December 22nd, 2013 MATTHEW 1:18-25

MATTHEW 1:18-25

¹⁸Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. ²⁰But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. ²¹She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” ²²All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
²³  “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
          and they shall name him Emmanuel,”
which means, “God is with us.” ²⁴When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, ²⁵but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

***

This Wednesday morning, Women’s Support Group gathered at Ginger Rembold’s home for an ornament exchange. We began with a rousing game of match the eighteen baby Jesus’ with their nativities. The nativities were made out of wood, and clay, and stone, and featured coconut stables, and moose angels, and ultra modern - MOMA worthy - depictions of the manger scene. We found out that Peru makes more nativities than any other country, and that Amber, despite my competitive streak, is the best guesser of us all as to which.  Yet, of all the fifty-two nativity scenes displayed, there is a commonality, of silent perfection, of the holy family bowed, and the visitors bent kneed, and the angels and the star, respectively, feather winged and gleaming. Yet, I long for a different nativity.

I read this text of Joseph, and I remember Luke’s account of Mary, and I want a nativity that shows them before Christmas, before the angels. I want a nativity of teenage-pregnant-out-of-wedlock-Mary running off to Elizabeth, and scared, scared, scared, with no good options: being stoned death the worst, and dismissed quietly to a life of disgrace and hardship - the best outcome. I want a nativity of Joseph, having thought his life was set out before him, now having to dismiss and disgrace the one to whom he was once betrothed. I want a nativity depicting those no good options, and the real people to whom those plights fell. I want a nativity that looks like you, and me, because in actuality, Mary and Joseph are not that different from each of us, and their predicament is both as universal and varied as a room full of nativities.

I look at Joseph, and I wonder, about the very human questions he must have asked. There are the W questions, the with whom, exactly what, when, where and why? There are the rabbit holes of future questions: What will this mean for our families who arranged our marriages? Will there be shame on both, for our choosing poorly, and for their being a poor choice? Will it split the friendship our parents enjoyed? What will this mean for me, Joseph, since people will most likely assume I am the father? How will I combat that disgrace? What will it mean for me in order to marry again? What will it mean for Mary and her life ahead? Do I have to follow the law and have her stoned, or can I dismiss her quietly to raise a child on her own in poverty, or will she be shipped off to Elizabeth’s and hidden away, with the secret child of her shame? If I were to claim she and the child, would Mary, once a cheater, always remain so? If I married her would people see me as Mary’s savior, or the one who threw his life away with the whore? I wonder if it came down to the question. I wonder if it was simply a choice of Mary’s life, or his own. I don’t blame Joseph for the choice he made. I would have done the same. Joseph, was not that different from you or I.

I think about these pews, and I know they too, have held stories of imperfect families, and I think about this pulpit and how it holds an imperfect pastor from a similarly imperfect, and perhaps similarly plighted birth. I have heard the story of my birth-grandma, getting a phone call from her sister-in-law, that her niece was pregnant. My birth-grandma tells of watching her son disappear into the bathroom, and knowing, simply by the look on his cast away face, that he was the father of his cousin’s baby. I have heard him tell of the worry and way feared for his cousin, about the way he knew she would be judged by the Catholicism of her family, and hidden away as the daughter of a city-councilmen. I have heard him tell about how he longed to protect and provide for her, and wished he could whisk her away like Joseph. My birth-dad did not have that choice; at 15 and 16 your choices are not your own. Today, in his telling there is a way you can hear him wishing he could have traded places with my birth-mom, and you can hear the deep care and love and responsibility he felt then and still feels. While my birthfather rightfully felt responsibility, the yearning to protect, and provide, especially to a woman with child, is common among men. It makes Joseph’s ultimate choice, though divinely inspired, one to which we can relate.

It is this humanness that makes Joseph holy, that common people can do divine things, and likewise, that God comes to the common people, the imperfect among us, and in the most broken of situations. Joseph, in a mess of life follows God, though the baby is not his, Joseph in adopting the child, names it Jesus, and in so doing, Joseph, fulfills the prophesy of the Emmanuel, which means God with us.

