reallifepastor

          “I am the living bread that came down from heaven…unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”  Does anybody understand what Jesus is talking about in today’s Gospel lesson?  If you do, I’m going to cede the pulpit to you…because I’m still trying to figure it out.   Maybe if we read it again….

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” 

⁵²The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 

⁵³So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  ⁵⁴Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; ⁵⁵for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. 

⁶Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. 

⁵⁷Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.  ⁵⁸This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”   (John 6:51-58) 

          Did that help?  Yeah.  Me neither.  These words of Jesus are hard to understand.  It sounds like cannibalism, pure and simple, doesn’t it?  But we’re not cannibals.  We’re civilized, proper Protestant Christians!  What does it mean for us to eat the bread and drink the juice, we who don’t generally believe that the elements literally become the body and blood of Jesus?

          Understanding…We Protestants are big on understanding, aren’t we?  We are people of the word.  We love trying to figure things out in our brains.  Ours is a thinking faith.  We’re quite proud of that fact.

          But the truth is that there are some things connected to faith that simply aren’t figure-out-able.  Some things are mystery.  Some things can’t be explained; they must instead be experienced.

          The two sacraments of our church—baptism and communion—are things that must be experienced.  Oh, sure.  There have been lots of explanations of our sacraments over the last two millennia, but explaining baptism and communion is only one, partial way of knowing these rituals.  To gain a fuller knowledge of the sacraments requires engaging not just our heads, but our bodies, as well.

          Cade’s baptism just a minute ago … we could explain that.  “A baby was baptized at our church yesterday,” you might say to a friend at lunch tomorrow.  If that friend asked you what it means for your church to baptize a baby, you could explain that “baptism is the ritual, the sign of the church’s welcoming that baby into the body of Christ.  At Cade’s baptism, we committed ourselves as a church to help nurture him into the Christian faith until the time when he is able to accept the faith for his own.”

          We could say all of that….but would it communicate what just happened here a few minutes ago?  The joy of seeing that baby and his parents….the anticipation of what he would do when the water was poured over his head…the smiles that came unbidden when we sang “Child of Blessing, Child of Promise”…. the sense that we now have taken on the responsibility to help raise Cade into the Christian faith?  We can certainly explain all that—kind of like I’m doing now—but explanations only tell part of the story…the rest just has to be experienced.

          The same is true for communion.  And nothing conveys the need to get out of our heads and just experience communion more than these puzzling words of Jesus from John.  “Eat my flesh…drink my blood.”  There’s no way we’re going to be able to figure that out logically.  (Sigh.)

Of the experiential nature of communion, Will Willimon writes: “Those of us who have been conditioned to think through cool, detached, distant, and dispassionate consideration will find it strange to be told that if we are to think about the Word made flesh, we must think through ingestion, consumption, and intimate, deep engagement.” 

He goes on:  “There is no knowing who the Christ is without visceral, total engagement.  We will not be able to comprehend him by sitting back, comfortable in the pew, and coolly considering him as if he were an abstract, disembodied idea.  Incarnation means that we must get up, come forward, hold out empty hands, sip wine, chew bread…”  (Feasting on the Word)

In a Pilgrimage Daily Devotion this week, Don Tawney wrestled with the un-figure-out-able-ness of John 6:51, the first verse of today’s passage where Jesus calls himself “the bread of life,” and says that “the bread I give for the world is my flesh.”

          I don’t fully understand what Jesus means when he says he is the Living Bread, Don wrote.  I don’t have to understand.  I move with it without waiting for the thud of definitive understanding.  For me it means reading his words, reading about his actions, thinking about them, praying to him…wanting to be like him.  I want to view my dependence on him [in] the same desperate manner that I view my dependence on food.

          Don’s prayer after these reflections was especially apt:  I’m glad I’m confused by these words in John.  It tells me you’re still working with me.  Thank you, God.  (PUCC devotion, 8/14/12)

          Isn’t that great?  Have you ever thanked God for being confused?

          Okay….so now I’m confused.  If the key to a fuller understanding of the sacraments is experiencing them, then why am I up here still trying to explain them?  What say I hush and we get on with experiencing the second sacrament in this worship service, the sacrament of communion?

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

Kimberleigh Buchanan  ©  2012

I saw a “vanity plate” on the back of a car the other day:  H8 NO 1, it read.  Hate number one, I thought?  Sounded like a sore loser.  But after working with the code a little more, I figured out its real intent:  “Hate no one.”

Wow.  A pretty cool message to take with you wherever you go…

…especially with all these shootings that are happening.  Aurora, now the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin.  Myriad other shootings before.  Constant violence in Syria.

It makes me so weary.  I preached a sermon after the Aurora movie theater shooting…my congregation is one of the most compassionate groups of people I know.  But I got a sense of weariness from them, too.  Again?  Another sermon on how to respond peacefully or gracefully or compassionately to an act of violence?

Sigh.  When will the violence end?  HOW will the violence end?

I’m sure I’ll keep preaching about compassionate and faithful responses to acts of violence as long as violence exists.  That’s my job, after all.

But I am so grateful for that other preacher, the one in the car with the H8 NO 1 vanity plate.  That’s the more powerful sermon….and he’ll reach a lot more people.

They’d witnessed the miracle of Jesus feeding 5,000….and had eaten the evidence.  Not long afterward—maybe when they got hungry again?—they went back to the scene of the dine, looking for Jesus.  He wasn’t there…so they went searching. 

When they find him, Jesus says:  “You are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.”  Then he tries to explain the deeper meaning of the bread they’d received.  “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life.”

This is Jesus’ M.O. in the Gospel of John—start with something mundane and use it to teach a deep spiritual truth.  That’s what he did with Nicodemus when he told him to be “born again.”  That’s what he did with the woman at the well when he promised to give her “living water.”  And that’s what he’s doing now with the bread:  He fed the crowd with real bread, but did it as a sign of something deeper.  His conversation with the crowd today is an attempt to move them to that deeper place.

Sara Miles understands well this movement from real bread to deeper meaning.

The daughter of committed atheists, Sara grew up without religion.  And happy with that life.  Early on she became a radical journalist, the kind who goes into war zones—like El Salvador in the 1980s—and tells the stories of oppressed people.

Seeing so much suffering and poverty, though, finally took a toll on Sara and she returned to the United States.  She floated for awhile, not certain what to do with herself.

Always a fan of cooking, Sara worked for a time in the kitchens of restaurants.  There, her love and appreciation of food grew.

Still trying to decide what to do with her life, Sara—surprisingly—became a Christian.  And—not surprisingly, considering her love of food—it happened at the communion table.  Here’s the story of Sara’s first communion.

