“Emmanuel: God is (still) with us”

Matthew 1: 18-25
December 19, 2010
4th Sunday of Advent
First United Church – Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

Earlier this week, I ran into Jesus on Facebook.

I was scrolling aimlessly through my news feed, and saw that my friend Rev. Tisha Brown, who pastors a UCC church up in Madison, had posted a video with this note: “This is incredible - not only feeding but loving the poor. I wish I was this compassionate and willing to give everything to serve my sisters and brothers like this man does.”

Well, that sounded pretty cool to me, so I decided to click on the video and watch it.

The video opens with an image of a Hindu temple in Madurai, India. A man’s voice can be heard over images of a busy street and close ups of streetpeople lying on the edge of the road.
He says, “I finished my college here. I was working for Taj Group of Hotels Bangalore. I saw a very old man. He was eating his own human waste for hunger.”

The camera focuses on a young man who is speaking directly to me, sitting on the other side of the world. He says, “I thought what is the purpose of my life? What am I going to do? In my star hotel, I feed all my guests, but in my hometown there are people who are living, even without food. I quit my job and I started feeding all these people from 2002.”

The voice of Christ – right there on Facebook. This time of year, we typically are on the lookout for the advent of Christ in our world – but we often expect the Spirit of Christ to hit us in more predictable ways. Perhaps we feel it move among us as the candles are lit and Silent Night is sung at church. Or we see a newborn baby with her parents and realize God is still being born into the world – even today.

I don’t know about you, but I just didn’t expect to see a video of the living Christ on Facebook. Of all places!

I have to admit. It actually took me a few days to realize this was Christ speaking to me through my laptop. I was taken with the video immediately. In it, Narayanan Krishna dices, stirs, and lifts giant pots of food. He drives around town in his truck, delivering food to the destitute, mentally ill, and elderly. Every day, he delivers breakfast, lunch, and dinner to 400 people living on the streets of Madurai.

But he does more than just deliver food. He delivers love.

In the video, Mr. Krishna gets out of his truck and opens his arms wide as a young, shirtless boy walks into him. They share a long embrace. Mr. Krishna has trained himself to offer eight styles of haircuts. He gently washes and dries the faces of the homeless as he offers them a shave. He massages their temples as he shampoos and trims their hair.

Mr. Krishna says, “For them to feel, psychologically, that they are also human beings – that there are people to care for them – they have a hand to hold, hope to live. Food is one part. Love is another part. So the food will give them physical nutrition. The love and affection which you show will give them mental nutrition.”

After watching the video one time, I shared it on my wall so others could see it, and then I temporarily forgot about it. But it just wouldn’t leave me alone. I watched it several more times over the next few days. Then I started hunting for more information about this man – who isn’t named in the original video I saw. From CNN’s website, I learned more about his life.

Turns out that since he’s from a Brahmin family, Mr. Krishna is not supposed to be doing this work. As a part of the Hindu priestly class, he should not be feeding, touching, cleaning these people. His family was initially horrified when he began this work. They were upset that he was wasting the expensive education they had provided for him.

When he quit his full-time job in 2002 he was well on his way to climbing the ladder as a chef. He had recently secured a transfer to a fancy hotel in Switzerland, but when he visited his hometown and saw the poverty there, he couldn’t move to Europe. When he finally convinced his mom to come see the work he was doing, she was transformed. She spent the day working with him and then immediately pledged to do anything in her power to help him live out his dream. Mr. Krishna, who is 29 years old, lives off of a meager allowance provided by his parents so that he can continue his work.

Brahmin or not, Mr. Krishna insists that these streetpeople deserve love. He says, “Everybody has got 5.5 liters of blood. I am just a human being. For me, everybody the same. There are thousands and thousands and lots and lots of people suffering. What is the ultimate purpose of life? It is to give. Start giving. See the joy of giving."

I saw another video about him on CNN.com and learned that he gets up at 4:00am each day to begin cooking. He doesn’t slow down until after dinner is delivered and cleaned up. He does this every day – no holidays, rain or shine. Mr. Krishna says, “Others find it difficult to do this. I don’t find it difficult. My vision and my ideals are very clear. The happiness in their face keeps me going. I take energy from them. I want to save my people. That is the purpose of my life.”

And it was that phrase – “I want to save my people” – that made me realize why I couldn’t get Mr. Krishna out of my mind. He is the Spirit of the Living Christ.

Jesus came into the word to save his people. That’s what the Gospel of Matthew tells us this morning. And, apparently, Narayanan Krishna came to do the same thing. I’m not saying Jesus of Nazareth and Mr. Krishna are the same person, of course. But they both represent a specific reality – the Spirit of Christ – alive and well in our world.

Let’s get some terms straight before we confuse ourselves any further.

Jesus was the name of a particular baby boy whose birth we celebrate this time of year. It was a common name in his time and place. It was probably pronounced Yeshua and it’s where we get our name, Joshua. It means “YHWH saves” – which is why the angel told Joseph to “name the child Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

Christ comes from the Greek Christos, which is a translation of the Hebrew word for Messiah. It means “the anointed one.” It can be used to refer to the one person who is more anointed than all others – but it can also be used to refer to anyone who is anointed. In fact, the ruler of Persia, Cyrus, is referred to as Messiah in the book of Isaiah because he had been anointed by God to escort the people of Israel back to their homeland after the Babylonian Exile. Cyrus wasn’t even Jewish and he was called Messiah – anointed one – by the prophet Isaiah.

