The Naked Now

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In all the literature on grief that I’ve read – and I’ve read a lot – they say how important it is to take a day at a time, a moment at a time, a breath at a time’
One can see the logic of it. To think of the past is painful. To consider the future can be fearful. So, stick with the moment.
This is a difficult thing to do at any time, without being in grief. Our brains are built to consider the spectrum of past, present and future. That’s one of the things that distinguishes us from other beings.
And if one could compile a thinking diary, my bet would be that most of the time we are not in the present, our monkey minds would be wandering in the past and future.
Living in the present is a Buddhist concept. Or, in my experience, it is emphasized in Buddhism more than in Christianity.
Christianity has a progressive motif that Buddhism does not. That we are growing, maturing, going on to perfection? If one is always in the present, not much will change.
I recall having this sort of discussion with Buddhist friends in Japan numerous times. And as good religious dialoguers we decided both faiths have something to offer.
As you know, we took a break and went down to New Mexico. Specifically, we spent a week at the Benedictine Monastery in Pecos – right on the Pecos River.
The Abbot was mentioning that he was friends with Franciscan writer and Monk, Richard Rohr, who is located in Albuquerque. Last year, Paula went to a conference with Rohr and then went to the monastery in Pecos.
In our discussion with the Abbot, the books Rohr has written came up, including The Naked Now: Learning to See and As the Mystics See.
Rohr is not writing about grief, but a similar point is made. We must live in the present.
In one chapter. he writes about three ways to view a sunset: The first person saw the immense physical beauty of it without any larger ideas or intuitions.
A second person saw the beauty as did the first, but this person also enjoyed the power of his mind which could understand how the sunset came to be with the rotating of the planets, the angles of light. As so on = rational, scientific understanding.
A third person saw the beauty, understood how it worked, but didn’t think about that. But in his ability to progress from seeing to explaining to “tasting” he also remained in awe before an underlying mystery, coherence, and speciousness that connected him with everything else. He used his third eye, which is the full goal of all seeing and knowing.
Elsewhere in the book Rohr says:
The mind by nature is intent on judging, controlling, and analyzing instead of seeing, tasting, and loving. This is exactly why it cannot be present or live in the naked now.
Why is this important?
Because it is in the present that we can experience God In the epistle lesson for this Sunday in the lectionary from II Corinthians.
.Paul is addressing people who are focused on the future. Part of the reason they are focused on the future is that the present was not picnic.
Paul elaborates on his own experience as an apostle of Christ:
…through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger….
Who in his/her right mind would want to join this mission?
Let’s get things moving along – to the end when things are better. But before saying all of that, Paul reminds them that the Day of Salvation is today – it is now.
Another book that I have found interesting and helpful is: Mystical Hope: Trusting in the Mercy of God by Cynthia Bourgeault.
She says the when we think of hope we usually attach it to an event – or an object – to something happening.
We hope that we make it through our trip.
We hope for good grades.
We hope our children are safe.
But she says hope is something that is not attached to outcome.
But where does that leave us in our own lives when the biopsy comes back malignant, when despite our fervent prayers healing does not occur…… it now seems that God has abandoned us……
I simply want to observe that there is another kind of hope also represented in the bible…. Beneath the “upbeat” kind of hope that parts the sea, a pull rabbits out of hats, this other hope weaves its way as a quiet, even ironic counterpoint.
She refers to the end of the book Habakkuk, where the prophet says in spite of failing conditions he rejoices in God:
Though the cherry trees don’t blossom, and strawberries don’t ripen,
Though the apples are worm-eaten, and the wheat fields stunted,
Though the sheep pens are sheepless, and cattle barns empty
I’m singing joyful praise to God.
I’m turning cartwheels of joy to my Savior God.
Counting on God’s Rule to prevail, I take heart and gain strength,
I run like a deer, I feel like I’m king of the mountain.

She calls it Mystical Hope:
Mystical Hope is not tied to a good outcome or future.
It has something to do with presence – the immediate experience of being met, held in communion, by something intimately at hand.
It bears fruit within us at the psychological level in the sensations of strength, joy and satisfaction: “An unbearable lightness of being”
It is also atemporal – meaning it exists outside of time and it can only be experienced in the immediate moment in the “naked now”.
One can see why she calls this “mystical” – It isn’t about what happens. It’s about being connected to God no matter what happens
Bourgeault next writes about God’s Mercy:
We are not the source of that hope, but the source dwells deep within us. More accurate to say we dwell within it.
She calls this source “The Mercy”
A bond, an infallible link of love that holds created and uncreated realms together. A force than holds everything in existence. The gravitational field in which we live and move and have our being.
Bourgeault would be considered by many to be “new agey”
You know many times I have talked about changing Biblical language in order to get back to its original meaning. I have specifically talked about John’s use of the word “Word” for the Greek, Logos at the beginning of his Gospel.
“For the Word was God and was with God…”
I have said that this can just as easily be translated as intention, principle, force, meaning…
She offers “vibration” = The Vibration of God, indicating that it fits well with quantum physics: “An electromagnetic field of love.”
She offers Christian mystics who use numerous words for this divine presence.
Meister Eckhart: the foundation of the soul
George Fox: the inner light
Thomas Merton: le point vierge secret center at the heart of God because it can only be found in the moment – in the naked now.
She offers meditation as a spiritual practice
She then tells the story of Babbette’s feast by Isak Dinesen. A famous chef in Paris loses everything in the political foment in 1871. She escapes to stay with two sisters in Scandinavia who basically eat slop everyday.
She then learns that she has won the lottery back in Paris, and she decides to use all the funds to make a fabulous dinner for her sister’s community.
There is one guest – General Lowenhielm – who has traveled and knows what good food tastes like. In the movie, you see him tasting each dish with raised eyebrows.

Under his breath, the General quotes Psalm 85:
Mercy and Truth have met together.
Righteousness and bliss shall kiss one another.

Man in his weakness and shortsightedness believes he must make choices in his life. He trembles at the risk he takes. We do know fear. But no. Our choice is of no importance. There comes a time when our eyes are opened. And we come to realize that mercy is infinite. We need only await it with confidence and receive it with gratitude.
Bourgeault comments on this saying…
All our times are contained in something bigger: a space that is none other than Mercy itself. The fullness of time becomes this space …. All our little histories, past, present, and future; all our hopes and dreams – are already contained and, mysteriously, already fulfilled….the entire rainbow of times and colors, of past and future, of individual paths through history, is all contained – In that great white light of the simply loving presence of God…
Our possible pasts and possible futures, our lost loved ones and children never born – is contained and fulfilled I the wholeness of love from which nothing can ever possibly be lost.
Most of us want to have control in life. How much more so to have control of life and death.
So we make plans and choices – our eyes on the future. We have hopes that certain things will happen, and other things won’t.
We live in the past and the future. There is, after all so much to worry about
But General Lowenhielm through Babettee’s feast experienced in the naked now…
That everything is contain and fulfilled in the loving
Presence of God – in the Mercy
And that nothing is lost in God
I find comfort in this – believing that nothing of Kenneth has been lost.
That God can hold it all.
All is contained in God.
And I still want to hope – in spite of circumstances
Because hope is not connected to certain outcome.
Hope is found in opening ourselves the God presence in the present moment.
And in that moment, all is contained and fulfilled.
The final words of her book:
Hope is not imaginary or illusory. It is that sonar which the body of Christ holds together and finds its way. If we, as living members of the Body of Christ, can surrender our hearts, reenter the Righteousness, and listen for that sonar with all we are worth, it will guide us, both individually and corporately, to the future for which we are intended. And the body of Christ will live, and thrive, and hold us tenderly in belonging.

Amen

The Naked Now
The Sermon for Sunday, June 24, 2018
Scripture: II Corinthians 6:1-13
Pastor James Clarke

Mother God

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Pastor James Clarke’s sermon for Mother’s Day, May 14, 2017; the Fifth Sunday of Easter.  The scripture text is 1 Peter 2:2-5 and John 14:1-14.

