Just Mercy

Last Friday my husband indulged me by going with me to the movie "Just Mercy", which had just opened up in our community.  It's not that he didn't want to see the movie, but that I had read Bryan Stevenson's book in 2015, shortly after moving to this community from Minnesota.  I remembered the strong emotions the book elicited, and its stories that put a human face on many death-row prisoners -- some of them guilty, some of them innocent.  I remembered its main story well, about Walter McMillan, framed for a murder he did not commit, and the irony that his story took place in Monroeville, where Harper Lee wrote "To Kill a Mockingbird."

Very near the beginning of the movie is this small vignette, which I remembered from the introduction to his book.  Bryan Stevenson is still a law student, and he is going to visit an inmate on death row for the first time.  He doesn't know the young man, and he doesn't have good news.  He is anxious about the contact on many levels.  He wonders if this inmate will be bitter and abusive to him.  But when he goes to the prison, that's not what he finds.  He finds a young man who is much like him, who had a similar church background, sang the same songs, lived in similar kinds of experiences.  He tells the young man that he will not be executed in the coming year, and he reacts as if it's the best news he ever heard.  Now, he says, he can invite his wife and children to visit him, because there's no danger that he will be inviting them on the day of his execution.

They ended up talking well over the one hour limit (which raised the ire of the prison guard).  As the angry guard pushed the prisoner back out of the room to his cell amid Stevenson's protests, the young man suddenly burst into song, "Higher Ground."  He sang with conviction in a deep baritone voice,

Lord lift me up and let me stand
By faith in Heaven's tableland
A higher plane, that I have found
Lord, plant my feet on Higher Ground.

Stevenson says that in that moment he experienced grace.  He did not expect to receive hope from this young man on death row.  He wondered how many people we meet, in how many circumstances, we do not really see.

The words Jesus speaks in this week's gospel are his first recorded words in John's gospel.  They are all provocative in their own way.  "What are you looking for?"  "Come and see."

But today I am thinking that it is the third time that is the most powerful.  Andrew brings his brother Simon to meet Jesus.  Jesus looks at Simon and sees him, and says.  'You are Simon, son of John."  But that's not all he says.  He continues, "From now on you will be called Cephas" (which means Peter).  Jesus sees Simon, and he sees a Rock.

Bryan Stevenson has spent his life working for justice for those many of us do not see.  He sees people battered by life experience, struggling against disability, some wrongfully imprisoned, some trying to rise above the worst they ever did.  But before he could help them, he had to see them.  It's not as easy to do as it is to talk about it.  But it is a moment of grace.  Both to see -- and to be seen.

How many people do we meet, in how many circumstances, that we do not really see?

Hospitality to Strangers

My memories of Hebrews 13:2 go back to my childhood, and a book that I received from my godparents.  It was called, "Angel Unaware", by Dale Evans Rogers (remember Roy Rogers?) and was about their young daughter who died while she was yet a  child.  I remember the positive message that caring for a sick child turned out to be a blessing and a transformation rather than a hardship.

I suppose that this verse is one of the best known passages of scripture.  It's right up there with, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever."  Or "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen".  And who wouldn't want to entertain an angel (even though you didn't know it until afterwards)?

But since I am now a student of Biblical languages (especially Greek), and since I have been thinking more deeply (especially lately) about the word "stranger", I can't stop thinking about this passage of scripture.

I start with that really disarmingly short first verse.  "Let mutual love continue."  You know what "mutual love" is in Greek?  Philadelphia.  The city of brotherly love.  So love your brothers and sisters.  That's the first thing.  And that makes sense, right?  Not controversial at all.  Not that I'm saying that it's always EASY, but it makes sense to love "one another."

But the next part -- about showing hospitality to strangers -- well, that's another thing, if you really think about it.  Without any disrespect to Dale Evans Rogers, the word "hospitality to strangers" in Greek is really one word "philoxenia" -- which means "love of the stranger."  To be hospitable is to love the stranger.   And the word entertain?  is the word "xenos" in Greek, which means both to be a host AND to be strange.  To be a good host is -- in a way -- to be strange.  Or maybe -- just maybe -- the best host knows what it means to be a stranger.

This blows my mind.  This blows my mind as an American and a Christian and a pastor.  Partly because when I hear the word "stranger" -- this is a word that I don't associate with angels so much as I do with fear.  Especially these days, but not only these days.  These days we are afraid of the strangers at the border, people whose lives and poverty we cannot seem to imagine.  But most of us -- were at one time strangers and sojourners in this land as well.  We were immigrants from somewhere, poor or hopeful or fleeing oppression.  Most of our families have a story about when they were strangers, when they didn't know the language, when they prayed that someone would be kind, speak slowly, help them count their change in the grocery store, help them find their way in a strange city or a strange neighborhood.

But perhaps the best host knows what it means to be a stranger, and perhaps this applies to the church as well.  We have become too at home here in this world.  We have forgotten what it means to be a stranger, and this affects our ability to truly share the good news.

I remember that long ago, I lived as a missionary in Japan.  I was there to share the gospel, to invite people to the great feast, which is Jesus and his love.  But most of the time, I was a stranger.  I couldn't read the labels on food in the grocery store.  I didn't know how to cook most of the food I found there, at least at first.  I only knew a few other people, who came to Japan with me.  I understood the rhythm of the liturgy, but not the words.   And it seemed to me (although I didn't realize this for a long time) that this was a part of the point.  To be a stranger.  Not to know everything.  Just to know Christ, and him crucified.

We used to get off the trains in our neighborhood, and walk through the streets, smelling the good smells coming from people's houses.  We would joke about knocking on stranger's doors and invite ourselves in for dinner, but we had learned enough Japanese culture to understand that we should never do that.  But we knew that we were vulnerable, and needed help to navigate the world.

