Germantown Mennonite Church - Pastor Amy's Blog

Abide in my Love

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:08:21 GMT

John 15:9-17

You all might know that I have a love for yoga—a love which borders on obsession. A couple of times a week I head up to a yoga studio in Mt. Airy for an hour of breathing, stretching and posing in various pretzel-like positions. Perhaps it seems like a strange way to spend my time, but it is a lifeline for me—a way to get through my busy week.

Unlike the other parts of my day, that hour is my most focused. I am not thinking about the sermon I’m working on, or the tasks on my “to do” list. I’m not distracted by the sound my phone or computer makes when I get an email or text message. The only think I’m thinking is “breathe.”

It’s when I’m not breathing properly that I get distracted. Breathing in yoga practice is different than regular breathing. In our daily life, our breath is usually shallow, using only a part of our lungs. Yoga breathing fills the belly, the lungs the shoulders—the entire chest cavity. The breath in is slow and full, and the breath out is as slow as the breath in. And with every breath, there is another movement—another yoga pose—connected with it.

This breathing and moving together creates a focus, a unity between the breath and the action, the body and the mind. And, somehow, it creates a space where distraction is a little less possible.

I used to joke that my hour of yoga was the only time in my day that I willingly obeyed anyone. I don’t joke about it anymore—It is a truth for me. I internally fight every instruction I’m given, every demand, every responsibility thrust on me—I think that is the curse of human nature. I whine and complain to myself about what I know I must do. But, in yoga, there’s no conflict, no back and forth. If you can’t do something that’s asked of you, you just get down on the mat and rest. And that rest is obedience to your body. It’s listening to your body’s demand to stop.

But that rest doesn't mean that you are interrupting your yoga practice. That resting on the mat is active. There on the mat you regain your breath, you breathe deeply, staying present, remaining—abiding—in focus and in breath.

This morning’s text from the gospel of John is all about abiding—in love. This section of the gospel of John is part of Jesus’ farewell passages, his final words to the disciples before he leaves them bodily.

There are three key concepts in this passage we must address—love, obedience and sacrifice. And these are themes that keep coming up in the gospel of John.

Let’s start with what seems like the easiest one—love. Jesus says, “God has loved you, I love you. Remain, abide in my love. And this is how you’ll do that. Live on in my love by following my commandment. Just as I have lived on in God’s love and followed God’s commandment. And this is my commandment—and notice here that there is just one (unlike the 10 commandments, or the hundreds of laws in Leviticus)—love each other, in the same way I have loved you.”

Love and obedience are intertwined here. To love is to obey—to follow the commandment of Jesus. To obey is to love each other. These two things go hand in hand.

Jesus goes on to spell out what it means to love each other. Love is laying down your life for a friend. This is a new and subtle turn in Jesus’ theology in the gospel of John. In John 10, Jesus says this: “I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd would die for the sheep. The hired hand, who is neither shepherd or owner of the sheep, catches sight of the wolf coming and runs away…..I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep know me…and for these sheep I will lay down my life.

Now, as Jesus prepared to leave to leave his disciples in John 15, he made the incarnation—the God with us and in us—the disciples’ responsibility too. “You are my friends, if you do what I command you. I no longer speak of you as subordinates (or sheep) because I have made known to you everything I have learned from Abba God.” You already know what I know. “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friend.” Jesus moves from talking about the disciples as sheep in chapter 10 (small, fluffly, mindless creatures), to talking about the disciples as dear friends and companions on the journey in chapter 15.

I have to admit—It’s kind of a disappointment to break down this text. Remain in my love, Abide in my love. It sounds so beautiful—romantic even—doesn’t it? So peaceful and tranquil. We don’t have to do anything except remain in love.

Except that when we break it down, love is active. Love is a verb. And more than being a verb, it is a commandment—our only one from Jesus in this passage from John. It requires that we give something of ourselves. It requires a sacrifice on our part. This sacrificial love is not unlike the love that goes into bearing children and raising them. It’s a love that comes with physical and emotional pain. There’s the pain of childbirth, the pain of the unknown as you wait for your child in the adoption process, the pain of having your kids mad at you, watching them suffer, knowing that sometimes they have to experience life’s hard lessons without your guidance. And this is something we parents do willingly. Moms willingly allow their bodies to be distorted through pregnancy. Parents forego sleep in favor of feeding or comforting their child in the middle of the night. Parents sacrifice nice things, jobs with better pay, opportunities, and relationships because of this being they are raising up.

That is the same kind of sacrificial love God has for us. That’s the love of the good shepherd who would willingly give up her life for us. That’s the love of Jesus who allowed himself to be silenced in death by state execution. That’s the love Jesus is instructing us to have for each other.

Abide, remain, be fully present in a love that asks for everything, but brings us to a fuller, deeper understanding of God that—according to Jesus, is joy in its fullness. There is substance to this love. And it requires all of us. It requires us to follow, to live into the one thing Jesus asked us to do, the one thing on which Jesus was singularly focused—love.

But how do we get to this abiding in love state? How do we get to the place where we are following the command of Jesus to love, where we are being fully present in the love of God? It seems like an impossible state to obtain.

In my yoga practice, when I think at the beginning of class about getting myself into a half wheel position, I am sure I can’t do it. (Half wheel is a difficult position. It is where you are laying on your back with your knees bent, and you put your hands beside your ears, and push up into a rainbow shape.) In fact, if I was to try the position at the beginning of class, I wouldn’t be able to do it. I have to work myself into it. I have to practice breathing for an hour, I have to warm up my muscles, and I have to get into the rhythm of breathing deeply, of filling my lungs fully, then releasing the air slowly. I have to practice. But when, at the very end of class I get the chance to do a half wheel, I am focused and stretched, and it is pure joy to push my body into the air, and allow it to do the thing I never thought was possible for this out of shape body, that’s been distorted by childbirth.

So it is with abiding in God’s love—we have to keep practicing it. We have to practice loving God and loving each other. We have to breathe in the love of God fully into our spirit, and breathe out the love for our neighbors. These things must be a constant in our lives. And with practice, we can do together what we never thought was possible.

Looking across the room, we see our brothers and sisters in Christ. Some of you have worshipped with each other for a long time, some for not so long. Some people in this congregation may be easy for you to love, some take a little more practice, a few extra deep breaths, to help make that love possible.

Every Sunday we gather together for an hour or so of worship. We sing, we pray, we share our joys and sorrows, we eat. We practice abiding in love. This is our yoga studio, or our love studio. This is our chance to practice abiding in love, being fully present in love. But we don’t just sit and revel in it—this is an active love. It requires continued practice. So we take it with us when we walk out the doors of the church, and we practice this abiding in love with our neighbors. Even though they are too loud, or leave trash on their sidewalk, or their kids pick our flowers. We abide in the love of God and love each other. And when we can’t love any more, we rest on the mat, still breathing in God, regaining our focus, and we try again.

We are Easter people. We are resurrection people. This makes the commandment to love a little less terrifying because we have already begun to abide in love. We’ve read the stories of the witnesses to the resurrection. We've shared our own stories of hope and resurrection. We are abiding in love. We are working towards being fully present to the love of God as we love each other. As impossible as it might seem. We keep on breathing, we keep on loving…

AMEN.

Witnesses to the Resurrection

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 19:52:53 GMT

Witnesses to the Resurrection

Luke 24:36b-48

April 22, 2012

This week I meet with some other ministers in Northwest Philadelphia. We gather every month to talk about what’s happening in our congregations, to reflect on our faith traditions, and share our stories. This week, we talked about a book that a local pastor had written about the story of Jonah. He talked about his process of researching the work of a 16^th century reformer and this reformer’s understanding of the four chapter book of Jonah. One thing he stressed was that the way we understand words in the 21^st century were not necessarily the way the 16^th century reformers used the same words. The words of each generation are imbued with meaning, context, and their own stories. In reading words written 500 years ago, we must take that into consideration. That small but significant linguistic point, is—quite often—forgotten.

This conversation was on my mind as I read the gospel lesson this week. The text for this week is full of “spooky stuff.” Jesus is back—in resurrected form—and the disciples are pretty freaked out by it.

The disciples were gathered in this week’s text, and they were talking about how they had just encountered Jesus in their travels. The disciples talked together about how they didn’t realize it was Jesus when they met him on the road, until he broke bread, blessed it, and shared it with them. Then their eyes were opened and they understood. And as they were talking, Jesus appeared to them and said, “Peace be with you.” And scared them about to death. The text says they were startled and terrified, as if they’d seen a ghost.

If you’ve ever had one of those moments where you think you’ve seen something that you are pretty sure is not there—it’s terrifying. And a little embarrassing. Because rational minds do not believe in the spooky stuff. To say that it happened to you, that you saw something you weren’t supposed to see, is to risk folks thinking that you are not all there. Or that you are terribly impressionable.

But all of them in that room saw Jesus just appear and heard him say those strange words of discomfort, “Peace be with you.”

Jesus must have sensed that the disciples were trying to decide if this was really happening to them, because Jesus said to them, “Look at my hands and feet—it’s really me! I’m not a ghost—I’m flesh and bones. This is really happening.”

And while the disciples were happy to see Jesus, they were still skeptical. So Jesus asked for something to eat, and he ate it in front of them, as if to prove that he was not a ghost. And he talked with them, and connected the dots. He told them why his death happened, and what it meant. He helped them understand.

Jesus finished up by saying “You are witnesses to these things.”

So many words have taken on new, unintended meanings in our culture. Sin, for example, has become a matter of personal piety—something, or someone to avoid—rather than communal failings. Sin has become more about law than relationship.

There are some words in this text that bother me. The last sentence is most troublesome. Jesus says, “You are witnesses to these things.” That last sentence sounds like I have to do something really uncomfortable —like hand out chic tracts on the street, like stand on a box in the middle of downtown Philadelphia and declare that everyone was going to hell unless they believe. Witness. Witnessing has come to mean that we must pound people over the head with the “good news”. At a certain point, after being pounded repeatedly on the head, the news is no longer good. The news hurts and is quite unwelcome. Witnessing does not speak to the person’s needs—I’ve seen the witness become hurtful and judgmental.

This is what “witness” has come to mean in the Church.

And because we progressives have seen the destructive results of that kind of witnessing in the church, we’ve decided to reject the whole notion. We’ve decided to not witness at all. Not tell the story. We’ve decided that we were going to stop doing anything that remotely looks or sounds like anything related to this bad thing—witnessing.

But this is not what Jesus is talking about. We are not taking our bibles and banging them against people heads. We are not insistent that we know the whole truth, or that “this is the way it is.” We are simply saying what we’ve seen. That is quite different from the certainty of street preachers and the condemnation of chic tracts.

So, what is it that we are seeing? What do we see that says to you—God is here. God has made God’s self known to us. Christ is alive!

On Good Friday, I attended an interfaith service commemorating all the victims of gun violence in Philadelphia this year. While we remembered the death of gun victims, we remembered the death of Jesus, who also died violently.

This is the second year I’ve gone to this service and I’ll confess that I do not it. It’s hard to go because there are always counter demonstrator that do all they can to break up the peaceful gathering. Last year, they hired an ice cream truck to come and play the ice cream truck music while we prayed and sang and mourned. It was very clever, I thought. But really distracting.

This year, the counter protestors decided to turn their car alarms on at the same time. It provided a difficult obstacle up against our meager sound system. But, in the distraction, and in the fear and anger towards the counter protesters, at some point in the gathering, I sensed a calm about our group. We were focused, prayerful, alert. It felt as if Jesus had breathed, “Peace be with you” on the community. We began a little spooked and nervous by what we were seeing around us, but as we prayed, we sensed calm, even as the counter demonstrators screamed and taunted us. We were empowered to witness to God’s holy peace in the world. We prayed for a day when God’s peace was fully known, and we began to hope together that it could happen.

Even on Good Friday, when we wondered why Jesus had to be killed at the hands of the empire, we had a sense of hope, a sense that we were seeing God at work, we had seen the possibilities of what could happen, should we all raise our voices together and witness to the hope we have in Christ.

Last week, I had an opportunity to speak at Princeton Seminary with John Linscheid and Randy Spaulding. We led seminarians and a few Germantown Mennoniters in singing together songs of hope—we sang some favorites—“My life flows on” and “Praise God from whom all Blessings flow” and “God of the Bible.” And Randy, John and I gave our testimony. We talked about the power of the story here at Germantown Mennonite, of being removed from conference, of being removed from the body of Christ. John and Randy talked about no longer having ministerial credentials because they decided to live their lives in the light.

I was a little nervous to speak—I have been intimately aquainted with these stories for so long that I forgot that they had power. I forgot that our stories were meaningful, that our witness meant something. But, that evening was a powerful reminder to me that we need to keep witnessing to the resurrection.

We need to keep pointing out those places where we see God at work, where we notice Jesus’ breath of peace on us, and God’s presence at work among us.

We do not need to stand on street corners, or beat people over the head with our bibles. In fact, I’d recommend against it. But Jesus calls us to witness to these things, to testify, to point out, and to make known those places where we have seen Jesus.

This is truly what this season of Easter is all about. We witness to the resurrection. We identify the hope we have because of this story. We keep telling it. And telling it. And in doing that, we open each others eyes to more hope and more light and more signs of the reign of God all around us.