I’ve been thinking about being a parent a lot these days. I’m sure it has something to do with the imminent departure of our son, Kenneth, to the other side of the continent. I’ve been blessed in my life to have been a hands-on parent:

Hands on diapers

Hands on binkies

Hands on tissues

Hands on the nebulizer

Hands on clothes that don’t match

Hands on fast food against my better judgment’

My wife, Paula, and I shared a single church appointment for 18 years when our children were young, meaning I was the parent in charge for half the time. With our older son, Aaron, this included all that was necessary to keep him alive

Medications

Cleaning

Avoiding illness

Being with him in the hospital when he got sick

Sleeping on the floor next to his bed

And waking up every hour to listen to his breathing with a stethoscope

Hands on parenting.

Life changes when one becomes a parent as anyone who’s been a parent knows. Parenting is sacrificial. A baby’s needs are non-negotiable. The loss of independence is irredeemable. Once a parent, always a parent and all the sacrifice – all the loss –  all the work – ultimately tells us much about God.

The texts for today are not overtly about parenting, but there are connections. The mention of “spiritual milk” in the text from I Peter. The spiritual milk must come from somewhere, which got me to thinking about the whole business of God as a Father or a Mother.

When I say that I was able to be a hands-on parent, it implies that I was able to do what is usually associated with being a mother:   Rocking a child to sleep and dealing with them when they are screaming in Safeway. I’m pretty sure my Father never had to deal with that one.

My parents fit the stereotype. I went to my Dad to get perspective and wisdom. I went to my Mother go heal my wounds.

The word “Father” is such an ubiquitous image of God in the Bible it loses its force – it’s more like a name than a metaphor. What’s more, “There are many rooms in my Father’s house” is a text that is often used at memorial services, so for me it has an almost morbid aspect.

So I thought it would be interesting to change the gender of the parent in this text and say: There are many wombs in my Mother’s body. Feels different, doesn’t it.

When we consider God as a mother we are bound to imagine more of the hands-on tasks of parenting. God comes closer. Less the guiding disciplinarian parent – more the nurturing parent who has Kleenex in her pockets.

This text is a part of what is called the Farewell Discourses. Jesus is talking to his disciples before he leaves them. The image of a Father feels like a stern parent just giving advice. The image of a Mother brings to mind tears.

Did Jesus cry when he left the disciples? Did the disciples? Something about imagining that comforts me. We need advice and wisdom sometimes and other times we just need a big hug.

When I say goodbye to Kenneth in Washington, D.C., I’ll probably figure I’ve given him enough advice over the years. I’m guessing I’ll be giving him a big hug and there may even be tears. Don’t forget, in the face of Lazurus’ death Jesus wept.

We don’t want to see fathers cry because we value strength. We value the fatherly oriented parental tasks: Guidance, discipline, perspective – parenting from a distance – so as to create independent entrepreneurs, and not emotional fathers who like quiche, and talk about beauty and sadness. If anyone does not get respect in our world, it’s a mother or anyone who does the hands-on parenting.

We were talking about this a bit in our Sunday school class a week ago — in the positive sense, about how much hands-on parenting changes a person, inculcating empathy, intuition, patience, and spontaneity, but in the negative sense, how all that motherly, nurturing stuff is always fighting upstream against our culture, which values economy above all things.

Imagine going to a job interview and being asked about your strengths, and you say, I’m a very nurturing person, and I have empathy, patience, intuition and I listen well. Do you think you’d get the job? I’m not talking about preschool teacher here.

I think often in interviews we force ourselves to say we are motivated, confident; we have drive and persevere; all traditionally masculine characteristics.

Economically, there is no reason to have a child, which I’m thinking about since we are sending Kenneth to a reputable, private university across the country where tuition per year would get me an Audi rather than my little Fit.

Hands on parenting gets lip service, but no help from the economy, and little help from the government. We can talk all we want about Family Values, but if it doesn’t translate into paid maternity leave and paternity leave, then it’s hollow. In the United States, 12 weeks are allowed without pay. In France, it’s 16 weeks at full pay.

Years ago, I read a book entitled The War Against Parents by Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Cornel West which expounded upon the grim realities for parents in America. They say that parenting is the ultimate non-market activity. Nearly all families need two jobs, meaning less time with children.

There was a time when having children provided security But now that we have Social Security and Medicare. Raising children is a waste of time and money.

Parents feel sandwiched and stressed so that when they are with their children they get reactive and you can forget about quality time as an antidote. Quantity time is what is needed – being present. And as we continue to put the economy first, parents have less and less time with their children and there are consequences for it.

Hewitt and West refer to a comprehensive survey of parenting having 90,000 participants. The Journal of the American Medical Association determined youth who have experienced a strong bond with parents are less likely to commit suicide, participate in violent crime, abuse drugs. This is the heart of the matter.

In our Sunday School book, Jim Wallis says that we must put parenting first, that parenting is more important than anything else in our society. I thought to myself, ‘He can say that, he’s the editor of Sojourners. He’s the CEO!

I have been blessed to have been a “hands on parent”. I still hug my boys. I learned many practical things, but it’s the spiritual things that move me.

Parenting is a spiritual experience and a means of grace. It teaches empathy, intuition, patience, sacrificial love, eros love, that feeling when you see your child at a distance and your heart melts…. What an incredible human being. And suddenly I know more about God. That there are many wombs in God’s body.

Economically, it was a bad decision to job share for 18 years. According to the economy, all that time hanging out at the playground, pushing him in the swing one more time, is empty and non-productive time. But then, we saved Aaron’s life.

We lost a great deal of retirement money on that decision, but the spiritual wealth that comes with pushing one’s child in a swing and rocking them to sleep at night…

On Wednesday I went to hear Bruce Galvin tell us about the changes ahead for our healthcare and pension. It’s always going to cost us more. But every time I go to one of these I get that feeling…. financially speaking…. We haven’t made the best decisions.

Economically speaking, it is probably a bad decision to send Kenneth to American University at $63,000 per year. We should be putting more money into our retirement account. I’m sure Bruce would say it’s not a good investment…. depending upon what we are investing in and to see Kenneth’s face when he can go to the university of his dreams… What’s really important to us? We will be pinched financially, but I’m fine with my Honda Fit and I like tofu, beans, and rice

There are no rewards for being a parent. No promotion or special recognition. No bonus. But in my life, it has been one place where I have experienced God. God’s love… like a parent’s love.

Incongruously, being a hands-on parent is another way of resistance in a system that doesn’t respect parents much. Remember, it’s the ultimate non-market activity. Making it consequentially a form of resistance. There’s “Family Values,” but the system is not set up to value parenting.

I think the government needs to be reminded that parents are just as much people as corporations and deserve just as many tax breaks.

Speaking of taxes, I think that in the same way Jim Wallis refers to the national budget as a moral document, one’s tax returns can be considered a spiritual document. It identifies dependents, investments, gifts and charities, work… What do our tax returns tell us about our devotions and priorities?

I think Wallis right –  parenting ought to be our first-priority. But it is countercultural to do so. We still live in a male culture. Strength, accomplishment and a fat wallet still rule the day.

We value Entrepreneurs over Servants. Wealth is the primary sign of success. And there’s a limited amount of room in the world. Boundaries are placed on love and grace.

But the perspective of mothering… of being a hands-on parent has made my heart strangely warm with the knowledge that there are many wombs In our Mother’s body.

That with Her there is boundless grace. That She is a Hands-on God with Kleenex in her pocket. And she sometimes uses them for herself as She ponders beauty and sadness.

Amen.

More or Less? Creation Sunday

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Pastor James Clarke’s sermon for Creation Sunday, the Second Sunday of Easter, April 23, 2017.

Can we imagine if Jesus was sending out his disciples today?

Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts,

          No bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff.

This is severe!