Perhaps this is why those nativities seem so perfect, because they are trying to depict those God moments that seep into the mess of this season, those God moments that seep into the mess of our lives. We must remember, Christmas doesn’t and didn’t always look that neat. That there was, and is Advent first, there is the longest night of the year, and there is a grief of our lives not looking like we pictured or try to portray. But we must also remember, that this humanness is where, and to whom, God enters in. That Mary and Joseph did not always look that peaceful, but in their humanness they followed a promise, that God would be with them, in the mess. We have that same promise today, that God is coming to be with us, that God will be the Emmanuel. Imagine what that nativity looks like, like us, like you as Joseph, or Mary, just as you are, with everything you bring, the mess of life included. We are the nativity, met by God, in this little town of Baker City, in this sanctuary, God comes to us, just as we are.

December 8th 2013 Matthew 11:2-11 NRSV

Matthew 11:2-11 NRSV

When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Jesus answered them, 

“Go and tell John what you hear and see: 

the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, 

the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.

And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: 

“What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? 

A reed shaken by the wind? 

What then did you go out to see? 

Someone dressed in soft robes? 

Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. 

What then did you go out to see? A prophet? 

Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 

This is the one about whom it is written, 

     ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
          who will prepare your way before you.’ 

Truly I tell you, 

among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist;

 yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” 

***

Last week I told you to go out into the wilderness, and to look for the prophets, to look for the Christ Child, and this week, we come across Jesus asking the crowds, “At what did you go out into the wilderness to look?” “A reed shaken by the wind?” Jesus goes on to say, that John, that wild and probably crazy prophet, is no reed shaken by wind, that he is one of whom the prophet Isaiah foretold. Yet, despite all John’s stability, even he wonders, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” 

John is in jail, and will soon be beheaded, and I can only imagine how much he needs Jesus to be the Christ. From inside his mother’s womb he leapt at this hope, from his life as a grown man he went into the wilderness on this hope, from that wilderness he preached to the people and baptized the crowds on this hope, he defended himself to the Pharisees and Sadducees on this hope, and now in jail facing death, his eternal life depends on this hope. John needs Jesus to be the one who was to come, John does not want to wait for another. So he asks, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Are there times in your own life where you have needed Jesus to have already come? That to wait for another is too long? Have you needed to hear that hope, that promise, that assurance of grace, to be baptized and welcomed, and claimed God’s own? Perhaps you have been in your own type of jail, perhaps you have faced your own type of death. Perhaps you also need to know that Christ is the one who has come. I understand John’s question. I often look around, and hear the stories of your lives, and I wonder why do we have to wait for Christ to come again? I go out into the wilderness, and I am reed shaken by the wind. I wonder why our loved ones struggle with mental illness, with violence, with addiction, with incredible pain, with natural disasters, with poverty, and hunger, and on this day, with cold, cold, cold. I go out into the wilderness, and I am a reed shaken by the wind. 

And to John, and to I, Jesus sends an answer. He says, 

“Go and tell John what you hear and see: 

the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, 

the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.

And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

I am the one taking offense, I have never seen the blind receive their sight, nor the lame walk, nor the lepers cleansed, no the deaf hear, nor the dead raised, and I have not been poor enough to know what that good news truly sounds like. These seem like extraordinary miracles, and when faced with such things, I tend to have my doubts or explanations - modern science is an amazing thing. Modern faith then perhaps, is an amazing thing. That with all our knowledge, and our science, and technology, there seems to be less without answer. We must look for ordinary miracles, which seem like an oxymoron. I have been looking for miracles amidst the ordinary. 

Falling asleep to the glaze of snow clouds lit by street light, or waking to a world of white and winter, and the skinny silhouette of trees made thick with impractical layers of snow, or dusk turning to a blue and black finger-painted night sky with a waxing crescent moon and venus charting a course, ordinary miracles in a wilderness. I have been looking for miracles, seeing Jen Kelley in Melissa’s workout class, the familiarity of old friends and the stories running deep, and the joy of new friends, of relationships forming on youth trips to McCall, and the surprise and welcome of Thanksgivings in unfamiliar homes. I have been looking for ordinary miracles in a wilderness, thinking of this room on Christmas Eve, filled with families and coats and jackets and the cozy warmth they bring, and enormity of our carols and faint beauty of our chimes, and flickering beams of candlelight near our skin, and that somehow every year, Christ comes again, as a babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger, promising, extraordinary miracles by way of the ordinary. 