Being witnesses to these things—it’s like a muscle. We must keep using it, or the muscle becomes weak. Witnessing to these things is going to feel awkward and uncomfortable at first—perhaps because we are living by this false definition of “witness” that we have come to accept. But Jesus calls us to share our story, to remember, to be witnesses to what we have seen.

In a few weeks—on May 6^th, we’ll have an opportunity in worship to share our own stories of hope and resurrection. I invite you to think about your own stories of hope and come ready to share them. There will be no sermon on May 6^th—your stories are the sermon.

Let us together, during this Easter Season, resurrect our witness, redeem that word from those that seek to overpower with their certainty. Let us together, during this Easter season, witness with fresh eyes and confident loving voices, to the incredible ways God is being made known to us. AMEN.

Building the Irresistible Community

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 22:18:32 GMT

John Linscheid's Words from the Princeton Seminary Presentation on April 12th. John was the last to speak, after Randy Spaulding and Amy Yoder McGloughlin.

There is a tradition among the old, old, traditional Mennonites. The first elder gets up to preach. Then the second gets up and "testifies." It's supposed to confirm the previous proclamation, but it's usually really another sermon. Then the third elder gets up to do the same and on down the bench.

Well, by the time they get to the third elder, I'm sure folks are supposed to be listening intently, but . . .

People need spiritual community--well, at least I think most people do. Church has tended to define spiritual community ethnically, theologically, ethically. But now it seems our task is to build the beloved community in ways that cross those boundaries.

Germantown Church has always been a little odd. Although we are the oldest Mennonite congregation in the Western Hemisphere, we've generally been on the margins, and often not entirely orthodox Mennos. GMC an odd collection. From moderate to quietly atheist. From radically pacifist to just-war advocates.

And that's pretty true today. We have everything from quiet atheists to off-the-deep-end nutcases, like me, who have "seen Jesus." And we range from radical pacifics to staunch just-war theorists--although the former predominate and I'm not sure we've always treated the latter very well.

Anyway, before Germantown Mennonite Church every decided to become “inclusive” it had a reputation. Back in 1984, when Ken and I still lived in Kansas, we made scouting trips to places we might want to live. During a trip to Philadelphia, Don Winters encouraged us to move to Philly and "come to Germantown" which he assured us would welcome us. Openly gay Don had famously asked the Germantown congregation, “could I become a member.”

And his question got taken seriously.

The ensuing advances and retreats are too complicated to summarize in a few
minutes, but the bottom line was that in all the deliberations and negotiations, on the congregational level, gay and lesbian people participated as equals. It was a process we engaged in together—not one of straight people deciding about gay and lesbian people. In my experience it was always "us" decided about "us." That was something that the conference and denomination never got—I’m not sure they get it now. They still conceive of the church as a straight entity entitled to decide what to do about LGBT people.

Bottom line, the culture at GMC seems to be to strive to take one another seriously, care for each other, and treat each other as equals. We mess up. We fail to achieve the goal. But we keep holding that as our norm and striving to live up to it.

Germantown strives to build the beloved community. Not in a soupy, hyper-pietistic way—but just in that striving-to-take-each-other-seriously-and-care-for-each-other way.

Old gay people like me have a tendency to tell war stories. I'm not sure how relevant those stories are anymore. Young people come out in high school now. Gay marriage is legal in many states. Of course a hard swing to the right and we could see it all go backward.

But even if all goes well, people still need spiritual community.

I think the experiment we at Germantown are engaged in (and who knows how it will turn out) is to build the beloved community for people who do not fit the old tribal, ideological, and ethical constraints. Spirituality is diverse. To build a beloved community. in which members take each other seriously and strive to care for and respect each other, in the face of even wider contexts of diversity, is a great challenge.

It is not easy task. But I think it can be joyful and exciting. To build it as an irresistible community. To counter fear with a risky embrace of difference. To conquer shame about deviant experience with irrepressible joy of spiritual and ethical discovery. To become an irresistible and infectious community.

When Dialogue is Difficult

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 22:10:17 GMT

Randy Spaulding's Comments from the presentation at Princeton Seminary on April 12th:

The theme for BGLASS week, from 1 Corinthians 12 contains beautiful imagery of the unity of people who make up the body of Christ, working together, each part needing the next,each sister and brother needing the other, rejoicing with each other, suffering with each other. Why suffer and rejoice with each other? Because you’re connected. But what do you do when those parts unequivocally say, “No we really DON’T need you. Sorry, but we’re not even going to talk about it anymore; we’re not going to think theologically whether we need you or not, we’re through praying about it. You are a bad part of this body, and we’re going to dis-member you.”

That, in a nutshell, is what happens to many people who happen to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered and who choose to walk in the light and publicly come out when it is dangerous to do so. The risk you take is that people in the church –who are parts of the body of Christ—may not
honor your decision to walk in the light. And some may wish you had just continued to stumble around in the shadows.

When I made the decision to walk in the light and publicly come out as a gay Mennonite pastor in 2009 I knew it wouldn’t be an easy journey. As a denomination, Mennonite Church USA has passed a number of resolutions condemning minority affectional or sexual orientation as sin and against the will
of God. But at the same time, there has been a consistent call for continued loving dialogue and a call to practice grace in our conversations.

But it has been more than some sisters and brothers have been able to do. As humans, we don’t always get it right. At the first meeting with my conference leadership board after I came out, I had assumed and had been promised that the meeting was the first of several dialogue sessions.

However, once I sat down, I was handed an official letter stating that the leadership board had stripped me of my credentials and demanded that I resign as the pastor of my congregation.

Personally I wasn’t surprised by their actions. I recognized and respected the conservative nature of the conference’s theology and membership, and it had never been my desire to covert of convince anyone to give assent to my personal theology.

But I was deeply disappointed and saddened at the lack of process and the lack of any healthy dialogue. It made being a part of the conference a very unsafe place for me and my congregation. In the months that followed I was disinvited from giving leadership to several Mennonite hymn sings that
were planned around the country, and I was expelled from the bi-national US/Canadian worship council.

What do you do when dialogue is difficult? What do you do when dialogue is refused? What do you do when the body of Christ decides to dis-member you from themselves? I can testify that it is very painful, and it is wounding. But it’s not just a one-sided wound. Whenever LGBT sisters and brothers are dis-membered from the body, there is a wound left not just on us, but on the rest of the body that “remains”. It is something we need to name. It is something we need to lament.

And yet, there is healing for our wounds. For me it came in the hundreds of emails and letters and prayers of support, encouragement, and advocacy—from Mennonite friends and allies all over the world, and even from my inclusive UCC, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Unitarian, Jewish, and Catholic clergy
friends who also spoke up and advocated on my behalf. I took just a small bit of comfort when the conference minister told me with some frustration that his mailbox was overwhelmed with responses.

Healing came in the support from the Mennonite community in exile. Pastor Amy Yoder McGloughlin and her congregation have been at this a looong time, and they’ve been a wonderful source of strength for me and for many others.

And healing continues to come in recognizing and affirming that no one, no conference, no denomination, can separate me from the love of God. I have been wounded, but I refuse to live as a wounded Christian. I choose to live into the healing love of God—with a few scars here and there that make for good stories (!)—but I choose wholeness.

I'm excited that so much progress has been made in denominations like the UCC, PCUSA, UUs, Episcopal Church, and others. And I offer a lament for those who continue to reject the full inclusion of persons who are LGBT.

What can we do?

The reality is that sometime people will refuse to dialogue with you

They will reject you as beloved of God.

They may even dis-member you.

But we are not alone! So let us keep our hearts healthy by claiming the blessing and love of God, despite what others say. It’s not easy, but it’s getting better….

Continue to walk in the way of peace. Being rejected is a form of violence; but we must meet that violence with nonviolence love

Keep loving—the way of Jesus calls us to the hard work of loving people who don’t love us back, and who may even wish us harm.

Don’t stop speaking out, do not stay silent, and don’t walk in the shadows. Walk in the light.

I close with the words of Martin Luther King Jr. “When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” (King’s summary of the words of Theodore Parker, 1853)

Why We Need Each Other

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 12:43:45 GMT

Last evening, I had the privilege to speak with Randy Spaulding (former Pastor at Covenant Mennonite in Sarasota), and John Linscheid at Princeton Seminary for their Gay Straight Alliance (BGLASS) week. We three shared on why queer and straight allies need each other. The following is my part of the evening. I'm going to work on getting Randy and John's words up here as well.

Thanks to all who came to sing and share stories with us. It was a great night!

Hester Prynne and I have something in common. Hester, the main character of Nathanial Hawthorne’s classic novel, The Scarlet Letter, was forced to wear a scarlet A on her chest, a sign of her sins and of her tarnished reputation. I don’t wear a scarlet A, but I have joked in the past few years, while I was attending seminary and looking for a job in the Mennonite church, that I wore a scarlet GMC, a sign of my association with Germantown Mennonite church, the congregation I began attending in 1996, and have been pastoring since 2010.

I didn’t come to Germantown intending to be an ally, or to make any kind of political or theological stand. I came to Germantown Mennonite because I was angry and hurting, and needed a safe place to be. I wasn’t convinced that there was such a church, but I thought I’d give Germantown Mennonite a try, and see if I could stand to be there.

In 1996, my mom died of cancer at the age of 45. Her four year battle with cancer was my introduction to adulthood. Crises like this should not have to happen to a young adult—it really messes with one’s sense of identity, relationship to God and to the church.

When my mom was dying, I was asking “why is this happening” and the response from my home congregation and other Christians was one of utter certainty—“She didn’t have enough faith”, “Everything happens for a reason”, “God needed her in heaven.”

Seminarians, in case you haven’t learned this lesson yet, NEVER say these things to people that are dealing with tragedy and life altering experiences. You risk being punched in the face, or worse, you risk people never coming to church again.

Those responses from my ever certain church community did not work for me, and I was very happy to leave my home and move to Philadelphia. And when I arrived, I went looking for a church in Philadelphia that could handle me and my vast baggage.

I visited Germantown in June of 1996, and I had never been to a service like this before. There were no answers from the pulpit. There were questions, there was real feeling, real sharing. There was no veneer of social propriety—it was raw at Germantown Mennonite. This church embodied all that I was feeling. I felt safe to bring my questions and anger there.

When I started attending GMC, the congregation was in the process of being removed from their conference and—as a result—the denomination, because they were welcoming queer folks into membership. The end of that relationship was imminent, but people were still pretty hopeful that allies would stand up against the conservative wing of the church. I didn’t know much about the struggle when I started attending the church—and if I’m really honest with myself—I didn’t care. What I cared about was that I was finally in a safe space to be angry, to ask questions, and to cry. I didn’t have to worry about judgment from the congregation, because my questions were their questions.

Soon after I arrived, the congregation was indeed removed from the conference. By secret ballot—which was not in keeping with their polity. Conference ministers came down to share the official news with us. And because after a year with them, I was so bonded to the congregation, I could not stay away from this meeting. My friends—gay and straight—were hurting, and would be devastated by this news. I had to be there with them.

I went to this meeting, and cried tears of anger with my gay brothers. I watched with disbelief as Ken, a gay man in the congregation, insisted that these conference ministers finish what they started, and walk him out of the church. I watched as our pastor, a straight ally, demanded the same. If the conference was removing this congregation from fellowship, they would have to do it with more than words. They would have to show us what it meant. They would need to understand themselves what it meant to remove us from the body of Christ.

Being in that meeting on that terrible night bonded me forever to the people of Germantown Mennonite Church. You can’t hear the news of the vote, watch your queer and allied friends get walked out of the church and not be moved. You can’t cry with people in their pain, and not have an emotional connection to them.

After we heard the news, and the conference ministers left, we sat together, then did what Mennonites do—we sang. We turned to “My Life Flows On”, and ironic and poignant choice for the occasion.

No storm can shake my inmost calm

While to that rock I’m clinging

If love is lord of heaven and earth

How can I keep from singing?

I never would have imagined that night as a 23 year old woman, sitting in that room, singing and crying with my sisters and brothers from Germantown, that I would end up in seminary, called to pastoral ministry.

But it was the folks, and especially the gay men, from the congregation that said to me, many times, “Why aren’t you in seminary?” and “You know you are called, right?” They recognized in me the call to the ministry that I couldn’t—or rather didn’t want to—see. It was the people of GMC that gave me my letters, sent me out to seminary, and told me to wear them with pride.

When I entered seminary, it didn’t occur to me that it would be that difficult to find a job in the denomination. Even though Germantown was no longer a member of the Mennonite Church USA, we still considered ourselves Mennonite. I still consider myself Mennonite. But others within the denomination began to name for me the difficulty I would experience. One pastor I met said to me blatantly, “How in the hell do you ever expect to get a job in the Mennonite church with GMC on your resume?”

I could feel the scarlet GMC burning on my chest for the first time. I knew there was truth in what he said. My spirit was crushed. Could I get a job? Was I just throwing away money on this seminary degree I’d never be able to use?

This question gave me great anxiety. I’ll admit it was tempting to try to cover up the scarlet GMC, to hide where I came from, to downplay the people that nurtured me to new faith. But I just couldn’t do that. I couldn’t hide where I’d come from, even though I was advised by folks in the denomination to do so. This congregation was my community, my family, and because of the bonds we had and the gift they were to me, I couldn’t hide my status—I am an ally.