Perhaps the best host knows what it means to be a stranger.  I can't help thinking about Jesus, who was guest at so many parties, and how many people thought they knew him, but they didn't.  He was the best host who, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and shared it with his disciples.

The truth is, the world is a strange place, and the Kingdom of God is stranger still.  Love your enemies.  Forgive people, and keep forgiving them.  Be generous.  Give everything away, and you will be rich.  You are deeply flawed, and you are deeply loved.  You are not what you do.  You are not what you buy.   Love the stranger.

There is no "strategy" to mission.  It's just love.  Love one another.  Love the stranger.  Love yourself, in all of your strangeness.  Love Jesus.  After all, the best host knows what it means to be a stranger.

The Fruit of the Spirit is Love

 Looking for Love in all the Wrong Places

Ruth 1:1-21

           

            The fruit of the Spirit is love.  

            I read an article the other day that might not seem to have anything to do with this verse – but it does.  Bear with me. 

            The article began with an odd experiment in what we notice.          People were asked to watch a basketball game.  

            Half of the players wore white shirts and half wore black shirts.  They were asked to pay attention to how often the ball was passed among the players wearing white shirts. 

             Shortly after the game began, a man in a gorilla suit came out and walked among the players.    

            And you know what? -- fully 50% of the observers did not notice the gorilla.  

            In fact, they would have sworn that there was NO gorilla.  They were looking for something else.

            

            In our modern world, we have been trained not to see something which was obvious to generations in the pass:  that a personal God is active and moving in the world.  

            We still believe it – or we say we do.  But our senses have been trained in other ways.

            So this summer, we are going to train our senses to see what we believe – that a personal God is active and moving in the world.

            Starting, today, with love.

            The first of the fruits of the Spirit.  

             It’s no accident, I think, that it’s first.  

            After all, Paul also writes that, “Faith, hope, and love abide, these three – but the greatest of these is love.”  Love is first.  

            And the other fruit is connected to love.   It is sort of a foundation fruit – and you will see that when you see love – you may see another one of the fruits as well.  

            How do we train our eyes to see love?  

            First of all, I think, by noticing the stories of love in the Bible – really looking at them – seeing the details, imagining the scenes. 

            Like this scene, in the first chapter of Ruth.   

            I think that if there is one thing that is famous in the book of Ruth – it is the verses spoken by Ruth – and we recognize them as words of love 

            – but most of us know them from popular weddings songs.   “Entreat me not to leave thee/for whither thou goest I will go…. Thy people shall be my people, thy God my God… and where thou diest I will die.”    

            We know that Ruth’s words are words of love –

            But they are spoken from a daughter in law to her mother in law – and they are spoken in bitter circumstances.  

            Naomi and her family had left Israel during a famine and moved to Moab – and their sons had married two Moabite women.   But both Naomi’s husband and her two sons have died.  

            She has lost everything. 

            She knows she needs to return home.  

            And her daughters in law – being foreigners – there is no reason to expect they would be welcome in Israel – and really – no reason for them to go to Israel.  

            There have no children with their husbands.  

            They have no ties any more to Naomi.  

            And yet – both of them – at first – tell her that they will go with her.   

            And I think it is an act of love on Naomi’s part – to tell them they don’t have to come – she doesn’t want to tie them down.  

            She doesn’t think there is anything for them in Israel.   

            Naomi isn’t going to get married and have more sons that will grow up and be husbands for them – and that’s what both of these women need – in that time and culture.  

            But for some reason – Ruth won’t leave.  

            She wants to go with her mother-in-law.  

            She is willing to go to a place where she might experience hostility – and do what she can to help Naomi.    

            Between a Moabite daughter-in-law and her Israelite mother-in-law.  

            Maybe it’s not where you would expect to see love.  But it’s there.

            The fruit of the Spirit is love.  

            And what does this tell us about love – the fruit of love?

            First of all – it tells us that the fruit of love comes in unexpected places and in unexpected people – even the “wrong” person.  

            The fruit of loves comes in a Moabite woman willing to go the distance for the mother-in-law that she loves – to go with her to a country that she did not know – and where a welcome was not certain  -- Look for the fruit of love – even in the unexpected and the wrong places.

            And the fruit of love comes to us in places the places of grief and death – also unexpected places. 

            Naomi is living in a strange land – she has lost her husband and both of her sons.  

            She expects that her daughters in law will leave her too.  

            Why would they stay? She has nothing to offer them.  

            And yet Ruth clings to her.  

            For us too – the place of grieving and death is also a place of love – maybe especially so. 

            It was on the night in which he was betrayed that Jesus said these words to his disciples, “Love one another as I have loved you.”  

             And then he washed their feet – and then he died for them.  

            He was preparing them for his death when he said these words – when he gave them these words – words about his deep commitment to them – a love that would never let them go 

            – and their commitment to one another, a love that would also show itself to be fierce in the time of death.    

            Not then – but later, after he died and rose.  

            In times of death – love is the evidence of life.  

             Love that holds hands at a bedside, comes out for the funeral, brings casseroles, listens.  

            They are sometimes little things, but they are big things.  

            Where have you seen the fruit of love in this world, in your life, in this community?  

            Because we believe that a personal God is active and moving in this world.  But we need to retrain our senses to notice it.

            For many years I saw the fruit of love – but I didn’t that’s what it was for a long time.  

            I used to know a man who walked permanently bent over.  I didn’t know why and I didn’t really think about it much.  

            He walked permanently bent over, sometimes straightening up just a little, to say hello.

            Sometime after his wife died, I realized it.  

            Is wife had had polio as a young mother, and developed something called post-polio syndrome later on. 