 “Early one winter morning,” she writes, “I walked into St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in San Francisco.  I had no earthly reason to be there.  I’d never heard a Gospel reading, never said the Lord’s Prayer.  I was certainly not interested in becoming a Christian—or, as I thought of it rather less politely, a religious nut.  But on other long walks, I’d passed the beautiful wooden building, with its shingled steeples and plain windows, and this time I went in, on an impulse, with no more than a reporter’s habitual curiosity.”  (57)

            “I walked in, took a chair, and tried not to catch anyone’s eye.  There were windows looking out on a hillside covered in geraniums, and I could hear birds squabbling outside. Then a man and a woman in long tie-dyed robes stood and began chanting in harmony.  There was no organ, no choir, no pulpit:  just the unadorned voices of the people, and long silences framed by the ringing of deep Tibetan bowls.  I sang, too.  It crossed my mind that this was ridiculous.

“We sat down and stood up, sang and sat down, waited and listened and stood up and sang, and it was all pretty peaceful and sort of interesting.  ‘Jesus invites everyone to his table,’ the woman announced, and we started moving up in a stately dance to the table in the rotunda.  It had some dishes on it, and a pottery goblet.

“And then we gathered around that table.  And there was more singing and standing, and someone was putting a piece of fresh, crumbly bread in my hands, saying ‘the body of Christ,’ and handing me the goblet of sweet wine, saying ‘the blood of Christ,’ and then something outrageous and terrifying happened.  Jesus happened to me.”  (58)

            “I still can’t explain my first communion.  It made no sense.  I was in tears and physically unbalanced:  I felt as if I had just stepped off a curb or been knocked over, painlessly, from behind.  The disconnect between what I thought was happening—I was eating a piece of bread; what I heard someone else say was happening—the piece of bread was the ‘body’ of ‘Christ,’ a patently untrue or at best metaphorical statement; and what I knew was happening—God, named ‘Christ’ or ‘Jesus,’ was real, and in my mouth—(all of that) utterly short-circuited my ability to do anything by cry.

            “All the way home, shocked, I scrambled for an explanation.  Maybe I was hyper-suggestible, and being surrounded by believers had been enough to push me, momentarily, into accepting their superstitions …  (Or maybe) my tears were just pent-up sadness, accumulated over a long, hard decade, and spilling out, unsurprisingly, because I was in a place where I could cry anonymously.  Really, the whole thing, in fact, must have been about emotion:  the music, the movement, and the light in the room had evoked feelings, much as if I’d been uplifted by a particularly glorious concert or seen a natural wonder.

            “Yet that impossible word, Jesus, lodged in me like a crumb.  I said it over and over to myself, as if repetition would help me understand.  I had no idea what it meant; I didn’t know what to do with it.  But it was realer than any thought of mine, or even any subjective emotion:  It was as real as the actual taste of the bread and the wine.  And the word was indisputably in my body now, as if I’d swallowed a radioactive pellet that would outlive my own flesh.”  (58-59)

            “Eating the body of Christ, and drinking his blood, was too much.  My own prejudices rose in me …  I had no particular affection for this figure named “Jesus,” no echo of childhood friendly feeling for the guy with the beard and the robes.  If I had ever suspected that there was such a force as ‘God’… I hadn’t bothered to name it, much less eat it, for crying out loud.  I certainly had never (equated) this force with a particular Palestinian Jew from Nazareth.  So why did communion move me?  Why did I feel as if I were being entered and taken over, completely stirred up by someone whose name I’d only spoken before as a casual expletive?

            “I couldn’t reconcile the experience with anything I knew or had been told.  But neither could I go away:  For some inexplicable reason, I wanted that bread again … I wanted it all the next day after my first communion, and the next week, and the next.  It was a sensation as urgent as physical hunger, pulling me back to the table at St. Gregory’s through my fear and confusion.”  (60)

            As Sara continued feeling pulled to the physical meal of bread and wine, she began trying to make spiritual sense of it.  Here’s how she tried to make sense of the wine. 

“The wine was sticky and sweet:  pale gold, not at all red, but it warmed my throat as I swallowed and then passed the cup to the person next to me.  “The blood of Christ,” I’d repeat, in turn.  Yet obviously it wasn’t blood:  It was Angelica fortified wine, alcohol 18 percent, from a green screw-top bottle, as I saw once when I peeked in the church kitchen.  It was no different in its basic chemical makeup from the zinfandel I’d drink with my brother in between bites of a nice hanger steak.  So, then, was it a symbol?  Did the actual wine symbolically represent the imagined blood?  No, because when I opened my mouth and swallowed, everything changed.  It was real.

            “I went around and around like this, humiliated by my inability to articulate, even to myself, the nature of what was happening.  It seemed as crazy as saying I had eaten a magic potion that could make me fly …

“This went on for a while—me going to St. Gregory’s, taking the bread and bursting into tears, drinking the wine and crying some more.  It was inexplicable.”  (61)   Of this tumultuous period, Sara says:  “All that grounded me were those pieces of bread.  I was feeling my way toward a theology, beginning with what I had taken in my mouth and working out from there.”  (70)

            That’s what Jesus was doing in today’s Gospel lesson—beginning with what the people had taken into their mouths and working out from there. 

Where are you in the process of working out your theology of communion?  What deeper spiritual truths do the bread and juice teach you?  How does this meal feed you?  What does it tell you about God?  About Jesus?  About community?  About yourself?

            Having trouble answering these questions?  That’s okay.  We’ll get another chance to continue working out our theologies in just a minute when we once again receive the bread and juice.  Once again—Who knows how?–Christ will become known to us in the breaking of bread.  Thanks be to God!

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

Kimberleigh Buchanan  ©  2012

Miles, Sara.  Take this Bread:  The Spiritual Memoir of a Twenty-First Century Christian. (A Radical Conversion)  New York:  Ballantine Books, 2007.   

John 6:24-35

So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.²⁵When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?”²⁶Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.²⁷Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.”

²⁸Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?”²⁹Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”³⁰So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing?³¹Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”³²Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.³³For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”³⁴They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”³⁵Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty

            They’d been following him since just before that wedding in Cana.  It wasn’t uncommon in those days to follow a teacher you liked.  And this guy, Jesus?  There was something about him, something that drew them in.  He said, “Follow me.”  They did.