My status does come at a cost. Before interviewing at Germantown, I interviewed for a job at a little Mennonite church just outside of Philadelphia. One of the reasons I didn’t get it is because they were worried I’d bring the queers with me. If they couldn’t handle the scarlet GMC, they were not ready for me to be their pastor.

By God’s grace I was called to Germantown Mennonite, as the pastor. I pastor at one of the few Mennonite congregations that can, at this point, handle my scarlet letters. I pastor the congregation that gave me the scarlet letters.

There is a cost to being an ally. There is a cost to associating with a congregation that had the audacity to baptize and welcome queer folks into membership, and that ordained a gay man (a graduate of Princeton, and former leader of BGLASS, I might add). It will limit your opportunities in ministry. It may cause you some discomfort, some awkward conversations with search committees.

But, when I look at what Randy Spaulding and John Linscheid have dealt with in their lives—coming out as pastors, losing their credentials, being shamed and condemned—I think a few awkward conversations, and some limited opportunities are well worth it. It is the least I can do, to say thank you.

As followers in the way of Jesus, we cannot forget that the path before us will not be easy. The things we choose to stand for will alienate us, and often times, they will put us at odds with our denomination. But we are not followers of the Presbyterians, or the Mennonite or the Espiscopals, or whatever denomination with which you align. We are followers of Jesus, who calls us to the margins, who calls us to remember, who calls us stand with our brothers and sisters, no matter what the cost.

This scarlet GMC, the label I’ve been given as an ally, comes at a cost. But, my friends, the benefit far outweighs the cost. The gift I’ve been given at Germantown Mennonite has saved me, given me hope, and has shown me the way of Jesus, a way I couldn’t see anywhere else.

Like Hester Prynne, I lovingly embroider my scarlet letters, embellish them with the beauty that has been shared with me in my congregation. I could choose, like the minister in the Scarlet Letter—Arthur Dimmsdale—to be silent about my associations. But, we know what happened to Dimmsdale. That kind of denial and silence can only result in death.

As resurrection people, we know the joy that comes in our true selves being fully in the light. Let us live this Easter season, fully in the light, our true selves and our true allegiances known before all. Let us live in the light, queer and allies together, no matter what the cost.

AMEN.

Blessed Unbelief

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 01:03:58 GMT

John 20:1-18

April 8, 2012—Easter Sunday

As people of the book, we believe in the power of stories. We have experienced the power of transformative stories in lent, as we talked about the cross, and as the cross became personal for many of us. We heard Jay Burkholder talk about the experience of making this cross, which showed up unexpectedly last week. We heard Ken White talk about the cross, with its embracing arms. Katie Ernst described the cross as a reminder of God’s familiarity with our pain—but she did not let God off the hook. She lingered with many doubts about God and God’s power.

Lent was a time for us to reflect on the cross, examine its meaning in our story. But, thankfully, with the stripping of the table and its new symbols in place, lent is over, and we are reminded that this story does not end with the cross. The cross was the confusing, low point in the story. Today, and for the next 50 days of Eastertide, we celebrate the empty tomb. We celebrate the resurrected Christ.

How do we get from the cross to the resurrection? I wish it were as easy as just switching around a few symbols. How do we get from death to life, from abandonment to hope? It’s hard to switch gears, to move from the reflective and the penitential to the rejoicing, praising, and boisterous song singing that we rightly do today.

In our story from the gospel of John, three characters made the transition—from the cross to the resurrection—in three very different ways. Mary came to the tomb early that morning to pay her respects, and when she discovered the tomb was empty, she ran to tell the other disciples. Later, after she returned to the tomb with two of the disciples, Mary sat by the Jesus’ grave, crying. When Jesus came to her, she didn’t even recognize him, until he called her by name. “Mary!” And then the a-ha moment, the moment of realization and recognition. “Rabbi!”

Peter and the other disciple, the disciple Jesus loved, heard the news from Mary and ran to the tomb. The other disciple got there first, but didn’t enter the tomb. When Peter arrived, he walked fearlessly into the tomb, saw the funeral clothing askew, but we don’t know what he thought about it. The other disciple came in after Peter, surveyed the scene and understood and believed immediately.

We don’t know what Peter thought when he surveyed the resurrection scene. But the other disciple understood—his eyes opened to the new reality. And Mary—her response was to assume that someone has taken away the body of Jesus. But it took Jesus calling her name for Mary to understand what had really happened.

I wonder what made it so easy for the beloved disciple to so readily believe, what made it so difficult for Mary, and I wonder why we have no response from Peter. Why such different reactions from these three disciples?

All throughout the gospel of John, Jesus encountered people that were at different places in their faith journeys. Nicodemus, that rich leader that came to Jesus in the night, had many questions for Jesus about what it meant to be born again. But Jesus did not judge Nicodemus. Jesus knew how hard it was for him. Jesus was simply present, explaining his presence, his light, in the world.

Later in John 20, Thomas told his fellow disciples “Unless I see the mark of his nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” And Jesus did not judge. He said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands.

Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt, but believe.” There was no judgment there. Jesus met Thomas in his disbelief, and called him to belief, in whatever way Thomas could get there. Even if it meant that Thomas would put his hand in Jesus’ wounds.

All throughout the gospel of John, we meet characters that believe and do not, folks that find it easy to follow Jesus and believe his claims, and those that find it very difficult. And for all those that were truly seeking, really trying to understand, to believe, and to follow, Jesus showed compassion.

Jesus saved his venom for those that were sure they knew the truth, those that had made the law their idol, those that lacked compassion. Jesus saved his outrage, anger and vitriol for the religious leaders who had lost sight of belief in favor of perfection, in favor of the law.

But for Mary, Jesus saw her confusion, her disbelief, and he called her by name. Disbelieving Mary, unsure Mary—she was the one who was called to tell the disciples the good news. She was the first person that day to really see Jesus.

And for Peter who—for once—was silent, Jesus gave Peter a most important role. Peter became the rock of the church. The church was built on the denial of Peter, the questions and confusion of Peter, this loud and impulsive disciple.

So often, I long to be that disciple that Jesus loved, the one that came to the tomb, saw Jesus’ burial gowns eschew, and got it. I wish it were that easy for me. I wish I didn’t have the questions of Mary, the doubts of Thomas, and the silence of Peter. I wish I looked at the world every day and saw the resurrection, and saw the transforming power of God breaking into our world. Some days all I see is the cross, the brokenness of the world. And some days that is where the story of Jesus’ life ends for me.

I am encouraged today to know that God does not judge our unbelief, that God is not discouraged by our questions. Instead God keeps calling us and working with us. And according to this story, the more our unbelief, the more opportunities we have to serve, to follow, to be called.

Today we celebrate the resurrection—we rejoice that death could not hold Jesus in the cold tomb. Today we sing, and rightly so—Christ is alive, Up from the grave he arose, Lift your Glad voices in triumph on high. We sing because we believe in the resurrection. We sing, even though we have doubts. We sing and pray, through our questions, our wondering, our silence. And God honors that.

Blessed are you, people of the resurrection. Blessed are you in your doubts and questions, in your misgivings and confusion. Blessed are you, people of the resurrection. For in your doubts, God calls you by name. In your silence, God works with you. In your belief, God rejoices. Blessed are you, people of the resurrection. Rejoice and be glad! You are being transformed by this story! Christ is alive, and God will reveal God’s self to you, in your belief and in your unbelief. AMEN.

Under Suspicion

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 02:44:15 GMT

March 25, 2012

John 12: 20-33

Both of my kids like to wear hoodies. I’ve never really understood the hoodie thing—I’m more of a hat and scarf person myself. But they wear them like they are a uniform. In fact, because the winter was so mild, most days in the last few months, they’ve been able to wear hoodies without even a coat.

I’ve been glad for the beautiful and warm weather this week, but mostly glad to get rid of those hoodies. Not because I don’t like them, but because they have begun to represent the story of Trayvon Martin.

This 17 year old black child was walking to the home he was visiting on February 26th, after going to the store for a bag of skittles and a soda. On his way back, he was followed by a man. Trayvon was on the phone at the time, and told his friend that he was scared. She told him to run. He didn’t.

Trayvon was killed by George Zimmerman—a member of the neighborhood watch. George called 911 to report a person who looked suspicious—a kid in a hoodie. The authorities said they would take care of it, and told George not to follow this suspicious, hoodie wearing character. But George did not listen. George followed Trayvon, and confronted him.

Trayvon was shot and killed for looking suspicious.

I was talking to a friend this week who was lamenting that this case had become such a big deal. “There are plenty of kids who get shot on the streets of Philadelphia, because they are standing on drug corners,” he said. “When do we grieve them?” And while this is true, the harsh reality is that we see those kids on the corners as bad. They had weapons. They were selling drugs. They were mixed up with the wrong crowd. And we don’t say it like this but that kind of thinking leads us to: they deserved it.

What is so hard about this case of Trayvon Martin is that there is nothing to even indicate that he deserved it. He wasn’t doing drugs, selling drugs, he didn’t have a weapon (unless you consider a bag of skittles a weapon). He was a good kid, who looked suspicious to a renegade neighborhood watchman with a gun.

Our gospel text today comes from John. Jesus is talking to his disciples, Philip and Andrew, but just like last week’s text where Jesus talks to Nicodemus, it certainly feels like Jesus it talking more to all of us than to just Philip and Andrew.

There are some gospel accounts where Jesus seems a little clueless about what he is going to happen to him—that he will die at the hands of the powerful, the weapon-clad. Or in another gospel account, he seems like he is understanding it slowly over the course of his ministry. But here, in the gospel of John, Jesus seems pretty clear of his fate all along. He is living out his call to discipleship, and he knows it will kill him.

And here in the gospel of John, Jesus is also pretty clear that he will not be asking to be saved from his fate. Jesus says in this passage of John, “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—Abba, save me from this hour? No. It is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Abba, glorify your name.”

Unlike other gospels where Jesus asks God to spare him from death and suffering, Jesus in the gospel of John is clear. Jesus was born human, and will die, human. Jesus does not expect that God will save him from his humanity.

Jesus’ death is because the word became flesh and dwelt among us. Just like all flesh, there is a time for it to die. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

It feels to me like Jesus has an awful lot of faith in humanity. More than I can muster most days. Jesus believes here—without hesitation or pause—that his death will cultivate the earth and bear fruit, his death will matter, that his death will bear fruit that will feed and sustain others.

After the story of Trayvon Martin hit the news these last few weeks, my friend, Chaz Howard, the African American chaplain at the University of Pennsylvania, shared his experience of growing up black and under suspicion. He writes this in a recent Huffington Post article:

As a high school student driving with my friends in the predominantly white neighborhood our school was in, we were pulled over because we "looked suspicious." Walking around the university in which I was enrolled, I was stopped by the police there because I "looked suspicious." Perhaps most painfully, while I was enrolled in seminary studying for the ministry, I was walking back to campus one evening when a local policeman stopped me, made me put my hands on my head and kneel on the ground because "there had been a lot of car thefts lately and I "looked suspicious."

I am Trayvon Martin. And anyone who has been stopped, profiled and questioned because they didn't seem to belong in an area or they looked like they might be planning to do something illegal -- when they were not -- is Trayvon Martin too.

I feel such anger about the death of Trayvon. I’m angry that my friend, Chaz—one of the most compassionate and kind people I know, experienced the same fear that Trayvon did.

This is why people have worn their hoodies this week. It’s a tricky protest for many of us—we are mostly white and educated folk. Wearing hoodies doesn’t quite help us understand the fear that Trayvon experienced the day of his shooting. Wearing a hoodie doesn’t mean we relate to the fear of coming under suspicion, that Chaz and so many other man of color have experienced. But, it is an act of solidarity, heading towards empathy.

The experience of Trayvon and others is something that Jesus understood. He knew what it was like to be under suspicion, he knew that his life would end in tragedy. He knew that he be killed, and that his death would be supported by law.

And because Jesus understood the tragedy of being human—that our humanity results in death—from that place we too stand in solidarity with Jesus, with Trayvon, with Chaz, and with all other people of color that face suspicion and death. Just for being themselves. Just for being the people God made them to be.

This season of lent, this cross represents the suffering of Christ, the inevitability of his death. But it also represents the suffering and death of so many other people throughout history. This cross of suffering represents Trayvon Martin. It represents an intersection for us as well. When met with the intersection of tragedy and death, we can be changed by it. That seed, planted in the ground can bear fruit. Jesus fully expected that the tragedy of his death would make a change in our hearts and actions. In fact, he staked his life on that belief.

We meet the intersection of tragedy and death again in 2012—with Trayvon Martin’s fear filled death, with the death of hundreds of people on the streets of Philadelphia, victims of handgun violence in our city of Brotherly love. The victims of these tragedies could not be saved. Many didn’t even have time to ask to be spared.

Jesus bet his life on the cross, that it would break us open, and cause us to see anew. But we can’t let that breaking open stop at the cross of Jesus. The cross of the holocaust must break our hearts. The suffering and death of so many young black men, lynched in this country, must break us open. The death of every victim at the hands of the state should make us ache. And the death of Trayvon Martin, an innocent, young, hopeful black teenager should devastate us.

