reallifepastor

First, I want to say “thanks” to Kim for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today.  It’s a privilege to be here and to share these thoughts with you.  I hope that God will bless our time together this morning.

So I started doing some research about Mary Magdalene on a whim…Kim had asked me to do a Song from Jesus Christ Superstar, “I Don’t Know How to Love Him”, that many of you are probably familiar with, as part of this Sunday, which was originally to focus on Mary Magdalene, and the notorious Salome, who demanded the head of John the Baptist on a platter…I am not sure how Kim was going to connect the two, but I’m not even going to try.  And we’ll do the song another day.  It occurred to me that I had never really read, in a focused way, all the passages in the bible that relate to Mary Magdalene.  Despite the fact that, other than Mary the Mother of Jesus, she is the most often mentioned woman in the New Testament, there are only 12 passages in the Gospels that refer to her.  That surprised me, since I thought I knew so much about her, having grown up Catholic and all.  I started to read more, and discovered that in fact, Mary Magdalene is probably one of the most mysterious characters in the history of the Church…and there are many myths surrounding her.

So, let’s do a little Myth Busters.  This is the audience participation portion of our sermon… Let’s test out our knowledge of the historical Mary Magdalene…

Truth or Myth:  Mary Magdalene was a prostitute?  (show of hands for truth, myth)  Myth.  In truth there is nothing in the bible that indicates that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute.  Before I explain the origins of that myth, let me tell what we do know about her, based on the accounts in the bible. 

Mary is listed as one of a few women who traveled with Jesus and the 12 disciples during his ministry.  What we think of as her last name – Magdalene – is probably an indication that she was from Magdala, a prosperous fishing town on the Sea of Galilee.  In those times, women were known most commonly by their husband’s name.  The fact that we know Mary by her hometown means that she was most likely unmarried, according to scholars.   As an unmarried woman, she would have had no children.  It’s also likely that she was somewhat wealthy – the bible makes reference to the fact that these women “provided for Him (meaning Jesus) out of their means”.  So, Mary Magdalene was most likely a single woman, with no children, from the town of Magdala, who helped provide financial support for Jesus and the disciples during His ministry.  I bet she did a few dishes and the laundry, too, but that’s not in the bible.

Getting back to the question of whether she was a prostitute – or more specifically, why so many of us think she WAS a prostitute.  The origins of that myth came from Pope Gregory, who, in 591 AD, delivered a sermon in which he stated that Mary Magdalene and “the woman with the alabaster jar”  (you know, in Luke, the woman of ill repute who anoints Jesus’ feet with ointment, then wipes them with her hair) were the same person.  In point of fact, the woman with the alabaster jar is unnamed.  But Gregory’s assertion that they were the same woman stuck, and the idea that Mary Magdalene was a “repentant prostitute” was picked up as a theme in art and literature through the centuries, right down to Jesus Christ Superstar.  We could spend a lot of time talking about various theories to explain just WHY Gregory made this assertion in the first place, but that’s a whole different sermon.

Back to Mythbusters.  And slightly more controversial.  Truth or Myth…Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married?  (Hands)  Ok….are you ready?  Myth.  Most mainstream scholars agree that it was highly unlikely that Jesus was married to anyone at all.  Mary was almost certainly in Jesus’ inner circle, and there are several early Christian texts that indicate that she had a significant role in the establishment of the Church after Jesus’ death.    But even those texts contain no clear reference to Mary Magdalene as anything other than a committed follower of Jesus.

One more:  Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a baby.  Again, myth.  With apologies to all you conspiracy theorists out there, there really is no historical evidence to support the idea that Jesus has human descendants, at least those related by blood.  In a way, he can claim all of us as his descendants.  So why do diapers?

There are obviously a lot of disagreements about who Mary Magdalene was and what role she played in Jesus’ ministry and the early church. And if you really want to get frustrated, try figuring out where she is buried.  There are at least three churches that claim to be her final resting place.  Clearly, everybody wants a piece of her story.

But there are a few details that are remarkably consistent, between the four gospel accounts in the New Testament.  Mary Magdalene was present at Jesus’ crucifixion and burial, and she was one of the first, if not the first to discover his resurrection.   She was present for the events that define Christianity, and in a way, she can be thought of as the “first” apostle, since, in most accounts, she was the first one to bring the “good news” that Jesus had been resurrected. Probably without realizing it, Mary Magdalene became the most important witness in the history of human-kind.

The crucifixion, burial and resurrection of Jesus are really the middle of Mary Magdalene’s story. Before these events took place, she was traveling with Jesus, as I noted earlier. We don’t know the details of how she came to follow Jesus, except that Luke’s gospel says that Jesus cast ”Seven Demons” out of her.  Seven is a number that signifies that her affliction was “severe”.   Poet Marie Howe wrote the following poem, which engages in some speculation about the nature of Mary Magdalene’s Seven Demons in a more contemporary context.  I’ll read it for you now:

MAGDALENE–THE SEVEN DEVILS

by Marie Howe

The first was that I was very busy.
The second — I was different from you: whatever happened to you could not happen to me, not like that.

The third — I worried.
The fourth – envy, disguised as compassion.
The fifth was that I refused to consider the quality of life of the aphid,
The aphid disgusted me. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
The mosquito too – its face. And the ant – its bifurcated body.

Ok the first was that I was so busy.
The second that I might make the wrong choice,
because I had decided to take that plane that day,
that flight, before noon, so as to arrive early
and, I shouldn’t have wanted that.
The third was that if I walked past the certain place on the street
the house would blow up.
The fourth was that I was made of guts and blood with a thin layer of skin
lightly thrown over the whole thing.

The fifth was that the dead seemed more alive to me than the living

The sixth — if I touched my right arm I had to touch my left arm, and if I touched the left arm a little harder than I’d first touched the right then I had to retouch the left and then touch the right again so it would be even.

The seventh — I knew I was breathing the expelled breath of everything that was alive and I couldn’t stand it,

I wanted a sieve, a mask, a, I hate this word – cheesecloth –
to breath through that would trap it — whatever was inside everyone else that
entered me when I breathed in

No. That was the first one.

The second was that I was so busy. I had no time. How had this happened? How had our lives gotten like this?

The third was that I couldn’t eat food if I really saw it – distinct, separate from me in a bowl or on a plate.

Ok. The first was that I could never get to the end of the list.

The second was that the laundry was never finally done.

The third was that no one knew me, although they thought they did.
And that if people thought of me as little as I thought of them then what was
love?  Someone using you as a co-ordinate to situate himself on earth.

The fourth was I didn’t belong to anyone. I wouldn’t allow myself to belong
to anyone.

The fifth was that I knew none of us could ever know what we didn’t know.

The sixth was that I projected onto others what I myself was feeling.

The seventh was the way my mother looked when she was dying.
The sound she made — the gurgling sound — so loud we had to speak louder to hear each other over it.

And that I couldn’t stop hearing it–years later –
grocery shopping, crossing the street –

No, not the sound – it was her body’s hunger
finally evident.–what our mother had hidden all her life.

For months I dreamt of knucklebones and roots,
the slabs of sidewalk pushed up like crooked teeth by what grew underneath.

The underneath —that was the first devil. It was always with me.
 And that I didn’t think you— if I told you – would understand any of this –

Do you ever have days that feel like that?  Like you’ll never get to the end of the list?  I totally do…  And sometimes, I get to the end of those days and realize that I have not really paid attention to almost anything that was happening…ignoring people on conference calls because the e-mails were too pressing, or missing the point of a conversation in the name of multi-tasking. And then I realize that Jesus Christ himself could have come right into my office and I wouldn’t have noticed.  I couldn’t have been a witness to anything…because in order to be a witness, you have to be present, in the physical and intentional sense. 

Maybe Mary Magdalene’s Seven Demons were nothing more than the daily distractions of working, cleaning and living.  Just like ours.  Whatever demons Mary had, Jesus removed them, and that removal not only made it possible for her to follow Him, it probably inspired her to do it as well.  The release of the Seven demons started the process of preparing Mary to be a witness, by making it possible for her to be present, not only for those critical events, but also for the day to day needs of Jesus and his disciples in the days leading up to the first Holy Week.

There’s a story by an author whose name I can’t remember (I was probably distracted when I heard it) called the Precious Present.  As far as I remember, the story is about a little boy who learns from an old man about the precious present, a gift so valuable that anyone who has it is guaranteed happiness.  The little boy asks where he can find it, and the story spans several years as the boy grows into a man, still searching for the precious present.  In the end, the boy realizes, once the old man is gone, that the precious present wasn’t a gift in the way he expected…the precious present is whatever “now” you are in, and it’s precious.  We sure don’t treat it that way, do we? 

Elaine Martin recently referred me to a book called The Practice of the Presence of God, a series of interviews with and letters by a 17^th century monk named Brother Lawrence.  He was converted at the age of 18.  Here’s how Brother Lawrence’s conversion was related to a neighboring vicar:  “That in the winter, seeing a tree stripped of its leaves, and considering that within a little time the leaves would be renewed and after that the flowers and fruit appear, he received a high view of the Providence and Power of GOD, which has never since been effaced from his soul. That this view had perfectly set him loose from the world, and kindled in him such a love for GOD, that he could not tell whether it had increased during the more than 40 years he had lived since.”

How about that? A conversion experience inspired by a tree branch!  I’ve thought about what that moment may have felt like for Brother Lawrence.  I imagine it was like one of those times when everything closes in; distractions shut down; and we are left with only the moment and its emotions.

I had one of those moments recently – on the first day of school.  My son Ben is a senior in high school this year.  In his high school, on the first day of school, all the senior boys wear Hawaiian shirts to school.  So here’s my 6’2” son, all showered and ready for school in his Hawaiian shirt at 6:45 am…I took a picture and realized that this is the last “first day of school” I’ll have with him.  And I was so full of pride and amazement at the young man he is becoming.  For a moment, I was completely caught up in it.  Then Ben looks at me and says, “Don’t cry, mom!” 

