Healing and Hope (on the occasion of National Coming Out Day)," and I looked up the lectionary readings for that (this) Sunday.

Job 23
Psalm 22
Hebrews 4:12-16

I find this passage from Job fascinating.

Job is angry with God. And God is absent, so Job can't even get redress in a court of law. Job hasn't done anything wrong -- "But God stands alone and who can dissuade God? What God desires, that God does." There is no court Job can appeal to. And so the passage wraps up with Job's terror and dread of God.

Just the sort of upbeat passage you wanted for National Coming Out Day, right?

"But God knows the way that I take; when God has tested me, I shall come out like gold." (Verse 14)

Leaving aside the problematic issue of suffering as testing, hear what Job is saying.

But God knows the way that I take. And I shall come out like gold.

God knows the way that I take.

This is the core of the Incarnation, isn't it? "We have a high priest who in every respect has been tested as we are," as Paul writes in the letter to the Hebrews.

How many times have we cried out -- "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Psalm 22:1. Matthew 27:46. The words of David. The words of Jesus.

But Psalm 22 ends -- as so many of the Psalms do -- with an affirmation of the greatness of God. "The poor shall eat and be satisfied [...] future generations will be told about I AM, and proclaim God's deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that I AM has done it." Just as Matthew ends with the Resurrection. Okay, actually, I looked it up to be sure, and Matthew ends with the Great Commission. (Matthew 28:16-20)

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw Jesus, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Creator and of the Christ 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."

"I am with you always, to the end of the age."

This is the Good News that the Christian story proclaims -- that God will never leave us. That God loved us so much, that God Incarnated, became flesh and dwelt among us, and even now, the Church struggles to continue to embody Christ for the world, guided by the Holy Spirit. To deliver people from that which oppresses them.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, "Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these. [...] And I will ask the One who sent me, and God will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees her nor knows her. You know her, because she abides with you, and she will be in you." (John 14:12, 16-17)

We are called to a continual process of coming out -- of living more fully into the life that God wills for us, of drawing ever closer to God.

In the song "For Real," Bob Franke sings [lyrics and chords, YouTube]:

Some say that God is a lover
Some say it's an endless void
Some say both, some say she's angry
Some say he's just annoyed
But if God felt a hammer in the palm of his hand
Then God knows the way we feel
And love lasts forever
Forever and for real

Jesus has a coming out story, too. "Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house." (Mark 6:4) Jesus knows what it is to be called to something far different from what is expected of us, knows what it is to choose a new family from the one we were born into.

We are called to be allies. Allies to persons who are marginalized because of their gender identity or gender presentation. Allies to persons who are marginalized because of their sexual activities between mutually, meaningfully, consenting persons. Allies to persons who are marginalized because of the language they speak, or don't speak; because of their country of origin or their citizenship status. Allies to persons who are marginalized because of their political or religious beliefs. Allies to persons who are marginalized because of their physical or mental health.

All those to whom society said, "You don't belong," Jesus said, "Yes you do. Come join the feast at my table. In my family’s house there are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?" (John 14:2)

I heard a Reflection earlier this week about taking Communion as an act of coming out to God. In the act of taking Communion, we open ourselves to receive the very life of God into our own bodies, allowing the love and the Call of God to transform us.

So go forth, to be transformed and to transform the world.

Happy National Coming Out Day.