As followers in the way of Jesus, we follow because we see the world differently. Jesus and the cross did that for us. The words and actions of Jesus—everything from his healings, to his conversations with outsiders, to his death and resurrection—have begun to change our focus, our understanding of the world.

A new understanding of the world means nothing if we do not do something with what we see. Discipleship means acting on this new world view, given to us by Jesus through his death at the hands of the empire, and through his resurrection, born in hope and impossibility.

As we move closer to Good Friday and closer to the cross, let us remember those who, like Jesus, were under suspicion. Let us be broken open by their stories, by their victimization and death. And from the brokenness, may new life spring forth and bear fruit. AMEN.

The Unraveling Cross

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 11:48:10 GMT

John 3: 14-21

March 21, 2012

The cross is unraveling.

This cross behind me is literally falling apart. Colin, along with Julia and Willem, worked really hard to get geometric origami cross together as our worship focus. We wanted to put it up without tape or clips—just a little fishing wire. How naive we were! After hoisting this cross up with fishing wire we realized that the cross was coming apart. There were places on this structure that could not hold the weight of the rest of the structure. So, we tried to hold it together with a little clear tape.

But when I came in on the first Sunday morning of lent the cross had slid down the fishing line, so I tried to hoist it back up, but when I did, the straining paper structure began to unravel. It seemed like every time I put tape on something, another piece would come apart.

So I finally stopped trying. Colin and I got it to a certain place a few weeks ago, and decided that we weren’t going to tape any more. If it unraveled, it unraveled.

This pastel cross—our Lenten focus--has become a metaphor for me. This cross, so lovingly handmade by people in the congregation is just coming apart, as are our ideas about what the cross means. Perhaps, as we delve into one of the most well known scriptures out there, we’ll see this cross completely unravel right in front of us.

These verses—particularly the famous John 3:16 have become mocked by society, especially because of the one guy at every football games that holds up the “John 3:16” sign. I still don’t understand how that helps to promote the gospel, that guy is pretty convinced that by holding the sign, he is saving souls—that when people see his sign, they’ll google this verse, and saying it out loud, their salvation procured—just like that.

This year, John 3:16, got some added press from football quarterback, Tim Tebow. He’s been known to write “John 3:16” on the black stuff football players put under their eyes. And this year, in a football game against the Steelers, the Bronco’s Quarterback ran 316 yards, and averaged 31.6 yards in completion. Now I don’t know what any of that means, but it meant something to Tebow and his fans. His football celebrity was a way to get the gospel out there.

This verse alone carries a lot of heaviness and guilt with it. For God so loved the world that God gave us Jesus, God’s only son, so that whoever might believe in Jesus will have eternal life. Implied in that verse for some is the suffering and death of Jesus, and the threat that not believing might make Jesus’ death a waste.

In fact, intrinsic in Mel Gibson’s recent movie, The Passion of the Christ, is this same message. Jesus did all this for you. You have to believe. Or else. Or else…darkness, death, hell.

In looking again this week at this famous verse, I looked for signs of God’s judgement and anger in this passage, and I couldn’t find it. All I could find was my own baggage around this verse, and perhaps some residual cultural baggage.

And to focus soley on John 3:16 misses some of the most beautiful, elegant and grace-filled parts of this John passage.

So, let’s look at John 3, Verses 16 and 17—together, they go like this: “God so loved the world as to give the only Begotten One, that whoever believes may not die, but have eternal life. God sent the Only Begotten into the world, not to condemn the world, but that through the Only Begotten the world might be saved.”

Martin Luther once said, “If I were the Lord...and these vile people as disobedient as they now be, I would knock the world into pieces.”

Thankfully God chose Love. And thankfully Martin Luther was not God. God loves humanity. God loves us in our imperfection, our destructive tendencies, our idiocy. God loves us enough to give up a piece of God’s self. God loves us enough to try to understand us better.

Notice here that it does not say, God loves us enough to kill Jesus. That’s not the sacrifice John is talking about here—instead God loves us enough to try to get closer to us, to try to relate to us more personally, to break down the barriers between us and God.

And God did this so we can have eternal life—this eternal life, according to language scholars, isn’t so much about duration. It’s about quality rather than quantity. It’s not about the length of one’s life, but the kind of life one chooses. It is both present and future. It is the reign of God, the here and not yet.

Essentially, God gave up a piece of God’s self for relationship. With us. And in return we have an opportunity to see God’s reign—God’s presence—in a new way.

The giving of God’s child—God’s Only Begotten—to humanity, was not an act of condemnation but of salvation. It is an opportunity to see God breaking into the world, not an opportunity for God to judge us and condemn us.

This text comes to us from the Gospel of John, a gospel that I’ve always found to be harsh and not so easy on the ears. But here, John’s Jesus speaks lovingly and truthfully about God’s relationship to humanity. This text has nothing to do with a punishing cross and a tortured Jesus, but about a loving God.

This week, I ran across a book in my library. There are very few words in this book—it is mostly images of the crucifixion throughout history. I was surprised to learn that the first depictions of the crucifixion scene in history did not appear until the early 5^th century. We did not see images of Jesus on the cross until 400 years after his death. And these earliest images were of Jesus on the cross—eyes wide open. Alert and alive. Fully present. By the 7^th and 8^th century, the images change to mostly images of Jesus on the cross with eyes closed, presumably dead.

The first image in the book of the crucified Jesus, carved in ivory was the most shocking. Jesus is on the cross—eyes open and face strong—and surrounded by bewildered, distraught followers. Meanwhile Judas hangs in a nearby tree—eyes closed, body lifeless, 30 coins laying beneath him. This was not the gruesome scene of mideaval Christian art. This was a juxtaposition between eternal life—the life Jesus was living, even on the cross—and the death of Judas. This was an image of John 3.

This is the choice we have too. I hate to put it in such stark terms, but this is how the Gospel of John puts it, so I’m going to go with it. We have the choice to live the way of death and darkness, with our actions hidden from view. Or we can follow the way of Jesus, taking up our crosses, with our eyes wide open to the presence of God around us. Both sound rather terrifying to me at first glance. Do I really want to live my life in secrecy, concerned only about myself? If I am to be really truthful with myself and with you, I do answer “yes” to that some days.

But this week, in light of the unusually bright and warm weather, I have felt drawn to the light—both the light of the warm sunshine as I’ve discovered new paths in the Wissahickon park, and the light of eternal life, as I’ve longed to see the presence of God in this screwed up, broken world.

It is hard for us to imagine choosing the cross, choosing the way of eternal life. Each of us has known a bit of suffering in our lives, but relative to the rest of the world, we do not know suffering. So, we face the same struggles as Nichodemus, the rich religious scholar Jesus spoke with in our John text. It is hard for us to comprehend suffering, and terrifying to imagine that it is what we are asked to choose.

But it is the choice we are given. Choose the way of Jesus, and expect to see suffering, to experience pain, to have your eyes opened to the suffering of your neighbors, and be called to bear that pain with them. But choose the way the Jesus chose, and see God at work. See God make a way when there was no way. Feel the empowering presence of God. Watch as God breaks open our world, and reveals something new and beautiful.

The cross is unraveling. Here I thought this cross was a gruesome reminder of the suffering, death, and ultimate resurrection of Jesus. But, perhaps it is a symbol of the choice we must make. God sent Jesus to be in deeper relationship with us. Jesus asks us in the Gospel of John if we will choose to accept that relationship, if we will choose to see both the suffering of our neighbors and the reign of God. This choice—ironic as it is—is the eternal life God has promised us. AMEN.

The Cross of Hope

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 01:33:53 GMT

February 26^th

I Peter 1:18-22

When Reba was three, and I was just starting back to school, I took her to the seminary where she saw for the first time, a large, graphic sculpture of Jesus, hanging on the cross. She pointed in horror, and said, “Who is that?”

“It’s Jesus, honey.”

She replied emphatically, “No, mommy. That is not Jesus. Jesus is the baby in the manger.”

Then, when she realized I was serious about this man hanging in on the cross, she looked at Jesus with great sadness and empathy, and said, “Poor Jesus. He needs a doctor.”

It is a funny story that I like to tell about my girl, but it also reminds me of my own discomfort with this part of the story of Jesus. The image of an infant Jesus, a healing Jesus, a teaching Jesus, or even an angry Jesus in the temple is preferable to the part of the story where Jesus hangs on the cross, in agony, the tragic and unexpected consequence of following God’s call on his life.

I don’t think my discomfort is especially unusual. As Mennonites, we don’t tend to focus on the agony of the cross. We look at the life and teachings of Jesus, and sometimes the resurrection. But it’s those 24 hours between the last supper and the burial of Jesus that really mystify us. What do we do with this cross?

Much of the difficulty with the cross comes from what many of us were taught about the meaning of the cross. I don’t care if you we were raise Mennonite, Baptist, Catholic or Episcopalian or agnostic—you probably know a little cross theology. Many of us grew up being told that Jesus suffered and died to save us from the fires of hell. So, in order to make Jesus’ death have meaning, we must accept the violence, we must carry that weight, that burden of Jesus death.

It’s a heavy way to approach the cross, and the suffering of Jesus.

The other thing many of us heard was that God required this sacrifice. Jesus, God’s only Son, had to die to satisfy God’s anger and disgust with humanity. This makes God seem violent, angry, and mean, spiteful, even detached.

These interpretations of the cross and suffering of Jesus make our Anabaptist values feels….murky. As people of peace, who follow the God of peace, what do we do with what we've been told about God, and God’s violence? What do we do about God that demands sacrifice in the death of God’s only son, and how has that influenced the way we have looked at the relationship between God and Jesus, and between God and us?

I hope you are not here today thinking that this Lenten series on the cross is going to wrap this issue up with a big bow, and we’ll figure it all out. Oh, I pray that it does, but I’ve been looking at this for a few years, theologians have been studying this for centuries, and this question of Jesus’ death by Roman execution continues to confound the Church. In fact, if this symbol doesn’t leave you with questions, or cause you to squirm, I would be worried.

The problem of Jesus’ death has not been resolved.

It took the early Church a few generations to even begin to make sense of Jesus’ death and suffering. In fact, there were letters and writings about the meaning of the cross, before the story of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, had even been written down. People were trying to make sense of Jesus’ unexpected death before people knew the whole story of his life.

And we continue—two millinia later—to struggle with the meaning of this cross. Reba was more right than a 3 year old should be when she looked at Jesus, hanging on the cross, and said he needed a doctor. The image of Jesus has been tarnished, even beaten down, by these destructive ideas of what his death means. We must continue to heal the wounds of centuries of shame-laden theology about this cross that have been put on our Christian ancestors. So today, we’ll start with our text in 1 Peter, written to the Church in Asia Minor.

The church in Asia Minor was suffering. This multi-ethnic congregation, attended by both slaves and free people, rich and poor, men and women, were experiencing persecution for their beliefs in this executed and resurrected Jesus. This letter to the church in Asia Minor was a word of encouragement, hope and strength, in the midst of discrimination and persecution. This letter was written to let this church know that they were not alone.

First Peter has been described as a baptism liturgy, a worshipful, thoughtful approach to this decision we publicly make to follow in the way of Jesus. This letter called the struggling community to continue to live a holy, ordered life, even in the midst of persecution.

And this is the author’s take on Jesus’ death, even before the first gospel account had been written down. “For Christ also suffered for sins. Once. For all. The righteous for the unrighteous. In order to bring you to God.” The author packs a lot of dangling phrases into that one sentence, as is pretty common in the greek language. But, it’s an English major’s worst nightmare. “For Christ also suffered for sins. Once. For all. The righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God.”

Christ did indeed suffer for sins. We know this to be true, from all of the gospel accounts. Jesus suffered for the sins of silence, of commission, of complacency, of fear, of the empire’s stranglehold on society. Jesus suffered because the religious and political leaders were afraid and threatened, and the people that loved Jesus did not speak up in his defense. The goodness, the rightness of Jesus suffered for all those who could not see what God called Jesus to do. They could not see God’s reign breaking in.

But this is where it gets really uncomfortable for us—the author of 1 Peter says that Jesus died to bring you to God. Forget for a moment how difficult it is for you to hear this—imagine what it meant for this persecuted community to hear this word. This is a community that may never have heard about Jesus, if it were not for his death and resurrection. This is a community that probably understood the call of discipleship more clearly and more personally because Jesus died. Because of Jesus’ death, these followers of Jesus knew without a doubt that their decision in baptism and confession of faith meant that they too may face the same consequence. They may also be killed. They may also suffer. But they do not do so alone. The spirit of Jesus was alive and present in this Christian community. It was inspiring this fledgling church to be strong, to live into the commitment they made at baptism, to follow in the way of Jesus.

How ironic that a symbol of the empire’s attempt to squash Jesus’ message is a symbol of hope for this persecuted community, a reminder that Jesus was “put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.”

What I hear in this text from I Peter—in this early interpretation of the cross—is not a message of guilt to this struggling community. They are doing the hard work of discipleship already. They are suffering for what they believe. They do not need guilt. They need hope. And the author takes this cross—a symbol of empire power to destroy—and turns it upside down. This is not a symbol of fear, but of hope. Jesus may have died, but his spirit lives on, and continues to inspire these believers. And in their baptism, they accept the possibility that this too could happen to them.