“The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, 

the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”

Perhaps, in this modern day and age, it is just as much about teaching ourselves to see the silhouette of snow on trees when we are blind. Perhaps in this day and age to remember Nelson Mandela walking out of prison we can see the lame walk. Perhaps in our little towns Cancer Center, we can see how the lepers are cleaned. Perhaps as we being to hear Christmas carols our deaf ears begin to hear. Perhaps as we hear this story foretold again and again, we believe that the dead are raised, and we believe the good news that comes in the greatest miracle. A little child, born in a manger, and the promise of miracles he brings. 

So in this Advent season, in this modern wilderness, be not a reed shaken by the wind, but a disciple who brings the good news back to John of the miracles already in our midst. He is the one who was to come. We shall not have to wait for another. He is here.

December 1st, 2013 MATTHEW 3:1-12

MATTHEW 3:1-12

1In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, 2“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,
     “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
     ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
          make his paths straight.’”
4Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, 6and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

7But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8Bear fruit worthy of repentance. 9Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 10Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

11“I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

***

            When was the last time you were in the wilderness? When was the last time you were out in an uninhabited, and uncultivated place? When is the last time you hiked beyond the paths, and saw beyond the towns, and felt the world beyond yourself? When is the last time you felt one with the unfamiliar? When was the time you felt stretched, and knew there was more to learn, and there was more knowing beyond what you already knew? When was the last time you found yourself in the wilderness of a new place, or new a friend, a new job, a new calling, a new child? When was the last time you came to the wilderness seeking?

            It was no different in John’s day. John, the scripture tells, appeared in the wilderness of Judea, and I like to imagine it was kind of like that, because sometimes we find ourselves out in the middle of nowhere, and all of a sudden out in the middle of nowhere - we find, ourselves, and it happens in that all of a sudden type of way, appearing. I like to imagine John appearing. I like to imagine John in all his craziness, and perhaps literal craziness, with his desert diet of locusts and wild honey, with his clothing of camel’s hair and a leather belt, and his proclamation of repentance, and baptism, and of the one to come. I can see how John simply appeared.

            I can understand why Matthew describes John, with the words from the prophet Isaiah,   “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord.’” John was the prophet type, one familiar with the wilderness. For, as much as we would like to believe, it is not those who live the status quo who are the prophets. It is often those who are off the grid and off their rockers. Think of the prophets of our time, Nelson Mandela locked up in jail, Mother Theresa with a vow of poverty walking into the middle of a battle, Martin Luther King fighting for justice with peace. There is wild streak in them all, and I am sure that each have been called crazy many a time. Yet, they mesmerize us, and we draw nearer.

            It does not surprise me that the people of Jerusalem and all of Judea were going out to John the Baptist. It does not surprise me that something in him, invoked something in them, that to be near the prophet created a change heart. This yearning to confess their sins, this yearning to be baptized, this yearning to be made clean, this yearning to belong, this yearning to find a place out in the wilderness to prepare for the one who is to come, the one who so powerful he can baptize with the Holy Spirit and with Fire. It does not surprise me that the people came. Would you not go out into the wilderness if this was the hope? When is the last time you were in the wilderness?

            I have been in a wilderness of starting to date again. I tell you, being thirty, and the advent of texting, and the remembering again what it is to get your heart hurt, and have to hurt another’s is not for sissys. It is a wilderness. About a month ago, I found myself driving home from Boise at night later than I had planned. It had been the worst date yet, and I will spare you the details, but to say that I was pretty mad, and confused, as I left Boise. Yet, as the fields started to roll out into hills, I had a feeling of pride, for knowing, now at thirty, how to get out of an uncomfortable situation. Soon I was in the passes where the moon lit up the cliffs with the road winding in between, and in that contrast of greyscale, I found myself alone on the road, but feeling utterly connected: to the world, to this life, and thankful for it all, and to God, for the chance to be thirty, and alone on the road, and dating again, and learning anew. The stars were out, and the rivers gleamed silver like the silage of a snail, and as I entered Baker County a faint snow began to fall and there was a deep peace in the silent night.