            But he wasn’t like other teachers, the ones who spent most of their time talking.  Oh, he talked, but he did other things, too.  Like at that wedding?  He turned water into wine.  Strange.  Then, when they’d gone to Jerusalem?  Instead of just teaching in the temple, like most teachers did, he threw a fit, chased out the money-changers, said it was his father’s house—yes, his father’s house–and they should treat it as such. 

That one was a little scary.  The authenticity and wisdom of their teacher couldn’t be denied.  But it was like, while he had this over-abundance of God-sense, he was completely lacking in common sense.  Making a scene in the Temple?  You do something like that and people are going to start questioning your judgment…

…just like they will when they see you sitting at a well.  Speaking to a woman.  Alone.  In Samaria, of all places.  See what I mean?  No common sense!  Jewish men don’t converse with Samaritans, much less with Samaritan women!  Of course, that woman’s whole town did come to faith because of the conversation, but still.  You know what I’m saying! 

So, they’d been through some strange stuff with this teacher by the time they gathered on the far shore of the Sea of Galilee.  As soon as they pulled their boat onto the shore, scads of people—into the thousands–had gathered to hear him teach.  Finally!  Despite those social hiccups at the beginning, he was settling in to what “normal” teachers do—a crowd had gathered and he was going to teach them.  Great!  Until…

Even before he addresses the crowd, Jesus asks Philip:  “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?”  Bread?  For thousands of people?  Bought by fisherman who were out of work?  So much for normal.  Philip answers the question with practicality and common sense:  “It would take almost a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!” 

But practicality and common sense don’t seem to interest Jesus.  It’s Andrew’s response that gets his attention:  “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” 

You know the story.  Jesus feeds 5,000+ people bread and fish.  Somehow, everyone eats their fill.  When they’re done eating, the disciples gather twelve baskets of leftovers. 

What are we to make of this story?  Is it a simple miracle story?  Is it a story that shows the importance of children to the faith community?  Is it a story about inclusion, about how everyone was welcomed to the feast that day.

There’s one piece of information John includes that convinces me this is a story about discipleship.  Jesus asks Philip:  “Where shall we buy bread for these people?”  Then John says:  “He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.” So, Jesus’ question was a test for the disciples.  Jesus knew the crowd would be fed, but the disciples didn’t know.  They didn’t yet know the power of God and what they were capable of.  And until the disciples knew for themselves what they were able to do, they weren’t going to be much use to God’s kin-dom, were they? 

So, Jesus tested them….he gave them a chance to learn through serving what hadn’t yet sunk in from listening.  Their ears had been taking in the message, but it was their hands that were going to make that message real. 

I wonder what their hands taught them that day after feeding more than 5,000 people.  I wonder what lessons their hands relayed as they collected twelve baskets of leftovers.  I wonder if their hands taught the disciples just how capable they were of serving others. 

Serving others changes you, doesn’t it?  It certainly changed Sara and Derek. 

One day a few years back, Sara Miles wandered into a worship service at St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in San Francisco and received communion.  Becoming a Christian wasn’t on her to do list that day, but something about receiving the bread and wine changed Sara.  In an instant, she realized just how hungry she’d been all her life…and how filling that bread and wine were.

The experience of receiving food and drink from God was so powerful that, not long afterward, Sara felt called to serve food to others.  She started a food pantry at the church. 

The first week 35 people came to receive food.  After a few months that number swelled to 250.  When the numbers ballooned to 315, it became clear that St. Gregory’s wasn’t going to be able to accommodate everyone who came.  They just didn’t have the space or the resources.  How were they going to feed all those people?

Then one day, a miracle happened.  Sara writes:  “The day the loaves multiplied began, like all my Fridays, with psalms.  ‘God gives this place to the hungry,’ we sang, ‘the poor shall eat all they want.’”  In the midst of preparing for the day’s pantry, someone brought Sara an envelope from the US District Court.  Sara had received one of these letters before from the person responsible for dispersing funds collected by the court, attorney Derek Howard.  The first check was for $25,000.

This time, “St. Gregory’s Pantry was awarded $200,000.  (They) were going to get an escrow account, disbursed at twenty thousand dollars a year for ten years, because, the letter said, ‘St. Gregory’s Pantry has a tiny operating budget and no staff, but it has accomplished great things.”  (245)  These funds would make it possible to open food pantries in other churches in the area.  Even more people would be fed.

A stunned Sara called Derek to thank him.  Derek turned it back on her and said:  “Thank you, for giving me the chance to do this.”  “You know, I had to go to church when I was a kid, and they kept telling me what to do—sit still, say this, and, you know, I didn’t like that.  I don’t like being told what to do.”  He laughed. 

            “Now I take my kids to an Episcopal church,’ continued Derek, ‘It’s really rich, everyone’s very nice, but you just sit there, it’s very white…”  He paused.  “I mean, when I went to your pantry, I saw all the food, and I thought, this is what church is for.”  (245-6)

“This sounds weird, but I want you to help me with something.”  What did he want?  The man had given us a quarter of a million dollars out of the blue.  But he was so hungry.

            “‘I want you to write out a prayer for me,’ Derek said.  ‘I used to say one, but I forget it.  Would you write out a prayer, in your handwriting, something I could say, maybe at night, or just something to remind me why I’m doing this?”  (Pause)  “I can’t believe I’m sitting here in my law offices,” he said, “and I’m going to cry.  This is not like me.” 

            Sara sent him the prayer she wrote for the food pantry:   “O God of abundance, you feed us every day.  Rise in us now, make us into your bread, that we may share your gifts with a hungry world, and join in love with all people, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.”

            Helping people changed Derek.  His hands made real what his head knew in theory.  Nothing the church taught made sense until he got active feeding people.  The same was true for the disciples.  Jesus’ teaching didn’t mean much to them until they started putting it into action.  The same is true for us.  Faith won’t really make sense until we take the little—or much—we’ve been given and share it with others.

            Sara’s bishop says it this way:  “There’s a hunger beyond food that’s expressed in food, and that’s why feeding is always a kind of miracle.  It speaks to a bigger desire.’  ‘(In) the feeding of the five thousand…the miracle wasn’t that Jesus multiplied the loaves.  It’s that the disciples took the bread and did what they were told, got up and started feeding, and something happened.’ (175)  ‘I consider myself one of those people who’s got to do what Jesus said when he told the disciples, Shut up.  Just go feed the people.’  ‘You know, it’s a mystery.  But sometimes you just have to trust and eat.”  (176)

            That’s what Derek did…and Sara…and Jesus’ disciples.  What about us?