Now, in the grand scheme of things, this little moment was just that…little.  It wasn’t like when Ben or his sister, Maggie were born.  Or when Don and I got married.  And it’s not like remembering where you were when 9/11 happened, or the Challenger disaster.  Those things are momentous, sometimes life-changing, and it’s hard not to be present in those times.  For Mary Magdalene, the events in the middle of her story were like that – big.  No distractions.  But what about after Jesus was gone?  We don’t really know – she’s not mentioned in the New Testament outside the four gospels.  But it’s reasonable to assume that she was part of the continuation of Jesus’ ministry.  She probably went back to the day to day routine of laundry, and cooking, and providing.  How would she have kept the seven demons from returning?  And how can we keep ours at bay?

There may be something to more to learn from Brother Lawrence, who offered the following assertion to his vicar-neighbor:  “That we should establish ourselves in a sense of GOD’S Presence, by continually conversing with Him. That it was a shameful thing to quit His conversation, to think of trifles and fooleries. That we should feed and nourish our souls with high notions of GOD; which would yield us great joy in being devoted to Him”

A lot easier said than done.  Especially with our grocery lists and our laundry and our i-phones and our DVRs to distract us.  But every once in a while, there’s an opportunity to open a crack in our reality, to let God in…look into the eyes of someone you love, watch silly children dance, notice a soon-to-bloom tree branch.  And God is there.  Amazing.

I think that the secret to Practicing the Presence of God lies not in the big moments, but in the little ones.  That Jesus wasn’t only preparing Mary Magdalene to be a witness at His crucifixion, burial and resurrection; he was preparing her (and the rest of the apostles) for “ordinary time”.  And God offers us the same gift; not just a guarantee that He will be with us at the big times, but that He wants to be with us in the little moments.  That He is ALWAYS there, waiting for us to step away from distractions, to realize and relearn that He is with us here and now, in this Precious Present. 

In the name of our God, who redeems us, sustains us and hopes for our wholeness.

Amen.

            The lion barked.  That’s how the mother and son visiting The People’s Park of Luohe in the Chinese province Henan learned that what was labeled an “African lion” was in fact a Tibetan mastiff, a dog.  The lions, it seems, have been sent to another zoo for breeding.  Without changing the sign by the cage, one of the caretakers at the zoo brought in his family pet to try to fool visitors.  And it’s not the first instance of animal substitution.  “There also have been recent reports of Chinese zoo officials painting dogs black and white to make them look like pandas.”  Now, that’s just silly, isn’t it?  Trying to be something or someone you’re not.

Are you what you’re advertised to be?  Or are you a hypocrite?

It’s a heavy word, “hypocrite.”  A hard word.  A harsh word.  A word we don’t like hearing come from Jesus’ mouth.  A word I successfully avoided for over a decade.  Then someone submitted this passage for this summer sermon series.  So, here we are…trying to make sense of a loving savior who calls people hypocrites.  What is up with this harsh-sounding Jesus?  And, more to the point, what does it have to do with us?

            A quick look at the context of this passage from Matthew will give us some insight into this hypocrite business.  The first thing to note: it’s unlikely that scribes and Pharisees actually were present when Jesus called them “Hypocrites!”  In Mt. 23:1, it tells us that Jesus was speaking “to the crowds and to his disciples,” not to the scribes and Pharisees.  So, if you’ve got an image in your mind of Jesus blasting a group of religious leaders, red-faced, spittle flying—no worries.  You can let that image go; that’s not what’s going on here.  It’s more like Jesus set up an empty chair, and preached as if a hypocritical Pharisee were sitting in it. 

            So, what’s a hypocrite?  The word “hypocrite” derives from the Greek word hypokrisis which refers to “an inconsistency between one’s faith and one’s actions, whether one is aware of it or not” (NIB, 435).  So, in calling the religious leaders hypocrites, Jesus was drawing attention to inconsistency between their faith and their actions.  As he says of the religious leaders in 23:3:  “They do not practice what they preach.”

Which is all well and good….but if Jesus is concerned about the inconsistent faith lives of the religious teachers, why doesn’t he make his case with them instead of taking it to the crowds and his disciples? 

Let’s think about that for a minute.  Who were the crowds and the disciples?  They were the people under the spiritual care of the religious leaders, right?  So, if you’re a regular schmo, trying your best to be faithful, who are you going to listen to?  The religious authorities, right?  But if the religious authorities are on the wrong track, if the religious authorities aren’t living their faith consistently, what’s going to happen to your faith and the faith of all your fellow schmoes?  Because you don’t know any better, you’re going to join them on the wrong track. 

Basically, what Jesus is doing here is giving the people permission to question authority.  Just because a religious teacher says something doesn’t make it gospel.  None of us should take what religious authorities say at face value (says this community’s religious authority… Oh, man!  Is that hypocritical?).  The true test of a person’s authenticity is to see how closely aligned are their beliefs and their actions.  A true disciple is one who practices what she or he preaches.  Someone who doesn’t practice what she or he preaches?  You got it: a hypocrite. 

So, are you a hypocrite?  Just in case you’re wondering, the answer is yes.  Yes, you are a hypocrite.  We all are.  If all our actions aren’t consistent with our faith, if our lives aren’t in line with our values, if we don’t practice what we preach, then, yes, we are hypocrites. 

But just because we’re hypocrites doesn’t mean we’re hopeless.  I confess that I haven’t enjoyed thinking about hypocrisy the past couple of weeks.  But thinking about it has led to some helpful insights…like this one:  when we think about hypocrisy as an either-or thing—either you are a hypocrite or you’re not—it’s easy to feel helpless.  “Oh, geez,” we might say.  “I don’t live what I believe.  I believe in eating healthy, but I eat fast food.  I believe in recycling, but it’s so much easier to toss things in the trash.  I believe in tithing, but I don’t do it.  I don’t believe in mindless consumerism, but I shop every chance I get.  I believe God loves everyone, but does that mean I have to, too?”  Thinking about hypocrisy in black-and-white terms was very disempowering.  Why try to change if I’m never going to measure up to my ideals, right?

So, I stopped.  I stopped thinking about hypocrisy in black-and-white terms and started thinking about it as more of a continuum…like, “I used to be a hypocrite in 95% of my life.  Now, I’m a hypocrite in only 93%.  Yay, me!”

Then I read a book called No Impact Man.  No Impact Man chronicles the year writer Colin Beaven, his wife and toddler daughter tried to live in Manhattan in such a way that they made zero impact on the environment.  No trash, no electricity, no food that traveled more than 250 miles to their table, no use of fossil fuels (except for two train trips to see family), no use of elevators (except for his wife, who worked on the 43^rd floor in a New York sky scraper).  No toilet paper.  It was an extreme way to live.

When Colin proposed the “no impact” idea to his agent, the agent asked why he’d want to do such a crazy thing.  Colin said:  “I want my work to align with my values.”  He’d gotten so overwhelmed by the problem of climate change, he’d become paralyzed.  He wasn’t doing much of anything to care for the earth.  But he’d reached the point where he was tired of not living his values.  So, he tried. 

At the end of the year, they turned the electricity back on and, I suspect, went and bought some toilet paper… but a lot of things in his family’s life changed for the better—and for good– because of the experiment.  Many more of Colin’s actions now are aligned with his values.

Here’s the thing.  If we want to live authentic Christian lives—lives with any kind of authenticity—we have to be honest with ourselves about the places we fall short of our best aims.  If we hope to align our actions and our values, we must take a hard look at the gap (or chasm) between how we hope to live and how we actually live.  If we can look honestly at our hypocrisy, there is hope that it can be healed.  In fact, the only hope of healing our hypocrisy—and living lives of deeper authenticity— is to look at it honestly.  Hear the story of how one hypocrite got healed.

Lord George Hell lived hard—he gambled, drank, ran around with women.  One night, he attends a show with his, um, “girlfriend,” La Gambogi.  When a young and innocent dancer named Jenny performs, Cupid fires his arrow into Lord George’s breast.  He is smitten.

Immediately, “Lord George proposes marriage to Jenny, but she says she will only marry a man with the face of a saint.  Confused, Lord George spends the night wandering the streets, heartbroken.  In the morning, he stumbles upon a mask- maker’s shop.  He purchases a saint’s face mask.  La Gambogi, who sees him leave the shop with his new false face, confronts him, but he pretends not to know her and retreats, intending to attend Jenny’s performance that night.  However, while viewing his new look in the reflection of a brook, Lord George sees Jenny, leaps across the brook and proposes marriage.  She accepts.

“Starting with signing the marriage register as “George Heaven,” Lord George makes a total moral conversion by returning ill-gotten wealth to gamblers he had cheated, donating excess money to charities.  He then buys a woodman’s cottage to live a quiet, modest existence. The newlyweds lead a simple, happy life…Lord George always careful to wear his saintly mask. 

As the couple celebrates their one month anniversary, who should drop by but La Gambogi.  She “refuses to leave until she is granted one last look at Lord George’s true face.  A scuffle ensues.  In the heat of the struggle, La Gambogi tears off Lord George’s mask.  Although he fears that his true love is lost—because Jenny will see who he really is–it turns out that his face has assumed the contours of the mask.”  (Adapted from Wikipedia.)

Though he began his marriage as a hypocrite, by slowly taking actions that aligned with his new values, Lord George grew into the person he wanted to be.  By facing (literally!) the gap between how he was living and how he wanted to live, his hypocrisy was healed and he was able to live his life with integrity and without fear of being found out.

Are we hypocrites?  Oh, yeah.  Is there hope?  Oh, yeah.  When can we begin healing our hypocrisy?  As soon as we sing this next song…

The Hypocrite Song, by eLi   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npcJPd_4Dc8

Kimberleigh Buchanan  ©  2013

Matthew 23:13-36

13 ‘But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them.^{* 15}Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell^* as yourselves.