In 1961, a group of young college students, called the freedom riders—seven black and six white—got on a bus leaving from Washington DC. Their plan was to ride through Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, ending in New Orleans, Louisiana where a civil rights rally was planned.

The Freedom Riders' tactics for their journey were to have at least one interracial pair sitting in adjoining seats and at least one black rider sitting up front, where seats under segregation had been reserved for white customers by local custom throughout the South. The rest would sit scattered throughout the rest of the bus. One rider would abide by the South's segregation rules in order to avoid arrest and to contact their supporters back home and arrange bail for those who were arrested. Both of the first teams of Freedom Riders had some trouble on their journey, but the worst awaited them near Birmingham. There, one group of freedom riders were attacked and beaten. The other bus managed to escape the depot in Anniston, but not before the tires on the bus were slashed. The bus made it a few miles out of town, where it finally had to stop. There the bus was firebombed.

This is a terrible story of suffering and persecution for the right to ride an unsegregated bus. But what is incredible to me about this story is this: Before the tragic incident, where the freedom riders were beaten and nearly killed, the organizers of this event had a hard time getting volunteers. No one wanted to go on this ride. After this event, though things were no safer for anyone, it was much easier to get volunteers for the next freedom ride. There were several hundred freedom riders that summer, willing to risk their lives so that all people could have the right to right public transportation.

Why was that? Perhaps it was not unlike what was happening to the church in Asia minor. Though they were persecuted, though they were afraid, there was a spirit of hope surrounding them. In the firebombing and beatings, the civil rights movement knew there was hope there, and that moved them on to continue the work of equality and righteousness.

This cross is a difficult symbol for us to face. The suffering of Christ is not something we glory in—it pains us to know that Jesus died. But this cross can by a symbol of hope, a representation of Christ’s presence with us, calling us to our baptismal vows, to following the way of Jesus, to be fully the people God called us to be, even in the face of violence, persecution, and oppression. AMEN.

To Touch and to Heal

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:22:38 GMT

Mark 1: 29-39

February 5, 2012

My friend, Carrie, had a bad year. In 2011, two of her family members died, one after a long battle with cancer, and one relative died quite unexpectedly. She also lost her job and could not find a new one. She was struggling emotionally, economically and spiritually.

And, as if this were not enough, she couldn’t eat.

She tried, but her stomach would not tolerate it. The only thing she could keep down was liquids. And some days even that was a stretch—some days it was all she could do to get 20 ounces of fluid down.

Carrie’s doctor was concerned and suggested a round of tests on her stomach. But she knew her stomach was not the issue. And she wasn’t too anxious to pay out of pocket for the tests—being unemployed meant she had no insurance and no way to pay for the expensive tests.

As a last resort, and if led by the Spirit, Carrie went to a massage therapist her friend had been talking about for years. Up until the moment Carrie got onto the massage table, she would have called healing massage “hocus pocus.”

And then the massage began. Carrie began to relax into it, and as she relaxed, she began to cry.

The massage therapist pointed out things to Carrie about her body. She noted that Carrie was holding a lot of pain in certain parts of her body, and began to work on them. And Carrie continued to cry, releasing all the pain and sadness she held on to from her terrible year. And from that day on—after that kathartic massage--Carrie was able to eat.

I cried with Carrie when she told me this story. It was truly unbelievable, miraculous. Carrie said she would have never believed it herself, except that it happened to her. She was healed on the massage table. Now, this doesn’t mean that she still doesn’t grieve her awful 2011, and this doesn’t mean that doesn’t have any work to do. But she saw that healing massage as a turning point. All because she was willing to let this woman touch her and notice her pain. She opened herself to the possibility that healing could happen, and it did.

I have been thinking about Carrie’s story as I’ve been reading this story from Mark this week. How powerful it was for Jesus to touch people, to speak directly to them, and to heal them. How powerful it was for Carrie to let someone touch her, to be open to healing. And how incredible it was that Simon’s mother in law--sick with a fever that they feared would kill her--was able return to her work immediately after a touch by Jesus.

The story of salvation—the good news Jesus was declaring in the first chapter of Mark—was not just an intellectual message. “The reign of God is here—change your hearts and minds and believe the good news!” This is not simply something that creates a shift in perception—although it does—it’s more than that. Jesus impacted the emotional, intellectual, spiritual and physical lives of the people he encountered.

In our text last week, Jesus declared in the temple that the reign of God is here. And then, as if to give us a visual demonstration of the reign of God, Jesus cast out the demon, he cast out fear. Jesus silenced fear so that the reign of God could be more fully visible.

In this week’s text, after the unclean spirit was cast out of the synagogue, Jesus immediately went to the house of Simon and Andrew, and gave us exhibit B of the reign of God—he healed Simon and Andrew’s mother in law.

He put out his hand, she took it, he helped her up, and she went back to work. Her fever was gone.

We have two examples in the first chapter of Mark of what it means for the reign of God to be here—Fear is cast out, and people are healed. In fact, after Simon’s mother in law was healed, it says that people brought to Jesus those who were sick and possessed, and he healed the sick and cast out the unclean spirits. The healing and casting out got mixed up together into one messy group of people, sitting together in awe of what God could do.

This week, when I was picking up Reba after school, I ran into someone who had a question about church. He asked me, “What does it mean to worship? Why do we do it?” The standard, pat answer is “we worship to glorify God, to say thanks”. But, there are other reasons too—particularly in the way we see the text as Mennonites. As followers of Christ, we see God in each other. The chairs face towards each other, so that we can hear the harmony in our singing, so that we can see the face of God in each other. We come to offer strength and healing and hope when we have some to spare, and we come to seek healing and hope as we need it. We come to give and we come to receive. We come to bear one another’s burdens. And as we leave this place, we go out to serve God, renewed and refreshed. That’s the ideal at least.

The people that Jesus healed in his ministry became the church. Those that had been healed, who had fear cast out of them, they gathered together to follow Jesus, to live the life that God had called them to live. And those that had been healed—like Simon and Andrew’s mother in law—in response to their healing, went out to serve.

As our congregation grows, being church to each other—taking care of each other, and being present to each other’s needs—this can get challenging. We don’t know everyone here. The size of the group on a given Sunday can sometimes discourage folks from disclosing their joys and pain in our sharing time. Sometimes we worry that our pain and joy may seem small in comparison to the others, and we hold back.

As a newer person, it can be intimidating to join in, to participate in the life of the church, when we don’t know everyone’s names and stories. And for a person that has been her for a while, new folks means new names and stories to learn too.

Sharing our stories, sharing our hope and healing, can be a challenge in a larger group. There are no simple answers to the challenges of a growing and evolving congregation. But just as Carrie sought healing and a sign of hope in the hands of a healing massage therapist, we seek healing and hope here. We seek to be touched by our brothers and sisters in Christ, to find support and encouragement, to name those things that give us pain and to cast them out.

And as we are being healed, we offer that healing hope to others. We follow in the way of Christ, who lived fully the life God called him to.

Let us offer our hands to those around us, to lift them up, to share their burdens. Let us together—with God’s help and guidance--cast out fear. AMEN.

(Dis)Possessed

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:13:27 GMT

Mark 1:21-28

January 29, 2012

When I was a teenager, I was introduced to a Christian novel series by author Frank Peretti—the series was all about demons and evil forces in the world. It captivated Christians because it dealt with the matter of spiritual warfare. In the small town of Aschton—the town where the series was set—a reporter discovered that the local New Age society had conceived a plot to take over the town, while at the same time a local pastor discovered that the town was full of demons. The reporter and pastor met by chance, compared notes, and discovered that something truly sinister was going on.

The plot sounds rather silly to us post-modern progressive Christians. But, this book sold millions of copies. People loved it, because it explained in story form this thing that Christians wonder about. Possession. Demon Possession.

What are we to make of demon possession and exorcism? Does this really happen today? Do people really become possessed by demons, a la Linda Blair in the Exorcist? Is that possible?

Or do we have a more sophisticated way to understand this? Perhaps it’s a form of schizophrenia manifest in a pre-psychiatric world? It could be, considering what little people knew about mental illness centuries ago.

But, to go down this road—to try to understand what exorcism is—would feel like it was losing sight of the story, I think. As entertaining as it may be to go think about demon possession, what it meant then, and what it means now, I think we miss the point of the story to do this.

So let’s get a better sense of the context of this story by starting at the beginning. The beginning of Mark.

Mark begins with the words of Isaiah—I send my messenger before you to prepare your way, a herald’s voice in the desert, crying, “Make ready the way to our God. Clear a straight path.”

Jesus is being set up as the one sent by God.

Following this proclamation, John the Baptizer arrived from out of the desert and baptized Jesus, and immediately the Holy Spirit showed up, and descended on Jesus in dove form.

That same holy spirit, after blessing Jesus, sent him immediately into the desert to be tempted.

After the desert, Jesus went to Galilee, proclaiming, “This is the time of fulfillment. The reign of God is here. Change your hearts and minds and believe this Good news!” And then Jesus called the disciples and they went—without questions or debate.

Next, Jesus went to the temple in Capernaum and taught the people—“This is the time of fulfillment. The reign of God is here. Change your hearts and minds and believe!” And the people were astonished—a combination of fascination and outrage. But, Jesus taught with authority. It was like nothing they’d ever heard.

It’s with all this background—the Isaiah passage, the baptism, the desert, the declaration that the reign of God is here, the calling of the disciples, and the teaching in the temple—that we meet the demon, or the unclean spirit.

This unclean spirit recognized Jesus and freaked out—“What do you want from us, Jesus? Are you here to destroy us?”

Reading this story sequentially and contextually, there’s a stark difference between the holy spirit, that called Jesus to share the good news, and sent him out, and the unclean spirit who was so afraid of what Jesus might do.

Rather than Frank Perretti-izing this story—making it about spiritual warfare—and rather than making this story about mental illness, I’d like to think about possession and this unclean spirit as something more universal—Fear.

This unclean spirit said to Jesus in the temple, “I know who you are. Are you here to destroy us?”

Notice how the pronoun changes. I know who you are. Are you here to destroy US? This unclean spirit is worried not only about himself, but about the whole group gathered there in the temple that day. Perhaps even the whole people of Israel.

The good news that Jesus came to the synagogue to share—that was terrifying to people. “The reign of God is here. Change your hearts and believe the good news.”

What is so terrifying about the good news to the unclean spirit?

What is Jesus offering the people that evokes such fear?

You need not look any further than the beginning of the story to see why this unclean spirit might be afraid. Jesus said yes to the call on his life, was baptized by John the Baptizer, and then the holy spirit showed up, blessed Jesus, and sent him out to the desert. This does not seem like a good thing. This could not possibly be a blessing.

From the desert Jesus went to Galilee to call the disciples. The disciples believed and followed, and left their lives behind. And then Jesus showed up in that temple in caperneum, preaching the message of liberation, freedom, and hope. Isn’t it a little ironic that after spending all that time in the desert, Jesus’ message is about liberation?

It sounds strange at first that this unclean spirit would oppose the message of hope, and freedom and liberation. What does fear have to lose?

Perhaps this unclean spirit was worried that believing in God’s reign would mean that he would be sent into the desert too. That perhaps—if he accepted this good news—that God might ask something of him, and of the people of Israel?

Belief, salvation, conversion—this is scary stuff.

My favorite story of conversion comes from Sara Miles in her memoir Take this Bread. This is what she writes:

“Early one morning, when I was 46, I walked in to a church, ate a piece of bread, and took a sip of wine. A routine Sunday activity for tens of millions of Americans—except that up until that moment, I’d led a thoroughly secular life. This was my first communion. It changed everything. Eating Jesus, as I did that day to my great astonishment, led me against all my expectations to a faith I’d scorned and work I’d never imagined.”

Sara went on to organize food pantries all over her city of San Franscico, recruiting thousands of volunteers to help her.

She said of her new call, “(it) didn’t turn out to be as simple as going to church on Sundays, folding my hands in the pews and declaring myself ‘saved.’ Nor did my volunteer church word mean talking kindly to poor folks and handing them a sandwich from a sanctified distance…I had to struggle with my atheist family, my doubting friends, and the prejudices and traditions of my newfound church…I met thieves, child abusers, millionaires, day laborers, politicians, schzophrenics, gangsters and bishops—all blown into my life through the restless power of a call to feed people, widening what I though of as my ‘community’ in ways that were exhilarating, confusing, often scary.”

“This is my belief: that at the heart of Christianity is a power that continues to speak to and transform us. As I found to my surprise and alarm, it could speak even to me: not in the sappy, Jesus-and-cookies tone of mild-mannered liberal Christianity, or the blustering hellfire of the religious right. What I heard, and continue to hear, is a voice that can crack religious and political convictions open, that advocates for the least qualified, least official, least likely; that upsets the established order and makes a joke of certainty. It proclaims against reason that the hungry will be fed, that those cast down will be raised up, that all things, including my own faulures, are being made new….It doesn’t promise to solve or erase suffering, but to transform it, pledging that by loving one another, even through pain, we will find new life. And it insists that by opening ourselves to strangers…we will see more and more of the holy, since, without exception, all people are one body: Gods.”