And then we have Emmanuel – God is with us. We see that name for Jesus in Matthew’s text – “the virgin shall conceive and bear a child and they will name him Emmanuel – God is with us.” Matthew is quoting from a much older text, the one we heard from the book of Isaiah earlier this morning. Traditionally, Christians have believed that the prophet Isaiah was predicting the birth of Jesus Christ, but it is fairly apparent when you read the book of Isaiah that this was not the case. Isaiah was writing to a specific time and people and he was writing about the birth of another baby. Isaiah told King Ahaz that while this child was an infant, the two kingdoms Ahaz feared, Damascus and Syria, would be defeated by Assyria. The child, Immanuel, signified that God was with the people Israel and that all would be well.

Whew! Okay – enough with the vocabulary lesson. I guess the point I’m trying to make here is this – when I say that I ran into Jesus on Facebook in the person of Mr. Krishna, I’m not being totally accurate. Jesus was a particular person who lived a long time ago. But he was called Jesus because he embodied the Spirit of Christ – the anointed one. And he was Emmanuel – God with us.

I believe that part of what it means to be a people of the Resurrection is to recognize that while the person Jesus of Nazareth is not walking around today, the Spirit of Christ and the reality of Emmanuel are still alive and well. Christ cannot die. God is always with us.

Matthew uses the Isaiah text to say, “Hey, folks, pay attention. Because do you remember what God did when that baby Immanuel was born a few hundred years ago? Remember the story about how King Ahaz learned from Isaiah that his people were about to be saved from their foes? Well, that’s what I’m talking about when I’m talking about this baby, Jesus. This baby reminds us that God is with us, just like that one did.”

And, really, don’t we all need to be reminded from time to time that God is with us?

The good news of Christmas is not just that God came in a baby boy wrapped in swaddling clothing and lying in a manger. The good news of Christmas is that God comes again and again.

God is still with us, just as God was with the people of Israel when Ahaz was King, and as God was with the Jews living and struggling to persevere in the Roman Empire. God does not quit.

When you find out your mom has cancer, God is with you. And God does not quit.

When you are staring at a bottle of pills and wondering if you really want to wake up tomorrow, God is with you. And God does not quit.

When you break someone’s heart because of a stupid, selfish choice, God is with you. And God does not quit.

And if you’re lying on the side of a street in Madurai, India – eating your own waste because you are literally starving to death, God is with you. And God does not quit.

God sends people – tiny babies and big grown men and little girls and old grandfatherly types and everyone in between – God sends people to be the presence of God to a broken world.

When Narayanan Krishna wakes up at 4:00 in the morning and begins chopping onions and carrots, when he loads up his truck, and when he hugs those kids on the street – he is doing more than just bringing himself along. He is bringing the very Sprit of Christ into the world day in and day out. He is Emmanuel – God with us. He felt a call to save his people and he is living it out in the streets of Madurai each and every day.



I think the only way to sustain this wild and crazy kind of behavior day in and day out is to truly be called to do this work. I don’t believe that every person sitting here today is called to save their people. But I would be willing to wager that a few folks might be.

This Advent season, as we await the birth of Jesus Christ, we also await the birth of the Spirit of Christ in our own time and place. It’s more than just a story, folks. It’s reality. The shocking and incredulous and simple and real gospel truth is that God is still with us.

God is breaking into our world in every crack and crevice that can be found. And all we have to do is pay attention and say yes.

Thanks be to God.

"God of the Living"

Luke 20: 27-38
November 7, 2010
32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time / All Saints
First United Church – Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

This past Monday I drove to Jasper, Indiana to support a clergy-friend whose mother had just passed away. I met up with another clergy-friend there and we went to the visitation together. My friend, Jennifer, told me that Leah’s mother, Marilyn, had recently been commissioned in the UCC as a Liturgical Artist. Indeed, there were examples of her art all around the room. Beautiful stoles, banners, wall hangings of handmade paper, and photographs of previous installations floated around the room. Although I had never had a chance to meet Marilyn, I couldn’t help but feel her spirit’s presence in the room, speaking to us all through her artwork.

My friend, Jennifer, and I made our way through the line, waiting to greet Leah, we examined the artwork and also the posterboards decorated with family photographs. As we rounded the corner towards Marily’s casket, we both caught our breaths. Marilyn’s casket was open and – hanging gently from the open lid of the casket was one of her pieces of art. There were five letters made out of handmade pastel-colored paper and trimmed in gold foil. There on her casket was one word: RISEN.

Risen. What does that mean exactly? Does it mean that Leah’s mom was floating somewhere above the room, watching us look at her art? Does it mean that her spirit was somehow far up in the clouds? Does it mean that Marilyn carries on through our memories of her?

I can’t honestly say that I have the answer. I don’t know what it means to Leah and her family and I certainly don’t have a definitive answer to that age-old question, “what happens after we die?”

What I do know is this – regardless of HOW Marilyn Robbrts is risen, she is, without a doubt, risen. I felt it in my bones when I saw it written on her casket and knew it to be true.

Today’s passage from Luke calls us to ponder what it means to be risen. I don’t know about you, but I find it to be a little hard to catch on the first or second time through, so I hope you’ll come with me as I move through it a bit.