16 ‘Woe to you, blind guides, who say, “Whoever swears by the sanctuary is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gold of the sanctuary is bound by the oath.” ¹⁷You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the sanctuary that has made the gold sacred? ¹⁸And you say, “Whoever swears by the altar is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gift that is on the altar is bound by the oath.” ¹⁹How blind you are! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? ²⁰So whoever swears by the altar, swears by it and by everything on it; ²¹and whoever swears by the sanctuary, swears by it and by the one who dwells in it; ²²and whoever swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by the one who is seated upon it.

23 ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practised without neglecting the others. ²⁴You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!

25 ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. ²⁶You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup,^* so that the outside also may become clean.

27 ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. ²⁸So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

29 ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, ³⁰and you say, “If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.” ³¹Thus you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets. ³²Fill up, then, the measure of your ancestors. ³³You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell?^{* 34}Therefore I send you prophets, sages, and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, ³⁵so that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. ³⁶Truly I tell you, all this will come upon this generation.

So many people—dead…in a conflict I don’t understand– either historically or experientially.

So many news reports—two or three a day, sometimes more—of the rising death toll…constant reminders of everything I don’t know, everything I am powerless to do.

Oh, for the days of week-long news delays!  What balm those time-lags were on mind, nerves, and heart.  Those grace-filled gaps gave time to decide what to feel, how to think, how to act, if there was action to take.  And if there was no action to take?  The temporal distance assuaged any guilt or grief.

Life was easier when I received my world news once a week.

Now?  This constant barrage of events—of death—demands a decision from my depths every day, every hour—525 more people dead in a conflict I haven’t taken time to understand.  Will that number be the total, or only the tip of the iceberg?  How many people will die in this conflict?  How much of my heart will break for them?  Or not?

Suddenly, I want to know—I need to know–When did I last pray for the people of Egypt?  The people of any country in conflict, or drought, or famine, or political oppression, or abject poverty?  Am I really one of those Christians who neatly excises the parts of the body of Christ that tax my faith?  Am I really one who lops off from my human family tree limbs of those whose experiences drive my prayers too deep?  Do I, in truth, bask in my paralysis?

I don’t want to know!  I don’t want to know!  I don’t want to know!

And yet…

I do know.  Part of me does want to know…I did, after all, sign up for this newsfeed.  So, what can I do with this knowledge?  What must I do with it?

I can pray.  I can pray current prayers, not week-old, stale ones. 

I can pray for mothers grieving the loss of sons, husbands grieving the loss of wives, children grieving the loss of innocence…

I can pray for the people truly paralyzed—by stray bullets, lost dreams, terror…

I can pray for first responders giving aid to the wounded, treating bodies of the newly dead with dignity…

I can pray for imams, priests, and pastors as they help congregants navigate the horror…

I can pray for political leaders—in Egypt and elsewhere—to work together to find a solution that will end the killing…

I can pray for the business owners who never will recover from the economic toll of the conflict…

I can pray for teenagers, whose thoughts and feelings about themselves, their country, the world are being shaped by this violence….

These two, three, four…Five…a day emails…not just death notices.  Also, calls to prayer.

Let us pray, 

Kim:  In the interest of full disclosure, I need to say this:  This two-people sermon thing was not my idea.  I tried it one other time and it didn’t go well…or at least not like I’d planned.I’m not saying I have control issues…  Actually, that’s exactly what I’m saying.  I have control issues.  So, sharing a sermon—that’s not something I ever planned to do again. 

            But then Rochelle comes and says she wants to preach a sermon with me.  If it were anyone else…but it’s Rochelle.  So, I said yes. 

            Then, wouldn’t you know?  The text we get for this tag-team sermon is the one about Nicodemus….the one where Jesus says, “You must be born again.”  Last week I referred to the penchant of preachers in my denomination of origin always asking, “Do you know that you know that you know…?”  One of their favorite ways to complete that question was:  “Do you know that you know that you know that you’ve been born again?”

            In fact, every sermon in that tradition ends with an invitation to be born again, or to “get saved.”  They were really big on saying “once saved, always saved”….but then they kept asking us if we were surewe were saved.  I was so confused!  In truth, when it comes to being “born again,” I’m about as confused as Nicodemus was.

Rochelle: 

Kim, I hear what you’re saying and I know that you have experienced something that didn’t necessarily bring you closer to God or your faith.  However, I believe when Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be “born from above” he isn’t necessarily talking about that ‘born again’ experience that you and so many others have experienced – be it positive or negative.  I feel in a way that I have been ‘born again’ because there are times, especially lately, when I have felt that God has renewed my soul, renewed my spirit.  This renewal of my soul and my spirit have allowed my heart and my mind to explore God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and my faith in a whole new way. 

God puts things in our path that help us grow and learn.  These might be struggles or they might be joyous events but each one of them has the opportunity to renew our faith in God. This congregation has stood beside me through a celebration of a union, heartache at the loss of a relationship, joy at the promise of a new relationship, devastation at the loss of a pregnancy, struggling through infertility, celebrating with us as we enter the world of adoption, and all the while supporting my faith and reminding me that I was a child of God and that God is well-pleased with me. 

Yesterday when the Pilgrimage Writing Group met, we discussed grief, sadness, and disappointments in our lives.  As the group drew to a close, we all realized that even in the grief and sadness, we could find God in the midst of our faith.  When I look back at the past 11 years that I have been a member at Pilgrimage, I never thought I would be standing here with you co-leading a sermon.  Just like I bet Nicodemus never thought he would have the courage enough to meet Jesus at night in order to ask him questions and to learn.

The events in our lives that bring us to a new sense of self are a renewal or a rebirth. 

Kim:

That’s a helpful way to think about it!  Being born again isn’t just a one-time thing—like it was in my denomination of origin.  Being born again is a process.  It’s like we’re born again over and over again.

There’s an idea I’ve learned from the Benedictines that sounds a lot like this.  It’s called “conversion of life.”  If we’re attuned to what’s going on in our lives and are trying to grow from each experience, then we undergo lots of little conversions all the time.

Like the one I experienced in seminary.  Most of you know that I went to seminary to become a children’s minister….because that’s all I had seen women do in the church.For my degree program I had to take one communications course.  Just for fun, I took Intro to Preaching to fulfill the communications requirement.  We didn’t actually preach sermons in the class.  It was lecture-only.

One day toward the end of the semester, I arrived early for a chapel service.  Shortly after I sat down, my preaching professor, Dr. Bugg, slid into the pew beside me.  He said:  “Kim, I want you to take Preaching Practicum with me.”  (That’s the class where we’d actually preach sermons.)  “No,” I said.  “I don’t need that class to graduate.”  Undeterred, he said:  “I’m going to be on sabbatical next year…So, think about it for a year, then see what you think.”

If Dr. Bugg hadn’t sat by me in chapel that day, if he hadn’t made a special effort to invite me to take his class, I neverwould have taken another preaching class in my life.

When he came back from sabbatical, I did take preaching with him….and was “re-born” as a preacher.  Dr. Bugg was my first preaching “midwife.”  He helped me in the arduous of process of giving birth to my true calling as a preacher.  Thank God for Dr. Bugg!

Rochelle:

I had a similar experience when it came to my being a teacher.  I had the Dean of Students take me aside after a conference for freshmen that I had helped plan and he suggested that I think about teaching.  If he had not had done that, I truly wonder if I would be a doctor right now instead of being up here with you.

Ok . . . so now that we have a working definition for being ‘renewed or reborn’, what happens next?  As a child, we learned about the world as we grew and then what?  Nicodemus’ faith also began to grow as he learned more from Jesus during their meeting.  Then in John 7:45-52, Nicodemus’ faith blossoms and matures.  When questioned about why they did not arrest Jesus, Nicodemus answers, ‘Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?’ Nicodemus stands up for Jesus not only in public but also in front of the Pharisees.  He was maturing in his faith. 

Jen and I recently welcomed a new kitten, Olive, into our home.  Watching her discover things for the first time has kept us entertained for hours.  Seriously, who knew that stairs or shoelaces in my sneakers could be so much fun!  Now, after the initial surprise of these new things has started to wear off, Olive has become bigger, bolder, and a little more mature.  She is starting to challenge herself a little more.  Instead of just running up and down the stairs, she has decided to see what it’s like to take them two at a time!  She is still trying to make sure she is experiencing new things within the context of what she is comfortable with.

As I have matured in my faith, my path has changed.  Just like I’m sure Nicodemus never thought when he was meeting Jesus under the cover of night that he would be brave enough to stand up for him in public.  I never thought that I would be taking theology courses and standing up in front of my own congregation giving a sermon or organizing spiritual retreats for the women I worship with.  Then it just happened. And now, just like my kitten Olive with the stairs and Nicodemus with the Pharisees, once you experience something that is a more developed, more mature self, what do you do with it? 

Kim:

            I had discovered a love for and call to preaching, but I was Baptist at a time when the Southern Baptist Convention was in turmoil…and very unfriendly to women preachers.  What was I to do?  How was I to continue growing into my calling to preach?

            The next midwife on my journey was the pastor of Virginia-Highland Baptist Church, Tim Shirley.  I started attending Virginia-Highland after Allen and I got married.  From the get-go, Tim invited me to preach.  Often.  He was the first pastor ever to invite me to preach in a church.  And he always treated me as a professional and a colleague.  He never was threatened by me and always was gracious.  Without Tim’s invitations, without his confidence in me, without his grace, I never would have found my calling to pastor… I never would have found my calling to be your pastor.