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

There are lots of sensational things in the story of the first Pentecost, aren’t there?  The rush of a mighty wind, tongues of flame, a general feeling of happiness…

Perhaps the most sensational part of the scene is this thing about everyone hearing whatever was said in his or her own language.  That’s just nutty, isn’t it…for you to be speaking in Swahili and me to hear it in Southern American English?

Have you ever tried to communicate with someone who speaks a language you don’t know?  I tried it once on a layover in the Frankfurt,Germanyairport.  Having just received my seminary degree—with an emphasis in biblical Hebrew—I was a little full of myself and thought it would be a cinch to communicate with someone who spoke German.

So, I initiated a conversation with the young woman sitting next to me.  I asked where she was from.  She said, “Essen,” which I thought meant to eat.  So, I told her what I liked to eat.  She looked puzzled.  So, I asked again where she lived.  She asked again what I liked to eat.  We both were smiling, trying really hard to communicate with each other, but I could tell this was going no where fast.  A third time, I asked where she was from.  Again, she saidEssen.  Then it hit me—Essenis a city inGermany!

Oh, the joy we shared when we “got” that bit of communication!  It was a beautiful thing!  Flush in that profound moment of connection, I asked my new friend another question:  What do you like to eat?  She looked at me, first, with eagerness, then with weariness, then she shrugged, turned the other way, and went to sleep.  Our moment had passed.

But you know the kind of moment I’m talking about, don’t you?  The kind where you really feel with someone…a moment where you feel in perfect synch with everyone else…a moment where you know with certainty that everyone present is part of something bigger.  You hear talk these days about thin places…what I’m talking about are thin moments, moments when the holy breaks in and we know that we have experienced something special.

I wonder if that’s the reality the writer of this Pentecost scene is trying to describe when he talks about people hearing each other in their own languages.  Maybe it’s not so much a linguistic fact as a metaphor for this feeling-close-to-everyone-and-being-part-of-something-larger-than-oneself thing I’m describing.  Maybe the communication was so deep, so profound that it was as if people were hearing the things said in their own languages.

Don’t you wish we had more Pentecost experiences?  Don’t you wish you could experience something that feels like rushing wind, tongues of flame, and that wonderful oneness with everyone around you our ancestors in faith experienced 2,000 years ago?  Wow.  It sure would be nice for something like that to happen again, wouldn’t it?

I’ve been thinking about that first Pentecost and what might have contributed to its occurrence.  This might seem simplistic….but I wonder if part of what paved the way for the first Pentecost was people’s openness to it.  The people had lived through something very difficult, something traumatic—the death of their leader.  As people who have lost a leader often do, they gathered together trying to figure out their next step.  Maybe they started telling stories about Jesus, maybe they started telling their own stories of grief and stress and disappointment, maybe they shared some of what they had hoped would come from the movement Jesus had started….

…and maybe in their sharing, they began to open up to each other, maybe they began to hear each other, maybe they began to realize that together they were so much more than they were alone…and maybe in the midst of all this sharing and hearing and remembering and dreaming someone got a chill, another heard a sound, someone else felt a flame ignite and grow, and suddenly, they all knew, they just knew—God’s spirit was there!  With them!  In that moment!  And now, nothing would ever be the same.

I had a Pentecost moment yesterday on I-75—well, technically, it was a Pentecost 4 hours (the length of time it took me to progress 4 miles).  Flames from a truck fire just north of exit 212 ignited the grass alongside the interstate—see?  Flames!  And if the actual flames weren’t enough, it was hot as blazes….especially with thousands of cars idling on the asphalt.  It wasn’t the case in my car, but there might have been some car radios tuned to Mr. Limbaugh.  And all the cars with functioning ACs had them blowing…See?  Fire and Rush and a mighty wind!  All the elements of Pentecost were there!

Of course, I might not have noticed them if I hadn’t been thinking about today’s sermon.  The sermon was mostly done…but an experience like sitting on I-75 for 4 hours… that would make a great story, right?  So, I started thinking about how to use the experience in a sermon, maybe even today’s sermon.  Fire, rush of mighty wind, lots of people gathered in a similar experience… very Pentecostal, don’t you think?

Except for God’s spirit…  Where was God’s spirit in this mass of humanity stalled on I-75?  I started searching.  Was God’s spirit in the kindness of people letting each other cut in line?  Was it in prayers that might have been offered for those injured in the fire or for those going to help put it out?  Or was God’s spirit present in the connections people were making with loved ones on all the cellphone calls going out?

Then, I saw it!  I saw God’s spirit moving.  I didn’t recognize it at first.  In the midst of my deep and very wise homiletical musings, I saw a young man and woman walking down the right shoulder of the road.  He was carrying a gas container; she had a canvas bag slung over her arm and was carrying a cardboard sign.  “Here it is!” I thought cynically.  “The gouging opportunists are going to try to make a buck.”

When the pair got close enough, I read the sign.  It turned my cynicism on its head:  “Free gas and H2O to those in need.”  Wow.  I had been looking for God’s spirit from the relative safety of my air conditioned car (doing who knows how much damage to the earth) while those two young people had embodied it.  I had been trying to figure out how to use this experience in a sermon when—Boom!  A sermon walked by carrying a sign.  I had been looking for God’s spirit from a distance when those two young people were actually sharing it with others.  They weren’t waiting for God’s spirit to come to them in their air conditioned car; they were bringing God’s spirit to others in need in 90 degree weather.

So, here’s the great homiletical insight from my Pentecostal moment on I-75 yesterday.  Maybe the important question for today isn’t so much, Why doesn’t God’s spirit move like it did at Pentecost?  But, What are we doing to invite God’s spirit into every moment of our lives…even the ones spent sitting on the hot asphalt of I-75?

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

Kimberleigh Buchanan © 2012

Acts 2:1-21

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.²And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.³Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.⁴All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem.⁶And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.⁷Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?⁸And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?⁹Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,¹¹Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’¹²All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’¹³But others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’<!– 14 –>

Peter Addresses the Crowd

14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them: ‘Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say.¹⁵Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning.¹⁶No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:
¹⁷ “In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,    and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,    and your old men shall dream dreams.
¹⁸ Even upon my slaves, both men and women,    in those days I will pour out my Spirit;      and they shall prophesy.
¹⁹ And I will show portents in the heaven above    and signs on the earth below,      blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
²⁰ The sun shall be turned to darkness    and the moon to blood,      before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.
²¹ Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

A key characteristic of Jazz music is improvisation.  Usually, a theme is introduced, it’s played by the band as a group, then one by one, each instrumentalist takes the theme and does his or her own riff on it.