Sara Miles’ story is compelling, partly because she breaks all the rules, partly because she can name what happened to her. But, most profoundly she can name the salvation, the liberation that is brought about by following in the way of Jesus.

When we believe this message of liberation, it is taking the place of fear, of that unclean spirit that is part of all of us. With God’s reign fully present, we don’t need to hold on to the fear any more. Something better and more sustaining is exorcising that spirit.

And when we believe, we know that letting go of that fear is a journey we take, on a path which we do not see clearly. It leads us to the waters of baptism, and from there—who knows. Perhaps the desert, perhaps the church. Maybe to the food pantry, or to the street, or to our neighbors. There is no certainty, but there is the holy presence of God, leading and sustaining us.

When we lay down the fear, those demons—unclean spirits—whatever you want to call them—can be exorcised, and we experience the terrifying liberation of Christ.

I understand what scared that unclean spirit that day in the temple. This journey of discipleship is not safe or clear nor does it make a lot of sense. Holding on to the fear can feel safe than jumping into the unknown. But we hold onto the promises today that love is stronger than fear, and that discipleship is freedom.

AMEN.

Holy Interrupters

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 19:16:11 GMT

John 1: 6-8, 19-28

December 11, 2011

This season of advent, our theme is “holy interruptions”. We’re paying attention to the ways that God has been breaking into our lives. We’re adjusting the receiver on our God antennas a little bit, doing some fine tuning. We’re waiting, listening, and anticipating.

There’s something funny about Advent. It seems like a bit of a trick for us to live in a culture that speeds up for Christmas, while here at church we are slowing down for advent. It seems like an impossible task, to manage both worlds. There are some Advent seasons where I feel like I’m stretched beyond what my intellect and spirit can handle. Get all those things you need for the holiday, but slow down. Finish that “to do” list, but don’t worry about it. Get it done, but let it all go.

Sometimes it is the tension of living in both worlds—the world of advent waiting, and the world of holiday bustle—that is our December challenge. So, I’m not going there this morning. I’m not going to tell you to breathe deeply, to be reflective, to listen for God. I’m not going to tell you any stories about the power of yoga help you. That was the sermon from two weeks ago.

I’m going to ask you to think about Advent completely differently this week. I want you to think about advent today as a time of action. A time to get to work, to task ourselves with the holy role of interruption.

But, first I have a confession to make. I don’t like to preach from the gospel of John. Some of us have favorite gospels. I personally like Matthew, Mark and Luke for their own reasons. Mark—the gospel we’ll be focusing on for much of 2012—is a no-frills, factual reporting of what happened. Matthew involves angels, and relies on the Jewish geneology to connect Jesus to his messianic role. Luke is written to speak more to a greek audience, and focuses on social justice and reciprocity.

Because I love the transformative power of stories, I love the first three gospels. But, John is not so much of a storyteller—at least not in the traditional biblical storytelling kind of way. He frames the world as being engaged in a cosmic struggle between a heavenly world and a world of flesh, not unlike the advent world vs. the holiday bustle. Very dichotomistic, either/or language, which I also tend to find difficult. So, when John came around in this week of advent, I was a little worried. What is there to say about John’s writing?

But, the gospel of John does engage us with a crucial—though awkwardly placed—story in the first chapter. After the beautiful poetry of John 1—“In the beginning was the word and the word was with God, and the word was God”, and “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkenss did not overcome it.”—after the most poetic introduction to any book of the Bible ever, the gospel writer does not go to talk about Jesus. The first person the gospel writer talks about is John—here called not “John the baptist”, but “John the witness.”

And what do we hear about John here? He was sent by God to testify to the light. But he was not the light. John came into the world to point to the light.

Those around John the witness couldn’t help but look at him—the man looked edgy, and subversive, and he was eating bugs and honey. The transition in the story of John is kindof jarring too. We go from thinking about the word being God, to the light shining in the darkness, and then John the witness gets plopped down in the middle of this conversation. It reminds me of the children’s book, Harold and the Purple Crayon. There’s a blank page, and then, there’s Harold on a blank page. John is plopped down in the middle of the darkness, not as a light, not as an antidote to the darkness, but as a pointer towards the light.

And then John the witness gives his testimony when asked by the priests and Levites, “who are you?” And the answer is directly from the prophet Isaiah. “I am the voice crying out in the desert—in the dark, wilderness—make straight the way of the Lord.” John the witness didn’t say anything new. He said what the prophets had been saying for hundreds of years.

Here in the season of Advent, John the witness gives us a clarifying message. Yes, we are to watch, of course we are to wait. But, we are also called to prepare the way. Make the paths straight. Point to the light.

That is a call to action. In advent. But it is also a word of comfort. We are not the light. We are not God. We just point in God’s direction. But there is a kind of action and activity happening there. While we wait for God to be fully present, while we look for God among us, we make straight. We prepare.

Perhaps this gives permission for those worker bees among us to keep at it. And, it’s a reminder for those of us who are more comfortable in the waiting and watching, that our waiting and watching are active things. It is a reminder that we need to flex both of these muscles at the same time.

The day after Thanksgiving, the city of Philadelphia handed out eviction notices to Occupy Philadelphia, notifying the residents that they had to leave their encampment at city hall by 5 pm that Sunday, or they would be removed.

The Interfaith Clergy group called on Philadelphia pastors to go to City Hall on Sunday evening, to stand as a witness and reminder that we are called to the way of peace. So, my pastor friend, Steve, and I headed downtown, each of us wearing symbols of our call and our role.

When we got there, we were relegated to the edges of the event, and that was OK. We were observers, not participants.

It so happened that the Eagles played (and lost) that night, and when the Eagles football game let out in South Philadelphia, we saw more movement around the Occupy Philadelphia encampment. Disappointed sports fans were coming up from the subway and were streaming into the square. Many were intoxicated. A few were very angry with the Occupiers.

One group of young men concerned me right away. I heard them making plans to pick a fight with the protestors, to get themselves on the news. They were convinced that by doing this, they would be hometown heroes.

I watched them scheme, and as I did, I stood up and looked directly at them. And as they moved toward the Occupiers, I continued to try to catch their eyes. And then, distracted by police activity at the other side of the square, I lost track of them.

I found the young men again, because they approached me. They were large, muscular, intoxicated guys, and I’ll be honest, I was scared of them. I forgot my own role until one of the men extended his hand to me and said,

“Sister, I don’t need forgiveness or absolution. I just need you to know that I’m about to do something you aren’t going to like. You can’t change my mind. But I’m probably going to say and do some things you don’t want me to do.”

I stuttered and stumbled over my words. “Uh. OK. Please be safe. Please be safe.”

And then, they disappeared into the crowd again.

Several minutes later, the young men returned. “We blame you for this, Sister. We couldn’t go through with it, because you were standing there … watching…waiting.”

These men weren’t much different than the protesters. These men had all been unemployed at some point during the recession. Dave, an experienced electrician, said that if the Occupy movement started last year when he was out of work, he may have been out there with them.

Steve and I listened, laughed and shared stories with these new friends. We stood on the steps of city hall with these men, between the Occupy Philadelphia protestors and the police on the street. And by our very presence, we discovered that we were pointing the way toward God.

We certainly didn’t intend to go to the protest, clothed in perverbial camel hair. We didn’t intend to be anything more than watchers. We were feeling very human that night—as waves of emotion rolled over us, emotions ranging from fear to anger to joy and laughter. Steve and I had no idea at the time, but in our standing and waiting for something to happen, we were pointing the way.

I share this story with some hesitancy, recognizing that anyone who preaches can’t make themselves the hero of their own story. So, please know that I didn’t feel like a hero that night. In fact, for much of the night, I felt pretty silly standing there. I didn’t feel godly, and I didn’t feel like I was pointing towards the light.

What I discovered standing unwittingly between the protesters and police, and what I hope you are able to hear today, is that even in our Advent watching and waiting, we have opportunities to act, to point the way to the one who does the real work of change—our God.

The more I reflect on these strange verses from the strange and incomprehensible gospel of John, the more I begin to see the importance of the presence of John the witness in the middle of the poetry of the first chapter of John. The jarring presence of John the witness reminds us that we are the created, not the creator, but that we have a role. As we wait, while we listen, we also point, we also prepare, we also make straight.

This advent season, as we practice the waiting, watching, preparing and making straight, we point to God. As we re-assess how we spend money during the holidays, as we re-evaluate the place of God in this season—this very radical, counter-cultural act of preparing for advent is an act of preparing and making straight. It is pointing to God. We aren’t saying or doing anything the prophets haven’t already said throughout time. Our very presence in our world is a holy interruption, when in our deliberate work and action, we point to God, the one who intervenes in history, breaks into our lives, and illuminates all darkness.

Thanks be to God, our Great Light. AMEN.

Stay Alert

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 18:49:06 GMT

Mark 13:24-37; Isaiah 64:1-9

A few weeks ago, I was driving Willem to school early in the morning, and he asked me an impossible theological question. This is the usual time when I get the “Stump Pastor Mom” questions—in the car, where we don’t have to look at each other, kids feel this sense of safety to ask the hard questions.

On this particular morning, when I was not yet at proper levels of caffination, Willem asked me this question: “Mom, why did God create free will?

Free will? Really? At 7:30 in the morning?

The question was intriguing to me, but the “why” of the question was of more interest. “Why do you ask such a thing (so early in the morning)?”

Turns out that what Willem really wanted to know was not why God created it, but why God allows us to do stupid things, to our own detriment? “Isn’t there a place we get to where God just reaches down and fixes it, so we don’t make such a mess out of things down here?”

Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down,

That the mountains would shake before you!

As fire kindles the brushwood and makes water boil,

Make your Name known to your adversaries,

And let the nations tremble before you!

When you did awesome things that we could not have expected,

You came down, and the mountains quaked in your presence!

From ages past no ear has ever heard,

No eye has ever seen any God but you intervening for those that wait for you!

Oh, that you would find us doing right,

That we would be mindful of you in our ways!

          The question of a curious 5^th grader is the same question of the Israelites. “God, when will you open up the heavens, come down, and fix this mess? We know you can and will intervene—we are waiting for you to do it—now!”



This text from Isaiah finds the Israelites in post-exile. They had been in exile in Babylon (as Ezekial was in last week’s text), but when King Cyrus defeated the Babylonians, he decreed that the Israelites could return to their home—to Jerusalem.

          It sounded like a dream come true—after years of slavery, heading back home is what the people had longed for all these years! But, that great feeling quickly left when it came time to get to work on rebuilding the city, and restoring the temple, the house of God. The city was not coming together as some had hoped. And, the people of God were calling out to God, saying, “Fix this! Rend the heavens, come down, and make this right!”

          This demand of the Prophet Isaiah also implied something difficult to hear: That the people of God—the chosen ones—were not feeling the presence of God among them. They lament that God was not there and begged God to show up, to be present to them again.



          If the Isaiah passage are the questions—Where are you God? When are you going to intervene?—the Gospel of Mark could be the answer. The prophet Isaiah called on God to open the heavens, and Mark showed in vivid images what happens when the heavens open up.

But in those days, after that time of distress, the sun will be darkened, the moon will lose its brightness, the stars will fall from the sky and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the Promised one coming in the clouds with great power and glory; then the angels will be sent to gather the chosen from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

            The people of Israel want God to show up in grand fashion, showing God’s power. But, I wonder if they actually considered what that experience might be like. A dark sun, pale moon, stars falling from the sky, and the heavens being shaken up, God coming down in the clouds—none of that sounds like the welcome event the prophet Isaiah was hoping for. It sounds downright terrifying. It sounds more like God leaving that God arriving.

          No, the apocalyptic God is not what Isaiah is hoping for. In fact, I think that Isaiah was hoping for quite the opposite. Isaiah was hoping for a God of order, a God that would straighten up the chaos of post-exilic life, that would solve the problems created by slavery. Isaiah was thinking pragmatically—come down and solve these problems God!

          But, take another look at Mark. The author gives us some more ideas of what it might look like for God to show up:

Stay alert! You do not know when the owner of the house is coming, whether at dusk, at midnight, when the cock crows, or at early dawn. Do not let the owner come suddenly and catch you asleep. What I say to you, I say to all: Stay Alert!

          Do you catch anything interesting here in this verse?

The time when God might show up is at dusk (when Jesus and the disciples gathered together to share a meal), at midnight (when Jesus prayed with the disciples and was arrested), when the cock crowed (when Jesus was put on trial and Peter denied him), and at early dawn (when Jesus arose from the grave).

God showed up in the very middle of the most terrible, awful, sinful moments of life. In the betrayal and denial, God was there. In the death, God was there. And in the resurrection, God was most certainly present.

It seems that Mark may be giving us a few ideas of how God might show up—in terror and glory, in sin and doubt, right on our doorstep. And it seems that the coming again doesn’t have to happen once. It can happen again and again.

For some—like me—this is a welcome relief. Because I can be a little dense. Sometimes it takes me a little while to catch on to the fact that God is here—again—in all of God’s glory and big energy, or in the smallest whisper of a moment.

This week—of all weeks—I resumed my yoga practice. Now, it’s probably been a good year that I’ve taken a little break from it. I had another plan, another way that I was going to engage my body in fitness. And it totally didn’t work.