Rochelle:

So you have had someone, a midwife of sorts, help you through a process, a ‘rebirth’, that you never expected for yourself.  You didn’t nor could you have done it alone.  You needed a mentor.  Same for me . . . only it’s been you and this congregation that have helped mentor me into my rebirth.  Through small groups I have been a part of or different roles I have held in the church, every experience has shaped and formed me as I’m reborn in my faith.  In the teaching world, we say that the best way to really learn something is to teach it.  If you can wrap your brain around something so well to help someone else through the learning process, you have learned it.  In our lives, we have all had some sort of mentor or midwife that has helped us, guided us, through something new.  Given us strength to believe in ourselves and push us ever so gently into what God has intended for us in our lives.  So, Nicodemus was first a ‘baby’ in his faith . . . meeting Jesus at night to ask questions and listen to his words.  Then he finds the courage he needs to stand up for Jesus and his newfound faith . . . and then in Chapter 19, Nicodemus becomes a mentor.  He and Joseph of Arimathea work together to do something uncomfortable and new – kind of like preaching a tag-team sermon J  They do something so intimate and important – getting Jesus’ body ready for burial.  But they do this scary and new thing TOGETHER.  Nicodemus mentors Joseph and TOGETHER they prepare the body of their faith leader, their teacher, for burial. 

Neither of them could ever go back to being the men they once were.  They could never undo what they had learned or experienced.  Instead, they needed to figure out how to live their lives in the presence of everything they had learned and experienced.  They needed to grow into their new lives as mentors and teachers. 

Kim:

            Yes…Nicodemus does become a mentor to Joseph—he brings the death spices to prepare Jesus’ body for burial.  But Joseph is the one who thinks to go to Pilate and claim Jesus’ body…so maybe they were mentoring each other.  Maybe they were midwifing each other as they each were being re-born into public disciples.

            In many ways, through the midwifery of Dr. Bugg and Tim Shirley, I was able to claim my calling to become a preacher and a pastor.  I, too, am now a midwife–over the years, I’ve been present for many re-births.  It has been a joy to “attend” those re-births.

            And, yes.  Rochelle is one of the people I’ve “midwifed.”  As a teacher of preaching, watching Rochelle grow into a seasoned preacher has been rewarding.  Accompanying her, answering her questions, giving her opportunities to grow in her God-given gift of preaching—all that has been a blessing of the deepest sort.

            Then she went and asked to preach a sermon together.  (Sigh.)  My first response (which I didn’t share with her) was:  “It’s not going to work.And even if it did work, I don’t want to.”  But, it’s Rochelle….so I decided to give it a try.  I confess, though, that I wasn’t happy…

            …until I asked Rochelle why she wanted to do this.“Why a tag-team sermon?” I asked.  She said that often during my sermons, she has conversations with me in her head.  She often sees things from a different perspective.  “I thought it actually might be cool to do that out loud, to give people the chance to hear things from two perspectives in one sermon.’”

            What she said made perfect sense.  When she said it, I realized that I needed to get over myself.  Much to my controlling little heart’s dismay, I don’t have a corner on the interpretive market when it comes to the Gospel.  Every sermon doesn’t have to be of the tag-team variety…but sometimesit helps to hear the Gospel preached “in stereo.”  Sometimes the message actually is stronger when we preach it TOGETHER rather than always going it alone.

            Just look at what happens when Nicodemus and Joseph get together—they prepare Jesus’ body for burial….the burial that makes possible Jesus’ re-birth from flesh-and-blood human being to living Messiah three days later.  Now, that’s interesting.  I guess you could say that Nicodemus and Joseph become midwives for Jesus’ re-birth.

            Which is what happens any time we attend each other’s spiritual re-birthing processes.Whenever we work together, whenever we accompany each other in whatever re-birthing process we’re going through, whenever we serve as midwives to each other, somehowJesus is born into our midst…again

Rochelle:  …and again

Kim and Rochelle:  …and again.

Kim:    (Pause)  In the name of our God,

Rochelle:  who creates us,

Kim:    redeems us,

Rochelle:  sustains us,

Kim and Rochelle:  and hopes for our wholeness.  Amen!

Kimberleigh Buchanan and Rochelle Lofstrand  ©  2013

            So, with which doubting disciple do you most identify?  Thomas, the one known as“the doubter,” or John, the one who kept having to remind himself that Jesus loved him?                                                                                                         

             When I found Thomas’ name among your submissions for this biblical character sermon series, I wasn’t surprised.  There’s something about Thomas that resonates, isn’t there?  One who doubts.  Oh, yeah.  That resonates!  But Thomas also gives us hope…because he is a doubter who comes to believe.  If a strong doubter like Thomas can come to believe, then maybe, just maybe, there’s hope for us, too, right?

Do you struggle with doubt?  It’s a hard way to live, isn’t it?  Growing up in a denomination that created nospace for doubt was hard for me.  The favorite question of pastors in that denomination was:  “Do you know that you know that you know…?”  Everything wasblack and white.  I’ve never been a black and white thinker.  I can see both sides of just about any issue.  And—gifted with a vivid imagination—I can believe just about anything….       

…which doesn’t fly in black-and-white denominations.  In black-and-white denominations, there is only one right way, one right answer, one way to believe.  If you can conceive many ways to believe, you’re just wrong.  And, oh yeah.  You’re also going to hell.  Because I didn’t “know that I knew that I knew” the “correct” answers about faith, I spent most of adolescence and young adulthood terrified of going to hell. 

            I discovered a poem this week by Anne, one of the Bronte sisters.  I wish I’d found it when I was a teenager.  It would have helped to know that someone else struggled to believe.THE DOUBTER’S PRAYER.

       ETERNAL Power, of earth and air!
Unseen, yet seen in all around,
Remote, but dwelling everywhere,
Though silent, heard in every sound;

If e’erthine ear in mercy bent,
When wretched mortals cried to Thee,
And if, indeed, Thy Son was sent,
To save lost sinners such as me:

Then hear me now, while kneeling here,
I lift to thee my heart and eye,
And all my soul ascends in prayer,
OH, GIVE ME–GIVE ME FAITH! I cry.

Without some glimmering in my heart,
I could not raise this fervent prayer;
But, oh! a stronger light impart,
And in Thy mercy fix it there.

While Faith is with me, I am blest;
It turns my darkest night to day;
But while I clasp it to my breast,
I often feel it slide away.

Then, cold and dark, my spirit sinks,
To see my light of life depart;
And every fiend of Hell, methinks,
Enjoys the anguish of my heart.

What shall I do, if all my love,
My hopes, my toil, are cast away,
And if there be no God above,
To hear and bless me when I pray?

If this be vain delusion all,
If death be an eternal sleep,
And none can hear my secret call,
Or see the silent tears I weep!

Oh, help me, God! For thou alone
Canst my distracted soul relieve;
Forsake it not: it is thine own,
Though weak, yet longing to believe.

Oh, drive these cruel doubts away;
And make me know, that Thou art God!
A faith, that shines by night and day,
Will lighten every earthly load…

            Yes, the thoughts, feelings, and uncertainty of doubt can be excruciating.  But, as UCC pastor Martin Copenhaver suggests, they also can bea gift.  The quotes on “The Gift of Doubt” side of your insert come from Copenhaver’s book, Living Faith While Holding Doubts.

This might seem counter-intuitive, but our ability to doubt is crucial to maturing in faith.  Let me say that again.  Our ability to doubt is crucial to maturing in faith.Think for a minute of what faith without doubt—“blind faith,” we sometimes call it–might look like.  Without doubt, Copernicus never would have suspected that the earth orbitsthe sun rather than the other way around.  Without doubt,Jim Crow laws would still be in force in the South.  Without doubt, I’d never have outgrown the idea that women can’t be pastors. 

These examples suggest that maybe a good question to ask when doubts arise is:  To what deeper truth might doubt be leading us?

As uncomfortable as it is, doubt is what makes possible a real faith we can call our own.  Copenhaver writes, “For beliefs to be truly our own, it is often necessary to disengage from our inherited beliefs in order that, at a different stage, we may come to believe again, but with a big difference.  The beliefs are now our own… If we become free to doubt what we are told, we then become free to have our very own belief in God, a firsthand belief that is real and personal.” 

Sounds great, doesn’t it?  Doubting is good.  It’s a gift.  It’s a key ingredient to a grown-up faith.  Great!  But it still can be disconcerting, can’t it?  Very disconcerting.

So, what do we do until our faith grows up?  How do we handle the discomfort of doubt?  Perhaps we can learn something from another of Jesus’ doubting disciples:  John.I know.  “Doubting Thomas” we’ve heard of.  But “Doubting John?”

There are a couple of ways to interpret John’s insistence on identifying himself as “the disciple Jesus loved.” Some interpreters say he was drawing attention to himself, making a distinction between him—the disciple Jesus loved—and everybody else, who Jesus merely liked.It could be that John was the biggest narcissist in all of Scripture and wanted to rub his intimate relationship with Jesus in everybody’s else’s faces.

But another interpretation rings truer for me….and explains why I think John might have been a doubter.  What if John keeps calling himself “the disciple Jesus loved” because part of him didn’t believe it?  Maybe John had to keep reminding himself of Jesus’ love for him because he doubted it was true.

On our “Five Monasteries and a Distillery” vacation last month, Allen and I visited the Monastery of the Immaculate Conception in Ferdinand, Indiana.  We stopped by to see my friend Sr. Betty.  Sr. Betty is part of Women Touched by Grace, which means that we only had seen each other at Our Lady of Grace, the monastery I usually visit.  The monastery at Ferdinand is Sr. Betty’s home community….so we wanted to stop by and see the place.

And what a place it is!  The chapel was built in the 1920’s.  Think of the Greek Orthodox church onTrickum Road, except twice as big and set up on a hill.  The place is magnificent!  Grand!  Beautiful!Solemn.

Sr. Betty arranged for us to have a tour before we met with her.  The tour ended in the reception hall–a stately, barrel-roofed brick passageway.  As we waited, I kept saying to myself, “Be decorous and staid.  Don’t act like a bumpkin.  This is a monastery, after all.” 

But when she appeared at the other end of the hall, I couldn’t help myself.  I ran down the passageway waving my hands and screaming, “Sr. Betty!  Sr. Betty!”  And guess what?  She was doing the same thing!  “Kim!  Kim!”  We hugged and hugged.  I don’t know where Allen was.

