Gospel Pronouns (Pent 18B)

 

Last week’s Gospel text followed up on what it means to pick up one’s cross and be a follower of Jesus. The text left Jesus in the hard conversation of what it means to follow God’s call, where one is to be “last of all and servant of all.” Today’s readings set us in the midst of another difficult conversation: us and them, those people and Jesus followers, those on the inside verses those on the outside.

The disciples come to Jesus concerned that there are people casting out demons – people who are not the disciples, people who are not Jesus followers. The disciples are falling into a human pattern; centuries before in Moses’ time, 70 leaders are chosen, and the people are concerned because two – Eldad and Medad- not of the 70, are found prophesying. The plea comes, “Stop them.”

 

People are casting out demons. Praise the Lord, healing is happening!

Eldad and Medad are prophesying. Praise the Lord, the Word of the Lord is spreading and being heard!  Good and good.

... but that is not what the text says. The disciples and Joshua, Moses’ assistant, want the actions of unsanctioned participants to stop. What drives the concern? Is it jealousy? Is it a lack of control and loss of power? Is it judgement that ‘they’ are less than, so shouldn’t have God-given abilities? Is it fear? Perhaps it is racism, classism, or some other kind of ‘ism?’ Is it a wish to keep God for themselves – an action born out of a theology of scarcity rather than abundance?

A hard conversation.

...because I have been jealous when a different Christian denomination or church makes waves and gets noticed; when secular organizations are commended for their service records; when others get recognition for things we have been preaching and living for a long time... and I know it is not right to feel that way. Then I feel guilty for being judgemental and smug and disappointed and afraid ---of what I have discovered about myself and the church and the world --- how, why, has God’s message, through me, not connected with others in a big-showy-real-tangible-kind of way?

 

It is not about me. It is us. It is human beings. We are with the disciples having a hard conversation with Jesus.

Scholar and blogger for 1517.org, Chad Bird, wrote an article with the title, “Christianity Is Not About a Personal Relationship with Jesus.”  The article draws one’s attention to ‘the communal’ in  scripture. Nowhere does scripture talk about a personal relationship with Jesus.  God’s work, worship, mission, kindom, discipleship, grace, forgiveness is all done in community, with community, and through community.

I once read  that the whole Bible is a progression of God’s people slowly figuring out who God has included- a continual expansion of community.

Jesus says to the disciples, “Whoever is not against US is for US.”

Moses comments, “Would that ALL the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put the spirit on them.”

 

This year Canada Lutheran World Relief celebrates 75 years, designating this Sunday to celebrate and give thanks for the communal work done by the grace of God  working through Lutheran congregations and various Lutheran church bodies. CLWR’s start is a fantastic image of what it means to work communally. As WWII was coming to a close people were figuring out what next.  Lutheran communities in Canada – churches with German, Scandinavian, Eastern European peoples – saw people like themselves, people with whom they shared language, religion, and culture, people from their countries of origin;  displaced because of war and having no place to go.  Lutheran church communities formed CLWR as an organized effort to offer and create a place for Displaced Persons.  Lutherans in Canada were willing to open their homes, congregations, and communities to the refugees – many of whom where also Lutheran.

Over the years, Canada Lutheran World Relief has remained committed to refugee sponsorship and the reunification and resettlement of families. At the heart of CLWR’s work is the call found in scripture to ‘Welcome the Stranger.’

The difference today, as compared to CLWR’s original cause, is that refugee sponsorship has expanded and includes a diversity of colour, people, cultures, religions, and languages – welcoming ALL, not just those we deem to be like ‘us.’

The Gospel, as shared through CLWR’s expression of God’s love, is that all are welcome, and that all deserve respect that includes a safe place to call home.

But this is not what we hear in the world around us. There is a lot of anti-immigrant sentiment. Policies are created to allow in only certain kinds of immigrants. The news this week from the US is the deportation of Haitians who have gathered in a makeshift town under cover of a bridge on the Rio Grande; to be deported -sent back to their country of landing, so to Guatemala, where many fall into the hands of cartels. In Europe, Greece and Turkey, are fighting an influx of refugees coming from Afghanistan. Around the world there are 70 million displaced persons on the move.