Often, the musician takes the melody into places where it no longer sounds like the same song.  The riff takes on a life of its own;  it reflects the life of the soloist…all the while, though, the drums, piano, and bass, are keeping the harmonic pattern of the song going, and maybe some kind of rhythmic motif (like the one in “A Love Supreme”).  Eventually, of course, the soloist winds the improv back around to the original theme.  The piece closes when the band regroups and plays the theme together one last time.

We don’t have to stretch our imaginations too far to see Jesus’ last supper as an improvisation.  He and his disciples had gathered for the traditional seder meal.  Jesus took the theme of imbuing a meal with sacred meaning and riffed on it.

The unleavened bread is no longer simply a reminder of the haste with which the Israelites leftEgypt…now, in Jesus’ improvisation, it has become his body.

And the wine isn’t simply the traditional seder libation…now, in Jesus’ improvisation, the wine has become his blood.

Now, bread and wine aren’t only aids to remembering the past.  Now, in Jesus’ riff, they are markers pointing forward to the time when we all will eat and drink anew with Jesus in God’s kindom.

Let us pray.  God of Jesus and of jazz, fill us with the gifts of bread and juice today.  Help us to riff on these elements for all we’re worth.  Amen.

As an instrumentalist, I’ve always loved Psalm 150.  “Praise God with trumpet, harp, lyre, strings and pipe, clashing cymbals.”  Or as my college roommates wrote in icing on the cake for my recital reception:  “Praise God with flutes!”

The psalmist doesn’t mention saxophones…only, I’m sure, because the saxophone wasn’t invented until the 19^th century.  Had they existed—and certainly, if the psalmist had heard John Coltrane play—I know saxophones would have been included in this iconic instrumentalist’s psalm.

The confirmands remind us in this banner they helped create, that each of us has been given gifts by God.  We use those gifts both to build up the body of Christ and to express our gratitude and praise to God.

John Coltrane’s gift was music.  For him, playing saxophone, improvising Jazz wasn’t just a hobby, it wasn’t even just a job.  For him, it was a calling.  Music was a means of connecting with the divine.  Music was a means of connecting human beings with each other.

The greatest expression of John Coltrane’s musicianship and his spirituality is a jazz suite called, “A Love Supreme.”  The suite is based on a prayer Coltrane wrote giving thanks to God for God’s love.

Now, we’ll hear the first movement, “Acknowledgement.”  In the prayer,
Coltrane says, “The fact that we exist is acknowledgement of Thee, O Lord.”  And not only is our existence an acknowledgement of God, but it also is evidence of God’s love for all creation—including human beings.  Acknowledgement “acknowledges” God’s love for all creation in the mantra-like theme: “a love supreme.”  Toward the end of the movement, Coltrane even begins chanting the words, “a love supreme, a love supreme, a love supreme.”

As the music plays, you are invited to do a number of things.  You can read Coltrane’s prayer.  You can read some of the quotes included on the insert in your bulletin.  Or you can do what Coltrane is doing as he plays:  you can pray to God in the language of music, the language of Jazz.

Let us pray.  (Play, “Acknowledgement”)

We’ve spent a lot of time in recent years providing educational opportunities for people of all ages here at Pilgrimage.  As Patrick, Ryan, and Sam will learn, when it comes to faith, the learning doesn’t end with Confirmation.  Adult Christian Ed is just as important as Children’s Christian ed!  That’s why in the last month we’ve brought in no less than three guest speakers—author Patricia Sprinkle to talk about her novel and the craft of writing, professor Daryl White to talk about Mormonism, and Ray McGinnis just this past Thursday to guide us in a workshop on “Writing the Sacred.”  Christian Education isn’t just for children; it’s for all of us.

That said, today I want to focus on children.  Have you noticed that there are more children around here than there used to be?  Some of those children have come to us by being born to long-term members…but a lot have come to Pilgrimage with their parents, parents who are searching for a place to raise their children where they can learn that God’s love really does extend to everyone.

“God loves everyone.”  So simple, right?  So basic to our faith…just like, “God is love.”  “Love your neighbour.”  “Love your enemies.”  Or, as Jesus says in today’s Gospel lesson:  “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

Love one another as I have loved you.  Just a few phrases earlier Jesus says, “As God has loved me, so I have loved you.”  God loves me, I love you, now, you love others.  It’s like that commercial where one person does something nice for someone else, then the recipient becomes the giver, then that recipient becomes the giver…

Love is like that, isn’t it?  Those who have been loved find it much easier to love others….which I’m sure is why we have such loving children in this place.  Do you ever watch these children with each other?  They truly love each other, not because they have to, but because they just do.

Evidence of that love is offered in today’s devotion, written by Janet Derby.  This past week in Sunday school, our children listened to and reflected on this passage from John. They talked about the difference between a servant and a friend. They felt that friends are not forced to do what is asked of them as servants are. Friends are trusted and choose to be nice to each other and love each other as God loves us. How do the children think we show love? By hugging and kissing people, by helping them if they are hurt or they fall, by cheering them up if they are lonely or sad.

               The children of Pilgrimage do more than give lip service to this passage. It is a privilege to be with them each week and watch how they care for each other. They express concern about who is missing; they recognize each child’s gifts; they cheer each other up when they are sad; they welcome newcomers with open arms. You needn’t be with them in Sunday school to see this manifestation of God’s love. You can watch Isaac make faces at little Matthew, or Hannah look for Emma when she comes into the sanctuary, or Mariah caring for Jamie when he comes to church. They love, because they have learned that they are loved.  “They love, because they have learned that they are loved.” 

There’s been a lot of talk on Facebook and other places this week about gay marriage.  WithNorth Carolina’s passage of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and President Obama’s endorsement of it, it’s brought the issue front and center.

The morning after the North Carolinavote, our own Kim Pruitt—a native North Carolinian–said this on Facebook:  “The best way to change our world is to change our children. I am proud that my daughter already understands that some children have 2 mommies or 2 daddies, that some people are born in the wrong body and can change their body to match who they are, and that the most important thing in a family is love.  I am proud that my parents instilled in me the ability to think for myself and to accept and love all people.”  Later, Kim expresses gratitude for being part of a church that helps her and Tim teach Emily that God really does love all people.ove all people.   “It’s a pretty amazing place to see her grow.”

I don’t have to tell you that not all faith communities practice God’s love for all people.  Even faith communities that really do try to embrace everyone…it’s hard.  The tradition has given us so many reasons to exclude people—certain sins, gender, sexual orientation, what I like to call “theological creativity”…  Not to mention unspoken social reasons—social class, race, ethnicity, appearance…  Even for faith communities that try to practice God’s love for all people, it’s not always easy.