Later, as we reflected on that decidedly NON-decorous scene, Allen said, “Sr. Betty really loves you.”  “How do you know?” I asked.  “You could tell by the way she greeted you.”  I thought about that.  “But she greets everyone that way,” I said.  “Yes,” Allen responded.  “But yesterday, she greeted you that way.”

Sr. Betty is a lot like Jesus.  As spiritual devotion writer, Gabrielle Bossis once heard Jesus say:  “Every soul is my favorite.”  Every person Sr. Betty knows is her favorite, too.  I suspect that’s the kind of love John was trying to take in when he identified himself so many times as “the one whom Jesus loved”….He was just trying to get used to the idea, to take it in.  Yes, he was trying to believe in Jesus’ love for him.

…which is why I’m suggesting that John was a doubting disciple.Maybe he kept reiterating Jesus’ love for him as a way to convince himself that that love was real.

I think sometimes when we get caught in the downward spiral of doubt, we forget about Jesus’ love for us.  If the whole thing is bogus, if neither  God nor Jesus is real, then why go there, right?  Why believe in—much less depend on and be comforted by—divine love if the one extending that love doesn’t exist?

But maybe we’ve got the process backwards.  Maybe it’s not that first we come to believe then we’re able to receive God’s love.  Maybe belief comes after or in the process of receiving God’s love. 

Also on our vacation I saw my spiritual director, Felicity.  Spiritual direction is great, just great…until it gets annoying.  Felicity’s favorite question of me—especially when I come into a session tired and cranky—is:  “Kim, Do you believe God loves you?”  My usual response is to remind her of our church’s mission, of how we say every week:  ‘One fact remains that does not change…’Of how I preach God’s love every week.She always listens patiently….then asks:  “Kim, Do you believe God loves you”?  See what I mean?  Annoying.

And right on target.   Receiving God’s love—that’s where true belief begins.  (Pause.)Do you believe God loves you?(Vickie sings “A Doubter’s Prayer.”)

In the name of our God, who creates us, redeems us, sustains us,  and hopes for our wholeness.  Amen.

KimberleighBuchanan  ©  2013

            He’s been baptized, claimed by God, and sent out into the wilderness for a time of preparation.  Now it’s time for Jesus’ ministry of saving the world to begin in earnest.  A task like that, you’re going to need some help. 

            To that end, Jesus calls together a group of folks to help him, a group that becomes his inner circle.  These are the people he made sure heard his message; the ones he picked to tour around Judea with; the ones with whom he chose to eat his last meal.

Think about that—the ones with whom he chose to eat his last meal. 

            So, who were the members of this motley crew?  What were their backgrounds?  What were their gifts?  Why did Jesus choose them?  Good questions to ask of those first disciples….but here’s the question I suspect we really want to ask:  Would Jesus have chosen me? 

            Ready to meet the Twelve?

On his first day of ministry, Jesus called to him—Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.

            Andrew is a good guy.  In the Gospel of John, he’s the first disciple Jesus calls.  Andrew’s immediate response to being called?  He runs to tell his brother, Simon.  Later on, when a long-winded Jesus is preaching to the crowd and they run out of food?  Andrew is the one who finds the little boy with the loaves and fish….the tiny offering that feeds the huge crowd.  And after that, when people come to Philip asking to see Jesus, Philip goes straight to Andrew, who in turn goes straight to Jesus. 

Andrew is one of those behind-the-scenes guys, one who quietly makes things happen by making connections among people.  Without people like Andrew?  The church would completely fall apart.  Jesus knew what he was doing when he called Andrew as his first disciple.

            Are you a behind-the-scenes kind of person?  Good news!  Jesus is calling you.

On his second day of ministry, Jesus called to him–Philip, friend of Andrew

            Like his good friend Andrew, Philip shared the good news whenever he got the chance.  When Jesus called him, he went and told his friend Nathaneal (also known as Bartholomew).  In the book of Acts, Philip shares the good news with a foreigner, an Ethiopian.  Early on, Philip could see that God’s love was for everyone.

            Do you like to share God’s love with others?  Good news!  Jesus is calling you.

On his third day of ministry, Jesus called to him–John, Son of Thunder

            There’s lots to say about John….so much, in fact, that we’re going to wait until next week to talk about him.

On his fourth day of ministry, Jesus called to him–James, Son of Thunder

            Brothers James and John were BFFs with brothers Andrew and Simon Peter.  By the looks of things, both sets of brothers worked together in their fishing business.  Along with Peter, James and John became part of Jesus’ inner circle.  Those are the three who witness the Transfiguration.  Those are the three who Jesus takes to pray with him the night before he dies.  Those are the three stars of the wildly popular song, “Peter, James, and John in a sailboat.”

            This isn’t documented, but there’s a good bet that Jesus nick-named James and John “Sons of Thunder” not after their father, Zebedee, but after their mother.  In Matthew 20, she comes to Jesus and asks:  “Grant that one of my sons might sit at your right hand and the other at your left in your kingdom.”  Right there in front of all the other disciples.  Awkward! 

            Do you have mother issues?  Good news!  Jesus is calling you!

On his fifth day of ministry, Jesus called to him–Peter, the Rock!

            “Upon you will I build my church!”  “Get behind me, Satan.”  “Before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.”  The cock crowed….and Peter wept bitterly.  “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?”  “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”  “Simon, do you love me?”

            Do you run hot and cold with your faith, completely gung-ho one minute, denying you believe the next?  Good news!  Jesus is calling you.

On his sixth day of ministry, Jesus called to him–Thomas, the Doubter

            Another disciple about whom there is much to say.  We’ll return to Thomas next week.  For today, know this:  If you struggle to believe, if you doubt, Good news!  Jesus is calling you.

On his seventh day of ministry, Jesus called to him–Matthew, the Taxman

            Anyone here work for the IRS?  Good news!  Jesus is calling you.

On his eighth day of ministry, Jesus called to him–Simon, the Zealot

            Talk about a “team of rivals!”  As a Zealot, Simon worked—sometimes violently—for the liberation of Judah from Roman oppression.  Matthew actually worked for the Romans.  I’ll bet Simon and Matthew had some interesting dinnertime conversations!

            I wonder how many of us cancel out each others’ votes at the polls?  Yes.  Whether Democrat or Republican…whether hawk or dove….whether you’re into a traditional style of worship or a contemporary style—Good news!  Jesus is calling you.

On his ninth day of ministry, Jesus called to him—Bartholomew/Nathaneal

            Whether called Bartholomew or Nathaneal, this guy was the group’s cynic.  When Philip tells him that he has met the one about whom the prophets spoke–Jesus of Nazareth–Nathaneal responds:  “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”  Jesus quickly makes a connection with old Nate and Nate just as quickly declares his belief in Jesus….but you gotta love a cynic.  They often keep a group grounded in reality.

            Are you a cynic?  A naysayer?  A pragmatist?  Good news!  Jesus is calling you.

On his tenth day of ministry, Jesus called to him—James, son of Alpheus

            Another James. Identified, not on his own terms, but as his father’s son. 

            Do you sometimes feel nameless, invisible?  Good news!  Jesus is calling you.

On his eleventh day of ministry, Jesus called to him– Thaddeus, or Judas-not-Iscariot

            Identified as someone he is not.  Any younger siblings out there?

            Do you sometimes feel nameless, invisible?  Good news!  Jesus is calling you.  By YOUR name.

On his twelfth day of ministry, Jesus called to him–Judas Iscariot—replaced by Matthias after Judas died by his own hand after betraying Jesus for 30 pieces of silver which directly led to Jesus’ death by crucifixion…

            Have you ever done something unforgiveable, something that betrayed the person you most loved and admired?  Good news!  Jesus is calling you.

            Shall we try the whole song?

On his first day of ministry, Jesus called to him—Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.

On his second day of ministry, Jesus called to him–Philip, friend of Andrew

On his third day of ministry, Jesus called to him–John, Son of Thunder

On his fourth day of ministry, Jesus called to him–James, Son of Thunder

On his fifth day of ministry, Jesus called to him–Peter, the Rock!

On his sixth day of ministry, Jesus called to him–Thomas, the Doubter

On his seventh day of ministry, Jesus called to him–Matthew, the Taxman

On his eighth day of ministry, Jesus called to him–Simon, the Zealot

On his ninth day of ministry, Jesus called to him—Bartholomew/Nathaneal

On his tenth day of ministry, Jesus called to him—James, son of Alpheus

On his eleventh day of ministry, Jesus called to him– Thaddeus, or Judas-not-Iscariot

On his twelfth day of ministry, Jesus called to him–Judas Iscariot—replaced by Matthias after Judas died by his own hand after betraying Jesus for 30 pieces of silver which directly led to Jesus’ death by crucifixion…

            See what I mean?  When it came to choosing folks to whom to entrust the work of God’s kin-dom, Jesus took….well, he took just about anybody.  Each disciple brought his own unique gifts and opinions and commitments; each also brought all his own foibles and biases and flaws.  Despite their differences, though, despite their “growing edges,” despite their humanness—or maybe in light of all those things—Jesus entrusted the task of sharing the good news of God’s love with others, to this motley crew.

            So, what do you think?  Would you have made it into the top twelve?  It’s interesting to speculate about whether we would have been included in Jesus’ inner circle had we been around in the first century.  In truth, though, the question is moot.  It really doesn’t matter whether Jesus would have called us to be disciples in the first century.  If we’re Christians in the 21^st century, weare called to be Jesus disciples.  And if we’ve been baptized or confirmed, we’ve made that commitment public. 

I invite you to turn to p.45 in your hymnals.  This is the litany we use when people join the church.  If you’ve joined Pilgrimage, you’ve said these words.  Let’s say them together.  I’ll be the Pastor, you be the Candidates.

Do you desire to affirm your baptism into the faith and family of Jesus Christ?  I do.