            John says, that the one who is to come will separate out the chaff from the grain, and I think this is what happens in those wilderness places. That we are able to see what is good and worth keeping in our lives, and what needs to be burned. What is giving us life, and what is depleting us, what we are learning and what still have to learn, who we are, and who we are created to be, for for whom we were created. It is a finding ourselves in these wilderness places, and finding the prophet who helps us prepare for the one who is to come. This is preparing the way of the Lord, this is Advent. Advent can be the opposite, we call it Christmas season and it starts right after Halloween, if not sooner, and it is often a plethora of things to do, to get, and to go. It not a wilderness, a time away, but a familiar American grind in a country that cannot wait. Yet, when this season is good, it is waiting, it is Advent, it is a wilderness, and it becomes a time of where we find ourselves and Christ, in the quiet of old familiar hymn, hmm Silent Night, in the warmth and glow of lights, in the loved ones we know, in the quiet peace of  being out alone in gentle falling snow. When is the last time you went out in the wilderness? When is the next time you will go out into the wilderness? It is Advent, Go, find time, find space, find hope, find joy, find peace, find love, find the Christ child, out there, laying in a manger out in the wilderness.

November 24th, 2013 LUKE 23:33-43 NRSV

LUKE 23:33-43 NRSV

³³When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. ³⁴Then Jesus said,  

"Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing."

And they cast lots to divide his clothing. ³⁵And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, "He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!" ³⁶The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, ³⁷and saying, "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!" ³⁸There was also an inscription over him, "This is the King of the Jews.” ³⁹One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, "Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!" ⁴⁰But the other rebuked him, saying,

 "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? ⁴¹And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong."

⁴²Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." ⁴³He replied, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

***

Sitting around the tables in Lectionary Bible Study, it was as if someone had died. Someone we knew so well, a loved one, a leader for our community, for our lives, and our world. In fact, we had studied him, and he had shown up in our midst more than once. In the Noah Room, reading the passion of Christ, we carried with us a heaviness of the death of our Savior. “It is just so sad,” I said. It is sad, in the same way, as when an innocent child dies. It is sad in the same way, when a young parent dies, or a national leader dies. It is sad, in the same way, that death is when it cannot be understood.

Sitting around tables in Lectionary Bible Study, it was as if we were being judged. For this Sunday, the last Sunday of the Christian year, was once called Judgement Sunday. We now know it as Reign of Christ, or Christ the King Sunday, but there is a way, reading this text, that it feels more like Judgement Sunday. In the Noah Room, we carried with us the guilt of the people who stood by watching, and it reminded me of the quote, attributed to German pastor Martin Niemöller, who was put in a concentration camp. He wrote,

“First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.”

In that Upper Noah Room, we thought of the genocides that happen now, and our complacency, and our inability. We pondered moments when might have stood by, and denied our Lord. I think of the times, I, myself, plead the fifth, when I choose not to weigh in, when manners, and disbelief in change, keep me silent. Someone told me that they like that I don’t bring politics into the pulpit, but I have also been told that your not preaching if you don’t shake any feathers. In our Noah Room, we thought of the ways we were the ones who stood by watching when Christ was hung from the cross. We thought of the ways we stood on that hill called The Skull.

There were ways too we are the leaders, and the soldiers, and the criminal mocking Jesus. We did not name those ways in our Lectionary Bible Study, and perhaps in our blindness, Jesus prays, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” Jesus prays for the ways we are blind to the Messiah being crucified in our midst, to the ways we doubt, and shout, “save yourself.” For the ways we want proof, for the ways we want a king of this world, a king with the power of human judgement, a king with the power of human systems, a king with the power to climb down from the cross and walk. We resist a king who has the power to go all the way to the grave. I often wonder, why, if Jesus was so powerful, did he have to die? Why could not Christ have defeated death some other way, some less violent and less sad, some way that leaves us less culpable. But if he did this, there would be a faithful criminal hanging on a cross alone, and perhaps more-so, there would be a unrepentant criminal hanging there on the cross alone, and most of all, there would be an innocent man hanging on a cross alone. Instead, Jesus was there with them.