 

CLWR is a feel good story for me, for our congregations, for the larger work of the Lutheran World Federation in administrating some of the largest refugee camps in the world. When we look around this congregation, we can pat ourselves on the back and say look at the Gospel of welcome. As a community we represent diversity; with a dozen languages amongst us, a spectrum of skin colour and sexual orientation, a diversity of jobs, hobbies, and volunteer engagement; we represent ages spanning from in the womb to 98; there are apartment dwellers and home owners.

Yes, look at the welcome.  Look at the abundance ... but... the conversation between Jesus and the disciples of ‘us’ and ‘them,’ is still on our lips and in our heads and hearts too.

 

Recently at a National Church Council meeting, council members participated in a workshop on biases, also known as micro aggression training. The training helps a person and the community to be aware of biases and to then work to counter the ‘isms’ -like racism, sexism, etc that come from conscious and unconscious biases.  The scripture texts – highlighting ‘us’ and ‘them’ – are examples of how biases surface and are expressed.

Every time we use phrases that include, ‘those people,’ ‘that group;’ when we choose to identify and label another group ‘them’ not ‘us’ – we are participating in a practice that Jesus and Moses both countered in their day.  As leaders, Jesus and Moses both spoke to reorient attitudes and perceptions of the people gathered around them. Jesus says to the disciples, “Whoever is not against US is for US.”

Moses comments, “Would that ALL the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put the spirit on them.”

 

Speaking about micro aggressions is hard work and a hard conversation. It requires being open and honest; sharing feelings; risk making mistakes; and being willing to change. One of the lessons I took home from the workshop was the power of language and how changing language changes attitudes and biases over time. ‘Whoever is not against us is for us,’  is powerful language directly pointed at the disciples to expand notions of healing and wholeness, how God works, how kindom grows. Learning new language and ways of speaking is hard and it takes practice.  Have you ever tried to not label a group different from yourself as ‘them?’ Changing language to be Gospel language opens hearts to embrace the abundance of God’s welcome.  God’s word is actually heard when it expands beyond language that divides.

Perhaps you have noticed that in sermons and conversation I practice speaking about God as God – constructing sentences so that I do not use ‘he’ or ‘she’ pronouns to refer to God; for God is bigger than human gender constructs. Perhaps you have noticed a recent switch to saying sibling, rather than brother and sister, to acknowledge that gender is a spectrum. Expressing and preaching the Gospel includes small language changes that represent a fuller understanding of God and relationship with each other and creation.

 

In COVID times, as meetings have been moved to platforms like ZOOM, you may have noticed that people state after their names preferred pronouns: he/him; she/her; they/them/their. National Church Council participated in an exercise where we avoided using pronouns all together; choosing to refer to people by name, or relationship to us like cousin, child, mother. It is not difficult, it just  takes a retraining of the brain; and requires lots of practice. The same exercise and practice can be applied to referring to groups of people different from ourselves.

 

The Gospel text for today sums up the text by saying

 and be at peace with one another.

 

Practicing Gospel language – welcoming the stranger through words- changes attitudes and in due course affects how the community welcomes the stranger through deeds. Let us practice Gospel language and expand our understanding of whom God includes in the kindom. And throughout this troubled world may ALL be at peace with one another.

 

Amen.

 

Those Hard Conversations (Pent 17B)

 

Take a moment and remember the last hard conversation you participated in. Or perhaps a hard conversation you have to have and just haven’t done it.

 

What is it about these conversations that make them hard?

They are usually uncomfortable, have the potential to get out of control, can hurt feelings or put a wedge in a relationship.  They are full of emotion, opinion, anxiety, and fear. Left undone such conversations are the proverbial ‘elephant in the room.’ Once done there is often a sense of relief.