            She spent most of their marriage in a wheelchair.  

            He gave up a job he loved as a professor to take a higher paying job, and they remodeled the kitchen so that the appliances worked for her.

            Even though she was in a wheelchair, they still enjoyed going to the theatre and to concerts together. 

            But in order to get her into and out of the car, and into places, he needed to carry  her.  

            From the car to the wheelchair, from the wheelchair to her seat.  And so all of those years – in this bent over man – I was seeing the fruit of love.  

            Only I hadn’t trained my eyes to notice.

            A personal God is active and moving in this world…

            The fruit of the Spirit is love.  Where have you seen it?   Where have you seen God?

            Go out and look for him this week…. 

            

            And then come back to witness to his power.

            Amen

Sermon: "Hard Grace"

“Hard Grace”

1^stCorinthians 13

Luke 4:21-30

            When I meet with couples planning their wedding (preparing for marriage), I like to use an inventory called “Prepare.”  

            I always make sure they know it’s not a ‘test”, and it won’t predict whether their marriage will succeed or fail.  

            But it gives a snapshot of their relationship at a moment in time, and measures what they call “Relationship Strengths,” and what we called “Growth Areas” (because it sounds so much nicer than “Weaknesses.”)  

            And some of the possible strengths are things like Communication, Conflict Management, Financial Management, Relationship Roles,  Family and Friends, Spiritual Beliefs, Children and Parenting, etc, and also something called “Marriage expectations.”  

            And I have met couples who have strengths in almost every area, and I commend them when we meet and have conversations together.             But I have to say that I can’t think of even one couple who has had a strength in one particular area:  “Marriage Expectations.”  

            Yep.  You heard it right.  EVERYONE, it seems, has unrealistic expectations when they are preparing to get married.  

            At least according to this inventory.  

            Everyone thinks (for example) that they could never doubt their partner’s love, that they will always feel the same way they do now, that the romance will never fade.

            Why am I thinking about this?  

            It’s because of the reading from 1^stCorinthians, one of the most well-known passages of the Bible.  

            Because I hear it, and read it, so often at weddings.  “Love is patient.  Love is Kind. Love does not insist on its own way. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends.”  

            These are beautiful words.  These are true words.  And – these are hard words. 

             Because love is beautiful, and love is heady, and love is wonderful and sometimes – love is hard.  

            And what I mean by that is – sometimes love requires us to do hard things.  Doesn’t it?  

            Maybe they don’t seem hard, when we are first in love.  

            But Love requires us to clean up messes, stick around during hard times,  go places you may not want to go.

            Love requires us to hold someone’s hand when they are dying. 

            Love is hard.  Not always, of course.  

            And it’s true that sometimes, when you love someone, hard things don’t seem so hard.  But not always.   But that’s not our expectation when we get married.  

            That’s the tricky thing about expectations.  

            And I think that’s also what is  going on in Nazareth, Jesus’ hometown, when he goes there to preach.  

            Because it’s hard to understand how everyone goes so quickly from praising Jesus’ gracious words to wanting to throw him off a cliff.        It’s too bad, really, that we heard part of this story last week – and part this week.  

            Because if we hear the whole thing at once, it sounds so strange.  How in the space of a few minutes – the people in that synagogue go from love – to anger.  

            From praising Jesus’ gracious words to trying to kill him.  And I think – at the heart – it’s about expectations.   

            The people in that synagogue love Jesus – and they have expectations.  Because 1) he’s from Nazareth, and they know him (they think) and  because 2) they have heard about all of the wonderful  things that he has been doing.  

            Healing people. Giving the blind sight.  Making the lame leap for joy.  

            And why wouldn’t they have expectations?  They love Jesus.  

            Jesus loves them. And they need healing just like everyone else.  

            If you are tempted to judge, think about it.  Don’t you need healing?  Don’t you need a miracle – at least sometimes?  

            I know I do – actually – all the time – and I tell you – week after week – that the body of Christ is not just given – but that he’s given for YOU.  

            That’s a miracle. And you need it.  I need it.  We all need it.  Every single one of us.  No exceptions.  

            So they love Jesus. And Jesus loves them.  That’s the truth.

            But he doesn’t do what they expect him to do that day.  

            Which is hard.

            And he doesn’t tell them the things they want to hear that day.

            Which is also hard.

            Instead of telling them that they are special and beloved, he tells them about other people who God loves – he reminds them that there are others that God loves – and that God has healed – who are not of their tribe.

            The widow of Zarephath, whose son Elijah raised from the dead.

            The Syrian general Naaman.  Healed of leprosy by the prophet Elisha.

             This was not the message that they were expecting.  And they tried to throw Jesus over a cliff because of it.

            I saw a t-shirt a few years ago.  I still remember it because it made me laugh, and then it made me think.  The front of the t-shirt said, “Jesus loves you”, and the back said, “but I’m his favorite.”

            Right?   It’s funny – and sometimes – it’s true.  All the jokes about heaven – and how one Christian group or another think they are the only ones up there.  

            And Jesus loved them, but not just them.

            And Jesus loved them, but he had a mission even more expansive than they were able to imagine.

            Offered to more people than they could imagine.

            And a healing deeper than they could imagine.

            Not just making the lame walk, making the blind see, cleansing lepers.

            Not just feeding people for a day.

            But life that never ends.

            Love that never ends.

             Love is hard.   Because sometimes you have to do a hard thing, for someone you love. 

            You have to clean up messes.  You have to stick around when you want to leave.  You have to go places you don’t want to go.  You have to hold someone’s hand when they are dying.

            Sometimes, you have to die, for someone you love.

            Love is patient and kind. Love does not insist on its own way. Love does not rejoice in wrong, but rejoices in the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

            Love never ends. Even though you try to throw him off a cliff, even though you turn your back, even though you shout “Crucify him!”, love never ends.  This love never ends.