As Jesus moves steadily towards crucifixion, he is challenged by scribes, Pharisees, and a host of others. In this story, the Sadducees are the ones looking for a fight. The Sadducees aren’t mentioned elsewhere in Luke’s gospel and would have been unfamiliar to his original hearers. This is why he clarifies for us that the Sadducees were a group that didn’t believe in the Resurrection.

Resurrection, in the context of Jesus’s time, is likely something different than what pops into your head when you think of the concept. Resurrection in a first-century Jewish context has to be understood in light of apocalyptic hopes. There were those in Judaism who anxiously awaited the Day of the Lord – that apocalyptic hope that God would come to deliver all the faithful from the trials and tribulations of their day-to-day lives. Some of those who hoped for the Day of the Lord also believed that those who had already died would be resurrected – that is, they would get up in physical bodies and live again. This was not something that happened to individuals; rather, it was a belief in a communal Resurrection – something that would happen to everyone after God’s final victory.

It’s not surprising that the Sadducees didn’t believe in this kind of resurrection. As members of an elite, ruling class, these priests probably weren’t fans of apocalyptic hopes. After all, apocalyptic fervor has never gone over well with those who already have a pretty great life on earth.

The Sadducees seem to assume that Jesus, like the Pharisees, does believe in the Resurrection, though, so they come after him with this little story in an attempt to make him look foolish. They don’t really care about the answer to their question – their intent it to show the silliness of believing in Resurrection by trapping Jesus with a riddle of a story about a woman who had seven husbands. “So, Jesus,” they say, “We’ve got a question for you. Say there’s this lady whose husband dies. Moses said that the dead man’s brother has the responsibility to marry her, so he does. Only this second guy dies, too. Luckily, he’s got another brother, so he marries her, but then he dies. And on and on until she’s been married to all seven brothers. You tell us, when they are all resurrected, who does she belong to?”

And Jesus, in his typical disarming way, never answers the question directly. Instead, he responds to the question they didn’t ask out loud but wanted the answer to, which is this: “Really, what happens after we die?”

And his answer is a bit surprising to me because it’s not exactly what I would expect from a first-century Jew. Does he believe in resurrection? Well, yes, because he says the dead are like angels – children of the resurrection. But his evidence for this is what really surprises me. He says that we know people are resurrected because when God spoke to Moses in the burning bush, God self-identified as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Present tense. Meaning that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were and are, somehow, someway, still alive. Risen. Resurrected.

This makes sense to us because many of us typically think of people as being resurrected to new life right after they die. But a much more common belief in Jesus’s time would have been to think that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were somehow on pause somewhere, waiting for the trumpets to sound on the Day of the Lord. Then, and only then, they would be resurrected.

But Jesus seems to think this isn’t quite the case. Instead, God has already resurrected some of the dead. And this is because God is not God of the dead, but of the living. To God, Jesus says, all are alive.

God of the living.

Jesus’s answer to the question is basically this: it’s the wrong question. It doesn’t really matter how folks are resurrected. But make no doubt about it, they are. To recognize the God of Abraham as your God is to mean that you recognize you are a part of the Holy. To be a part of the Holy is to step outside of a reality that is limited by time and space. The Holy One of Israel is everywhere and everytime. And because we are children of God, we, too are everywhere and everytime.

I still don’t know exactly how it works. And does that bother me? Yes, sometimes it does. But when I hear these words of Jesus – that our God is the God of the living, I know them to be true. When I saw that word – RISEN – on Marilyn’s casket, I knew it to be true. And when I see these candles in our sanctuary – each one boldly shining in memory of a life that refuses to end, I know that Jesus’s words are true. Our God truly is the God of the living.

"Justified"

“Justified”

Luke 18: 9-14

October 24, 2010

First United Church – Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

In a recent episode of This American Life called “Crybabies,” correspondents Adam Davidson and Jane Feltes take a trip to a few bars on Walls Street. Bumping elbows with the folks who work day in and day out in the financial sector, they ask a few questions about the recession.

There are a lot of things about the economic downturn that are complicated and mysterious. But there are other things that are pretty clear-cut. At this point, I’d say it’s pretty clear that greed, corruption, and incompetence by Wall Street employees was a major factor – and some would say THE major factor –  in our country and world marching steadily toward the edge of a huge cliff. And, whether you think it was the right thing to do or not, I don’t think there’s much of a question that the government’s decision to pour billions of dollars into economic institutions that failed was a major factor – perhaps THE major factor – in pulling us back from the edge of worldwide economic collapse.

So you’d expect that these Wall Street guys in the bar might feel a little sheepish and grateful about the government bailout. You’d think they might even say thanks, right?

Turns out you’d be wrong if you thought that because these guys are pretty mad at the government. In fact, they think the government is out to get them. When pushed to explain how they even still have their jobs when their institutions failed, they were all pretty confident that it’s because they’re smart. In fact, they said it’s because they’re smarter than everyone else.

Jesus told the parable we just heard to “some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.” He told it to these guys on Wall Street.