 

One of the hardest moments in pastoring -for me- happened many years ago in this space. I stood before the church family and had to share with the congregation that a loved member-- who one week was in church full of vigour and planning the next property project-- was in the hospital, had a brain tumour, and was given a few short weeks to live. The member didn’t want a fuss and was not wanting visits. The member was not going to burden the congregation with the knowledge --- but as hard as the task was for me to tell the church family and prepare us for death, the member’s closest friends had had the hard conversation to get permission to share the news with the congregation. Having the conversation in this space let us pray for the member and their family, to give thanks, to tell stories, to offer support, and to start to grieve.

 

 Why is it that human beings have difficulty communicating information and having conversations that matter? There are a host of topics that fall under the heading of ‘hard conversation.’

 

 

The past few weeks, have you noticed the conversations Jesus has been having with his disciples, and others?

Jesus has had a difficult and public conversation with the Pharisees about interpretation and practice of the Law. The disciples are being accused of setting a poor example of how to live the Law, and Jesus is being held responsible.  Jesus turns the conversation back to the Pharisees pointing out that it is not what is put in that defiles a body but what comes out; pointing fingers back at the Pharisees for their un-godlike actions. This was an important and hard conversation in Jesus’ day.  It centered around the heart of a whole peoples’ relational covenant with God, and involved the religious leaders beliefs, practices, and politics.

A week later, we heard, that Jesus has had a difficult conversation initiated by a Syrophoenician woman, who disagrees with Jesus’ behaviour and challenges Jesus’ gatekeeping of God’s healing and grace. She argues that she too is included in God’s kindom.

The next few passages we hear from the Gospel of Mark, has Jesus as the initiator of difficult conversations. Jesus asks the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” and then talks about the cost of discipleship. Jesus puts Peter in his place, ‘Get behind me, Satan.’ Jesus talks of his death -again- and  commends the disciples to a generous hospitality of welcome, welcoming the least. In the next chapter of Mark, Jesus’ hard conversation speaks to the disciples to allow other people, not Jesus’ followers, to cast out demons. Then tackles a conversation about sin.

 

Our continued reading of the Gospel of Mark illustrates a continued engagement with hard conversations.  In chapters 8, 9, and 10 there is a pattern: Jesus predicts his death, the disciples misunderstand, Jesus readjusts and explains in a different way.  Jesus’ continued  attempts at hard conversations is a timely reminder of the hard conversations facing Jesus’ followers today; hard conversations that need to be had in this space and with people outside these walls. Conversations we need to have with ourselves as we consider for whom we vote tomorrow in the Federal election.

 

In coming weeks -from now through the end of November- the calendar is full of days that have been set aside to remind us and draw us back to ‘those hard conversations’ – noted are: International Day of Peace, Orange shirt day, National Day of Vigils for Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women, World Mental Health Day, Day for the Eradication of Poverty, Restorative Justice Week, National Housing Day, and International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.  There is much to be said and done in response to these ‘hard conversations.’

 

Jesus’ conversations speak to the how of approaching hard conversations. You will have noticed that Jesus and the disciples have done a lot of travelling where they have stepped aside from the crowds; they have been back and forth across the Sea more than once; the Gospel writer has written, ‘while on the road,’ ‘coming to Capernaum,’ and so on... Jesus and the disciples have had time alone, where Jesus teaches them, where they chat as they walk along.  The talk is circular with Jesus introducing the hard conversation of his death, letting it rest awhile and the conversation drift to something else, to be returned to later on. The conversation needs to be had but not all at once; bit by bit with time to ruminate.

 

We have learned much from Jesus’ approach:

With the Pharisees Jesus illustrates a calm disposition and a presence of mind with a well thought out articulation of his view point.  Jesus’ response is not defensive. Jesus asks good questions to engage the Pharisees trained brains.

With the Syrophoenician woman Jesus listens, opening his heart and mind to the possibility of change. Confronted and challenged Jesus remains non-anxious.

Jesus’ hard conversations include outside opinion and resources, using a wealth of scripture to influence his thought and actions. Questions are welcomed and encouraged. In the text, it never appears that conversations are rushed or hasty and Jesus accepts that there will be interruptions along the way. Jesus also speaks truth in love.  And finally note that in each conversation there is hope -Gospel- to be found.