            And this is grace. 

            Hard Grace.

            Grace for you.  

            This is the place where I want you to know that – there’s grace for you.  Every single one of you.  No exceptions.  

            There’s healing for you. There’s life for you.  

            But not just you. For people who are not here yet.  

            For people we don’t know – and people we might not even like.  

            For rich and poor. For friend and stranger.  For liberal and conservative.   For babies and 100 year olds.  

            Whoever you are -- There’s grace for YOU.  

            AMEN

            

            

            

Loving the Children

I will freely admit that I didn't really know what I was doing.  I thought I was planning the children's message.  This is something I do every week, with varying degrees of success.  Sometimes we crash and burn.  Sometimes the light shines.

There are a lot of opportunities for failure in a children's message.  I can tell you stories about times when the whole enterprise got away from me, when I thought I was going to have a heart-warming conversation, and instead 20 children at once wanted to share with me embarrassing details of their morning.  Or, there was the time when, for some reason, in the middle of a children's message, one child solemnly raised his hand, and asked the question, "Is there a mean God too?"

I had gotten some on line inspiration to connect with the first chapter of the gospel of John:  the spot where John the Baptist points to Jesus and declares him to be the Lamb of God.  We were going to have Show and Tell, just like we used to do when I was in grade school.  I emailed a few parents, to see whether their children could share something for a brief time of "show and tell."

But something happened at the children's sermon time.  Two of our youth and one younger child had something to share this morning.  A young confirmation student stood up and shared a lap blanket, a gift from a beloved aunt that meant a lot to her.  A high school student shared a remote control plane, which he had "take off" from the floor and fly around the sanctuary for a moment.  And a little girl shared a box her father had bought her from one of his trips overseas, a small, beloved box where she stored treasures.

And I shared about John the Baptist, the one who showed the disciples who Jesus was, and then told them about him too.

So, that was the gospel message.

But, just like the Holy Scriptures, which I like to say have a "surplus of meaning", so also this children's message carried a surplus of meaning, not intended by me.

All of these young people showed something that was important to them, and told us about it.  They trusted us enough to show us a little bit of their lives, and they trusted us to appreciate this gift.

Show and Tell.

As it turns out, this is not just the building block of evangelism, how we show and tell others about Jesus in our lives.

It is also the building block of Christian community.  The children taught us how to do it, to show each other and tell each other who we are, so that we can pray for one another, be the body of Christ for one another.

Sitting on the floor and listening to the children share, for a moment I thought I was standing on holy ground, and this is what it looked like:  the comfort of a warm blanket, the surprise of a plane lifting up, and the joy of a hidden treasure box.

Community

I was sitting at the kitchen table at Hans and Charlotte's house many years ago.  We were visiting, and Charlotte was probably trying to get me to accept a loaf of banana bread to take home.

 Hans leaned in to tell me what was on his mind.

"I hate that contemporary worship service," he said.  "Why do we have to do that one?  It just doesn't seem like worship to me."

Every other month, on the first Sunday of the month, we had a communion service led by guitar and piano.  It had sort of a 'folk music' flavor, and some of our young families really liked it.

I told him this.  I reminded him that we only did this service a few times a year.  I may have even named a couple of names of people he knew that liked that service.  Their children enjoyed coming to church because of the songs that we sang on those Sundays.

He nodded gravely.  He wasn't going to boycott or leave the church because of the contemporary service.  He didn't even want me to do anything about it, really.  He just wanted me to know.

So, how do you build community in a congregation?  It is a commodity we all say we want more of, and that people yearn for.  We all say we want more authentic community.  We want a place to belong, and to belong to one another.  It sounds so heady and deep and hard.

Sometimes, it is as simple and unromantic as this:  putting up with someone else's songs, because you want them to be there, in worship with you.

Sometimes it is as simple as listening to each other's complaints, and then being able to say:  You don't have to change anything.  I just wanted to let you know how I feel.  I just wanted to let you know what's important to me.

Community is rarely romantic.  It's more often just putting up with each other, with our different songs and our stranger habits and prayers and table manners, because, for some reason, you believe it's better than sitting at the table by yourself.

To Look At The Heart

Today, I sat with a woman whose husband is dying.  We sat by his bed, held his hand, prayed a little, told a few stories.

They have been married over 70 years.  They both walk with canes.  They would hold each other up, watch out for one another.

"My friends wondered what I saw in him," she said.  "Because of the age difference.  And because he walked with a limp.  He had polio when he was a child.  But I didn't see the limp, not until they they mentioned it.  I looked at his heart.  I didn't see the limp.  I saw his heart, and it was strong and good.

"My friends -- a lot of them got divorced." She didn't exactly say it with a tone of triumph, but as a simple statement -- it pays to look at the heart, and not at outward things.

"They said it wouldn't last," she said again, "because of the age difference."

"What age difference is there?'  I asked her.  I never knew.

"Seven years," she said.  "I'm 90 and he is 97.  Back in those days you only married someone your own age.  So they said it wouldn't last.  That, and the limp.  They wondered what I saw in him."

They have been taking care of each other for over 70 years, each of them keeping an eye on the other, each of them holding the other one up, each of them looking at the heart.

We held hands, we prayed, we told stories.  I made the sign of the cross on his forehead, and said, "You are sealed with the Holy Spirit, and marked with the cross of Christ forever."

For 70 years, when they held each other up, it was Jesus who was holding on, through their faithfulness.  For 70 years, when they kept an eye on each other, it was Jesus watching out for them, through their faithfulness.

If you look at the heart, that's what you see.