If we imagine it today it would be:

Take no cash

No change of clothes

No back pack

Not even shoes

No car — of course

And no cell phones either!

One has to wonder if they would have gone!

I think a little cash would help; but maybe not a credit card. A change of clothes; but not a suitcase. A couple pair of shoes. but not a dozen.

But even if we modify it like this, I still don’t think the cell phone goes with them.

Imagine traveling like this: No car – no reservations because we have no credit card. No suitcase. No access to the internet. What would this feel like?

Have we ever risked going on vacation with one pair of jeans? Or gone on a road trip without a destination?

We build security around these things – car, credit card, cell phone. It feels a little less safe to travel without these. But isn’t there also a sense that it might feel more… free?

I like the idea of not carrying a suitcase. I always seem to pack too much and I feel burdened by it.

We have made a car essential in our world; so much so that it’s hard to imagine not having one. But consider if we had better public transportation, the freedom we could feel not having to make payments’ pay for insurance and worry about the car having problems. I was on a first name bases with my mechanic when I still had the Escort!

Did you know that universities often provide bus passes to students? It reminds me of when I lived in Tokyo. I loved it!   And there was no traffic!!!

There’s a Buddhist saying: Fifty things, Fifty worries. Life in a monastery is austere – no matter which faith. One doesn’t have belongings of one’s own, and usually one has just one pair of shoes or sandals, in the case of Buddhists. The point in either Christianity or Buddhism is that less is more, or less is better than more, when we talk about discipleship.

Today is Creation Sunday and the earth is in peril. It is no secret that I am upset about what is currently happening in our political world regarding the environment recently. But let me give you just a little history so you can better understand where I’m coming from.

My Father was an important person in my life. He taught at Oregon State University in the Religious Studies department for over 30 years. When he started out, he taught the 101 class and some bible classes. I remember he had a class on the Sermon on the Mount.

In the early 1970s, he took a sabbatical at University of California (Santa Barbara) and studied biology and ecology. Upon returning to OSU, he then taught a course entitled “Human Ethics and Ecology.” To say that my father was an environmentalist…. It is written on the epitaph by his memorial bench.

I grew up understanding the dangers of climate change 40 years ago!! We had one car in the household, a 1974 Toyota Corolla stick shift. My dad walked to work. I rode my bike everywhere. Did you know there are no longer bike racks at high schools?

I have grieved for decades watching us give homage to a desire for more… and bigger and then we throw it away. Bigger houses. Bigger cars. More credit to buy more things particularly since the 1980s after the credit boom and we could buy things with money we didn’t have!

It is as if we have been looking in the face of danger and saying… We don’t care! Or, are we just blind?

We live by the Cult of More in America. That is, if we have more, or do better, or get newer. We will be successful and happier. It’s the American Dream! Whoever has the most toys at the end wins. The myth of the upgrade.

I remember when Adidas shoes first came out. Prior to that we all just wore Converse. Anyone remember Converse? And we were happy

Converse were black, but Adidas were white with stripes – green, blue, red and black – in the beginning.

Suddenly it became important which shoes one bought. It was about status and identity. It included competition. I recall the week it was decided the black ones were the coolest. It created a junior high boys’ status crises. And then nobody was happy but the dominant boys who had made the decision and had the money to buy them.

This resulted in insults and bullying if you didn’t have the right shoes…. “Mom, I need black Adidas.” “I thought you told us to get the green ones?” “Yeah, but not everyone’s wearing black”

And so goes, the power of domination. Those who have money have the advantage. Shoes divided people – eventually we had $100 Nikes which re-imagined the world we live in today.

We have way too many choices today. In high school, while I was wearing some pretty cool shoes, I worked for Baskin-Robbins 31 flavors.   On the face of it, we think incredible flavors like Baseball Nut, Chocolate Almond Fudge, Strawberry Cheesecake and Rum Raisin.

Wonderful!  Right?…… Wrong! There were so many flavors, it became difficult to choose. So, instead of getting one scoop, we got two, or three, and even if we got three scoops, we thought about the ones we didn’t choose. Which created anxiety. And speaking of anxiety, after we ate the three scoops, we felt guilty and worried about our weight.

When people came into the store, they first had on happy faces. Then they would wander along the glass looking at all the flavors; looking troubled…. and not happy. It was a pattern: 31 flavors; 31 worries. We were actually happier with vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. What we need today is a prophet. And there’s no profit in it, I can tell you.

Have we read the prophets? Have we read Jeremiah?

Jeremiah 22:13-17  (from the Message)

Doom to him who builds palaces but bullies people,

          Who makes a fine house but destroys lives

Who cheats his workers

          And won’t pay them for their work,

Who says, ‘I’ll build me an elaborate mansion

          With spacious rooms and fancy windows

I’ll bring in rare and expensive woods

          And the latest interior décor

So, that makes you a kind –

          Living in a fancy palace?

Your father got along just fine, didn’t he?

          He did what was right and treated people fairly

And things went well with him

          He stuck up for the down and out

And this went well for Judah

          Isn’t that what it means to know me?

          GOD’S DECREE!

But you’re blind and brainless

          All you care about it yourself

Taking advantage of the weak

          Bulldozing your way, bullying victims.

I found a commentary on-line of Jeremiah from Theology of Work. It says that Jeremiah was principally concerned with greed.

God calls people to a higher purpose than economic self-interest Jeremiah looked around and found that greed – unbridled pursuit of economic gain – had displaced the love of God, as people’s chief concern. Jeremiah is calling them to lives of integrity.  Otherwise their piety means nothing to God.

Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggmann said a similar thing in his commentary on Jeremiah:

All persons, but especially the religious leaders, are indicted for their unprincipled economics…. This community has lost every norm by which to evaluate and assess its rapacious and exploitative greed.

Greed is not good – period. Gordon Gecko may have said so. But the Bible doesn’t say so. Jeremiah doesn’t say so. Always wanting more is not good because it inevitably leads to division, domination, anxiety and poverty.

Ironically, shoes that I would call Converse are back in style.

Do we live by More or Less? Which will bring us freedom, love and integrity? I believe the Cult of More is killing us and contributing to killing our planet.

Again, on-line, I found a whole movement where people are trying to live with less. There are the Minimalists. Like vegans, they are fairly severe. Willing to live in those tiny homes – have you seen them? On Netflix, there’s a documentary about the Minimalists

Then there are the Essentialists who believe in trying to decide what is essential and getting rid of all that is extraneous. That can be very different for different people. But it is an important and transformative question for all of us.

They both speak of Life-Editing. Some of what one is supposed to do with Life-editing:

Edit possessions

Buy quality because it lasts longer and doesn’t end up in a landfill

Get rid of books – go electronic (personally I don’t agree with this one

Get rid of paper too

Take a walk

Live in smaller space

Take time to share in your family

Re-consider all your children’s extracurricular activities

Buy a smaller, more fuel efficient car

Let go of perfectionism

Assess holiday spending

And so on.

In the same vein, I suggest Soul-Editing where we would consider all that we have and do and how they connect to our love of God in Jesus Christ’

Assess our possessions.

What gives us a sense of God’s presence? And what distracts? Do we have anything like those new Adidas shoes that brings anxiety to our hearts and damages relationships?

Consider our spending.

What will this do to bring us a sense of spiritual integrity? What will this do to build up our community?

What about our investments?

Mike Slaughter has recently written a book entitled The Christian Wallet and he has a whole chapter of investing. And remember it was our Annual Conference through the work of Jenny Phillips that petitioned the General Conference to divest from fossil fuels.

What Jeremiah saw was people who would come to the Temple, but never search their souls and ask, what does this have to do with my faith in God?

Very simply, I think we are called to do the same. And I believe that we will find that less is actually more in the ways of the Spirit.

We are in the midst of a very dangerous time in two ways for our souls and for our planet. And they are linked.

Our souls are lost to mindless materialism. And our planet is suffering from congestive heart failure. And we’re still smoking in spite of the doctor’s orders.