Do you renounce the powers of evil and desire the freedom of new life in Christ?  I do.

Do you profess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?  I do.

Do you promise, by the grace of God, to be Christ’s disciple, to follow in the way of our Savior, to resist oppression and evil, to show love and justice, and to witness to the work and word of Jesus Christ as best you are able?  I promise, with the help of God.

Do you promise, according to the grace given you, to grow in the Christian faith and to be a faithful member of the church of Jesus Christ, celebrating Christ’s presence and furthering Christ’s mission in all the world?  I promise, with the help of God.

At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus needed twelve faithful people.  Today, if the work of establishing God’s kin-dom is to be accomplished, Jesus needs all of us, every baptized person, with all of our foibles and flaws, commitments and quirks, histories and humanness.  If every person is to hear the good news that God loves them, Jesus needs all of us.

On his 727,155^th day of ministry, Jesus calls to him:  You.

In the name of our God, who creates us, redeems us, sustains us, and hopes for our wholeness.  Amen.

Kimberleigh Buchanan  © 2013  

It’s like you wait forever then–Boom!  Justice comes all at once.  Or maybe I should say, “most at once.”

*DOMA–the defense of marriage act–is dead.

*Same gender couples can marry (again!) in the state of California.

*Same gender-married couples are afforded full rights….in states that allow gay marriage.

*And in May, the Boy Scouts of America lifted the ban on gay youth.

The jubilation folks are feeling and expressing over these decisions is well-founded and grounded.  When the UCC General Synod voted to affirm gay marriage in 2005, the reality of legal gay marriage seemed far in the future.  “Maybe in my lifetime,” I said.  Not only has it happened in my lifetime, it wasn’t even a decade in the future….just 8 years.

Three things are coming to mind in the wake of the momentous decisions this week…

1)  CELEBRATE!  All of us can celebrate that LOVE HAS WON.  In many ways and places, LGBTQ folks are no longer second class citizens.  Their love–which is human love and blessed by God– is recognized legally.  THAT must be celebrated!

2)  THANK YOU!  The celebrations happening right now would not have been possible without myriad incremental acts of justice for years and years and years.  The struggle sometimes is so hard.  Often, seekers of justice labor under the assumption that, while their acts will lead to justice someday, they could well die before they “get to the promised land” themselves.   That kind of consistent, brave work takes tremendous energy and courage. 

For all the people who have labored for justice for LGBTQ folks, THANK YOU.  For the couples who have lived their marriages with integrity, even when others refused to acknowledge them, THANK YOU.  For every one who filed a lawsuit–and everyone who navigated it through the court system–THANK YOU.  For the Supreme Court justices who decided in favor of human dignity–THANK YOU.  For all the clergy who have been preaching the love of God for all people for decades–centuries–THANK YOU.  For the UCC, who ordained its first openly gay person in 1973 and its first woman in 1853–THANK YOU. 

No one person, no one process creates tide changes like the one marked by yesterday’s SCOTUS decisions.  It takes tons of brave people taking tiny step by tiny step toward justice.  This week, we must say THANK YOU to everyone who has helped make this week possible.

3)  WHAT NEXT?  Even as we celebrate the momentous decisions this week, other decisions point out the large amount of justice work still left to do.  

[a]  While the rights of same gender married couples were affirmed in states that recognize gay marriage, those rights do not extend to same gender couples in states that do NOT recognize gay marriage.  On this issue, the Court missed an opportunity to strike down discrimination at its core.  In states like Georgia, same gender couples still must live as second class citizens in the eyes of the state.

[b]  The Voting Rights Act decision….I have mixed feelings about this decision.  With the Court, I really would like to affirm that–nearly 50 years out–the South (and other regions affected by the Act) have changed.  I would like to believe that oversight by the Federal Government of certain states’ polling practices is no longer needed.  Though the restrictions on certain states were put in place because of massive abuses in those states, there’s something that feels overly punitive–and belittling–about adding a layer of oversight on some states and not others.

That said, I just don’t think we’ve arrived with fair voting practices.  Some of the comments I’ve heard at Poll Worker training (by those being trained) convince me that discrimination at the polls still exists.  And very few voting districts in the metro Atlanta area seem racially mixed.  In my voting precinct, Democratic candidates rarely even run.  Is that evidence of a fair and balanced system?

With this decision, I feel a need to increase my vigilance on fair voting practices, particularly in my work as a poll worker.

[c]  Boy Scouts.  At Pilgrimage UCC, we’ve been deeply immersed in conversation about the recent decision by the Boy Scouts to lift the ban on gay youth.  We haven’t made a final decision yet on whether to charter a troop.  While we want to affirm this important step by BSA, we still are deeply troubled by the ban on gay leaders.  I was troubled even more by a member of the BSA leadership who said, “Our current policy on Scout leaders has worked for 100 years.  It’s okay as it stands.”  (That’s not a direct quote….but it does catch the spirit of what he said.)

As our act of justice in regard to the Boy Scouts’ decision, at Pilgrimage we are continuing to talk and discern the best way to demonstrate the dignity of all people, what, for us, is a theological value.

So….It’s important to celebrate this week’s victories.  That’s great.  It’s equally important, though, to realize that there are so many other areas in which we have not arrived.  In those areas, all seekers of justice will continue working until the promised land is open to EVERYONE.

          Once upon a time, a generous pastor invited her congregation to identify biblical characters on which they’d like her to preach.  It was a good faith gift, a sign of her magnanimity, of her desire to share worship responsibilities with her congregation.  This gracious pastor imagined the congregation would choose characters from whom they might learn how to live their faith more authentically. 

          This magnanimous pastor imagined wrong.  Given the whole Bible from which to choose—a book filled with hundreds of faithful characters— someone in this kind pastor’s congregation chose Korah, a person who openly opposed his community’s leadership.  Listen.

Now Korah son of Izhar son of Kohath son of Levi, along with Dathan and Abiram sons of Eliab, and On son of Peleth—descendants of Reuben—took two hundred and fifty Israelite men, leaders of the congregation, chosen from the assembly, well-known men,^* and they confronted Moses.  (Moses.  Prophet of God.  The one who defied Pharaoh and led the people out of slavery in Egypt.  These 250 people—under Korah’s leadership—confronted Moses.)

They assembled against Moses and against Aaron, and said to them, ‘You have gone too far!  All the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them.   So why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?’  (In his defense, Korah has some good theology here.  In the UCC we call the idea he’s talking about “the priesthood of all believers.”  What that means is that all of us have equal access to God.  So, Korah questions the need for Moses to set himself so high above the rest of the congregation.)

When Moses heard it, he fell on his face.  (To show deference, perhaps…to let Korah know that he’s listening.)  Then he said to Korah and all his company, ‘In the morning the Lord will make known who is his, and who is holy, and who will be allowed to approach him; the one whom he will choose he will allow to approach him.  Do this: take censers, Korah and all your^* company, and tomorrow put fire in them, and lay incense on them before the Lord; and the man whom the Lord chooses shall be the holy one. You Levites have gone too far!’  (First, Korah tells Moses he’s gone too far.  Now, Moses tells Korah HE’S gone too far.  Like squabbling siblings, they run to a parent for mediation.  Big Brother Moses continues.)

Then Moses said to Korah, ‘Hear now, you Levites!(Levites were the people—from the tribe of Levi [cousins to Moses and Aaron]– who took care of the Tabernacle, the community’s worship space. Because they dealt with the holy things, the Levites were set apart from the rest of the Israelites.) ‘Is it too little for you that the God of Israel has separated you from the congregation of Israel, to allow you to approach him in order to perform the duties of the Lord’s tabernacle, and to stand before the congregation and serve them?  He has allowed you to approach him, and all your brother Levites with you; yet you seek the priesthood as well!(Let’s see…what might be an appropriate parallel?  I know!  Let’s think of, oh, our music director as a Levite. “God has allowed you to approach [God], and all the other choir members with you; yet you seek the [pastor’s job] as well.”  That brings it home, huh?  Did I mention that Korah translates literally as “bald head?”  I’m just saying.) 

Yet you seek the priesthood as well!  Therefore you and all your company have gathered together against the Lord. What is Aaron that you rail against him?’

Moses sent for Dathan and Abiram sons of Eliab (More rebels);  but they said, ‘We will not come!  Is it too little that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey (…a land flowing with milk and honey…where they were slaves…) to kill us in the wilderness, that you must also lord it over us?It is clear you have not brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey, or given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards. Would you put out the eyes of these men? We will not come!’  (I just don’t know where our ancestors in faith came up with stories like this.  Congregants opposing their leaders?  Where did they get this stuff?)

Moses was very angry and said to the Lord, ‘Pay no attention to their offering. I have not taken one donkey from them, and I have not harmed any one of them.’  (Okay, parents.  Have you ever had one of your children make suggestions about what punishment you might inflict on one of their siblings?) And Moses said to Korah, ‘As for you and all your company, be present tomorrow before the Lord, you and they and Aaron; and let each one of you take his censer, and put incense on it, and each one of you present his censer before the Lord, two hundred and fifty censers; you also, and Aaron, each his censer.’

So each man took his censer, and they put fire in the censers and laid incense on them, and they stood at the entrance of the tent of meeting with Moses and Aaron.  Then Korah assembled the whole congregation against them at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And the glory of the Lord appeared to the whole congregation.  (Read that last sentence again.)  And the glory of the Lord appeared to the whole congregation.  (Isn’t that great?  It must have grieved God’s heart that the congregation was so divided.  Even so, “The glory of the Lord appeared to the WHOLE congregation.”)

Then the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying:  ‘Separate yourselves from this congregation, so that I may consume them in a moment.’  (Yeah.  Meet the angry Old Testament God we all have problems with.  We’ll talk more about this angry God in a minute.  For now, let’s just stay with the story.)  They fell on their faces, and said, ‘O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one person sin and you become angry with the whole congregation?’  (Now this is cool.  Even though Korah had incited the people to rebel against them, Moses and Aaron prayed for mercy for the rebels.The hot anger they were feeling a minute ago has abated.  Somewhat.)