Here I Stand

I went to church yesterday.  Actually, I am one of the pastors, so saying that "I went to church" is a bit of an understatement.  But, that's my story, and I am sticking to it.

It was Reformation Sunday.  Even though we are in the Narrative Lectionary this year and the Bible story featured the wisdom of Solomon rather than The truth that will set you free (John chapter 8) or the  grace that justifies (Romans 3), it was still Reformation Sunday.

Sort of.

We were instructed to wear red, and many of us did, although those who did not wear red were not turned away.  Somehow it seemed like the crowds were a little bigger this Sunday, although I don't think it was because everyone suddenly remembered that it was Reformation Sunday, that great festival of grace, faith and Scripture alone (at least for Lutherans).  I saw some people I hadn't seen for a few weeks, and that always feel good to me.

So it seemed festive in worship.  We had a a great choir anthem based on words from Psalm 46.  I even got to sing this week.  (I am sure that is why we sounded so good.)  A parish member gave a wonderful reflection about why she gives, and testified to why our congregation has been such an important place in the life of her family.  The other pastor gave a heart-felt sermon on the wisdom of Solomon, and what it means to be wise.

The bells played.  I prayed the prayers of the church (and, to be honest, stumbled a little.  Everything was not perfect).  We offered ourselves to God, in one way or another.  We shared bread and wine.

At the close of the service, I invited people to come forward if they would like individual prayers for healing and anointing.  A few people did come forward.  We do this every month on the last Sunday or the month, and sometimes the lines are really long.  Sometimes there are just a few people.

But I have come to love this practice.  It is not because I am the best heartfelt pray-er in the world.  I am heartfelt, and I do my best, but I imagine that there are others who are better than I am.  It is not that I don't love the other parts of worship, either, especially the songs.  I do love the songs.  I love singing, all together.

I have come to love this practice because of the little tiny glimpses into people's lives, joys and struggles, the secrets people trust me to pray for, and not to share.  I pray for small things, and big things, for grandchildren and grandparents, for relationships, for health, for comfort in grieving.  Sometimes the word I can speak is just the tiniest word, but it is something.  I say my tiny words, and give everything to Jesus.  That's all I can do.

Some people come for themselves, but many people come requesting prayers and healing for someone else.  I put the oil on their head, and give thanks for them, and then we pray for the other person, or people who are on their hearts.

I have come to love this practice, perhaps because the tiny little glimpses I see there give me hope.  The tiny little glimpses are glimpses of faith, hope, and love.  I see faith and hope and love in the eyes and words of people who stand in line, waiting for a word from me, the tiniest word, sometimes.  There is faith and hope that something can change, our words and actions can make a difference, that salvation is real and takes many forms.  Faith and hope.

But the greatest of these is love:  Love that draws people forward for the sake of someone else, to ask for prayers on their behalf.  Love that hopes for healing, comfort, reconciliation.

The greatest of these is love.

Here I stand.  I can do no other.

Fully Known

I went to a wedding the weekend before last, a wedding where I did not officiate.  So instead of preaching and coaxing vows out of nervous brides and grooms, instead of praying and being on high alert at all times, I was listening.  Intently.

I suppose that I listened intently at least in part because I will confess that, after twenty years officiating at weddings, and after fifteen years of marriage, I cannot admit to being an expert on marriage.  I am humbler every year.  I don't know if this is a good thing or not.

There were three scripture readings:  one was chosen by the bride, one by the groom.  The third they chose together.   A nice touch, I thought, when the officiant launched into her message,what I chose to call a "substantial sermon" (a compliment, by the way).  It was substantial and exhortatory without devolving one of those sermons which warns young couples about the high rate of divorce.

The bride and groom chose 1st Corinthians 13 as their joint scripture reading.  I found myself stuck on a particular phrase that day, and it wasn't the one about love bearing and enduring all things.  It wasn't the one about love being patient and kind.  It was that phrase about being fully known.  I realize that this is part of a large phrase about being a grown up and finally knowing fully, even as I have been 'fully known.'

And it is possible that I heard wrong, but I think that I heard, at one point, about the blessing of being 'fully known' in the context of marriage (not the fact that God knows us fully, something that we can't do one thing about, and is a blessing because, for some reason or another God knows us fully and continues to bear and endures all things with us).

And I wondered what kind of a blessing it is to be 'fully known' in the context of marriage, as far as it is even possible.  I know that being fully known for the last fifteen years or so has felt like a mixed blessing for me, sometimes.  Before I was married, I think I had more illusions about myself.  I believed myself to be a nicer person than I do now, for example.  Sometime after we are married,  we stop showing each other only our best selves, and someone else knows us, REALLY knows us, not just our odd or heartwarming quirks, but our secret fears, our besetting sins, our failures.  ("Did you ever consider divorce?" I once asked a woman married over 50 years.  "No," she replied.  "Murder, but not divorce."  And the thing is, I know that she really loved her husband.  Fully.)

It struck me that this can be a vulnerable place to be.  When we get married, we put ourselves in someone else's hands.  We entrust ourselves to someone else.   And we will disappoint each other sometimes.

As for me, even though I loved that substantial wedding sermon, I am not sure I could preach it.  Even though everything the pastor said was true, and everything I agreed with, instead of exhortations, I see visions.  I see a vision before me of an old man who visited his wife every day when she had Alzheimer's.  When she would get anxious, and say, "Don't leave me," he would reply, "I am not going anywhere."  I know, I didn't know their whole lives together, I didn't know them fully, but I would just get this glimpse, and that would help.

Today, this is the vision I am seeing, though:  a couple from my church who celebrated 70 years of marriage yesterday.  They were at our Saturday night service, sitting in the front like they always do.  The small chapel community signed a card for them and gave it to them at the close of the service.  (This was not my idea, but the idea of another one of the saints.)  They asked if I would give them a blessing, too.