Jesus was the there, innocent and hanging on the cross, for the victim, for the little child who dies, for the parent who passes away, for the community grieving a leader’s death, for those oppressed by injustice, and for those who can relate to the pain of a cross and nails. Jesus was there. Jesus was with them. We do not hang on the cross alone. Jesus, likewise, does not leave us alone to die, nor does Jesus leave death as the final answer.

Jesus was there with the criminal who mocked him. He was there for the places and times, in each of us, where and when we have mocked the true King. Where we have seen a neighbor and turned away. He was there, on the cross, for the times we have not known what we were doing, and yet still needed forgiveness. He was there, on the cross, for Pastor Niemöller, and for Pastor Katy, and for you, and for the soldiers offering sour wine, and the leader who wrote, “King of the Jews,” above his head. He was there, on the cross, and they were not left alone their sinfulness. He was there on the cross, to offer relationship, to be with them in their sin.

Likewise, he was there on the cross, for the, ‘deserving,’ criminal, who spoke justice. Jesus was there on the cross, to hear the deserving criminal’s words, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus was there, on the cross, to promise a new kingdom, the kingdom of God, a new reign, the reign of Christ. Jesus was there, on the cross, to reply to the deserving criminal, “Today, you will be with me in paradise.” Jesus neither left the deserving criminal alone on the cross, nor alone in death, but promised salvation.

In our grief, at Lectionary Bible Study, Jesus was there, on the cross, meeting us in the mess of life, and the brokenness we feel. We were not alone. He was visiting again. Because there in our text, Jesus also spoke words of promise, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” In that hard Judgement Sunday text, there was a promise; it is Reign of Christ Sunday. That our Christian year ends with Christ’s promise, and Christ’s presence, and paradise. The final answer, the end, is the promise: Paradise. Paradise. Paradise in the kingdom of God, today. Amen.

October 20th, 2013 Luke 18:1-8

LUKE 18:1-8  NRSV

¹Then Jesus told his disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. ²He said,

"In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. ³In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying,

'Grant me justice against my opponent.'

⁴For a while he refused; but later he said to himself,

'Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone,

yet because this widow keeps bothering me,

I will grant her justice,

so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.'"

⁶And the Lord said,

"Listen to what the unjust judge says.

⁷And will not God grant justice to God’s chosen ones who cry to God day and night? Will God delay long in helping them?

⁸I tell you, God will quickly grant justice to them.

And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"

***

            There are two things I believe when I believe nothing else. They are that God is present, and that God is continually at work for good. I don’t say this because I read it in some book, nor do I say it because I have done some drawn out theological proof. I say this because I have been the widow. I have been the one who sought justice and was refused. I have been the one, who continually came to the judge, and over, and over again was denied. I have been the one, when all hope in human systems was lost, I saw the idiosyncratic and synchronistic systems of God’s justice. I have been the widow.

            A long time ago, time long ago enough that I can talk about it, and time long ago enough that I have healed from it, and been through counseling galore because of it, I was sexually assaulted.

            It happened at seminary, of all places, because it seems like, places of power and implicit trust, lure and hide perpetrators. I think of the judge in the scripture. I think of his his position of power. I wonder how he got it, was it an ol’ boys club of sorts ruling Jewish law? Was he someone’s family and slid by because of his last name? Was he charismatic, and confident, and convincing and had the narcissistic ability to pull the wool over other’s eye’s? Did he have his devout followers believing his every word, and opposers who had caught on and were disgusted by his self entitlement? It was this way with the seminarian who raped me. He was a local boy from an old family, from an old and powerful church, the first Presbyterian church in Atlanta, Georgia, whose members sat on the boards of the seminary. His papa was a preacher and he was and is a youth director in the church. I was pickin’ a big battle by coming forward. I was just a widow.