Sometimes when I’m in my car and I’m at a stoplight, I take a minute and look at the people next to me. Do you ever do that? A few days ago, I was sitting there in my fairly fuel efficient car, taking home some organic tree-hugger type food from Bloomingfoods. I was feeling pretty good about supporting our local economy. I glanced at the guy next to me – giant SUV, smoking a cigarette with his daughter in the backseat, and they were both shoveling fast food into their mouths. I sighed and thought, “boy, if everyone could just be like me, the world would be a better place.”

Jesus told this parable to “some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.” Turns out he was talking to me, too. Might I be so bold to wonder aloud if he might have been talking to you?

Unlike a lot of other parables, this one is fairly straightforward. The two characters would have been pretty transparent to Luke’s hearers. First, the Pharisee.

Now you and I have been trained by years and years of anti-Jewish thought to regard the Pharisee with contempt, but that wouldn’t have been the case during Jesus’s time. The Pharisees were simply the religious leaders. Good, hardworking folks who did their best to keep an authentic Jewish faith alive during the Roman era.

Luke’s hearers would have expected the Pharisee to be at the temple daily, but they would have been shocked when they heard the words of his prayer. His prayer is all about himself – I mean, really, don’t we assume our religious leaders can come up with something better than, “God, thanks that I’m not a dirtbag like everyone else”? It’s a long, sanctimonious prayer. He stands by himself – I imagine it’s because he was probably too good to stand with the other folks.

Luke’s hearers would not have expected the tax collector at the temple, though. Oh, no.

We hear tax collector and we immediately think, “Ooh, I’d like to play that part because I know Jesus love tax collectors!” But the original hearers would have thought no such thing.

Tax collectors were the lowest of the low – taking hard earned money away from the Jews on behalf of Rome. Corruption was rampant and they did pretty much whatever they wanted – exploiting the poverty of those around them to make a quick buck.

The fact that the tax collector is even at temple is shocking. The quality and posture of his prayer is outrageous.

He comes to the temple, but stands far off – perhaps he knows he’s not welcome there. He beats his own chest – a prayer posture only used by women at this time. And then, having assumed this position of humility, he says just a few short words, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

He doesn’t sugar coat it. He doesn’t go into details. He doesn’t make empty promises about how he’ll do better tomorrow. He doesn’t try to wheel and deal with God asking for favors in exchange for better behavior. He doesn’t try to make himself feel better by pointing out that there are, in fact, worse people on the planet. He just lays it all out, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

And as the two characters leave the temple, they exit much as they came in – in totally different worlds. Only now, after these two prayers, their roles have flip flopped. In a typical Lukan reversal, the man who should be exalted – the Pharisee – is humbled. And the man who came in humble – the tax collector – leaves exalted. And the key actor in this reversal is God.

God justifies the man who beats his breast, begs for mercy, and admits his sin.

What exactly does it mean to be justified? It’s not a word that gets thrown around much these days.

When you hear it, you might think in theological terms. Or you may think of a court of law.

Another direction your mind could wander is into the world of typesetting. Now I’m sure most folks don’t head this direction right away, but, for some reason, mine does. Maybe it’s because I spent too many hours working on the yearbook in high school. Or maybe it’s because I have a ridiculous love of fonts. Regardless, I think we can learn something about what it means to be justified if we think about typesetting.

Back before typing was just a matter of firing up your laptop, professional typesetters were the ones who created print materials. They did so by carefully lining up letter and spaces along lines and then printing the text onto a page.

Traditionally, Western eyes have preferred the look of text that has a clean and even vertical line along the left and right-hand sides of the page. This is especially common when the text is in two or more columns. To see what I’m talking about, open up a pew Bible. See how the text magically lines up so that there is an even vertical border along the left and right sides? That is called justified text. It’s different than how you write with a pen, where you just write until the end of the line and then move down. When you write that way, you end up with left-aligned text and it’s not as neat and tidy.

On a computer, we can change the alignment of pages and pages of text with one click by telling the computer to justify the text. But before computers and word processors, this all had to be done manually. Typesetters would painstakingly insert blank metal pieces between words to carefully stretch lines so that the left and right sides were both flush to the edges.

Working with this type of justification as a metaphor for God’s justification in the parable, what can we learn?

The Pharisee and the tax collector start to look like individual words to me. They bump up against spaces and other words, struggling to figure out how they fit within the rest of the page.

The Pharisee doesn’t fit well at all – he stands off, aloof. He has no clue that he should even contemplate the other words on the page, except to disdainfully claim to be better than them. He doesn’t seem to understand that unless he figures out where and how he fits into the whole, he’s pretty useless – just a single word on a page that no one will notice.

The tax collector, on the other hand, is struggling to understand himself. He has noticed where he does and does not fit. He knows that his actions have caused others pain. And he knows that the only way to figure out how to fit in again – how to be justified – is to ask for God’s mercy.

The key to justification in typesetting turns out to be a lot like the key to justification in humanity – an awareness of where we truly fit into the larger whole of reality. An ability to humbly adjust ourselves so that we can work in harmony with the other pieces and parts to create something beautiful and useful.

Of course the trick is that it’s a lot harder to create a page of justified text than it is to just let those words do their own thing. The typesetter has to plan carefully, work with great patience, and be willing to back up and start over again when mistakes are made.

How many of us have the forethought, patience, and humility to be justified? How many of us know that the first step is realizing things are out of whack and we need to seek mercy in order to get there?