So, a few months ago, I realized that I needed to get back to yoga. I began researching places to go, looking at the times of the classes, and getting up the courage to get back to it. And just when I was ready to go back, I couldn’t find my yoga mat, so I took a few more weeks to purchase a mat that I liked (ok, the only spec was that it had to be purple), and THEN I was ready.

So, I went back on Wednesday. And it started out just awful. I huffed and puffed through it. The things I could do a year ago, I just couldn’t do any more. I kept forgetting to breathe. I began cursing certain positions that I was being made to hold for endless minutes.

I was not in a yoga state of mind. At all. My mind was fighting with my body. And losing.

Now, if you have ever attended a yoga class, the instructors are known to throw out nuggets of wisdom in the middle of the class—something about being kind to your body, or gratefulness or something positive. Sometimes the wisdom feels corny. Sometimes it’s nice but not necessarily applicable to where you are in that moment. And sometimes it just smacks you right in the face.

So, on Wednesday, as I was struggling along and feeling pretty mad at myself and my body for not doing what I wanted it to do, my instructor said this: Be thankful for where you are right now; don't think about where you'd rather be. I had to look around to see if she was talking to me directly. It was exactly what I needed to hear at that moment. It brought me to focus and clarity. And that simple, yoga-style nugget of wisdom got me through the rest of the class. It was my holy interruption, in the middle of my internal structure.

This holy interruption did not come in a cloud from the heavens. There was no atmospheric disturbance. There was no major life event (besides coming to terms with my physical reality), but it was the interruption that aligned my mental and physical state.

There are plenty of other holy interruptions that I miss though. There are many times that my mind and body argue in yoga, and I forget to breathe, and no words of wisdom break through. There a plenty of times that I’m looking for a detail, while God’s doing a heavenly jig in front of me. There are plenty of times that I’m looking for the sky to open, and I miss the still small voice.

This season in advent, we have so many distractions. Black Friday sales that begin at midnight the day after Thanksgiving, holiday concerts, trees to get and decorate, Christmas cookies to make, cards to order and remember to send, suitcases to pack, travel arrangements to make.

Expectations are high during this season. We want things to be perfect. We want things to go well. We want nothing to interrupt our schedule or our well organized plans.

But here, in our time together at church, we have an opportunity. We can—in our worship together, listen for those places, both big and small, where God is interrupting our lives. Perhaps God is breaking open the heavens in a big way, and wowing you with glory and terror both.

Notice it. Pay attention to what God is saying to you.

Perhaps God is revealing herself to you in small, quiet ways.

Notice it. Stay awake. Pay Attention.

God did not show up to the people of Israel in the way that the prophet Isaiah asked, but God was present—in the suffering, in the slavery, in messy return to Jerusalem. God was with them in all of it. God came to them, again and again.

Mark reminds us of this in his text today. God comes in big and glorious ways and in small whispered ways too. God—our holy interrupter—is present to us, and comes to us in the most plain, and the most unusual of ways.

Stay alert—Stay awake. You never know how God is intervening in your life—in our lives—in big and small ways. AMEN.

The Church we Long to Be

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 12:53:34 GMT

Ezekial 47:1-10, Leviticus 25:1-12, Luke 4: 16-22
In the late 90’s U2 front man—and my personal hero—Bono, lent his voice and his passion to the Jubilee project. This project was an attempt to get first world countries who lend money to third world nations to forgive the debt, to erase the slate, and to allow these poor nations to make a new start without the crippling debt.

Bono and others met with world leaders, to try to convince them to cancel debt. There were some successes with this project. Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister at the time, publicly expressed his personal support for, and dedication to, debt forgiveness. The United States during the G-7 meeting in 1999 to cancel 100% of the debt that qualifying countries owed the U.S. Jubilee also lobbied the U.S. Congress to make good on this promise. Congress committed $769 million to bilateral and multilateral debt relief. It wasn’t 100% debt relief, but it was a start.

I love this idea of Jubilee. Land returned, debts forgiven, slaves freed—it’s beautiful, and means that the gospel, the message of our holy scriptures, are more than just spiritual. It has an immediate, justice effect on people than need freedom from financial and physical slavery.

But as much as I love Jubilee, as much as I respect and honor this part of the levitical code—there’s something important you should know about it—in reality it was never fully practiced. It has never been fully practiced, at least not to the extent that the levitical code required. There is no record that anyone ever left all of their land fallow for a year, or freed slaves from servitude, or forgave debt. Jubilee is talked about in Exodus and Leviticus, and I see no record that anyone ever practiced this part of the law. If it was ever practiced, it was a token, a shallow version of the Levetical mandate.

In fact, no one much talked about this decree in the stories of Jesus. Pharisees and Saducees instead talked about cleanliness—keeping themselves away from the unclean, and striving to be pure, both inside and outside. The part of the Levitical code that is about personal purity somehow seems more attainable, and more do-able perhaps than the year of jubilee.

Plus jubilee meant that one had to give up wealth and status for the sake of the oppressed. Personal purity instead became a form of status in and of itself.

The only ones that really talked about jubilee in the Hebrew scriptures were the prophets. And the only one in the gospels that really talked about jubilee was Jesus—in fact this is how he began his ministry in the gospel of Luke. Jesus opened up the scroll in the temple, and read the words of the prophet Isaiah, and declared that in his reading it, the scripture was fulfilled.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me

Because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

And recovery of sight to the blind

To let the oppressed go free

To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Jesus doesn’t say it explicitly, but he is declaring the jubilee. Releasing the captives, recovering sight to the blind, letting the oppressed go free—this is jubilee. This is what Jesus came to do.

Jesus lived a life of Jubilee. Jesus modeled it. Jesus showed us how it was to be done, and send us disciples off to make it happen. But still, Jubilee has not ever been practiced with totality.

Rather depressing to think about. And this has shattered my view of jubilee. I always thought the Isrealites accomplished the laws set out by God. I always thought of the Levitical code as the laws that the Isrealites put into action, rather than ideals that they held up, but never really observed.

So then, why do we talk about jubilee? Why do we social activist types hold up this jubilee concept, yet never practice it? Why do the Israelites tout this law, yet never put it fully into practice?

Which brings me to the text from Ezekial.

If Bono is my rock star hero, Ezekial is my prophet hero. Ezekial, a member of the priestly class, was sent into exile by the Babylonians. The Babylonians thought that if they got rid of the leadership the people of Israel, then the people would be more easily controlled. So Ezekial was sent into exile. He went from being a leader among the Jews to being a common laborer, losing both status and prestige.

Ezekial tried to understand why this had happened. Where does the blame lie—what have the Israelites done to deserve this?

It is unclear whether he was a performance artist prophet or skitzaphenic, or smoking something trippy. Regardless, Ezekial has many visions regarding what is happening to the Isrealites.

Ezekial described God—as a spirit of glory and terror both. He described this glory and terror—this kavod—as a spirit that has left the temple. God was so disgusted with the people of Israel that God just left. God had enough and left.

Of course God does come back to God’s temple. The temple is renewed as a place of hope and life. And it culminated in this glorious vision of what the temple—what the church--can be.

In his vision, Ezekial was led through the temple, a temple where water flowed from its center. Outside the temple, the water flowed, first ankle deep, then knee deep, then waist deep. The water was so deep that it was over Ezekial’s head .

Then Ezekial was led to the bank of the river, where he saw trees that were lush and thriving, and producing fruit. In this river, people could fish, and eat from what they caught. This river was full of fresh water and flowed to water that was stagnant, and it gave that stagnant water new life.

This was a beautiful vision of what the house of God—the place of worship—could be. And it inspires me. What if the church was this place—what if Germantown Mennonite was a stream of new life that turned into a deep river of life that ran over our threshold, into the parking lot and down Washington Lane? What if this water flowed from there down to the wissahickon, and made that dirty undrinkable water clean again? What if that water that flooded from our doors made it possible for people to eat, not just one meal, but to eat in a sustainable way?

This vision of the church gets me very excited! It gets me far more excited than the jubilee texts. Not that they are any different. They both are calling for the people of God to be people of liberation. They both seem rather unattainable. How can we possibly bring about Jubilee? How can we possibly create a church that is a source of liberation and life, from which clean waters flow?

What excites me about the Ezekial text is that it is the gospel—in this middle of this prophet’s possibly drug induced vision is a declaration that prisoners are free, that the captives are released. In the middle of the Hebrew Scriptures is the image of what it looks like if we practice jubilee.

Ezekial is not telling us—this is the law. You must give money to make this vision happen. Ezekial is not saying that God says you’d better tithe, God says you’d better give up all your wealth. The prophet is showing us what it looks like when we participate in the vision. He’s showing us in this beautiful, rich, elaborate vision what we can be as the people of God, participating in the vision with all that we have.

I like Jubilee. But, I have some trouble with the idea that Jubilee is law. It’s probably because I don’t like being told what to do. And I know that I’m not the only one here with this stubborn streak. I don’t want to be told that I must, I need to know the why. I want to see the reason for following—for following this law, for following Jesus. Perhaps this line of thinking sounds stupid to you, but I need to know why it’s important. Why is it important that I follow the law of God, written thousands of years ago?

The prophet shows us this vision in Ezekial—when we all loosen our grip on the material, and share our resources—in this particular image, we are sharing with the church—we begin to see that church can be a place that is more than just paying for a building, or buying Sunday school materials, or paying the pastor’s salary. Sharing our resources with the church is sharing in a vision that together God’s people will be nourished. Together the captives will be released. Together all we come to know the saving grace of God, not just intellectually, but spiritually and physically. Because we share our resources with this community, this place becomes a place of hope and sustaining grace.

Ultimately this vision of Ezekial is not different than Jesus declaration of what he was called to do. And that’s not much different from Jubilee. All of these things are a call to the people of God to share what we have—I share all three of these texts with you today because for each of us these texts appeal in different ways. Some of us like the trippy vision of the prophet—we need to see that vision of what will be, when we work together. Some of us need that Jubilee law—the commandment that is so lofty, but that pushes us. And for others of us, it is important to hear that Jesus declare this vision to be so—in the reading of the word. And as his diciples, we share in that vision.

Whatever the reason that we give, we give so that the grace of God is shared—in word and deed. Let us hold to this vision—as unattainable as it might seem—as we look towards the future of the church. Let us hold on to this vision as we consider carefully how we share our resources with our church. Let us hold on to this vision, as we—the disciples of Jesus—seek the kingdom of God with all that we have.

AMEN.

Re-Form-ation

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 17:51:49 GMT

Matthew 23: 1-12

          Today, in the protestant church tradition, is reformation Sunday. Reformation Sunday is a remembrance of the day that Catholic Priest, Martin Luther, nailed his 95 theses on the door of the Wittenburg Church in 1517. Luther was concerned about the burdens that the church was putting on its people, for the sake of money and control and order.

          But today, we are not going to be talking about Martin Luther. He is a heroic icon in other parts of the Christian tradition. But, the Anabaptists don’t typically look to Luther as their bold leader. His protest of the church in the early 16^th century may have been the spark that began the reformation, but Luther turned his back on the radical reformers, our theological ancestors. In fact, he led the charge against the Anabaptist, advocating for their murder, and sending them into hiding.

          So, today, unlike much of the church universal, we’re not thinking about Martin Luther so much. We’re thinking today about our own radical reformers, and about Jesus, the great reformer.



You heard the story shared by Dottie with our children this morning. This story is how our tradition began. A few people gathered together to study the texts, and to understand the meaning of Jesus for themselves. And, inspired by the holy spirit, the members of this group baptized each other and shared communion together.

          Lest we forget the radical nature of this event, I’ll remind you of a few key things: First, their gathering together to read and study the text was illegal. It was against the law of the church and the state for them to do this. And, second, adult baptism was completely forbidden. It was beyond the scope of the Church’s imagination, really. Why would you be baptized again? Baptism at that time was done for infants to secure their salvation, and was part of the state system of record-keeping. Refusing to baptize children, and baptizing each other—it was utter destruction of the social, theological and church systems that had been created and upheld for centuries.

And yet, in doing these simply radical, or radically simple acts of love for each other—sharing communion and baptism rituals together in a home, while reading the texts together—these first Anabaptist seemed to get closer to those first teachings of Jesus. They released themselves of the burdens of the church—the burden of hierarchy, of order, and of certainty. And in sharing secret baptism and communion together, they took their first life changing, life threatening steps of radical discipleship.



          In our text from the gospel of Matthew, Jesus said some confusing, contradictory things. After Jesus answered the question of the Sadduceess—what is the greatest law?—Jesus launched into an angry rant against the Pharisees. Jesus said to the people—your leaders have inherited their authority, so listen to what they say, but don’t do as they do. They do not practice what they preach. They give you the burden of the law, but do not practice the law. All that they do, they do so that others will see them and be impressed. So they wear large phylacteries—doesn’t that sound like such a naughty thing? Phylacteries? Well, phylacteries are large amulets that religious leaders used to wear—they held portions of the holy scripture in them. These scriptures we held close to their hearts.