            I came from the black sheep of my Presbytery, a small quirky church with no other ministers in its linage, I was raised by laity, and schooled at a liberal arts college in the Northeast, and I came alone thinking seminary would be an amazing time to grow closer to God, and to do God’s work. This turned out to be true, but not in the ways I had hoped. I grew closer to God because there were moments in my dorm room crying on the cold hard tile floor where I was truly alone but for God. Those were my widow moments. I was the widow.

            I do not know the widow’s plight in the scripture. I wonder, had someone ripped her off, or was she not receiving the care and protection to which she was entitled under Jewish law. Had she picked a battle with someone bigger and more powerful then she? Was law the only way to solve her issue? I do not know, and I supposed she could have sought justice for any number of things. What we know is that she sought justice over and over again. As a first year seminarian I went to the school, who told me not to speak of the assault. I asked the president of the seminary why we had a prayer wall where students wrote down their joys and concerns. I asked how I was supposed respond to the question, “How are you?” I wonder if the judge told the widow not to speak. I wonder if she too felt the oppression silence can be. I wonder how many times she had to go back. My case went to the judicial court at the seminary. Beside me sat my preaching professor, and as the seminary used the old tricks of victim blaming, Rev. Dr. Anna Carter Florence spoke truth to power, and preached gospel. Ultimately, the perpetrator and I were asked to go to counseling, to which I had already been attending, and he had no recourse to go or not go, moreover sexual assault was never mentioned. I, like the widow, came back again.

            Over Christmas break, my dad and I went to his college library. He and I researched, pouring through psychology books, and statistics, and some really good feminist literature. And with that research, I wrote one hell of a letter listing what the seminary did wrong and threatening to sue they and the perpetrator both. My dad stood in the kitchen holding up the twenty page document, and with tears in his eyes he said, “Kate, this is how the world changes.” It was was the most proud of myself I have ever been, but my dad was wrong. It was not how the world changed.

           

            After break, board members, the president of the seminary, and other power players hurried down seminary hallways with big envelopes and met in wood-paneled board rooms. I went to a lawyer, who was willing to take the case. He supported that seminary had been grossly overstepping their bounds, and extremely detrimental to my health by re-victimizing. After a few meetings the lawyer said to me, “I want you to understand this will be the next year or two of your life.” At that point, I was so tired. I had prayed and prayed, and been hopeless but for prayer, prayers that figured the situation was in God’s hands, because I had seen the wreckage of human hands. If there was any hope, it was in God, and God was at work.

            It was Spring now, and I had planted a garden. I learned to be alone, and to find contentment in the soil, and the earthworms, and after this long winter of my life, sprouts were beginning to burst forth. It amazed me that in the depths of pain, there could be blossoms, there could be life anew, and I saw God in whimsical cosmos and the bounty of tomatoes. I saw God in the friends who stood up for me, in the professors that stood by me, and in the classmates who preached fire and brimstone against the injustice of rape. I saw God in those that took the courage to ask how I really was. I saw God in those that heard my story. I saw God in the elderly seminary couple who pulled me aside in the dining hall and told me they knew, and that they were there, and that they believed me. I saw God in the work and the women at the Rape Crisis Center. In the way I came in a broken mess of confusion and pain, and I left with the strength and knowledge of a survivor. I saw God in the cousin of friend who showed up on my last day at the Rape Crisis Center, and putting two and two together she said that I was the reason she had come seeking help. That her cousin had shared my story, and it gave the the courage call. I saw God in these things, and I saw God’s justice in these ways, and through God’s ___ justice I found healing, healing for myself and healing for the world.

            It was not the normal ways of justice, the court and judge ways, the crime and punishment ways. It was the ways that God made many of us better pastors, better preachers, better people. It was the ways that healed me, that friends said how nice it was to see me outside again. It was good to see me smiling again. It was good to begin to feel like myself again. I couldn’t give a year or two more of my life to seek human justice. I had a lot in me, but I didn’t have that much. Somewhere in the Greater Atlanta files is a crime report on a youth director written in my penned out hand. That was where I had to stop, but I felt okay with that, because I had seen the ways God brought justice. My prayers had been answered, not in the way I wanted or expected, but with unfathomable grace and creativity.