The folks in today’s other scripture reading struggled just like we do.  While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word.  ⁴⁵The circumcised believers—that is, those who were Jews–who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles—because they (the Jewish Christians) thought they had a market on God’s love.  But Peter challenged their provincial ideas.  ⁴⁶⁴⁷“Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”  Of course, not!  Because God’s love is for everyone.  “⁴⁸So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.”  And they were.

What we are doing here is so important!  Raising our children to believe in and practice God’s love for every person?  That might be THE most important thing we do here.  Loving our children might be the best means we have of acting the world into well-being.

I came to Pilgrimage after 4 years of seminary and 8 years of graduate school.  In seminary and graduate school, you’re dealing with adults, mostly adults in their 20s and 30s.  I’ve always loved children, but I hadn’t been aware of just how much I was missing having them in my life until I came here to Pilgrimage and found lots of them.

Allen and I have never been blessed with children of our own…which is part of why the children in this congregation are so important to us.  It’s important to us to see children’s eyes light up when we enter a room.  I can’t believe those of you with young children get to experience that every day!  (Notice I said “young children” and not “adolescents.”)  It’s important for Allen and me to see children care for each other.  It’s important for us to look at our children here at Pilgrimage and to imagine what we—Allen and I– might do to make the world a better place for them.  And because it happens so frequently, I guess it’s important for us—okay, me–to be humbled by children….like the one who said, “Yeah.  I tried worship once.  I wasn’t impressed.”

Children are important to all of us.  And the children in this place are really important, even to those of us who don’t have children of our own…Because children are the future, they are our future.  As one respondent to Kim’s post on Wednesday said:  “I truly believe that we parents—and I would add, fellow congregants– have such an important responsibility on this issue- and potential to create change in the next generation.  Teaching your children about differences in a thoughtful and considerate way is an incredible challenge, but so very important.”

As we celebrate Christian Education today—especially that Christian ed in which our children are involved—I want to offer a prayer for our children.  (8:30—It’s the same prayer I prayed last week.  I thought it bore repeating.)  Please join me in prayer.

Holy Parent, we are so grateful for the gift of every child in this church… for Morgan and Matthew and Max, for Owen and Jamie…for Hannah and Jake, Emma, Emily, and Preston…for Lucas and Nicholas, Kassidy, Kalea, and Cade… for Isaac, Gavin, Olivia and Olivia…for Mariah, Sylvia, and Jemma…for Isaiah, Joseph and Joshua, and Mark…for Audrey and Myles and Ben and Ian and Andrew…for Catelynn, Ian, Ashlynn, Adrienne, and Allegra…for Madison and Sophie, Quinn and Sydney…for Michael and Keira, Miller and Maggie…

For Marc and Lorelle and Ben and Brian and Lolly…for Rachel and Sarah and Ari and Linda and Laura and Allison…for Chase and Kenneth and Terry and Raiden…for Patrick, Ryan, and Sam…

There are so many children among us, Holy One.  Help us to remember every one by name (even if my ancient brain has neglected to remember someone this morning!).  Help us to remember our covenant responsibility to pray for them and nurture them and hope for their wholeness.  Help us do whatever we can to act them into well-being.

May every child know that she or he is loved.  May every child believe that he or she is a magnificent creation of the divine.  May every child learn how good he or she is and just how much power he or she has to do good in the world.  May every child grow strong in faith.

And may we learn from every child what you are trying to teach us through them.

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

Kimberleigh Buchanan  ©  2012

Acts 10:44-48

While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word.⁴⁵The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles,⁴⁶for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said,⁴⁷‘Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?’⁴⁸So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days.

John 15:9-17

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.¹⁰If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.¹¹I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

12 ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.¹³No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.¹⁴You are my friends if you do what I command you.¹⁵I do not call you servants^* any longer, because the servant^* does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.¹⁶You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.¹⁷I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

What comes to mind when you hear the phrase “good shepherd?”  A pastel painting of a man in flowing robes holding a long pole with a hook on the end in the midst of several, fluffy white sheep?  Or maybe it’s that other pastel painting of a blond-haired Jesus carrying the lost sheep across his shoulders.  It could even be Little Bo Peep in her frilly pantaloons and wide brimmed hat that comes to mind.

Professional actress Anne Priest became a shepherd in the 1970s.  She didn’t mean to.  After her divorce, she was looking for a new adventure, so she purchased a piece of land on the coast ofNova Scotia.  Her property was on a point that overlooked the ocean.  Just out from the point was a 138 acre island.  She bought that island and—somehow—ended up putting sheep on it.

Trafficking in Sheep is Priest’s memoir of her twenty year career as a shepherd.  In addition to the sheep she kept onBlue Island, she eventually bought another sheep farm inNyack,New York—that was so she could stay close toNew York City and continue to act.

That’s also where the sheep trafficking began.  Because the winters are so harsh inNova Scotia, breeding the sheep had to be carefully planned so that lambs would be born in spring.  Had lambs been born in autumn, they weren’t likely to survive winter on the island.  At the end of each summer, then, Anne would load the ram and a few ewes into her truck and take them back toNew   Yorkfor the winter.  Each summer she would load up a few more sheep inNew Yorkand cart them back toNova   Scotia.

Carefully planning the birthdates of lambs isn’t the only thing a good shepherd does.  She also makes sure the sheep are sheared once a year.  She tends to their horns, which sometimes curl around and grow into the heads of the sheep.  When the sheep start inbreeding and unhealthful traits begin presenting—like the extensive overbite of parrot-mouth—she culls those sheep to keep the flock healthy.  When neighbouring dogs threatened her flock inNew York, Anne bought a guard donkey—yes, a guard donkey–to help keep her flock safe.  A lot of hard work goes into being a good shepherd.

In her book, Anne gives examples of bad shepherds, too.  There’s Peter, who, in a flurry of excitement one year, bought 28 sheep from Anne to start his own sheep farm.  As sometimes happens, Peter’s interest waned; he wanted to sell the sheep back to Anne and go to law school.  Anne agreed to buy 28 lambs.  The deal was made while Anne was in NY.

The plan was for Peter to bring the lambs toBlue   Islandin the late summer so they could get acclimated to life on the island before winter.  Peter’s schedule got busy, though, and he didn’t bring the lambs to the island until November.  When Anne returned to the island the next summer, she discovered the carcasses of all 28 lambs.  A good shepherd would have adjusted his schedule for the benefit of the sheep.