Denying climate change is akin to saying smoking doesn’t cause cancer. And now, to continue the metaphor. recently we’ve gone back to cigarettes without filters, so to speak.

As long as we live by the Cult of More, we are hurting ourselves, others, and the planet.

So… what’ll is be………More or Less?

Amen

Love Is The Last Thing Standing

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Pastor James Clarke’s sermon for Easter Sunday, March 25, 2017.

Do we know how many times people in the gospels are terrified? We think that since it’s “good news” that it wouldn’t be that way. But that’s not how it works.

Peter, James, and John were frightened at the Transfiguration. The Disciples were panicked when Jesus calmed the sea and when he came to them walking on the sea (two stories). When Jesus told the Disciples what would have to happen to him, do you think they were delighted? They were shocked, and a bit worried. The shepherds where petrified, and the women were freaked out at Lazarus’ death and raising.

The gospel of Mark ends abruptly with: So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. They were afraid… the end.

Translation tempers and softens it some. “And they were afraid” sounds like it’s not much different from “And they were hungry”. They were scared out of their wits. Hysterical. Panic-stricken. And felt a little edgy too.

Consider a time when we’ve heard some bad news. The anxious response we feel is physical. We sweat, lose a sense of control, we shake and our stomach aches…. They were anxious!

In a biblical commentary, Pamela Cooper-White says that this is where Easter begins. The story isn’t rooted in good feelings… It is rooted in anxiety.

Last Sunday we did The Stations of the Cross and often people feel a little alarmed. It is Palm Sunday, after all. The pounding of the nails particularly can give people chills. But that’s part of why we do it, and why both Maundy Thursday and Good Friday are so critical…. The chills. Easter is rooted in the chills. And the Resurrection is “good news” because it conquers fear and anxiety.

In Matthew’s story of the resurrection, two Marys go to the tomb and are surprised, shocked, scared to death when there was an earthquake and an angel rolls away the stone. He’s bright as the sun. The guards shook and then were petrified… literally.

Can we imagine the anxiety the women felt? Sweat and chills.

And the angel says:  Do not be afraid. Which sounds a little sterile like an announcement.

In the Message it says, you have nothing to fear…which is better. “YOU’RE ALL RIGHT!  EVERYTHING WILL BE ALL RIGHT!” Would be better still, I think.

Monastic, spiritual writer and guide Henri Nouwen says that one of the most basic spiritual questions we must ask ourselves is: “How can we live inside a world marked by fear, hatred, and violence and not be destroyed by it?” A timely question, don’t you think?

Nouwen does not have a positive view of the world we live in. In the macro-world there is injustice, poverty, ethnic strife. War in Syria. Famine in sub-Saharan Africa. Potential conflict with North Korea. Terrorism in Europe and elsewhere. Environmental degradation.

In the micro-world of our lives there is cynicism, gossip, competition, division in the House, bullying at school, mean emails, hardness of heart. Nouwen says we live in a House of Fear and we need to live in the House of Love. I have heard it said that the opposite of love is not hate but fear.

It isn’t that the world is divided between those who live in the House of Fear and those who live in the House of Love. We all go back and forth. But our journey to spiritual maturity is moving from fear to love.

Interestingly, he says it is easier for young people because they remain idealistic, more trusting, less jaded, or they just don’t get it! It’s more difficult when we are at mid-life and our hearts get hardened and we give in to anxiety and helplessness.

The way forward from fear to love is to grieve all that hasn’t happened in our lives. The dreams of youth that did not happen neither ruminate negatively on what might come. The way forward is much about letting go of all that is lost; of resentments; of longings unfulfilled.

An irony of the spiritual life is that it can’t be achieved. It isn’t something we make happen to us. It’s more a gift that we open ourselves too. It’s about letting go more than finding opening more than believing. Emptying more than filling up.

The Resurrection isn’t something we believe as much as something we let go into.

Some time ago I read a wonderful novel by Vinita Wright entitled Dwelling Places. It is the story of a family in the Midwest who have experienced great loss and are panicked about the future. Some years ago, they lost the family farm. Soon after that, the father – patriarch of the family – died. Then one son died of grief and alcoholism.

At the beginning of the book the remaining son, Mack, is just getting out of the hospital. He has spent two weeks there with depression. The whole family is unraveling. Mack’s wife is lonely and ends up in an affair. A son turns goth  –  maybe today it would be “edgy”.

A daughter goes to the Baptist Church to be saved and sets out to save her family (the family goes to the Methodist Church). Mack reluctantly goes to counseling with George, a former Presbyterian pastor, and Mack begins to share about his fear and grief that he has held on to so tightly. He tells George that he doesn’t have faith any longer.

George asks about when that feeling started. After the farm was lost and we didn’t know how we would remain of survive.   And when his father died… that was too high a price. Mack says that he is mightily disappointed in God for letting him lose everything.

Then to make things more complicated and scary, Mack starts hearing voices. He is afraid it is a sign of greater mental illness that he’s really gone round the bend and will be hospitalized again.

George asks about what the voices are saying. “Things are working out” “Love is the last thing standing”. George says, “I don’t know, Mack, but those don’t sound like such bad things to hear.” Do not be afraid

Then the Methodist pastor (a woman) creates a worship service for the while community in which many are experiencing loss and fear. Mack asks his family to go, even as they resist. In the service Mack, is surprised when the pastor asks people to share what they are feeling about their loss. He expected something more formal or banal and cliché. Listening to others he again felt his heart ease… and open… with love for everyone who was there.

Part of the reason our world is so messed up is that most people live in the House of Fear. We are motivated by fear; we make decisions, vote…. based on fear.

Relationships are built around competition and fear. It’s the way of business and commerce and that oozes into our hearts, soiling them.

Little time is given to learn each other’s stories. Those farm families were just short sighted and they made bad decisions. People are suspicious and cynical. Media is full of lies and alternate truths. We trust no one.

We are rude, we hate, we objectify other people, which is exceedingly selfish. We build walls and fire missiles in the macro world of international affairs and in our own micro of family and friends out of fear.

In the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, we are given a gift and a path to move from the House of Fear to the House of Love. There is no easy formula to it. Just believe for example.

It involves a turning – as a practice — letting go of fear. Trusting that things will be all right in spite of what we feel.

Because Jesus lives, we also shall live. And it takes a leap of faith. A spiritual “leap of faith” is not from unbelief to belief, it is from fear to love. Trusting that….. love is the last thing standing.

Amen.

“FAKE NEWS!”

/in /by

Pastor James Clarke’s sermon for Sunday, March 25, 2017: ”FAKE NEWS!” The scripture: John, chapter 9, verses 1-41.
The Pharisees grilled him, put him on the spot, and the tone was not hospitable. They claimed he was not from God because the healing had taken place on the Sabbath, which was against the LAW. It was impure and therefore hazardous.
They asked the man who was healed what he thought, and he said he thought Jesus is a prophet, which wasn’t the answer the Pharisees had hoped for.
The Pharisees questioned whether the man was really blind from birth, so they went to his parents, who confirmed that the man is their son, but claimed to know nothing more.
So they went to the man and confronted him a second time; asserting that he was a sinner…. a liar who cannot be trusted. The man again said, simply, I was blind and now I see.
And the Pharisees scorned and insulted him, saying that he is a disciple of Jesus, who we know nothing about; while they are disciples of Moses, who we know plenty about – and who can be trusted, and finally they all yelled FAKE NEWS!
The Pharisees were so locked in to what they believed, sure of what the truth was and was not – to the letter of the Law grounded in their way of seeing things – that they could not be open to Jesus. They were… delusional.