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:  ^‘Say to the congregation: Get away from the dwellings of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.  So Moses got up and went to Dathan and Abiram; the elders of Israel followed him.  He said to the congregation, ‘Turn away from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, or you will be swept away for all their sins.’  So they got away from the dwellings of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram; and Dathan and Abiram came out and stood at the entrance of their tents, together with their wives, their children, and their little ones.  And Moses said, ‘This is how you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these works; it has not been of my own accord:  If these people die a natural death, or if a natural fate comes on them, then the Lord has not sent me.  But if the Lord creates something new, and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up, with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into Sheol, then you shall know that these men have despised the Lord.’  (Despite their prayers, God still has a point to make with the rebels.  As leader of the people, Moses has no choice but to follow through.  I wonder what will happen next?)

As soon as he finished speaking all these words, the ground under them was split apart.  (Uh oh.)  The earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, along with their households—everyone who belonged to Korah and all their goods.  So they with all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol; the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly.  (I’M not the one who chose this passage!)  All Israel around them fled at their outcry, for they said, ‘The earth will swallow us too!’And fire came out from the Lord and consumed the two hundred and fifty men offering the incense.  (Choir:  “And if there is no fire from heaven”)

          To whoever chose Korah:  What are you trying to say?????????? 

          In a conversation with a room full of pastors at the Conference meeting on Friday, I asked if anyone had ever heard of Korah.  Not one of them had.  In truth, I hadn’t either. 

          After hearing the story, I’m not surprised we don’t hear much about Korah.  Nobody looks good in this passage.  Korah, a Levite, incites a rebellion against the leadership of the community.  Moses, said leader, gets angry with the people.  God gets angry with the people….to the extent—it appears—that  God opens a hole in the ground and fast tracks those people to Sheol; then God shoots fire from heaven to burn up the rest.  Yes, there’s probably a good reason this passage isn’t included in our regular list of readings.

          When you come across a difficult biblical passage like this one, the first question to ask is, Why is this story here?  The story of Korah has several possible interpretations.

Some people see in itevidence of a vengeful God.  Those are the folks who attribute disasters to the“sin” of the victims:  those people, they reason, must have been swallowed up by the chasm created by that earthquake because they did something wrong, not because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  I’ve known too many good people hurt by too many disasters to believe anything that absurd.  I’m guessing you do, too.

          Another interpretation might see the story as an endorsement of the community’s leadership.  Recall that much of the Old Testament was written while the people were in exile.  During exile, the people tried to re-build their devastated community.  They did that rebuilding, in part, by writing stories.  So…if you wanted to rebuild your community, re-establishing the Mosaic and Aaronic line as the leaders of the people, what kind of story might you write?  How about one that illustrates just what happens to people who rebel against that leadership?  That would do it!  As the leader of a religious community, that interpretation does tempt me.  Just a tad.

          A third interpretation might see the story of Korah as a corrective to the power system in place.  If everyone has equal access to God, then why are all the decisions about the community’s worship and religious practices made by only two people?  Korah’s rebellion could be seen as an act of social justice.  He rallies the masses in a protest against the oppression of absolute power.  He dares to speak truth to that power.  The demise of the rebels demonstrates just how destructive absolute power can be. Another intriguing interpretation…assuming you’re not the leader of a religious community! 

          Three viable, but ultimately unsatisfying interpretations.  So– if this story isn’t a portrait of a vengeful God or an endorsement of religious leadership or an indictment of oppressive power, what is it?  Why is this story in the Bible?

          I’m starting to think this story is a cautionary tale.  It’s not about endorsing one group over another; it’s not an indictment of oppressive power…no, this story shows us what can happen when we use worship for anything besides worshipping God.

Korah was a Levite, a person who tended the tabernacle, who handled the holy things in the sanctuary….yet he wanted more power.  Moses and Aaron—being supreme leaders of the community and, thus, of its worship—were happy with the way things stood….so happy that, when their authority was challenged, they tried to get God to withhold blessing from the rebels.  Neither Korah nor Moses and Aaron were using the things of worship—like the censers– to help them open themselves to God.  They weren’t worshiping God.  Each group was using God to obliterate their enemies. 

The aptly named William Temple, one-time Archbishop of Canterbury, described worship as “the submission of all our nature to God.”  I titled this sermon, “The Real Worship War.”  The real worship war isn’t about what songs to sing or whether or not to use screens in worship or whether or not to wear robes.  The real worship war is internal; it’s fighting ourselves to “submit our nature to God.”  Temple goes on to describe that submission as “the quickening of the conscience by [God’s] holiness;  the nourishment of mind with [God’s] truth; the purifying of the imagination by [God’s] beauty; the opening of the heart to [God’s] love; the surrender of will to [God’s] purpose – and all of this gathered up in adoration,the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable, and therefore the chief remedy of that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin.”

We worship God, not for God’s sake, but for our own.  The real worship war is the fight to open ourselves completely to God, to give ourselves over to God’s movement and leading, to relinquish our own will in favor of God’s.  I wonder sometimes if we pick fights with each other over worship—like Korah and Moses and Aaron did—because it’s easier to fight about music or robes than it is to fight the real worship war—giving ourselves over completely to God?

          When inviting people to sing the song we sang earlier, Allen called it “funny.”  In one respect, he’s right.  It is a funny song.  Any song with the words “ditties” or “androids” or “zombies” is going to be funny.  In another respect, though, I think Ken Medema got it exactly right. 

Where are the songs about Jesus who comes to us, washing our feet, who asks us to follow…  Jesus, whose friends will give food to the hungry;   Jesus, whose friends will give drink to the thirsty;  Jesus, who asks us to love our old enemies;   Jesus, who always is quick to remind us  the things that I do you will do and yet greater?                                   

Are these not the songs we might want to be singing?   The old ones, the new ones, the complex, the simple?   Not standing there waiting while praise bands and choirs fill up the space where we don’t know the song, but singing with passion and purpose and trembling  and watching our neighbors and sensing their offering.                              

And singing to Jesus, who lives here among us; not up on some cloud or in some holy fortress, but here in the hearts of the laughing and  learning struggling and striving, working and weeping people who make up this fragile communion, this holy assembly this wonderful family of God. 

The real worship war isn’t about what style of music to do or what version of the Bible to read or whether or not clergy should wear robes….the real worship war is waged in our hearts.  Will we open ourselves to God?  Will we offer God our praise and gratitude?  Will we risk being changed by the one who loves us and hopes for our wholeness?  When we come to this place, this space, at 8:30/10:00 on a Sunday morning, will we dare to open ourselves and let God change us for the better so that we might go out into the world and work to change it for the better?  Today, here, right now, Will you open yourself–mind and heart– to God?  Or will you remain a casualty of the worship war raging inside you?

In the name of our God, who creates us, redeems us, sustains us, and hopes for our wholeness.  Amen.

Kimberleigh Buchanan  © 2013

          When asked to describe Pilgrimage, I often call us a “family-oriented” congregation.  There are many ways to describe us—a small Christian church with traditional worship and progressive theology, UCC, Open and Affirming.  But “family-oriented” just feels right.

          Look at us!  Couples, families with children, families with multiple generations.  I often hear you refer to Pilgrimage as your family.  In our Deacon ministry, we gather groups of families together and assign them a deacon.  Family is a focus at here at Pilgrimage.

          I sometimes wonder if family is important to us because so many of us have had to work so hard at creating our own families.  The norm of family in our society is mom, dad, 2.5 kids, monochromatic.  Families with other configurations have to work hard at defining themselves as family.  If you don’t fit the mon-dad-2.5 kid mold, marriage is different—in 38 states, still—inheritance is different, adoption is different.  Scouting is different.  Not to mention the stares and questions and out and out animosity many non-traditional families receive.  It takes a lot of creativity, love, and courage to be part of a non-traditional family.  So, I wonder sometimes if we focus so much on family here because we’ve had to think so hard about how to do it.

          I’m not knocking traditional family make-up.  Not at all!  I would love to have grown up in a home with two loving parents and a sibling or two.  It just doesn’t work like that for many of us.  Divorce happens.  Death happens.  Infertility happens.  Predisposition to other family configurations happens. 

          At a Southeast Conference meeting several years ago, Rev. Jeremiah Wright began his sermon by asking those who had grown up in single-parent homes to stand.  I stood.  He honored us—and our parents.  It was the first time I’d ever had my family configuration acknowledged and honored at church.  Ever.  I’d always been taught that divorce was a sin and that, therefore, my parents were sinners.  The churches I was part of as a child and teenager made me feel less-than because I came from a “broken” home.  Since that meeting, Rev. Wright has gotten some bad press.  Regardless of anything else he’s said, though, I will always be grateful to him for that act of honoring my family in a sermon.

          Again, I’m not knocking the make-up of “traditional” families.  I’m also not saying that it doesn’t take a lot of creativity, love, and courage to live well as a family in that configuration.  I know that it does!  I am saying, though, that to hold up one configuration of family as the norm demeans those who are part of families with other configurations.  To make someone feel less-than because of his or her family’s make-up?  That just can’t be of God, can it?

          Folks who advocate for the mom-dad-2.5 kid configuration of family often refer to the “biblical norm for family.”  When I hear that, I wonder if those folks have ever read the Bible.  Because, truth be told, there are many images of family in the Bible.  Polygamy was rampant.  And people like Paul and Jesus were single.  Timothy was raised by his mother and grandmother. 

          We did hear about a “traditional” biblical family last week—Isaac and Rebekah and their two sons, Esau and Jacob.  Remember the story?  Jacob stole Esau’s birthright.  His mother helped him do it.  Yeah.  Let’s go with those biblical family values.