Anne also relates an example of bad shepherding fromPapua New Guinea.  A friend had gone there on a Peace Corps-like mission.  Concerned for the lack of protein in the diet of the islanders, some people from a neighboring country had once tried to introduce sheep.   “They had simply dumped…a thousand sheep into the provinces, providing no help whatsoever in how to care for them.  The sheep all died.”

Anne’s friend and his wife tried a different approach.  “They introduced a few sheep at a time into the school system, where the children were taught how to care for them and how to shear.  The sheep grazed on the abundant grass outdoors all the school day, then the children shut them up in a barn at night at the school.  By 1988, when [Anne] got there, there were small flocks of sheep in 65 different schools.  Those children who showed a keen interest in shepherding were given a small flock of three ewes and a ram at graduation, so they could start their own flock.”  (157)   That was good shepherding.

Here’s what I’ve learned about good shepherding from Anne Priest:  shepherds know their sheep.  They go out of their way to accommodate the sheep.  They do whatever it takes to help the sheep be the best sheep they possibly can be.

So, when Jesus calls himself the good shepherd, maybe that’s what he’s saying—that he knows his sheep (that’s us) and will do whatever it takes to help us be the best possible us we can be.

Which is all really great, right?  It’s great to know that we are known by Jesus.  It’s great to know that we are known by God.  And if the good shepherd is willing to lay down his life for the sheep, there’s a good bet the shepherd loves the sheep, especially if we go with the definition of love as “the power to act another into well-being.”  Everything Anne Priest did for her sheep she did as a way of acting them into well-being.  Dumping 28 lambs onBlue Islandon the brink of a brutal winter did not act those sheep into well-being.

So, we could take this metaphor for Jesus as shepherd and run with it.  We could remind ourselves all over again that God loves us and will do whatever it takes to act us into well-being.  We can bask once again in the good news that God has loved us, loves us now, and will always love us.  But then what?  Or to ask my favorite question:  So what?  So, Jesus knows us and loves us and lays down his life for us.  So what?  So God loves us and acts us into well-being.  So what?

And by “so what?” I mean…so what difference does God’s loving you make in your life?  I know that saying “God loves you” to many people is still news.  A lot of people have never been told before that God loves them.  It’s important to continue to proclaiming the “God loves you” message.  There are many people who still long to hear those words.

But for those of us who know that and have experienced God’s love, there’s more.  Once we receive God’s love and care, the next step is to respond to it in some way.  That’s what the author of the first epistle of John is saying.  Listen again:

“We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought also to lay down our lives for one another.  How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help?  Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”

For those of us who know God loves us and who know there’s a whole lot that needs doing in the world, it’s easy to get overwhelmed, isn’t it?  Where do we even begin?  World hunger?  Poverty?  Human trafficking?  Child sex trafficking?  Political oppression in many countries?  Wars…disease…illiteracy…global warming…  If you’re like me, you want to love “in truth in action,” but don’t have a clue where to begin.  Sometimes when I think about all that needs to be done in the world, I just want to scream like the person in that Edvard Munch paining.  It’s too much!!!!!

“We know love by this, that “he laid down is life for us—and we ought also to lay down our lives for one another.”  He laid down his life us; we should lay down our lives for others.  Maybe that phrase gives us a clue.  Maybe we begin loving others “in truth and action” by doing for them what God has done for us.  Maybe we share love with others in the same way God has shared love with us.

That’s what Sara Miles did.  I mentioned Sara a couple of weeks ago and am sure to mention her several more times in coming months.  Her’s is a remarkable story.  A leftist leaning agnostic journalist who also is a very good cook, one day Sara wandered into an Episcopal church inSan Francisco.  When she received communion, Sara’s spirit was fed in a way she’d never before experienced.  When she received the wafer and wine, she received God.

Finding God in being fed was such a powerful experience for Sara, she began feeding others.  She set up a food bank at her church (and eventually at several other sites in the area). They served people—literally—from the table in the sanctuary.  God had loved Sara—that is, God had acted her into well-being—by feeding her.  She now acts others into well-being by feeding them.

So, how might you act others into well-being?  In what specific ways has God’s love changed you?  Might the answer to that question give you a hint as to how you might “love [others] in truth and action?”

Has God’s love fed you?  Feed others.

Has God’s love sheltered you?  Shelter others.

Has God’s love nurtured you?  Nurture others.

Has God’s love healed you?  Heal others.

Has God’s love helped you accept yourself?  Help others accept themselves.

Has God’s love helped you make sense of life?  Help others make sense of their lives—teach them, counsel them, ask them annoying questions.

Has God’s love helped you with your anger and addiction problems?  Help others with theirs.

Has God’s love parented you?  Parent others.

Has God’s love empowered you?  Empower others.

As children of God, we have been shepherded well.  Jesus is our good shepherd.  The question now becomes, How might we become good sheep?   Perhaps one way to become good—or at least better—sheep is to remember the ways in which God’s love has acted us into well-being and THEN to act others into well-being in the same way.

How has God acted you into well-being?  Go and do likewise.

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

Kimberleigh Buchanan  (C) 2012

A reading from Psalm 23 and John 10:11-15

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.

The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.  The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff— they comfort me.  You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.

They were grieving…terrified…paralyzed.  After three years of learning from Jesus, watching him heal people, witnessing his courageous stands against injustice…after three years of experiencing God through their brother and rabbi, he’d been executed.  Crucified.  Like a common criminal.  What was next?  Or the more urgent question:  Who was next?

Best to lie low…then get out of town, head back home, back to the fishing boats for most of them.  Yes, Jesus’ mission was important…the whole thing about standing in solidarity with the poor, of loving God and neighbour–and their enemies–of doing unto others and all that.  Important.  Very important.  But what good would they be to Jesus’ movement if they all got killed?  Best simply to let it die.  Grieve the teacher and thank God for all they had learned from him while he’d been with them. 

Fear.  Fear had killed Jesus—the Jewish leaders’ fear that they would lose what little political power they had….the Roman-appointed governors’ fear of a Jewish uprising…Jesus’ followers’ fear that they would be destroyed by the Jewish and/or Roman leaders…Fear had killed Jesus…and it was about to kill the God-movement, too.

So, Jesus showed up.  “Peace be with you,” he said…to calm them down.  Didn’t work.  They were still terrified; they thought he was a ghost.  “Look at me, touch me, if you need to.  Ghosts don’t have flesh and bone,” he said.  That didn’t work either.  They were still terrified.  

Finally, Jesus pulls out all the stops—he asks for something to eat.  Third time’s the charm!  He pops a piece of fish into his mouth, and Voila! the disciples awaken out of their lethargy and believe…and receive Jesus’ message:  If the God movement is to continue, you’re going to have to do the work.  Tell people about me, give witness to all I taught, all the healing I effected, all the injustice I revealed and preached against.  I was happy to do that work while I was among you…but now it’s your turn. 