Jesus told this parable to “some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.” He told it to those guys on Wall Street. Hearing the parable, they regarded themselves as a part of the whole. They did the hard work of saying thanks. Thanks for bailing us out. Thanks for saving our jobs. Thanks for taking care of us. And they went away justified.

Jesus told this parable to “some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.” He told it to me – sitting smugly at the stoplight, juding the man next to me. And I did the hard work of realizing I don’t know as much as I think I know. I don’t know much of anything about the guy in the SUV next to me. And I’m not perfect, either – far from it! So maybe I should stop looking down and look up to those around me who are riding their bikes to work, growing their own food, buying less junk they don’t need, and teaching the rest of us to do the same. And I went away justified.

God wants us to go away justified. God yearns for us to figure out where we fit in the great printing press of life. And if we find ourselves, like the Pharisee, getting it wrong from time to time, there is always another day. Who knows? Maybe the Pharisee came back the next day and got it right.

“The Han of God”

“The Han of God”

Isaiah 5: 1-7 and Psalm 80: 1-2, 8-19

August 15, 2010

First United Church – Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

When M was first born, I quickly discovered the challenges of nursing a baby and holding a book at the same time. My typical quiet-time pastime – reading – suddenly became more challenging and I’m a bit embarrassed to say that, like many mothers before me, I started watching more TV. I decided if I was going to be watching TV, I could at least be watching something worthwhile, so I began ordering the DVDs of The West Wing from Netflix. M and I have been working our way through and we’re now on Season 5. David and I have a joke that someday M will be 45 years old, hear the theme song for The West Wing and suddenly have a Pavlovian thirst for milk.

Anyway, I apologize to those of you who watched The West Wing back in the early part of the century when it was still new – but I’m just catching on to how wonderful it is. Last week I watched an episode featuring a visiting pianist from North Korea.[1] He had come to the United States to give a concert in Washington, D.C. as a way of improving relations between the two nations. When the pianist first arrives in the U.S. he meets with President Bartlet for a photo op. Near the end of the conversation, he offers to autograph a CD for the President. After he and his translators leave the room, President Bartlet looks down at the CD and discovers that instead of an autograph, the visitor has written, “I wish to defect.”

Of course, things in the White House are never as simple as they should be and it’s not as easy as just telling the visiting pianist he can stay in the U.S.. The Bartlet administration is in the midst of important talks with North Korea about arms reductions and they fear that if they grant the artist asylum they will ruin the chances of reaching a much-needed political agreement.

C.J. Cregg is one of my favorite characters on the show. She is the White House Press Secretary and is increasingly disturbed when she discovers the President is considering sending the pianist back to North Korea. She makes a strong argument that the United States is a country founded upon freedom, above all else, and that the President must give the man asylum.

President Bartlet ultimately decides he cannot grant the pianist the asylum he seeks and he explains to her, “C.J., these negotiations are the real thing. I can't allow this defection. I know you disagree, but that's my decision.” Before leaving the room, C.J. responds, “Thank you, Mr. President. It's not that I disagree, sir; I'm disappointed.”

I’m disappointed.

Are there two words in the English language that are more painful when they are said by someone we respect, love, and admire? I’m not sure. I can remember, as a child, when I would do something really awful, my parents would say those words, “I’m disappointed,” and my world would come crashing down around me.

When we love someone, we don’t want to disappoint them. We want to please them, to make them feel good, to make them proud that they are ours and we are theirs. We don’t want to disappoint them.

The passage in today’s lectionary from Isaiah speaks volumes about disappointment.

Here we hear the story of a God who tends a vineyard. The Holy One has picked a fertile hill on which to grow grapes. Like a mother caring for a young child – or a shepherd keeping watch over his flocks by night – so our God cards for the vineyard.

Starting from scratch, she digs out the land, clears away all the stones – one by one, carrying them away – back-breaking labor. He carefully plants grapes – not just any grapes, mind you, but the best grapes. Choice grapes. And having planted a lovely crop, the cultivator goes even further. God builds a tall, strong tower to keep an eye on the vineyard. Anticipating a delicious harvest, she builds a wine vat and looks forward to the day when she can taste the fruit of her labors.

But instead of lovely, plump grapes, God is in for a surprise. He has done everything he can for this vineyard – in fact, he has gone above and beyond what we would expect. But instead of lovely, plump grapes, wild grapes are all that grow in this vineyard. It seems that no amount of love or attention can create the fruit God has dreamed of.

And so this farmer – Yahweh – sits down, exhausted in the hot sun and sighs, “I’m disappointed.”

Disappointed and frustrated and angry and sad and perplexed and just generally unhappy.

And, like a parent at their wit’s end, God unleashes some pretty angry words on the people Israel through the prophet Isaiah. God says that he will no longer take care of the vineyard, but will tear down the hedge, break apart the wall, refuse to take care of the land, and let it all rot into a giant wasteland.

God is disappointed.

*****

This passage of scripture was written for a particular place and time. Isaiah was writing to the people of Judah in the 8^th century BCE. And yet – can there be any doubt that we can identify a bit with what God is going through?

It’s easy to see how God might be disappointed at some of the things happening in our world today. The creation groans under the weight of our actions. We, who have been trusted by our God to care for this vineyard called Earth, haven’t done a great job.

The oil spill in the Gulf has (knock on wood) been capped, but how long will it be until we can even begin to guess at the long-term impact of its devastation. And how long will it be until our oil-addicted world sees another similar disaster?