            The scripture says, “God will grant justice to God’s chosen ones who cry to God day and night. God will not delay long in helping them. I tell you, God will quickly grant justice to them.” I believe this. I believe God is present, and God is continually seeking justice for the widow among us, and the window that is us. 

            I believe those prayers prayed on cold hard tile do not hit deaf ears, I believe they open our ears, and our eyes, and our heart. Our prayers are not about making God do something. God is already doing all God can. God is working quickly. God is working for justice and healing. Our prayers are about our seeing God’s work in our midst. Out prayers are the reminder to not loose heart, our prayers are for the widow to have faith to see the justice of God on earth. I have been the widow, and I have have seen the justice of God. In this I have faith.

           

October 13th 2013 LAMENTATIONS 1:1-6, 3:19-26

LAMENTATIONS 1:1-6, 3:19-26

The book of Lamentations articulates the anguish of the Hebrews in the wake of the conquest of Jerusalem and the razing of the city by Babylon.

¹How lonely sits the city that once was full of people! How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations! She that was a princess among the provinces has become a vassal.

²She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they have become her enemies.

³Judah has gone into exile with suffering and hard servitude; she lives now among the nations, and finds no resting place; her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress.

⁴The roads to Zion mourn, for no one comes to the festivals; all her gates are desolate, her priests groan; her young girls grieve, and her lot is bitter.

⁵Her foes have become the masters, her enemies prosper, because the LORD has made her suffer for the multitude of her transgressions; her children have gone away, captives before the foe.

⁶From daughter Zion has departed all her majesty. Her princes have become like stags that find no pasture; they fled without strength before the pursuer.

¹⁹The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall! ²⁰My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me. ²¹But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:

²²The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; ²³they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ²⁴"The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him."

²⁵The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. ²⁶It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.

***

Hope in the Lord.

            There are days like this, there are months, and sometimes there are years, but there is never an eternity like this, an eternity of lament, because there is a God in which to hope.

            I look at this passage, and if we are honest with ourselves, and willing to go those deep wounded places, we can relate to this passage. Lamentations uses the image of daughter Zion weeping and alone in a city that has been conquered and forsaken. I imagine there are times in our lives where we felt so alone that only metaphor can describe the emptiness. This personal emptiness is described by Pastor Nate Pyle, in his article, Confronting the Lie, God Wont Give You More Than You Can Handle. He writes,

“The past three weeks have been the most difficult I have ever gone through.  These three weeks have been filled with illness, the terrible-three’s (the terrible-two’s are an out-and-out lie), a friend suffering the consequence of sin, a ministry I am a part of reeling in confusion and pain, having to cancel a trip to celebrate my parents 60th birthdays, and our family experiencing the emotional roller-coaster of finding out we were pregnant only to be told the pregnancy was ectopic and could be life-threatening to my wife if it was not ended.^[1]...

This experience forced me to look at one such statement that gets spouted often when people go through a lot: God won’t give you more than you can handle. If I may be so bold, let’s just call that what it is:

Bullshit.

Tell that to a survivor of Auschwitz.
Tell it to the man who lost his wife and child in a car accident.
Tell it to the girl whose innocence was robbed from her.
Tell it to the person crushed under the weight of depression and anxiety.
Tell it to the kids who just learned their parent has a terminal illness.

Limp, anemic sentiments will not stand in the face of a world that is not as it should be.”

            Pastor Pyle, is in a Daughter Zion situation, and as he notes, it is not only his life that is in this situation. It is the world. Daughter Zion not only represents the individual, but also the community’s experience of grief. I think of this grief, in worn torn countries, those plauged by natural disaster, or oppression. Where is Daughter Zion today? Does she weep next to weapons in Somalia, or child trafficking from North Korea, or violence from the drug cartels in Mexico City and Juarez, does she hid in girl’s schools in Pakistan, does she feel empty looking over the flooded out and burned up towns in Colorado, is she here with us after the death of a child a couple weeks ago? There are times in our homelands where we feel overtaken and forsaken that we can only describe ourselves in Daughter Zion sorts of ways. Yet, even for daughter Zion, there is hope. At the end of her painful litany, she speaks,

This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:

²²The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; ²³they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ²⁴"The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him."