          Today’s story begins with a traditional family make-up—Elimelech, Naomi, and their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion.  As you’ll hear, though, that particular family configuration doesn’t last long.  Five verses, in fact.  After that, the story is able to continue only because a young foreign woman had the love and courage to create a different kind of family.

          As Janet/Sylvia reads the first few verses of the book of Ruth, I invite you to remember two things about the culture in which they lived.  First, women without men had nothing; they were the most vulnerable people in society.  Second, it was the norm not to marry outside of one’s tribe or nationality.  Hear now the story of Ruth.

In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to live in the country of Moab, he and his wife and two sons.  (Okay.  In the first sentence, the storyteller is sending us a signal that things aren’t going to be what you expect in this story.  Bethlehem literally means “house of bread.”  You’d expect the “house of bread” to have plenty of food, right?  But the story begins with famine in the ‘house of bread.’  That’s the first sign that our expectations will be turned upside down in this story.)  

²The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion; they were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah.  They went into the country of Moab and remained there.  ³But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons.  ⁴These took Moabite wives (foreigners!); the name of one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth.  When they had lived there for about ten years, ⁵both Mahlon and Chilion also died, so that the woman was left without her two sons or her husband.  (The expectation of the first hearers of this story is that the deaths of the men in Naomi’s life also meant the end of her life.  What would she do with no men?  She’d have no livelihood, no protection, no identity.  By rights, the story should end right here…but it doesn’t.  In fact, the storyteller is just getting started.)

6          Then she started to return with her daughters-in-law from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the country of Moab that the Lord had had consideration for his people and given them food.  (The ‘house of bread’ has bread again.  Notice that at the start, Ruth and Orpah have packed their bags and are going back to Bethlehem with their mother-in-law.) 

⁷So she set out from the place where she had been living, she and her two daughters-in-law, and they went on their way to go back to the land of Judah.  ⁸But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, ‘Go back each of you to your mother’s house.”   (Why the change of heart?  Had grief-stricken Naomi just not been thinking to this point?  Was she now genuinely concerned about the safety and well-being of her daughters-in-law? Or had she started thinking about the folks back home and wondering how she was ever going to explain returning with no men AND will two foreign daughters-in-law?  Naomi continues…)

“May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me.  ⁹The Lord grant that you may find security, each of you in the house of your husband.’  Then she kissed them, and they wept aloud.  ¹⁰They said to her, ‘No, we will return with you to your people.’ 

¹¹But Naomi said, ‘Turn back, my daughters, why will you go with me? Do I still have sons in my womb that they may become your husbands?  ¹²Turn back, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have a husband.  Even if I thought there was hope for me, even if I should have a husband tonight and bear sons, ¹³would you then wait until they were grown?  Would you then refrain from marrying?”  (Here, Naomi is appealing to Ruth and Orpah from the context of that culture’s norm for family life—women needed men.  According to their culture, the only reason to stay with Naomi was if there was a promise of marriage.  Naomi conveys just how silly an idea that is by talking about her—an older widow—getting pregnant.) 

“No, my daughters, it has been far more bitter for me than for you, because the hand of the Lord has turned against me.’  ¹⁴Then they wept aloud again.  (Foreigners or not, it’s obvious  that Ruth and Orpah had grown very fond of their mother-in-law.  The prospect of being separated from her grieves them.)  Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.

15          So she said, ‘See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.’  (Orpah is convinced by Naomi’s argument.  As much as she loves Naomi, she has to look after her own security.  She returns home.  Ruth, on the other hand….)

¹⁶But Ruth said,
‘Do not press me to leave you
or to turn back from following you!
Where you go, I will go;
where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people,
and your God my God.
¹⁷ Where you die, I will die—
there will I be buried.
May the Lord do thus and so to me,
and more as well,
if even death parts me from you!’
¹⁸When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her.

If you respond to these words, then for you they have become the living word of God.       Thanks be to God!

          Shall we sing?  Today’s song will be sung by the group Apologetix.  We’ll look at a video done by a young man for school.  If you feel like joining in with the singing, please do!  (Video)

          The story of Ruth is an intriguing one.  It would make a great mini-series!  There’s pathos, dramatic tension, and a happy ending.  And none of it would have happened if the story had depended only on a traditional image of family.  Because Ruth was able to imagine a different way of being family, the story is able to continue….a story that leads eventually to King David and Jesus.  Yes, a lot of good things emerge from traditional families, absolutely, they do!  But without at least one non-traditional family, we wouldn’t have the Psalms or Jesus.

          And without the non-traditional families in this congregation, we’d have a much smaller and less interesting church.  And without non-traditional families, a lot of children who bring us such joy wouldn’t be here….and other children would have no families at all.

          As we listened to a presentation about Family Promise at the musical fund-raiser last month, someone asked me, “What’s their definition of family?”  The way it’s been described to me is that Family Promise defines “family” in whatever way the children in that family define it.  If it’s grandmother, mother, kids—that’s family.  If it’s one dad and kids—that’s family.  If it’s two moms and kids—that’s family.  With Family Promise, family is what you make it.

          …which reminds me of another song….

Family’s What You Make It

Jerry grew up in a mountain home in eastern Tennesee.

That home was full of love and joy; it made him the best man he could be.

Jerry went to college by and by, where a pretty little thing caught his eye.

He took her out on a date one night.  They had a real good time.

Refrain:       Family’s what you make it, parents, kids, and love.

                   When we love each other it pleases God above.

                   If somebody questions who your family’s made up of,

                   Just say, “Family’s what you make it, parents, kids, and love.

That pretty little girl that Jerry liked, her name was Carrie Sue.

Before he knew what was happening, he had told her, “I love you.”

She said, “Honey, I love you too.  If you ask me to marry you, I’ll say ‘I do.’”

Jerry smiled ‘til he thought it through, then cried, “What did I do?”  Refrain

Jerry really loved his pretty little gal, of this you can be sure.

But the next step toward their wedding day he wasn’t sure he could endure.

That mountain home back in Tennesee that made him the best man he could be.

There was no daddy in the family of three, just Jerry’s two moms and he.  Refrain

Jerry was afraid if he told Carrie Sue she’d leave him right away.

He put it off as long as he could, trying to find the right words to say.

Finally he took a really deep breath, and even though he was scared to death,

He said, “Carrie Sue, please don’t be upset!  My folks are Jane and Beth.”  Refrain

Carrie said to Jerry, “I love you, Hon.   Your parents raised a mighty fine son.

When everything is said and done, I’ll be the proudest wife, bar none.

Come let’s go just you and me, we’ll visit home so you can meet

The folks who raised me lovingly.  Their names are Jack and Steve.  Refrain

Words and music  © 2009 by Kimberleigh Buchanan

In the name of our God, who creates us, redeems us, sustains us and who hopes for the wholeness of all families.  Amen.

Kimberleigh Buchanan  © 2013

I spent a year in Brownies…second grade, I think.  I can sing “The Brownie Song” on demand (“I’ve something in my pocket it belongs across my face….”) and still use the rock I painted one craft day as a door stop.  It was a brief sojourn, but the Brownies made their mark on me. 

One of the biggest marks was being a Brownie with Beth Cheatham.  That was significant for me…because Beth was physically disabled.  I was second grade, so I don’t remember the extent of the disability.  I think she wore leg braces.

Perhaps the greatest lesson Brownies taught me was that Beth was one of us, just another Brownie.  All the things we did included her.  She contributed to our troop just like everyone else did.  Beth had different physical abilities than most of the rest of us, but she wasn’t excluded because of them.  That brief year in Brownies taught me that the diversity of our troop made us interesting.  It taught me that we have so much to learn from each other.

The Boy Scouts are beginning to live that message!  Last month, the Boy Scouts of America lifted its ban on gay scouts.  What an important step! 

A few years ago, Pilgrimage was asked to sponsor a Boy Scout troop that was losing its sponsor.  It was a difficult issue for us.  Many families in our congregation had children in Boy Scouts.  There were even a few Eagle Scouts among our members.  No one questioned the good work done by Boy Scouts.  At all.

The question arose because of the Boy Scouts’ exclusion of scouts and leaders who are gay.  After many difficult conversations, we finally concluded that to sign a document that suggested we abide by all the tenets of the BSA was in direct conflict with our mission as an Open and Affirming congregation.  As an Open and Affirming congregation, we didn’t feel we could sign a document that would exclude gay scouts or a gay man from serving as a troop’s leader.  

The decision was difficult.  I suspect that it led to a couple of families leaving the church.  Overall, though, it seemed important, vital, to continue living the inclusiveness of our message.

Now, we’re struggling.  Again.  While we rejoice that the Scouts have lifted the ban on gay Scouts, the exclusion of gay leaders remains in force.  What should we do?  Signing the sponsorship forms still will require that we commit to a principle that is in conflict with our mission to be inclusive.  At the same time, because of the BSA decision to lift the ban on gay scouts, many troops are losing the sponsorship they already have.  It long has been our practice–because of our mission–to welcome those who have been excluded by others.

We’re in a real bind.

The problem, of course, is that the BSA is holding to two principles that are in direct conflict with each other.  It’s okay for scouts to be gay, but once they turn 18, it’s not okay.  That just doesn’t make sense.  In fact, it’s crazy-making.

Our hope is that the Scouts are in process…that eventually–and soon–the ban on gay scout leaders will be lifted, too.  That seems the only way to create consistency in its own policies.

So…here’s what feels like the best option for us at this point.  Because these troops are losing their sponsors (and, from what I’ve learned, a troop without a sponsor doesn’t exist…which means that scouts cannot continue to work toward their goals) through a form of discrimination, we have a responsibility to offer sponsorship.  Key to our mission is welcoming those who have been excluded by others.

At the same time, we will continue to advocate for the inclusion of gay leaders.  The recent decision suggests that BSA is on the right track.  We will continue to encourage the Scouts to continue on that track.

So….Do you know of a Boy Scout Troop who is looking for a new home?  Let me know!