"The first 70 years are the hardest," was the piece of wisdom they had to share as they left.

And then I watched them as they walked out the door to their car.  In one hand, they each held a cane that they used to steady themselves.

Still, they walked out holding hands.

I don't have any wisdom.  Less and less every year, actually.

Just the vision of the hands holding the cane, and holding each other.

Maybe that's the way to do it, until we are finally and forever fully known.

God-sightings

I like this picture so much, from one of the two weddings that I officiated last Saturday afternoon.  It was a hot and sticky day, but it did not rain, and for that we gave thanks.

t am not sure, but I think this picture

was taken when a friend of the couple read a poem, "How Falling In Love is Like Owning a Dog,"by Taylor Mali.  The poem was so funny, and so truthful.  It even had these great lines in it,

"Love leaves messes.

Love leaves you little surprises here and there.

Love needs a lot of cleaning up after."

You can perhaps see why we are all smiling.

That reading, combined with verses from Ecclesiastes 4 and Colossians 3, made it a holy and joyful wedding day.

Here is a picture from the other wedding on that hot summer day:

At that wedding, the readings were from 1 Corinthians 13 (Love bears all things) and Ecclesiastes 4.  The groom wanted them to write their own vows.  The bride felt a little anxious about it.  So they wrote their vows together.  They were beautiful.

At picnic church tonight, someone asked if there were any God-sightings this week.  

No one said anything.

We are not yet used to being asked that question.

We see God in many places, but we don't notice.

Tonight I wish I had said this:

"I saw God on Saturday afternoon when two couples made promises to each other."

What Love Looks Like

My father died last week.  His funeral was Saturday morning, at my parents' church.

It was a beautiful, clear day.  Members of the Swedish men's chorus my dad had belonged to showed up.  They sang three songs.  My dad's two older sisters were there, my mom's older sister and younger brother, and a number of cousins, too.  There were friends of my parents there, some who had known them since they were first married well over fifty years ago.  I thought I was doing pretty well until one of my cousins came up to me, just before the service started, and said, with tears in her eyes, "I am going to miss your dad."

I sat between my mother and my sister.  She sang alto on all the hymns.  I tried to sing high tenor on a couple of them, but I don't reach the high notes like I used to.  Besides, I was crying.  My nephew, who leads a local rock band, played a portion of the song "Misty" as part of the remembrances.  He learned "Misty" just because his grandfather liked that song.

After the service and the luncheon, we all went home to rest for awhile.

Then, later in the evening, I drove up to my mom's house, where my sister was staying for the week.  The three of us drove from there to my brother's house.  Then my brother drove all four of us to a bar where my nephew's band was head-lining.  He was supposed to go on at 10:00 p.m.  A couple of my cousins joined us as well.

So there we were, at 10:00 p.m., sitting around a dark, smoky room, munching appetizers and drinking iced tea, listening to noisy and unknown (to us) bands, waiting for my nephew to appear.  One of my cousins was teasing my mom about whether she would be part of the "mosh pit" (terminology that I had just recently learned).  Later on, when my nephew started, we made our way up to the stage, where the beat of the drums and the bass made our hearts skip.  We watched my nephew as he took on his "rock star" personality.   At one point, my nephew used bad language.  One of my cousins reached out to cover my mom's ears.

All of us think my nephew is very talented.  We are all very proud of him.  But, to be honest, for at least some of us, this was not "our kind of music".  It also wasn't the kind of venue that we would probably think of attending on our own.  We weren't there because we were hard rock music fans.

We were there because of love.

Especially I think of my mom.  She's never been a big fan of bars.  In fact, until her grandson started playing music there, I'm not sure she ever set foot in one.  But there she was, until all hours of the night.  She wouldn't have been any other place.

When I think about the mission of the church, why it succeeds, why it fails, I don't think it has to do so much with strategy as it has to do with love.  It doesn't matter what kind of strategy you have, if you don't have love that will impel you to go places you would never otherwise go, and do things you would never otherwise do.  It's as simple, and as difficult, as that.

So, on Saturday, my mother went to church for a funeral for her husband.  And she went to a bar for a rock concert by her grandson.

That is what love looks like.

The Simplest Things

Sometimes I still don't know what to say, even after all these years offering pastoral care in all kinds of situations.  I learned that the daughter of a member of my parish died suddenly this morning; no one knows yet why.  On the phone with him, I felt like a stumbling idiot, saying inane things.

Later on, I went to visit my dad in the nursing home where he lives.  All the roads were under construction, it seemed, and when I got to his area, I didn't find him right away.

He was sitting at a table in the corner, his head down, with a piece of cake and some lemonade in front of him.

I went over and sat across from him and held his hands.  "Hi Dad," I said in a loud voice.  No response.  "I'm here.  It's Diane.  How are you?"

No response.  I bent down and looked him in the eye.  I took both his hands, sang a chorus of 'You are my sunshine,' asked him, "What's black and white and red all over?"  I sang a few words of "Where the blue of the night meets the gold of the day," and told everyone within earshot about how he used to sing his own version of 'The Sheik of Araby' to us when we were little.

The activity director came over and whispered in his ear.  She said he was really good yesterday; she wished someone had been there.  She gave him a little sip of lemonade.  "Sometimes that wakes him up," she said.  She said she thought maybe he was just tired.  "Are you tired, dad?" I asked.

He closed his eyes.

I sang a little more, though, of course, I don't know all of the words.  I asked him if he remembered helping me with my multiplication tables, or teaching me to drive.  I told him he was a good dad.

Then I thought about how the activity director had spoken right into his ear.  I leaned right into his ear and I said, "I love you."

He nodded.