The disciples must have convinced Jesus that they finally got what he was saying, because he immediately takes them out to a hill and leaves the scene for good.

It’s a good story, isn’t it?  Jesus comes, embodies God’s love and justice in the world, gets killed for his efforts…the disciples follow Jesus faithfully, then cower in fear after his execution…a resurrected Jesus shows up, convinces them he’s still alive AND that they are the ones who now will have to carry on his work.  Because of this appearance, the disciples awaken from their fearful paralysis and get on with the work of witnessing to the good news.  Because of their courage and passion and determination, the Christian message takes off and spreads throughout the world.  Yes, a very good story.

But what does it have to do with us?  It’s 2012.  Christianity is one of the world’s major religions now, right?  Except for a few who live in totalitarian societies, Christians have no need to cower in fear.  After 2,000 years, the Christian message probably has enough momentum to keep going for a while.  So, what does this story of 1^st century cowering Christians have to do with us 21^st century comfortable Christians?

Here at Pilgrimage, we talk a lot about our little church on the hill.  Nearly every Sunday we hear someone mention how safe this place is for them, how loved they feel here, how different this church is from any other they’ve ever experienced.

I don’t want to knock any of that—at all.  Lad people have those experiences here.  This church is a wonderful place, a place where people try as hard as they can to live God’s love with as much authenticity as they can.  Lives—some lives in this room– have been changed by being part of this community.  That is absolutely nothing to dismiss or downplay.

But…I wonder sometimes if we find this place SO safe and SO comfortable, that we are reluctant to share the good news down off this hill?  I wonder sometimes if we, too, are stuck….not by fear or grief, like those first century disciples, but by a happy complacency?  We—at last!—have found a place—a church, even!—where we feel safe and loved and appreciated and affirmed.  Because the search for a safe, loving, and affirming church can be so arduous these days, sometimes—once we find such a place–we just want to sit back and enjoy it for a while…which is understandable. 

But I don’t think that’s what Jesus had in mind.  If it was, I don’t think he would have shown up—however he did it—in that locked room with the disciples three days after the crucifixion.  Those people were stuck.  Jesus needed them to get unstuck and to get to work…because the work of establishing God’s kindom on earth was too important for them to stay nestled in the safety of their own company.  People outside that room desperately needed to hear the good news of God’s love for them….and if the people in that room didn’t do it, it wasn’t going to get done.

Has the urgency of sharing the good news of God’s love for all people lessened in 2,000 years?  Look at the world and tell me what you think.  Do wars still rage?  Are people still hungry?  Is the earth thriving?  Has poverty been eradicated?  Are children no longer being exploited?  Does every person—even in our own country—enjoy basic human rights?  Does every person—every child, every teenager, every adult—know down to the core of who they are that he or she is a magnificent creation of the divine?  Has the urgency of sharing the good news of God’s love abated in 2000 years?  I don’t think so.

I’ve told you before and it’s still true:  you all are a hard lot to preach to.  You’re so good!  Even as I’m telling you to get out and share the good news of God’s love outside this place, I know that many of you are doing just that.  You support the programs and people at MUST Ministries, you actively help those in need by participating in Mission trips, you advocate for girls affected by sex trafficking, you welcome every person into this congregation regardless of their race, age, sexual orientation, or gender identity, no matter who they are or where they are on life’s journey.  You all don’t need convincing that the work Jesus began is nowhere near done…and that we’re the ones who need to be doing that work.

I don’t know.  I guess I’m just inviting us to be clearer about the relationship between what we do up here on this hill and the work for God’s kindom we’re doing down below.  It’s all of a piece, right?  We come here to worship, to rest, to draw strength from our friends, to get reoriented to the world from God’s perspective….then we go back out into the world to work, to witness, to share the good news of God’s love with others.  I’m inviting us to see Pilgrimage not so much as our destination, but as a way station— a place to rest and get supplies before we get back to work.

The third group of Women Touched by Grace is at the monastery right now for their first session.  For those who are new to our community, Women Touched by Grace is a three year program of spiritual renewal for Protestant clergywomen sponsored in part by a Benedictine monastery just outside of Indianapolis.  I had the privilege of participating in the program from 2008 – 2010. 

It’s taken every bit of self-discipline I have not to hop in the car and drive toIndianato join this new group.  I want to be there sooooo badly!  For nearly all the women in the first two groups of Women Touched by Grace, the monastery is a safe place for us.  The sisters treat us so well.  They pray for us, they feed us, they love us.  It’s wonderful to draw strength from our sister clergywomen, too.  To pray with people who really know you, who know what your life is like?  It’s an amazing, affirming, energizing thing.  You’d be crazy to leave, right?

But—as restful and rejuvenating as being at the monastery is—I’m not called to live there (a fact Allen finds reassuring).  My calling—the calling of all the Women Touched by Grace—is to serve congregations.  We’re called to work establishing God’s kindom outside the safety of the monastery.  Some of that work for me has involved sharing the good news of Women Touched by Grace with some of my friends.  I know four of the new Women Touched by Grace.  Two of those four have thanked me—several times—for nagging them to participate.  “That’s your number one spiritual gift,” one friend said.  “Nagging.”

Women Touched by Grace was a wonderful experience for me.  Sharing the good news of the program with my friends has been important.  Even so, my WTBG sisters and I aren’t done with the monastery…not by a long-shot.  Thus far, my group has had two reunions.  There will be another one in May.  Now, we gather to remember, to pray, to play, and to let the sisters love on us a little…so that we can find strength to go back to our ministries, replenished and ready to continue the important work of establishing God’s kindom here on earth.

I wonder sometimes if the disciples ever returned to that borrowed room for a reunion of their own?  I’ll bet they did.  After all, that’s where they grieved, that’s where they healed, that’s where they met Jesus, that’s where they were commissioned for the work they had been given to do.  I’ll bet they did have reunions in that room—and I’ll bet those visits were brief.  Because the real work waited for them outside that safe place.

As it does for us.

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

Kimberleigh Buchanan  © 2012

Luke 24:36-48

While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”³⁷They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.³⁸He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?³⁹Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”⁴⁰And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.⁴¹While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?”⁴²They gave him a piece of broiled fish,⁴³and he took it and ate in their presence.⁴⁴Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.”⁴⁵Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures,⁴⁶and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day,⁴⁷and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.⁴⁸You are witnesses of these things.