We can take what we have witnessed in Jesus’ hard conversations and translate the ‘how’ to our own lives and the conversations needed in our world today. As Jesus’ followers, Jesus has taught us how to have difficult conversations. It is now our responsibility to model and initiate such conversations. The art of conversation has been lost, or at least hijacked for the moment by raw emotion, as seen recently in the escalation of rallies and protests that include violence.

 

I read a great line this week written by Garret Kell, a Baptist pastor in Virginia. He wrote, “A healthy church should be like a living room.”  I don’t know how you use your living room, but the one at the parsonage is a welcoming and safe place where family, friends, and others gather: to read, to write, to enjoy coffee, to have conversation – even debate, to tell secrets, to share feelings, to relax with a glass of wine, to unwind from being out and about, to cozy in on the couch by the fire, to share each other’s company, to play with a grandchild, to solve the world’s problems with big ideas, to tackle serious conversations, to sit in silence and share grief, to embrace, to soak in the love of those around us. The living room is a space of relationship. I like to think of it as the fullness of love.

 

This week let us as a church family, followers of Jesus, take to heart the hard conversations Jesus had in his time; and the call on us to have hard conversations around the issues of the day. Let us create safe places – be a living room- where hard conversations can happen; in our own homes, in this church home, in the living room of a coffee shop, or the neighbourhood , or the town hall meeting. Do not lose hope, you are not alone. Go into the world and expand God’s living room until it is full to overflowing in the fullness of love.

 

 

 

 

I Have Set My Face like Flint (Pent 16B)

The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint.     -Isaiah 50: 7

 

There is a British TV series called, Time Team. The Team, is a group of people from different fields who work together as an archaeological team. They arrive on a site – often a field or someone’s backyard- to investigate an archaeological query and have three days to find and process their archaeology. The sites are from various time periods: the Middle Ages, the Saxon period, the Roman period, or older like the Iron Age or Neolithic. I amazed by the number of finds found on the surface of fields. A common find is flint; flint used 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of years ago. Flint is a quartz stone that was used to make stone tools and start fires.

One of the Time Team members likes to recreate an item that they find using the traditional means of making that item.   In a number of episodes he practices chipping flint into various types of tools. Flint breaks into sharp-edged pieces, and with skill can be chipped into useful blades for knives, spearheads, axes, and other cutting tools and weapons.  In the process of making flint blades there is often bruising and blood.  It is not as easy as it looks.

 

This is what came to my mind when Isaiah proclaims of the Teacher -the Servant:

I have set my face like flint...

 

This passage is one of four poems referred to as Servant songs. The four texts are complex and speak on many levels and of various people, including: the prophet, the people, the Messiah, God-followers. Here the Servant is identified as a Teacher.

Counter to last week where Isaiah spoke of streams bursting in the desert, this passage tells of a time where water is lacking and the deserts dry to become wasteland; a time when the skies are clothed as if it was night without stars or moon. The context of Isaiah’s time is a community grappling with understanding and dealing with unhealed wounds from their exile in Babylon. Into parched land, desolation, and shadow, the Prophet – the Teacher- is to proclaim ‘words to sustain the weary.’

 

I have set my face like flint...

sharp and edged to cut through cries of desperation; pointing purposefully forward to describe what can be; hard and durable to survive the struggle and responsibility of carrying oneself and others through weariness.  To be this Prophet, this Teacher, is not for the faint of heart.

 

Which brings us to the  conversation between Jesus and the disciples. Jesus asks the disciples, Who do you say that I am? And in a flint-like moment of surprising clarity and courageous vigour the disciples identify Jesus as the Messiah. And it is then that Jesus sets his face like flint , to prepare and build up the ability -the stamina, the courage, the power - to fulfill his responsibility as God’s servant; moving towards the ghastly end point of his earthly ministry, to be hanged on a tree, crucified.