Episcopal priest John Cowan’s book, Taking Jesus Seriously, (2004): The core problem for humans is delusion. Delusion is when we create our own reality regardless of what is actually real and we are first deluded about ourselves. We see ourselves as something that we are not.
We believe that we can construct our own selves and that we are self-contained independent beings. Independent of the others so we don’t have to pay attention to others or care for them.
That we have control over out own thoughts and feelings is an earthshaking Christian error creating its tremors from the hearts of prurient teenagers to the beleaguered souls of the dying. To think that we are whom we have constructed is a delusion… It is the delusion we reject in baptism when we die to this self and allow Christ to live in us.

Delusion begins with thinking that we create ourselves. We build a resume of ourselves. We are independent and self-sustaining. Then we fit into the culture… We fit in. Be a good family person. Be kind. Be polite. Eat your peas. And you will get into heaven… The culture as an expensive delusion
stands between you and the kingdom. In Jesus’ time, the culture said that if you were pure all would be well. In our time, the culture says that if you are productive, all well be well. It makes for a great gross national product but it is a lie. Most people are completely unaware that being productive as end all. Is a cultural construct. They pursue it blindly. Quite a few hear about the lie, think they understand but do not see it working in their being, so continue to be driven by it.

In Jesus’ time, it was about purity…. Which is why the Pharisees were so upset about Jesus healing on the Sabbath. It was against the Law. It was impure. They really believed that something bad would happen because of this. So, the healing could not be real….. It had to be FAKE NEWS!
The sin of delusion is the mother of all ignorance. If we are deluded about who we are and about the culture we live in, the nature of what is real and true will also be lost on us.
And we become so sure of our truth – so needful of it being the truth that we are not open to anything that might threaten it. We seek out that which we agree with… only. We become willfully ignorant and claim “alternative truth”.
A number of times recently, I have heard people say that people who are on the other side of our beliefs – fundamentalists and those who are homo and trans-phobic (for example) are not bad people. How many times do people say, Mormons are not bad people?
And I agree, by the grace of God… For it is only by God’s grace that we are saved. That we are not a bad people. But is it always an issue of good and bad? In today’s scripture, it isn’t about good and bad. It’s about being blind and seeing. It’s about delusion and ignorance,

For John Cowan, ignorance comes before sin. We are sinful because we are deluded about ourselves, first, and then about reality. I look around today and see profound ignorance. I look around and I see ignorance about things that are accepted as factual truth about the structure of reality – ecology – biology.
During my time with the preschoolers this week, I shared with them about bees. The role bees play in pollination. One of the four-year-olds knew this! But does the new head of the EPA, Scott Pruitt? One has to wonder…
Global Climate change is just as accepted as pollination, but he isn’t sure about that — choosing to weaken, if not eliminate, the EPA. To choose to side with business needs at the expense of the environment is willful ignorance. If bees die off, it isn’t just honey we will have to do without.
About ethnicity and race we remain profoundly ignorant. When my younger son, Kenneth. visited Howard University, which is 95% African American, and the question of diversity came up – their guide said there was plenty of diversity; students from Boston and Georgia; from California and from overseas. All black but all different.
Race is not biological. Blacks, whites, Asians are not subspecies. We are all biologically one race. Yet a good many people in America treat skin color as a real, actual, biological difference.
Barak Obama is the first black president sort of…. His mother was from Kansas. His father from Kenya. He grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia. But there is no connection to the dominant historical experience of most African Americans – slavery/
I remember reading an article by an African American when Obama was first elected and the author was expressing doubts about Obama’s connection to the majority of Black Americans and he said, “But Michelle now… she’s a sistah!”
The differences between us are ethnic and cultural. Race is meaningless.
And then we are ignorant about culture. In spite of the fact that so many different kinds of people live in America, we seem to be ignorant of cultural differences.
In spite of all the different people, so many Americans remain in cultural bubbles holding on to cultural assumptions, not recognizing that they are cultural assumptions.
The assumption that America is originally and therefore necessarily a white culture is not just morally repugnant, t simply isn’t true – It is a delusion. In addition, in the small world we now live in, where cultures meet in a matter of hours on a plane, we need to be more knowledgeable of other cultures. And other cultures are really different!
The Japanese are different! Let me tell you! Their doors open out. They pull the needle over the thread. They drive on the left. This means “come here.” This means “money” (examples are given) And you don’t want to know what this means! But not just superficially, psychologically, socially and spiritually, they are different.
I was embarrassed when I watched President Trump shake Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s hand for a full 19 seconds. Did you see Abe’s face? And they are different than the Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos. The Japanese will stand orderly in a line. The Chinese create a mob. But so many Americans assume that Asians are basically all the same.
And the ramifications of this ignorance is that we mistreat others. And even more tragically, we lose the opportunity to learn from other cultures. We seek our own cultural bubbles
And I believe that the gift of American culture to the world iIs not white, but multi-cultural. And that is our gift and our strength. And I think foreign language should be mandatory in public schools in America. That is, if we still have them in the near future
Crucially, we are ignorant about economics. That there is no trickle-down compassion. Do we understand that a budget is a moral document? Huge increases for the military and cutting Meals on Wheels?! It is unconscionable.
We are ignorant about geography. Where is Aleppo anyway?
We are ignorant about history. But I better leave that subject alone….
We are clearly ignorant about the Bible! About translation, interpretation, history, context… That someone thinks he/she can simply pick up the Bible, read a passage and understand it, is delusional and dangerous.
This story (in today’s scripture) in John is about healing…but not just physical healing. It is a metaphorical reference to spiritual healing. It is about being spiritually blind and seeing. It is about overcoming delusion and ignorance.
The Pharisees were good people. They were reformers, not like Sadducees, who were in collusion with Rome. They were good guys. But they were also a little bit like fundamentalists. They had their ideology – their certain truth. Sincere though they might have been, it was a willful ignorance.
It was ignorance, willful or otherwise that got Donald Trump elected… People who voted for Trump are not bad people. They are our family members and friends – neighbors. We cannot and will not judge them as morally bad. But they were misled. They were fed FAKE NEWS.
And for me, this election has demonstrated that our greatest problem in America is delusional ignorance.
Part of growing in grace – part of going on to perfection – is overcoming our delusions about ourselves and our ignorance of the world, of ourselves, that we are not isolated selves, but relational beings who realize our identity in God.
Who are saved not by constructing our own lives, but by allowing God’s Spirit, formed in Jesus to create our lives of the world, that it is God’s world and not ours.
That we are called to be stewards of it and responsible for each other. Not just for ourselves but for all.
Martin Luther King Jr. once said: Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance or conscientious stupidity.
We have a responsibility to ourselves, to others, and to God to not live by FAKE NEWS and live fake or alternative lives.
Our message is not FAKE NEWS – it is the GOOD NEWS of Jesus Christ. We are called to live by the GOOD NEWS of Jesus Christ where things are not black and white. Where black and white don’t really matter. We are all one race. We are all God’s children.

The GOOD NEWS of Jesus Christ is grace and love for all. Red and yellow, black and white. For all the colors of the rainbow
For Druze and Syrians
For Arabs and English
For Swedes and Bengalis
For Mexicans and Japanese
For Poles and Czechs
For Venezuelans and Samoans
For the disabled and hungry
For people of orientations and all genders
For truck drivers and geneticists
For Christians and Jews, Muslims and Jains
For Republican and Democrat and Socialist too
For the birds of the air and the fish of the sea
For bonobos and snakes
For homeless and immigrants
For the bees…..
And for you and for me to see this Good News touch the lives of others and for it to transform the world, we have to combat delusion and ignorance.
To help people to see to escape the blindness of ideology and self-centered dogma. To oppose and resist Fake News and created alternative truths in whatever forms they present themselves by the grace of God…. Amen.

The Dreams of Presidents

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Tomorrow is President’s Day, isn’t it?

When I was growing up we had a board game: The Presidents Game. And my brother and I loved it.

We learned all sorts of presidential trivia: Tippacanoe and Tyler Too, 54 -40 or fight!

We learned about which presidents were assassinated:Garfield could have survived if there had been a better understanding of sanitation. He died of infection.