I don't know why I hadn't thought of it before.  The simplest thing.

"I love you, dad," I said, and he nodded and I thought that somehow, when he looked at me, he saw me, and suddenly, he remembered everything.

"What's black and white and read all over?  Is it the newspaper?"

"Oh, yes," he said.

"Why did the chicken cross the road?  To get to the other side?"

Oh yes.

I sang a few words of "Where the blue of the night meets the gold of the day" and he hummed along.  I told him that he was a good dad.  I was glad to be his daughter.  And it seemed like when he looked at me, for a little while, anyway, he remembered everything:  the prayers, the jokes, buttering our toast and riding in the car and going to get Christmas trees in December.

I said I had to leave but I would try to be back soon.

Then I said it again, the only thing I knew to say, right in his ear.

"I love you, dad."

"I love you too."

The simplest thing.

Why didn't I think of it before?

Inclusive Laments

Like everyone else, I heard the news about the terror at the Boston Marathon almost as it was happening, in real time.  Though I will admit, I did not spend the rest of the day glued to the TV, and I don't have many searing visual images in my mind, I'm still haunted by what happened, lamenting the lives lost, imagining the grief of those who lost limbs or lives of loved ones, not being able to imagine the mind of the one who did this.

I do not live in Boston.  I don't even live on the East Coast, so I'm far away from what happened.  I didn't even think I knew anyone who was there, although later I found out that the son of our former pastor was running that day.  He was one of the elite runners, and had already finished when the bombs went off.  But still.  My feelings are not true grief, not like the grief of those who were really there.

Still, I can't help but lament.  We can't help but lament, can we?  Every time we hear cruel things happen, we can't help but lament at the incomprehensible cruelty possible in God's good world.  Sometimes it's the cancer diagnosis of a good friend.  Sometimes it's terror in Boston.

But the problem is that there are terrible things happening all over the world, in places we don't even know exist.  For example, did you know that on the same day that bombs killed and maimed people in Boston, a US bomb killed thirty people who were celebrating at a wedding in Afghanistan?  We said it was a mistake.

Sometimes we excuse our inability to really lament for tragedies far from home.  "Those are violent places," we say.  But the truth is, the world is a violent place, from Boston to Afghanistan to Waco to Myanmar.  If every human life is valuable and beautiful and a creation of God, the ravages of cancer and the ravages of war and the ravages of tragedy are all worthy to be lamented.

I lived in Japan once, long ago.  It was so long ago that sometimes I never lived there, never saw Mount Fuji  rise in the background, never heard the voices of kindergarten children chattering and never smelled the skewered meat sizzling at the train stations.  It was so long ago, but once in awhile I can still imagine the God-beloved people I knew there, far away, across the world.

Here is the impossible thing:  to rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep, across boundaries, across ideologies.  To love the ones that God loves, somehow, to practice more inclusive lamenting.

Watching Home Movies With My Dad

So, Monday was my dad's 84th birthday.  Sunday night my brother and my mom got him out of the nursing home where he lives so that we could have a nice birthday dinner at their home:  turkey and mashed potatoes with gravy, corn, salad, and cherry pie for dessert.

My dad thought it was possibly Christmas.

He was pretty good:  sometimes, it takes almost the whole visit before he will join the party, and talk.  Last Thanksgiving he kept falling asleep until just before we took him back to the nursing home.  But Sunday afternoon he got in a few comments.  I thought he was going to start telling "Knock Knock" jokes.  He didn't, but when my brother and I started imitating the old "Axel" character from past local children's program, he knew right away it was Clellan Card.

After dinner and before the cherry pie, my mom had a special event planned.  We were going to watch old home movies.  One of our old friends had taken some of our old home movies and put them on a DVD, so that we could watch them again.  We hadn't seen those movies for a long time, but I remember sometimes, long ago, that we would have fun putting up the movie screen and pulling out the movie projector and watching a bunch of those 8 millimeter family shows.  Most of them were various Christmases, with a few camping experiences thrown in.  We used to love to run the Christmas ones backwards, so that we could see everyone re-wrapping up their presents.  Simple pleasures, you know.

So there we were, all sitting together in the little family room, my dad in his wheelchair, right in the middle of all of us.  One of the unique features of this DVD is that there is background music, and you can choose which sound track you'd like: classical, country, or folk.  Another unique feature of the DVD is that the movies are arranged in no particular order.  So one moment we might all be visiting the farm and it's before my parents were even married, and the next moment, all three of us kids are sitting under a tinsel-laden Christmas tree, and then the next moment it is another Christmas, but I'm the only one around, and I'm a baby (I'm the oldest.)

So we're watching all these little episodes, all out of order, and shouting out to one another and to my Dad, "Look!  There's uncle Dick!  There's Norma!"  I still remember the first time my brother appeared on the screen, shaking my dad's arm and saying, "There's your son!  That's David."

The one thing my mom kept saying:  "You took these pictures.  Do you remember?"

My dad isn't in any of the movies.  He was taking them all.

From a professional standpoint, my dad was not an excellent filmmaker.  He tended to cut off people's heads, for one thing.  We were teasing him about that.  He didn't have a great instinct for "the scene", but he loved us and he wanted to record a bit of our lives.

For us, we just wanted to say, "thank you."  Thank you for not being in the movies, but taking the movies.  Thank you for recording our lives, in little bits and episodes.  In the movies, I can see through my dad's eyes, just a little, and I see how much he loved my mom, how much he loved us, even though he wasn't the type to say it much.

It's funny how much those few seconds of videotape can say -- how a few seconds of me chasing a kitten, or my little brother trying to blow out his first birthday candle, or his uncle hoisting all of us kids up in the air (except me, I was scared) brought back a flood of other memories and pictures.  And my father isn't in any of the pictures, preferring to take pictures of all of us, his family.