Despite the fact that some people claim “climate change” is a myth, the scientists know better and they are carefully tracking 2010 as the hottest summer on record. We still don’t know if this is a direct result of climate change, but it sure seems likely given that 10 of the hottest years since the 19^th century have all occurred in the past 15 years.[2] It’s impossible to know, at this point, if the 700+ people dying each day in Moscow because of record-breaking temperatures and forest-fire smog, are the direct result of climate change, but it sure is frightening to think this may be a sign of things to come.

And we, who have been trusted by our God to care for our neighbors as ourselves, don’t seem to have figured that out, either. I watched a report on PBS Newshour earlier this week about “the 99ers.”[3] These are folks that, having been unemployed for over 99 weeks, are no longer eligible for unemployment benefits. Given the state of our economy and the lack of job creation, there are people out there – some 1.4 million of them – who have been job-seeking for almost 2 years. Some of these folks used to make six-figure salaries and are now adjusting to the reality that even their small unemployment check will no longer be available. People who tended the vineyards of their careers and homes carefully - earning graduate degrees, advancing in their fields – now see their carefully pruned crops laid waste by the recession.

And here, close to home, we have watched the deterioration of our schools. Teachers – some 7,000 in Indiana alone[4] – have lost their jobs. Our community has had to struggle to ensure that extracurricular activities will happen in our schools year next because the government funding didn’t allow for this important educational opportunity. And all the while, we continue funding wars overseas, though we can’t find enough money to teach our children.

When I was growing up in an Army town, I remember seeing a bumper sticker that said, “Wouldn’t it be great if our schools had all the money they needed and the Army had to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber?” I don’t know what brave sole in an Army town had the audacity to put that on their car, but I know that God must surely be disappointed when our society chooses time-and-time-again to prioritize military spending over carefully cultivating and caring for our children.

Disappointment. Fear. Anger. Distress. Disbelief. Sadness.

These are all normal reactions we have when we see the world around us. And I believe they are all emotions God has about our world, too.

So are we to think that God is somehow punishing us for our misdeeds? Isaiah and the Psalmist certainly operate in a worldview that allows for God’s righteous anger to overflow and cause destruction in the world. My worldview does not. I don’t know about yours.

But I tend to think that some things, like record-high temperatures, oil spills that wreak havoc, and economic woes that make the hungry hungrier and the rich a little more wary are not the result of divine intervention. Instead, I think they are the natural result of our actions.

God is, I think, mostly disappointed.

And perhaps some of that disappointment comes from the realization that, even though God is God and we are us, there are some things that God can’t do much about. If we choose to consume oil like crazy and continue living our lives the way we do, God cannot somehow magically intervene and make climate change stop. It just doesn’t work that way.

So what is it that God can do? Well, I think that one of the things God can do is walk alongside us in our disappointment.

When I look at the world, I often become disappointed. I am disappointed in myself – that I don’t choose to do more about helping our Earth. I am disappointed in our government – that we don’t prioritize taking care of our children. I am disappointed in our people – that we don’t take the time to hold our elected officials accountable. I am no stranger to disappointment and I’d be willing to guess many of you aren’t either.

And what I hear in the scripture from Isaiah is that God is no stranger to disappointment. God knows what it feels like to look out on creation, feel a little out-of-control, wish so badly to be able to fix things, and sign deeply, saying, “I’m disappointed.”

But I think that God’s disappointment differs from mine in one important way.

My disappointment is often tinged with a sense of hopelessness. A sense that my hands are tied and there is nothing I can do. It is that sense of hopelessness that makes me inactive.

God’s disappointment, however, is never without hope. Even in the darkest of days, God hopes. Even in the latest of hours, God dreams.

God is never without a vision for restoration, a plan for a beautiful future, an understanding that things can become whole once again. The Psalmist prays, “Restore us, O Lord God of hosts, let your face shine that we may be saved.” With God, there is always a way to restoration.

I believe that God’s sense of disappointment is closest to the Korean concept of Han. In that same episode of The West Wing that I was telling you about earlier, President Bartlet eventually pulls the young North Korean pianist aside to tell him he will be unable to offer him asylum. The visitor explains his sense of disappointment to the President by asking Bartlet if he knows about Han. They are interrupted before the visitor has the chance to explain Han to the President. At the end of the episode, President Bartlet says to C.J., “There's a Korean word, Han, I looked it up. There is no literal English translation; it's a state of mind; of soul, really. A sadness; a sadness so deep no tears will come. And yet still, there's hope.”

I believe God disappointment exists in the realm of Han. When God considers what we could be and sees that we often squander that vision, God understands what is means to have Han. A sadness so deep no tears will come. And yet still, there’s hope.

There is a sense that creation is broken beyond repair, but there is also a sense that a more whole creation is on the cusp of being born. Christ understood this paradox of disappointment and hope, too. I think he felt it when he prayed to his Father in the garden of Gethsemane.

Even in moments of deepest despair, even when we screw up so badly it seems impossible to find redemption, even when the world appears to be utterly broken, God’s disappointment is always Han. It is always filled with hope because God is a dreamer and God never stops dreaming dreams about what creation can become.

God is disappointed, yes. But God is also filled with hope for wholeness and restoration.