We learned that Rutherford B. Hayes was the first president to win the Electoral College and lose the popular vote to New Yorker, Samuel Tilden.

I remember feeling angry then. It wasn’t fair! Little did I know….

We felt bad that we went to Harding Elementary School after learning about the Tea Pot Dome Scandal.

Does everyone know that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Died on the same day, and it wasn’t any old day July 4, 1876 – exactly 50 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

I loved the story of Teddy Roosevelt camping in the High Sierras with John Muir.

Our favorite story to share with friends was about William Howard Taft… all 300 plus pounds of him, who got stuck in the White House bathtub.

James Buchanan was the only president who never married, which did seem pretty trivial. It was only as an adult that I learned he had a live-in partner of the male variety. So if anyone ever wonders about whether we will ever have an LGBTQ president, We can say, “We already have!”

But it wasn’t just the trivia I learned. The game enticed me to learn more about our presidents.

What interested me more was the vision of presidents, not just what their policies were what they said on the campaign trail, but to try to discern their hearts. What were their dreams?

What vision compelled them to want to be president?

Jefferson had a dream for America that extended across the continent: The Louisiana Purchase. The Corp of Discovery. Monticello – full of artifacts from all over America.

Lincoln dreamed of a reconciled America. I often wonder what would have been different if he had survived.

Teddy Roosevelt dreamed of a more progressive America. He confronted the Robber Barons. Lifted the condition of the poor and even provided National Parks for all.

Wilson dreamed of the League of Nations.

Johnson of the Great Society.

Jimmy Carter of peace in the Middle East.

There were nightmares too:

James K. Polk dreamed of expansion into Mexico and California. Manifest Destiny.

George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq.

My brother and I mutually decided that Andrew Johnson was the worst. The only president, at that time to have been impeached.

But it wasn’t only that Johnson was from Tennessee and he didn’t share Lincoln’s dream. He vetoed the Civil Acts Act of 1866 which would have given African Americans equal protection under the law.

He said the act would, “give a perfect equality of white and black races…. this is a country for white men and by God as long as I am president it shall be a government for white men.”

There’s a nightmare for you.

The election of 1828 was about contrasting visions, between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson.

John Quincy Adams was a diplomat and an intellectual. He spoke 7 languages and he had a progressive vision to spend money on infrastructure, to create a national university, a central bank, even the first space observatory.

He was envisioning a bold future for America.

Andrew Jackson was a war hero, specifically of the Battle of New Orleans.

A fierce man of the frontier – known for his anger, he was involved in at least 3 duels, one in which he killed a man. He was considered a man of the people, unlike elitist Adams, who argued for states rights – more personal freedom – he was known to slaughter Native Peoples, and was also responsible for the Trail of Tears.

Two dreams for America…. Did we make the right choice?

As one might imagine another part of my exploration into the dreams of presidents is to wonder how they harmonize with the Dreams of God.

I have often talked about the Bible as the Story of God, but it is also the Dream of God. It tells what God has done, but also implicates God’s desire and intent.

That all people are created in the image of God, contrary to what Andrew Johnson said.

That the creation is good, and we have a covenant with the creation too.

That God is about love and grace. And caring for the “least of these.”

The Old Testament text from the lectionary for this Sunday comes from Leviticus. It is about caring for the poor.

Specifically that when owners harvest they should not harvest the whole field but leave the edges and gleanings for the poor. What might those gleanings be today? Food stamps? Healthcare? The Americans with Disabilities Act? Housing for the homeless?

The Gospel reading is well-known and is about non-violence— the exhortation not to retaliate.

But it must be said, that this is not an invitation to be passive. It doesn’t mean turn the other cheek in defeat.

It is about non-violent resistance. For Romans, one slapped an inferior with the back of his hand. If he used the palm of his hand it meant that person was equal.

To turn the other cheek was to claim equality. If was non-violent defiance.

The same is true of the extra cloak and mile. If one gave a second coat to the Roman soldier one was naked – thus embarrassing the soldier.

Roman soldiers were allowed to request people to carry their things one mile, but only one mile. If one carried it two miles the soldier would get in trouble.

Non-violent resistance to those in power is part of the Dream of God.

This text is from the Sermon on the Mount, which includes the Beatitudes.

The call to be salt of the earth. The admonition to love our enemies. To give alms. And not too worry. Not to judge others.

This is all about the Dream of God.

Amongst the presidents, who would we imagine shared the Dream of God?

I think Abraham Lincoln’s ripening conviction about the emancipation of slaves mirrored God’s dream. John Quincy Adams had a vision that included equality. Have we all seen the movie Amistad?

And frankly the president who may have been most guided by his faith is Jimmy Carter.

So what of our new president?

I am not confident that President Trump is guided by God’s dream.

His talks about “America First.” But he isn’t even the first person to use it. That honor goes to Pat Buchanan.

Sadly, I feel as though the dreams of Donald Trump are an extension of the dreams of himself.

The nightmare I am worried about comes from Steve Bannon. What is the ideology behind “America First?”

Bannon has a thought out, organized and theological vision. And it centers on what he calls “enlightened capitalism.” And the Judeo-Christian Tradition.

He believes that these specifically carry forth the will of God. That is to say that capitalism and European Christians are special. That for him…. They carry God’s dream.

Bannon believes in what he calls the 4 turnings in American history. It’s a lot to explain. Suffice it to say, that he believes that we are at the beginning of a 4th turning, and in that turning war is inevitable, in this case, with Islam.

It is an apocalyptic vision in which violence is expected. No turning the other cheek for Bannon. It’s hit ‘em in the gut!

Before Trump was a candidate he called in to Bannon’s radio show on Breitbart news and they were talking about immigration. Trump was advocating vetting immigrants even back then.

Bannon’s response was, why talk about vetting? Why let anyone in at all?

Bannon has problems not only with illegal immigration, but legal immigration as well.

He worries about too many CEOs of companies in Silicon Valley being Indian.

Bannon expects war with China in over China’s expansion into the South China Sea.

He believes that Islam is a religion of war.

He shares a belief with Trump that some people have better genes and Trump has been successful because of that.

He believes that America is a Christian nation for white people.

He even believes that only property owners should be allowed to vote.

That would leave me out – In spite of being white!

I recently viewed an Hispanic journalist interviewing a “Trump supporter” who kept using the words “our people.” By which he meant white Americans, saying that America belonged to “his people.”

Are we not all American people?

Bannon talks a lot of Judeo-Christian Tradition, but the problem is he forgot about Jesus!

I know another person who had a dream for America, and it is far closer to God’s dream.

Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; One day, right there in Alabama little black girls and black boys will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.   

This is God’s Dream.

Not Steve Bannon’s, who, by the way, before he jumped on Trump’s wagon wanted Jeff Sessions to be president.

There is an anniversary that needs to be observed today. It was 75 years ago today that President Franklin D. Roosevelt Instituted Executive Order 9066. Do we all know what that was? It was the removal of Americans of Japanese ancestry from coastal areas on the Pacific coast.

In retrospect, I think we all believe that this was an injustice.

But here we are, with proposals to register Muslims.

I have no doubt that if Bannon were senior advisor to President Roosevelt, he would have advised sending them all back to Japan.

And now Steve Bannon has been made a permanent member of the National Security Council – are you serious?! In place of the head of the joint chiefs of staff?

To make matters worse, President Trump now says he signed the order without knowing it!

Steve Bannon’s dream is not God’s dream. It is rather a nightmare!

(And this is where I miss George Brown…..)

Blessed are the meek and the pure of heart.

Blessed are the peacemakers.

Blessed are those who hunger for justice rather than prosperity.

(Billionaires’ genes are not better than anyone else’s!)

Blessed are the poor.

Do not harvest it all.

(Take it all! Accumulate it all!)

But care for the poor.

Do not retaliate, but resist – non-violently.

Blessed are the merciful, the compassionate….

These sayings of Jesus are not simply descriptions of how things are, they are imperatives of how we are to live in God’s Dream.