 

This is also the turning point for the teachings the disciples hear.  Jesus’ words turn to flint after their proclamation of Jesus as Messiah. Jesus – the Teacher- teaches the cutting apart of cultural constructs, the sharp-edged expectations of what a follower is, and the hard truths of where being Servant and Teacher lead.

Jesus began to teach them, “if any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”  Jesus could have added, “Set your face like flint.”

“God knows that you will need to do so. I have and you will.”  Be flint – because the cross you bear is across parched wasteland under cloudy skies; where cries are full of desperation, memories are unhealed festering wounds, and hearts are weary. And now we have moved from Jesus’ words to the disciples, to the Babylonian exile of our own time.  

Set your face like flint...

how else is it that we can be God’s servant -the Teacher – those who have the ability to sustain the weary with a word.  Consider the depth of exile the world finds itself in? Relationships are severely broken and pressured by polarization of left and right, racism, sexism, hard core refusal or inability for discourse. God’s creatures are displaced and ungrounded, even unhinged, and  the environment is lashing out with powerful force. In the parched wasteland, be flint. Set your hearts and minds to envision the future -full of hope, cooperation, life-  and proclaim it – be the Teacher- who teaches and practices kindness, forgiveness, steadiness, compassion, mercy, humility, reconciliation, sacrifice, courage;  speaking hard truths, breaking oppression, healing trauma and wounds that have festered for far too long, and of course, standing together with others especially those who have no one to stand with them. 

On Chebucto Road, a few blocks from the church, there is a small park.  Currently it looks like a camp for an archaeological team. 20 small tents are tucked side-by-side in a small village. There is a path and then on the outer and upper area 2 large site tents – one with provisions and a place to serve food, the other for community neighbours taking turns to watch out for and protect the residents of the tents while they sleep and guard their tent-homes from removal by city authority during the day. Together the neighbours have set their faces like flint – passion, purpose, sacrifice, courage- to protect the vulnerable and marginalized. In this there is no shame.

As Isaiah proclaimed,

I have set my face like flint, and I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near.  Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Isaiah 50: 8

 

Jesus’ words to the disciples are anything but easy to hear.  Jesus is on a tear and his words are not an ointment to instantly heal everything, but rather act like sap stirring up a frenzy of hornets. His words -this cross bearing idea of working in the wasteland to transform it and redeem it to a place abounding with steadfast love and hope- is crazy, dangerous, and shameful because to die by crucifixion was to be reduced to a pile of dung; well that was the rhetoric in Jesus’ time.  Through the centuries Jesus’ death on the cross has been sanitized. So too has the command to pick up one’s cross and follow. The hard edge of having to set one’s face like flint has been lost along the way.

Black theologian James Cone’s, last book was called The Cross and the Lynching Tree. James comments that few have preached and drawn comparisons between what happened to Jesus -who according to the book of Acts, was ‘hanged on a tree’- and the 19^th/20^th century practice of lynching, being ‘hanged on a tree.’ In North America, the power of the image – Jesus was lynched – far better reflects the feelings and thoughts to be garnered about Jesus’ death. Shame, injustice, sacrifice, courageous. Jesus was lynched.

 

Sobering ... and it doesn’t sit well at all.

 

As Jesus practice was, Jesus set about upsetting conceived notions and ideas. Jesus challenged held beliefs and attitudes. Jesus flipped shame; shame was not to be found in sacrificing and dying (by hanging on a tree) for daring to heal the weary with a word. In the wasteland Jesus -the Teacher- brushed shame off, teaching the possibility of  transforming shame from shackle to freedom. Although the powers of the time told the enslaved, the exiled, the people pushed to the margins, that crucifixion was the ultimate shame ...  it was not.  Jesus taught that the whole self is not wrong, defective, unacceptable, or damaged beyond repair... but rather taught the opposite.  You have purpose - created good, acceptable, and whole; pick up your cross and follow me – drop the shackles, embrace freedom.

 

The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint,  and I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near.  Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Isaiah 50: 7-8

 

May this be so, Amen and Amen.