And it is through that hope – through the Han of God – that we, too, can find hope in a broken world. The world will always be broken – but it will also always be making itself whole.

And so, with the Psalmist, we, too, pray, “Restore us, Or Lord God of hosts; through your Han let your face shine, that we might be saved.”

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[1] Season 5. Episode title, “Han.”

[2] http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jbK6a-zNlRk3Az-Upzue83KHF5Bw

[3] http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdesk/2010/08/letters-from-the-99ers.html

[4] News report of WFIU radio.

“Freed for Unconventionality”

“Freed for Unconventionality”

Luke 10: 38-42 (feat. Col. 1: 15-20)

July 18, 2010

First United Church – Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

This story about Mary and Martha gets a little old for me sometimes. I’m not gonna lie, I find it somewhat tedious. Maybe it’s because I’ve heard one too many sermon that make it sound like being busy is the worst thing you could be. Maybe it’s because I’ve read too many interpretations which put down Martha for doing “woman’s work.” Maybe it’s because I want Jesus to stop being such a cranky-pants, get some social skills and share his point of view with Martha in a kinder way.

I don’t know. It could be any of those things but what I’ve realized as I’ve struggled with the story this week is that there is one thing I’m certain troubles me about the story: there’s not enough information here to just take it at face value, learn a nice lesson, and move on with my life.

It’s a short, short little story, for sure. And I’d be willing to wager money (you know, if ministers did that kind of thing) that whatever the encounter between Mary, Martha, and Jesus was actually like, it wasn’t like this.

We have in the gospels, two stories of these sisters hanging out with Jesus. In this version, they are home alone and it seems like Martha owns the house. This is no small potatoes. In fact, I think Luke highlights that on purpose because it’s all very Luke of him.

Luke has a tendency, in both his gospel and the book of Acts, to lift up women time and time again. It’s one of my favorite things about Luke. I think Luke’s version of this story shows Jesus praising Mary’s work – sitting at his feet as a disciple – precisely because it was not “women’s work” at the time. Luke is lifting up the idea that women were valued members of the early Jesus community. They were leaders, teachers, disciples.

In fact, the very word that Luke uses to describe what Martha was doing suggests that she was doing some church work, too.

In your head, I’m pretty sure you assume that Martha is busy making dinner for Jesus. That may be the case, but according to the Greek, we just don’t know for sure.

What the text says she’s doing is diakonia. If that word sounds like deacon to you, you’ve got a keen ear. Diakonia is the Greek word for service, but not just everyday service like waiting on tables. It is, instead, the service of the church. Ministry. Martha was busy doing ministry. Perhaps she was busy folding linens for the interfaith winter shelter, or counting the money that would be donated to MCUM, or folding the church newsletter, or making a list of who she needed to visit in the hospital that a week, or writing a sermon.

I think it’s unlikely that Luke had in mind that she was making a meal for Jesus, because there were plenty of other words he could have used to say that. I think he meant that she was busy doing the work of the religious community that centered on Jesus.

Why, then, does Luke lift up Mary’s work of listening above Martha’s work of active service? I’m not 100% certain, but I have some thoughts. I’m gonna ask you to bear with me though and put a pause on that question for a minute because I also want to talk about these two women and their appearance in the Gospel of John.

In John’s version of this story, the women do not own their own home. They live with their brother, Lazarus. Already, in that one small detail, we can see that Luke and John were choosing to lift up different aspects of these two women and their relationship to Jesus. Luke gave them a setting that made them powerful, independent women. John gives them a more traditional women’s role.

Anyway, their brother Lazarus is the one whose death causes Jesus to weep (you know, that shortest verse in the Bible, John 11:35 for those of you that like to play Trivial Pursuit). And then Jesus raises him from the dead. His sisters, Mary and Martha, play prominently in that story. And then, in the next chapter, John 12, they make a second appearance in a story that sounds a bit like the one from Luke.

In this version of the encounter, the three siblings host Jesus for dinner. Martha serves and, in John’s Greek, Martha diakoneo, a word that sounds a lot like the one Luke used, but has a different connotation. This word means served in less of a I’m-doing-the-work-of-the-church kind of way and more of a I’m-ministering-to-you-in-a-baking-the-bread-setting-the-table kind of way. And John makes it clear that Lazarus, the man, was the one who sat at the table with Jesus as his peer.

And what did Mary do? Well, Mary anointed Jesus’s feet with costly ointment and wiped them with her hair. As in Luke’s story, she sits at his feet (this time anointing, not listening) and as in Luke’s story, she is affirmed by Jesus when other challenge her actions.

Holy smokes – why I am telling you all this?

I’m telling you this because when we have texts from the gospels that don’t seem to match up, places where it seems certain there has been a bit of confusion and some heavy editing going on, I think it’s helpful to do some compare and contrast. Not because it’s a fun little academic exercise, though I’m sure it is for some. No, we do this because it helps us figure out what, if anything, this living text has to say to us today in the here and now.

Somewhere, somehow, some way, some version of this story took place. And then it got edited and passed down and mixed up.

What is the story behind the story? What happened that made it worthy of writing down?

Part of the answer to those questions, I think, it at the heart of what we can learn from this passage. And here’s what I’d like to offer as a possibility: God shocks us out of our proper roles through our encounter with Christ.