And who’s going to say so? Is this really a time to be wishy-washy?

How can we not speak out?

There comes a time when we have to stop pussy footing around and preach the gospel again!

To claim God’s Dream.

To say NO to nightmares like Steve Bannon’s.

If there is some sort of historical turning going on as Bannon believes, let it not be to “Make America White Again!”

Not Andrew Johnson’s dream, but Abraham Lincoln’s dream.

Not Andrew Jackson’s dream – a trail of tears, but John Quincy Adams dream.

Not the robber barons dream, but the dream of Teddy Roosevelt.

Not the dream of America First, but God’s inclusive, loving vision where people are not judged for the color of their skin, but for the content of their character.

And all the people said….

Amen.

Evangelism

/in /by

Pastor James Clarke’s sermon for Sunday, November 13, 2016, just after the presidential election. Listen to the sermon here.

The first thing I want to say is that the thinking and planning for this sermon came before the election on Tuesday… I wrote all but the very end of this on Tuesday morning.

The second thing I want to say is that the lectionary text from the gospel for this Sunday is a lectionary text. That is, I didn’t choose it!

The third thing I want to say is that the system IS rigged, as Donald Trump has said, again and again, but not in the way he has meant it.

It is rigged by many things but mostly because of money.

It is rigged by gerrymandering. By mixing politics with business which affects the media so that they prioritize ratings over investigating the facts. The media has been politicized It is rigged by prioritizing winning over governing.

By obstructionism.

By name calling.

By launching attacks rather than seeking dialogue.

The only people who can win are those who have money or who kowtow to money.

Plato had misgivings about democracy: He gives an allegory of a boat and its captain who is a little feeble. And in order to stay at the helm, will do whatever the crew wants even if it is to navigate to destruction.

Alexis de Tocqueville, a French aristocrat who toured America, to learn about democracy, Also had a warning about democracy. In his 1835 classic, Democracy in America that is if the masses are not educated It would result in the tyranny of the majority. I would say that it is less that democracy in America is rigged and more that it is simply broken.

Are the masses “educated” in America? Do we know enough about history, ethics, religion, government, basic civics to call ourselves adequately prepared to vote and participate in our democracy? Sadly, appealing to the emotions of uneducated people will not save our planet. Our navigational course is now set for destruction.

If anything, I believe we live in a plutocracy today. An indirect plutocracy. That is the rule of the wealthy.

If we were to imagine a symbol of our idealistic democracy a tower or statue, like the Statue of Liberty, and it was cast down.

The Liberty Bell isn’t cracked, it’s broken!

That is somewhat how I feel after two years of campaigning.

That is how the early Christians that Luke was addressing felt… As if everything had fallen apart.

This all centered on the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. The Temple was the symbol and the center of structure and meaning It was the center of the world for Jews. And for early Christians. As democracy is for us, and after the Jewish revolt, the Romans tore it down.

A little historical context: Paul wrote his epistles in the late 50s. Mark wrote his first gospel at the time of the destruction of the Temple. Luke’s gospel wasn’t written until the mid-90s Over 20 years after the event.

And the context is, this world sucks! Or something like that and, where is Jesus to get us out of this?

That had been the hope for years. A hope expressed by Paul and in Mark’s gospel. A hope that was felt to be immanent. But it wasn’t.

In this context, to those Luke was writing to there was a choice: To continue to hope for a fiery and gallant return of Jesus to destroy this mess of a world. Or to live in it.

Luke was interested in evangelizing the Empire, Not escaping it into the heavens. So when he warns in this passage about false prophets, he means those escapists Like the Left Behind authors, Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye.

He said, “Watch out for the doomsday deceivers. Many leaders are going to show up with forged identities claiming, ‘I’m the One,’ or, ‘The end is near.’ Don’t fall for any of that. When you hear of wars and uprisings, keep your head and don’t panic. This is routine history and no sign of the end.”

Instead, Luke asks the people to endure Telling them that it’s going to get bad. You’re going to be persecuted. Families will be broken up for following Jesus. For saying Jesus is Lord and not Caesar. You must… again from the Message Stay with it, that’s what’s required. Stay with it all the way to the end.

Then Luke adds something that is less explanation than imperative. He says that all of this persecution, brokenness and chaos is a time for testimony. An opportunity to testify.

Are you kidding me?! Sitting in prison is a chance to testify To witness to others? Who made this deal?

As Donald Trump would say, we need new deals. Better deals. Really good deals. Like… getting out of all of this, right?

When we are laid low… feeling depressed about the world in a tight spot or when we are being criticized, it’s not the time we want to evangelize, is it?!

In our world, when the statue of democracy has fallen, in the midst of the depressing, gerrymandered political landscape I just described, we’re supposed to evangelize?!

Wouldn’t it be enough just to endure and survive? Hide and lick our wounds?

In our Wednesday class, we are reading Brian McLaren’s book Generous Orthodoxy, and he makes a distinction between Evangelical and evangelical.

For him, Evangelical means those who identify with a demographic. Who believe they are called to share their truth with others and thereby change their minds. Evangelical is about “telling” others. Just like politicians

Evangelical and evangelism with a lower case ‘e’ is different.

Here we don’t engage others from a position of strength or power as if we own the truth, we approach others from a position of weakness in full acceptance of our suffering and brokenness.

Instead of saying to people, “this is how you need to see it,” we say, “I don’t get it… the world is so confusing.

It is sharing from our vulnerability… It’s about being in relationships – focusing on relationships more than on beliefs. It’s about asking about each other’s stories and sharing experiences.

And here’s the thing…. We can do that in prison. We can share with other’s from the context of our life stories. From the depth of our pain and confusion. In the midst of struggle and pain…And that’s the kind of testimony that was asked of the Early Christians – and is asked of us too.

I have mentioned NY Times columnist David Brooks before during this Election cycle.

As I said before, he is the conservative representative on PBS Newshour on Fridays when they recap the week. I think Donald Trump has really unsettled David Brooks. He believes in conservative politics but can’t abide Trump.

In the midst of this confusion on November 2nd he wrote a column about Jewish theologian Martin Buber. And I just about went into shock.

Buber was one of my father’s favorite theologians. I read his book, I and Thou in high school. In my office there is a portrait of Buber that used to hang In my father’s office. From my perspective, David Brooks would not be the person to write about Martin Buber. It really is wonderful to be surprised.

Brooks starts his column with: If America were a marriage we’d need therapy.

For Martin Buber, there are two kinds of relationships: I-It and I-Thou.

I-It relationships are utilitarian… a relationship with a coach is an I-It relationship, or with a broker or fellow preschool parent when we have play dates.

Most relationships are I-It relationships.

I-Thou relationships are, to use Brooks’ words:

Personal, direct, dialogical- nothing is held back… Deep calls to deep. Offering up themselves and embracing the other in some total unselfconscious way.

It is rooted in sharing from our vulnerability, our weakness and mutual struggle. Not from our power.

Brooks is advocating that we seek these relationships and that if we do so might help heal our nation:

Today, American is certainly awash in distrust. So many people tell stories of betrayal. So many leaders (Trump) model combativeness, isolation and distrust. But the only way we get beyond depressing years like this one is at the level of intimacy: if Americans reconnect with the living center of the national story and they rebuild Thous at every level. 

This is evangelism, with a small case ‘e’. This is the testimony we need.

Not the big E Testimony of Evangelicalism – telling others that they better get on the boat or they will be “Left Behind.”

But the shared stories, I-Thou evangelism that invites people into community rather than telling them what to believe. In this chaotic time, our nation needs our testimony. All this and much more not by telling people, but by entering into relationships with people.

Postscript, that is, post election…

I truly and firmly believe in evangelism and testifying with open hearts in relationships and out of our vulnerability.

But then Trump won… And now I am flooded with other feelings.

The first is the admonishment to ‘endure’ carries much more weight. We have to endure. And the call to testify feels more urgent.