²⁵The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. ²⁶It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.”

            As a pastor, I hear this notion a lot. People say to me that they don’t understand how people make it through the hard times without faith. This wonder is often less of a judgement against nonbelievers, than it is a profound gratitude for God’s presence in the life of the suffering. It is daughter Zion type of moment, a moment when all one can do, all one has left is hope.

            When I was little, and didn’t believe in God, I had this hope, this hope in humanity, that one day, we would all gather together and seek to do good. It was much the image of children, red, and yellow, black, and white, all holding hands in a circle around the earth. I imagined everyone seeking to do good, and if we just tried a little harder we could change the world for the better. I was, if you can imagine, quite an idealistic and brazen youth. My mom remembers answering my debates with the quip, “Well Kate, Life is not fair.” She also remembered my answer. “Well Mom, it should be fair, and we should try to do everything we can make it fair.” Although, the response to that I got in the old days was probably more along the lines of, “because I said so, Kate,” she later told me that my challenge of change always stunned her, and I think when we bring hope to hopelessness it is stunning.

            These days, some of my youth-like-idealism is gone. I no longer think, we could all band together - red, and yellow, black, and white. We can’t even band together in this country Red State and Blue State. With this reality, there is hopelessness that comes in seeing the world in shades of grey. I no longer wish on every dandelion for World Peace, and I doubt it is possible to end hunger. I no longer have that hope in humanity, and I think my child self would be upset with me, I am part of the problem. But what my child-self did not know, that I know now, is a hope in God. A hope in the mysterious ways God responds to Daughter Zion. The small kindnesses that happen right when you need them, a card, a call, a quote. The ways that although nothing gold can stay, there is also grass and roots that overcome concrete, popping through parking lots and sidewalks. That even in the abandoned lots of NYC dandelions grow, and give pops of yellow color. Pastor Pyle write about this too.

“Later, Paul will write it is when he is weak that the strength of Christ is seen.  In other words, when we can’t do it any longer.  When we are fed up.  When it has become too much.  When we have nothing left.  When we are empty.  When it is beyond our capability to deal with it.  Then, in that moment, the strength of the God of resurrection will be seen.  Until we get to that point, we rely on ourselves thinking we can handle it and take care of the problem.

Don’t hear me saying I am rejoicing because of the last couple of weeks.  I am not. Not once have I danced around our house shouting, “Yeah suffering!”  Instead, in the midst of pain and hurt, I am actively expecting God to do something.  I don’t know what.  I don’t know when.  But I am expecting the God of resurrection to heal us.  I am expecting God to restore us.  I am expecting him to redeem this situation.  I am expecting him to do this and so I will be actively looking and waiting for him to do something.  I believe expectant waiting can only happen when we exchange our feeble platitudes for an authentic faith that engages God with the full brunt of our emotion and pain.  Only then can salvation been seen. But that exchange takes courage.

            It takes courage to have hope, it is nonsensical, and unrealistic that as life is pulling us in downward, that it will ever turn around and go the other way, but what is amazing, is that it does. I have this image from my childhood of the children’s offering basket at my home church. It was yarn, and had red, and yellow back and white kids all holding hands encircling the center of the offering basket. Rather than the image of kids around the globe, this offering basket is my image of hope. That somehow God can take what we have, our daughter Zion moments, and create something new and good. That even in our daughter zion moments, we can have hope, because God is present. Because, there are Daughter Zion days, days like this, there are months, and sometimes there are years, but there is never an eternity like this, never an eternity of lament, because there is a God in which to hope.

---

^[1] http://natepyle.com/confronting-the-lie-god-wont-give-you-more-than-you-can-handle/#sthash.lVd1pXK2.dpuf