Happy birthday, Dad.  Thank you for taking the movies.  Thank you for helping us remember, even if you don't.

Faith and (Non)Fiction

For the past several years, I have held a monthly book study at my congregation, called "Faith and Fiction."  I'm an English major, and the book club title came from my conviction that inside every really good story is a faith story of some kind, either overt or subliminal.  Great literature covers all of the theological questions:  redemption, epiphanies, sin, suffering and brokenness, forgiveness -- you name it.

Rarely have we ventured outside of the fiction genres (although we have read a handful of memoirs).  We've read some classics, children's books and a couple of mysteries as well.  But this month we read a piece of science writing:  The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks.

To be fair, "Henrietta" is not just science writing -- it's also the story of Henrietta Lacks, her history and her family.  But, also to be fair, it's not fiction, either.  And though the book came highly recommended, it met with mixed reviews.  Some people thought that the science writing was dry; they were interested in the story of Henrietta's family, didn't find some other parts of the story awfully compelling.  Others were fascinated by the science, the history and the family's story.  Some considered the book a window to racism and poverty as well as the development of scientific breakthroughs.

Near the close of the conversation, one woman held up her book and said, "What does this have to do with 'Faith and Fiction'?  It was a fair question, given that we had gone off-genre, so to speak; we weren't anywhere near fiction.  But what about faith?

The author is pretty open about her lack of religious faith; we all thought that by the end of the book, she at least grew to appreciate the faith that sustained the Lacks family.  And we admitted that faith played a large role in the book, especially in how the family made peace with what had happened to their mother, and that somehow, God had used her cells for a greater purpose, to heal people and to save lives.  They were able to let go of their anger and see a wider purpose in Henrietta's life, and in their lives.  Especially, Henrietta's daughter Deborah, when she died, seemed to have found a peace which came both from finding out more about her mother, and also from finding out about the good that her mother's cells had done.

As for me, there is one more part of this book, not overtly connected to faith, that gave me pause, and made me think about faith.  And that is the story of the author of the book, Rebecca Skloot.  She chronicles not only the story of Henrietta's cells, and the story of Henrietta's life, but she also her own journey to get to know the Lacks family.  I caught myself several times thinking about the patience she had to have in order to get this story, to get to know and interview the family, to gain their trust.  The Lacks family did not trust people;  but Rebecca Skloot did not give up.  She was tenacious.  And she did gain the trust of the Lacks family.  Maybe they could see that she really did care about them, and was not just interested in using them.

I caught myself thinking about the patience and tenacity of God in search of us; about our ongoing lack of trust in God's purposes (sometimes justifiable, I'll admit).  I caught myself thinking as well about the mission of the church.  What is missing from most evangelism efforts, I think, is not a better method or strategy.  What is missing is tenacity, the patience necessary to gain people's trust, the conviction that what we have to share is really that life-giving that we need to share it.

What is missing, at least most of the time, is that kind of love.

So, I'll remember not only Henrietta Lacks, but also Rebecca Skloot, who wanted the world to hear this story, and who loved Henrietta's family.

What is Love?

So, my Sunday sermon, "Animals of the Bible" was pretty well received, for the most part.  Of course the "animals of the Bible" were, for the most part, the fox, the chicks, and the mother hen (although other animals, including my dog Scout, made brief appearances.)

One of my more learned parish members told me afterwards that she took issue with one sentence in my sermon:  when I talked about how much the Mother Hen loves the chicks.  As she told me, she just didn't buy it. It's centuries of evolution that make the hen behave in certain ways toward her chicks.  It's not what we know as "love."  That's way too anthropomorphic.

I gave her the point, and went home, thinking about the mother hen whose evolution has included dying for the sake of the brood, and wondering about the word "love," as we humans know it.

If we think of love as an emotion (and we do), certainly chickens do not "love" their babies, at least not in the way humans do.

But I am not sure that it's helpful, in Biblical terms, anyway, to consider 'love' as primarily an emotion.  I'm not sure if it's even so helpful in human terms, actually.  Is 'love' essentially the ability to feel really warm and connected to someone or something else?  When Jesus says "Love one another as I have loved you," is he talking about how he feels about us, or how we should feel about each other?  Or is it something else?

What is love?

Coincidentally, today I've been reading the children's book The One and Only Ivan.  The book is the story of a gorilla captured when he was just a baby, and living in a cage in a small "circus" located in a mall.  It's a lonely life.  We get to imagine Ivan the gorilla's thoughts and feelings in his cage, and know a little bit about his past.  After he was captured, he lived as a sort of a pet with a man named Mack, who dressed him up and fed him hamburgers and let him live in his house until he got too big to manage.  Then Mack took him to this sad little circus, where he became his keeper.

Later on in the story, some other people come to be concerned about Ivan, and the other animals who live at the Mall.  They finally rescue Ivan, and help to re-introduce him to the kind of life he was born to.  They know a lot about what is good for gorillas, because they've studied and learned about their needs and their lives.  Before Ivan leaves though, Mack gives him a picture of the two of them from when Ivan was small.  "Weren't those good times?"  he reminisces.

I had a sudden realization:  Mack thinks he "loves" Ivan.

What is love?

I don't know how the hen feels about her chicks, just that she feeds them, protects them, sometimes gives her life for them.  And when Jesus asks us to "love one another, as I have loved you," he is bending down to wash their feet.  He is not showing us how to feel, but what to do.  He is not showing us how he feels, but what he is willing to do.  That's how we know he loves us.  That's how we know we love one another.

What is love?

It seems to me that the answer to this question means everything, not just for our faith in God, but our mission in the world.  If it's true, that "they'll know we are Christians by our love," what is love?