Ideally through I-Thou relationships from positions of vulnerability but also firmly… like Gandhi. And Martin Luther King, Jr. Oh how we miss you!

We still have to resist injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves. This anxious time that is now before us is an opportunity for testimony .

We need to testify to the harm of incivility in politics the name calling and bullying.

We need to testify to damage of competition in relationships.

We need to testify to the need for education, not training and not just STEM subjects, but arts and sciences, languages and philosophy that teach people about how to be citizens.

We need to testify to impairment of gerrymandering and obstructionism.

We need to testify to the importance of facts over truthiness.

We need to testify by calling on the media to do their job.

We need to testify to the evil of money in politics.

We need to testify to the myopic vision of business and work to save the planet.

We need to testify that it’s not just about ourselves and we need to seek the common good.

We need to testify again that racism is immoral.

We need to testify that misogyny is violent, hurtful and contrary to God’s will.

We need to testify that homophobia is not loving or biblical.

We need to testify that xenophobia is harmful and that the people of God were immigrants.

We need to testify, that we live in God’s creation, and it is morally wrong to unmindfully destroy it.

We need to testify that the wealth distribution in our country is immoral.

We need to testify to the love of God in a world where democracy is broken, and the rich and powerful rule no less than they did in Rome.

And it may hurt to do so.

But we will endure. We must endure. We shall overcome.

The end of the passage from Luke:

You’ll end up on the witness stand, called to testify.

Make up your mind right now not to worry about it.

I’ll give you the words and wisdom that will reduce all your accusers

To stammers and stutters….

You are I my care – nothing of you will be lost.

Staying with it – that’s what is required.

Stay with it to the end

You won’t be sorry, you’ll be saved.

This is the Word of the Lord. Amen.

Belonging

/in /by

Pastor James Clarke’s sermon for Sunday, November 6, 2016: All Saints Sunday. Listen to the sermon here.

One of the hardest things to learn in life is that we don’t belong to ourselves….

Owning things is natural for us, so why wouldn’t we own ourselves? As a matter of fact, of all things to own in life. it seems that ourselves should be the first to own. We have been inculcated in our culture to see ourselves as separate objects our inclination is to divide things up to understand them.

We divide the Earth into property; Water into rights; The economy into sectors; People into tribes or ethnic groups which are easier to control or dismiss.

There’s a great movie about water rights called The Milagro Bean Field War.

A local man diverts the culvert to water his bean field, the water rights are owned by developers with ties to state government. The developers and their henchmen are all white. And interested in growth…

The Milagro residents are Hispanic and just interested in survival.

I thought of this when reading about the stand off at the Standing Rock Reservation in the Dakotas.

The stand off is not simply about economics.it’s about history, and the fragmentation of who’s in and who’s out. It’s about ignored treaties. And the fragmentary creation of reservations. And it’s also about water – And the juxtaposition of the value of oil and water.

We live in an oil culture. Native peoples lived in a water culture. It’s hard to mix the two.

Has anyone seen the meme on Facebook where the man pours cups of fracking water for the oil executives to drink? Fracking is fragmentation, it even causes earthquakes. (Are those the earthquakes the scripture is alluding to?)

Traditionally Native peoples did not have a fragmentary way of seeing the world. They didn’t divide the land into property and own it. To own water would have been a sacrilege. Meanwhile the Ogallala aquifer is being depleted.

I’m currently reading a book by physicist, David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order.

In the first chapter he says we live in fragmentation. Our perception of reality – the way we see it and try to understand it starts with division – making things different, which inevitably allows us to own them.

Our fragmentary way of thinking, looking, and acting, evidently has implications in every aspect of human life…. The roots of fragmentation are very deep and pervasive…we try to divide what is one and indivisible… our fragmentary form of thought is leading to such a widespread range of crises, social political, economic, ecological, psychological, etc… which implies unending development of chaotic and meaningless conflict….

We don’t have to look far for an illustration of this fragmentation, do we? “Widespread range of crises… Unending chaos. Meaningless conflict?”

That describes the election!!

Bohm sees fragmentation in our language, grounded in the pattern of “subject-verb-object” because it sets them off against each other. It inevitably leads to competition and violence.

I easily understood this because Japanese will drop the subject and object when they are already understood. One can look outside and simply say, “falling” We both know it’s rain, so there’s no need to say it. In English we say, “It’s raining.” But have we ever wondered what the “it” is?

Japanese tends more to pull things in than to separate them. And it focuses on the verb rather than subject or object when I speak or study Japanese I feel different.

According to Bohm another language that focuses on the verb is Hebrew. The context of the gospel text for this All Saints Sunday is conflict that is division and fragmentation – even competition.

The topic is the resurrection. The subtext is about oppression. The Pharisees believed in resurrection, but the Sadducees did not.

The Sadducees, remember, are the wealthy and powerful. The Sadducees ask Jesus a trick question about the resurrection. If a man marries seven times in life who will be his spouse in heaven?

This was a divisive question meant to stump Jesus so that they could dismiss him.

But Jesus doesn’t answer directly. Rather he describes a totally different way of being suggesting that the Sadducees are living in another world.

He talks about another “age.” Jesus is talking about a different world or dimension he calls, the Kingdom of God. In the Kingdom of God there is no marrying, he says. I would assume there’s no owning either

In this dimension there is no need to buy and sell, own, or marry and divorce

Because everything is One – of a whole.

For David Bohm reality is a wholeness, not a fragmentation. And by the way, David Bohm is not small figure in the world of theoretical physics. His greatest contributions were to quantum physics. He was involved in the Manhattan Project. He was the most respected American physicist until he was accused to being Communist by Joseph McCarthy. (Talk about a figure of fragmentation!)

For Jesus the Kingdom of God is a wholeness not a fragmentation. And I think the question or challenge that Jesus was subtly posing for the Sadducees was:

Belonging. Without subject or object. Just….. Belonging…… like we’re looking out at the rain.

Do we sense “belonging” in America today?

We can belong to many things in life:

  • A career.
  • A relationship.
  • An ideology.
  • Just to name a few

We certainly see that in our current political antics. We are no better than the Pharisees and Sadducees… Where to the candidates experience belonging, do we think?

Does Hillary Clinton belong to power, as so many claim of her? As a United Methodist, we can hope that she has some sense of belonging to God. That this idea has been planted in her soul.

As for Donald Trump, he belongs to himself.

Jesus came to announce that the Kingdom of God is near. Not chronologically far off but available and present, yo see reality differently, not as fragmentation, but as wholeness. Where we do not belong to ourselves, we cannot own ourselves, where we belong to God.

And all our other connections and belongings in life, including marriage, are illuminated by our fundamental identity in God. I don’t belong to myself in this life or the next.

When we celebrate All Saints we recognize and memorialize.those who have passed on, not from the perspective of fragmentation but in the perspective of the kingdom of God. A wholeness in which we remain connected to them.

Eternity is another name for the wholeness we belong to. I believe some time ago I preached about this. In the context of the Gospel of John, eternity is not a chronological word but is about another dimension – a wholeness, one that the Sadducees could not see

One that most of those in power in our world cannot see.

I will be so glad after Tuesday when this election is over. It has done nothing but accentuate our fragmentation. The fragmentation that will lead us to crisis and conflict, and I fear inevitably collapse. How do we live “belonging” in a fragmented world?

That is the question I will leave us with.

One way to do this is to commemorate our saints all those who have come before us to recognize that we remain connected to them in the Kingdom of God. Another is to envision those who will come after us in the wholeness of being and care for them too. That means pay attention to global climate change.

How do we live in belonging with our ancestors and descendents?

How do we live belonging in our families?

How do we live belonging in our communities, schools, work places?

How do we live belonging in our politics?

What about fracking and the pipeline?

How do we live belonging in our church?

How do we live belonging to God?

How do we live belonging in such a fragmented world? Regardless of who wins the election this is our world.

And what are we teaching our children?

Amen.