When societal conventions tell us that women are supposed to stay in the kitchen and instead they encounter Christ – some of us are shocked into plopping down at his feet, taking out a notebook, and furiously learning all we can. God shocks us out of our proper roles through our encounter with Christ.

When society norms make it clear that we should be saving up our money to care for the poor and not wasting it by pouring it out on Jesus’s feet in an act of worship – some of us surprise ourselves by giving ourselves away again and again to follow Christ. God shocks us out of our proper roles through our encounter with Christ.

I’m not sure what exactly happened with Mary and Martha to inspire these two stories, but whatever it was, Jesus affirmed some unconventional behavior that was inspired by an encounter with the Holy.

Which brings me back to that question I posed about Luke’s version – why does Jesus get all snitty with Martha who is arguably just doing what she’s been called on to do? Just recruiting those volunteers to host for coffee hour. Just signing up to read scripture. Just getting to church early to help teach the children. Why does Jesus discourage her work?

I think Luke is putting these words into Jesus’s mouth to drive home a point: listen up. Listen to what Jesus is saying. For five minutes, just stop going about business as usual and listen already.

Many of us have a tendency to get on auto-pilot and just keep moving through our to-do lists. I’m so bad about it that I have a little handwritten sign in my office that I made years ago. It says “am I doing the right things or just doing things right?”

Am I doing the right things or just doing things right? Am I serving on those church committees like a good little church member, or am I actively pondering the work of the Church in the world? Am I following through on my financial commitments to the church, or am I radically considering what it means to give myself away to Christ?

Or what if we broaden it out a bit? Are we coming to worship every Sunday morning because it’s what we’ve always done, or are we truly pouring ourselves out at Christ’s feet to worship? Are we teaching our children because they need something to do while we’re in worship, or are we truly providing a place for them to sit at Christ’s feet and marvel at the Holy?

In short, are we, the people of First United Church allowing ourselves to encounter Christ? Because folks, I gotta tell you, I believe Christ is here.

I believe the Holy – call it God, Father, Mother, Spirit, Christ, Yahweh, Jehovah, the Ground of Being, Wisdom, or other names of your choosing – I believe the One we seek to follow is in this place. God is in this church. God is in this world. God is every single place we go.

And what we are charged with is allowing ourselves to chance an encounter.

And when we do, we find that God shocks us out of our proper roles through that encounter.

A sure sign that a community has encountered Christ, I think, is that things look a bit different. A bit odd. A bit unconventional.

About a year ago, I had the chance to hang out with Doug Pagitt for a few days up in Chicago. Doug is the pastor of Solomon’s Porch, a church located in Minneapolis. He is also a sought-after speaker/thinker/author on the topic of what it means to be Church in the postmodern era. Doug’s got a great book, called Church Re-Imagined, where he and other folks from Solomon’s Porch share a week in the life of their community. They aren’t doing it to toot their own horn or try and say, “do this and your church will grow.” They are sharing simply because others have asked them to do so.

A lot of things at Solomon’s Porch don’t look much like our church. Their worship space looks a lot like your living room – it’s filled with couches and coffee tables and chairs. There isn’t a chancel or stage area. There aren’t any microphones.

Now, there are plenty of churches these days that have this casual atmosphere. But what I appreciate about Solomon’s Porch is the intention behind their décor. They aren’t doing it so it feels cooler or more comfortable to “the unchurched.” They have their space set up this way because they believe worship is “a time when people contribute to the creation of a setting in which we are transformed, not a setting in which people come to be served by professionals or volunteers.”[1]

The church-in-the round makes it possible for people to see each other’s faces. The couches and recliners make it feel more like home and less like a lecture – and this encourages people to move beyond the idea that church and “everything else” are somehow separate from one another. The lack of microphones and a stage make it clear that everyone’s voices are valued and that people come to learn from each other, not just the pastor.

In short, worship at Solomon’s Porch looks like it’s been shocked out of a conventional mode. Not because it’s more fun. Not because they’re trying to be hip. But because they have encountered Christ and are moved and transformed by that encounter.

I want to be clear – I’m not standing up here saying I think we’re doing it wrong. I’m not saying we should look more like Solomon’s Porch.

What I am saying is that God is offering us, both as individuals and as a community, an amazing gift. God is saying to us, just as God says to the people at Solomon’s Porch, “You don’t have to be bound by convention. You were created in my image and you are free to move beyond what society expects of you. In fact, you are expected to do so. You are freed for unconventionality.”

And in that spirit, I’m going to move us a little outside how we normally expect a sermon to end. Instead of attempting to give you some pithy piece of wisdom from the pulpit, I invite you to participate in this sermon. In your bulletin, underneath the sermon title is a question: “How might God be calling First United to live in unconventional ways?” We’re going to have our moment of silence now – Ed, can you wait to start the last hymn until I say something?

During that moment of silence, can you ponder the question? You might choose to ponder it by sitting quietly at Jesus’s feet and listening. You might choose to ponder it by wastefully pouring yourself out in a posture of worship. And then we’ll sing. And then, for our benediction, I’m going to bring the mic around to a couple of people who would be willing to share what they heard during the moment of silence. Solomon’s Porch may not believe in mics, but I don’t think we’d be able to hear each other without a mic. Okay, so there it is. I invite you to listen during this moment of silence.

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[1] Church Re-Imagined, 63.