          Jesus was concerned about the shallow showiness of the leaders at the time. All piety, purity, and place, with seemingly little interest in social justice. If they did care about social justice, they would not have asked Jesus about the greatest law, and they would not have plotted to kill him for suggesting that all were welcome at the banquet table.

In hearing this text today, I can just about hear Grebel, Blaurock and Manx discussing it in secret in their homes on January 21, 1525. I can just about hear the water being poured over their heads, and see the bread and cup being shared. I can imagine that the words of Jesus were liberating to them, as they re-imagined what it meant to be the body of Christ. They had been part of a church that had placed great burdens on the people, and had made no attempts made to lighten the load—Anabaptist’s sluffed off these burdens in favor of what was most essential about the gospel. Instead of the indulgences, and fear based theology, they choose to risk their lives to live in community, and to try—in their time and in their context, to follow in the way of Jesus.



But, even as I talk about this Radical Reformation story, I see how easy it is to make a phylactery out of it. How easy it is for us to become burdened by the powerful story of discipleship. We carry these burdens around in our collective anabapist psyches—burdens of martyrdom, right relationship in community, the ways we live out peace, the ways we baptize—the list could go on and on. And, of course, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with these things in our history. There’s nothing wrong with remembering the martyrs, with being right with our brothers and sisters, with striving to live at peace in all the layers of our lives, and valuing adult choice in baptism—the problem is when we wear them around our necks like phylacteries. The beautiful gift of our stories and tradition should not become our piety our adornment, our idols. They should become—like Jesus—a model for following God.

          In Matthew 23, Jesus was calling his community to reform. He was calling his community put aside their piety, and follow God. He wanted them to recall that loving God could not be separated from loving neighbor, that justice and mercy were at the heart of God’s relationship with God’s people.



The radical reformers were calling the church to reform as well. Perhaps some of you Anabaptist historians will correct me if I’m wrong, but I have never understood the radical reformation as the act of petulance or or belligerence. These Anabaptists loved God, they loved the church, and they were inspired and confronted by the words of Jesus as they read them together.

          Jesus’ words in Matthew 23, and in the last few chapters of Matthew that we’ve read this fall—they confront us, and challenge us. And, in light of reformation Sunday, they remind me that reformation is not something that happened 2,000 years ago, when Jesus was alive and in conflict with the Phariseess and Saduccees. This is not something that took place 500 years ago in Europe, and ended the difficulties of the church. Re-form-ation is constantly happening. We must always be listening to the words of Jesus as we are challenged to be the church together in our context.

          And, what worries me about the Mennonite church is that there is a part of the church that has decided that what is means to be Mennonite is to have the right name, to act with certain sensibilities, to attend the right schools. Because is doing this, our church becomes an ethnic tradition, rather than a community embodying discipleship.



This summer the Mennonite convention, I met a pastor who is leading a small intentional community and house church in Minneapolis. Matt and I had spent the evening with other urban Mennonite pastors, and the next day I saw him in the convention center, looking rather deflated. When I asked him if he was ok, he told me his story. He was new to the tradition, and coming to the convention, he realized that he was not “one of them.” Matt had no familial connections here. He didn’t know the songs in the hymnals, he didn’t understand the politics. Matt also works for his conference, and had just written two articles in a Mennonite publication. One was about sexuality, and one was about church polity. He was not criticized for the sexuality article, but his job was threatened for criticizing the denomination’s structure and leadership. Between his experience at the convention and this experience with his bosses at the conference level, his bubble was burst. He wasn’t sure anymore that he wanted to be Mennonite.

Now it’s very easy to criticize our denomination—with some distance we can see the holes in the polity, the problems with the structure, and the areas of neglect. But, it’s almost too easy.

What we really are being asked to do in this text is to examine ourselves—our own community. As the priesthood of all believers, what are the phylacteries that we wear around our necks? Is it our pedigree? Is it our rigid interpretation of the story? Is it “we’ve never done it that way” and “Anabaptism can only be expressed in this way”?

Jesus calls us to not just teach the words, but live the words we teach. Otherwise those good words that have become so dear to us, are no more than ornaments around our necks. They are nothing more than flash and show. The words become our idolatry, but do not change us.

Our radical reformation story is incredible to me—these folks read the scriptures together and decided that the church was not acting the way Jesus called them to be. And so they decided to live differently. But we cannot hold up the radical reformation story if we are going to be unmoved by it, if we will not allow it to re-form us. Because when we do this, we make that incredible 500 year old story our phylactery, our icon.

Following in the way of Jesus is never static. We are—in every age and generation—being called to re-form-ation. Let us seek to day those places where the words of Jesus and the actions of our reformers re-form us. AMEN.

Love God; Love Neighbor

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 20:51:54 GMT
Sermon by Sarah Clausen, preached on 10/23/11

Leviticus is one of my favorite books of the Bible. That may seem a little odd to some of you, what with all of the proof texting, and “problem” texts that lie within this book, the middle part of the Torah. The reason that I like Leviticus is simple—it is a book about how to live in community, to live in relationship with God and with one another. The book is divided into 2 parts—the first are guidelines for the priests, the religious leaders of the community. The second part is the Holiness Code—that which guides the life of all of the Israelites, not just the leaders. Our reading today falls into this second section. God tells Moses to tell the people of the congregation, the gathered community, that they are to be holy. Why? Because God is holy. After a section that talks about some of the guidelines that are also found in the Ten Commandments, our reading jumps down to how the people are to live in relationship with their neighbors. God tells them that they are not to defraud their neighbors, they are to treat their neighbors equally, with compassion for those who are different or who have disabilities, to not be partial to those with money or without, they should not hate their neighbors, their brothers and sisters. Instead they are to respond in love to those in their community, love each other as much as they love themselves. And the overarching reason behind this? Because God is holy, and has made God’s people holy. Loving each other means extending the love that God has given to the people, a love that brought them out of the bondage of slavery in Egypt, out of the clutches of an oppressive government.

It is this section of Leviticus that Jesus quotes in his answer to the lawyer, the scholar in religious law, in our reading today from Matthew. This section is the culmination of an intense question and answer period that Jesus and the religious leaders of the temple have engaged in. We’ve seen some of this over the past few weeks in our gospel readings—Jesus has been in the temple, teaching, upsetting the “official” leaders, who then try to make Jesus look bad, hoping to find a way to make him stumble, make a mistake, to defraud him—after all, who is this guy anyway, where did he come from? Today, the Pharisees send in their lawyer who asks Jesus a question, hoping to test him. “Teacher,” he asks, maybe somewhat sarcastically, “which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Jesus, also knowing the law quite well, quotes Deuteronomy and Leviticus in his answer: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind…You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The “greatest commandment”, to love God, can only be completed by therefore responding to God by loving one’s neighbor. And, as Jesus tells the religious leaders, it is on these two commandments that hang all the law and prophets—that is, everything else that they do, say, and teach, must be in the context of the command to love God and love God’s people.

Jesus gets this—he knows what it is to love God and love God’s people, and has consistently shown the religious leaders this in his teaching and examples during this extended teaching session in the temple. A few weeks ago our reading was the parable of the landowner and the vineyard, and the wicked tenants. The landowner sends his slaves to collect the harvest, but each time the tenants seize them and kill them, including killing the landowner’s own son. The tenants are thrown out—because of their disregard for neighbor and God.

Two weeks ago we heard the story of the king who was throwing a banquet, but the invited guests were too busy to show up. The end result was that those who normally wouldn’t have been invited were welcomed into the feast. It was a reminder that all are welcomed into the life of God’s community. However, the reading we heard two weeks ago was the version of the story from Luke. The parable that makes up the section of Matthew immediately after the vineyard story is a bit more chilling. In this version, the king throws a wedding banquet, and, after the invitation is sent, the invited guests not only scorn the invitation, but some killed the messengers. The king’s response was complete destruction—killing of the invited guests and leveling their city. The king then sends what’s left of his slaves out into the city to round up and gather anyone they could find—good and bad, young and old, those mourning the loss of their homes and ways of life in the wake of the king’s destructive tear—and bring them in to enjoy a banquet feast. But the king is not done destroying yet. He finds a man who was not wearing a wedding robe, not obeying the “rules” of the party, and orders him bound and thrown into prison. In this version, the defiant man is showing his love for God, his compassion for his neighbors forced into celebrating the family that destroyed their town, by standing up for justice and refusing to honor the tyrant king in maybe the only way he knew how—ignoring the wedding dress code.

Last week we continued on in the narrative. Now, Jesus has raised the stakes even further, reminding the Pharisees that loving God and neighbor, standing up for injustice in the face of tyranny and destruction, involves giving of all of oneself to God—that in giving to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and giving the things that are God’s back to God really means giving all of ourselves back to the one who created us. And as Amy reminded us last week, that is no small task.

Jesus telling the religious leaders that the greatest commandment is to love God with all one’s heart soul, and mind, and out of that love comes love for each other was a reminder that harkens back to Leviticus. Yes, the leaders, the priests, had a code to live by in the instructions found in that book. But they were also part of the larger Israelite community, and they had the responsibility to not only lead the gathered community, but to live in the way that God commanded all of God’s people to live, that their very call came out of this. And this is a reminder to all of us as well—even though we are all not called as paid pastors in churches, we are all part of the “priesthood of all believers”, and are all called to share in the life of the community, teaching, preaching, sharing the gospel with others, living in relationship with each other and God. That includes our witness in organizations outside our church: Sharing ourselves with our guests at Interfaith Hospitality, standing against leaders who have used their power in destructive ways through the Occupy movement or fighting against destructive environmental practices, giving of food offerings and monetary offerings to community organizations. It also includes the ways in which we act and respond to each other within our own church community: sharing meals with homebound members, giving not only our monetary gifts but our gifts of time and experience to the life of the church, it means holding each other in times of joy and in times of grief, it is in the giving of everything we are back to God our creator, and loving God with all of our hearts, souls, and minds in our loving of our neighbor—the person sitting next to us in these seats—as ourselves.

As most of you know, we have been exploring communion this past month, both in adult Sunday School and during our services. The Sunday that I knew that Germantown Mennonite was my church home, that my understanding of faith fit best in an Anabaptist setting, was a communion Sunday, February 3, 2008. I grew up Lutheran, and in a Lutheran setting the ordained pastor must be the one who says the words of institution (you know, the In the night he was betrayed, our Lord Jesus took bread…bit). If the pastor is not able to be there, then a supply pastor is found—or there is no communion. Well, on that Sunday in 2008, Germantown’s pastor was not able to be there. Yet, we as a community still celebrated communion together. It was in that moment that I saw the power of the gathered community—that in this shared meal the most important thing was us, together, the body of Christ, called by Jesus to love God and love each other; that the “rules” about who is supposed to say the right words or do the right actions fell by the wayside because we had been called together to share in the bread and wine of communion.

Jesus’ reminder to the Pharisees was that their actions must always be in the context of the “greatest commandment”. It is a reminder for us as well—that it is in loving God and therefore loving our neighbor we are called into relationship with each other and our communities. That it is a reminder to stand up to tyranny, oppression, and practices that are destructive. That it is a reminder to give of our whole being to God and to each other.

Occupy Church

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 18:51:42 GMT

Matthew 22:15-22

I’ve been keeping a close eye on the Occupy Movement over the last few weeks. For a group that the media tries to portray as disorganized, with divergent interests, Occupy Wall Street—and closer to home, Occupy Philadelphia—appears organized and united.

The facebook feed from Occupy Philadelphia is about requests for food, water, medical supplies, tents, blankets and clothing. It’s announcements about how we can be involved, when their general assemblies are taking place—those are where the group makes decisions about what will happen next with the movement in Philadelphia.

What is most impressive to me, is that Occupy Philadelphia is committed to feeding everyone that is occupying City Hall. Everyone. That includes the chronicly homeless, the folks that were already occupying city hall when the movement began. This movement is not just young, idealistic, middle class bored white kids—it is people of every race and culture, and class, each with their own individual concerns, but each with an overall concern for our society, our care for each other and our care for the environment.

The occupiers have become a community, looking out for each other. Those that have extra share with those that have nothing. They respect the space where they have gathered—they are keeping city hall’s plaza cleaner than it might have been if no one was occupying it—and they are showing respect for each person that comes to them.

It has been reminding me of what we saw happening in the early church. In the book of Acts, followers of Jesus would gather together to share a meal—they would bring what they had, and it would work. Just like we bring food to a potluck, except the stakes were higher. For people that had nothing, and for people who were under attack for believing in the resurrected Jesus, the food they shared when they gathered was vital. It was not just a substitute for going out to lunch after church, it was an act of social justice, an equalizer among people that had varying levels of ability to provide for themselves.

The early church shared each others burdens, making sure there was food and shelter for all. This was a spiritual community, a community built around their experience of the power of Jesus in their lives. But it was also a community of social justice.    The early church, loosely organized, looking very different in each city, but shared in common its communal nature. People looked after each other.

For the Occupy Philadelphia movement, as I hear them chant, “This is what democracy looks like,” I’m always thinking, This is what I long for the church to look like.

In our text today, we hear some of the most confusing words of Jesus. In fact, over the last few weeks, as we have worked our way through the gospel of Matthew, Jesus has become more and more difficult to understand, and his words are more and more controversial. First, Jesus talked about the vineyard owner sending his servants to the tenants, who ignore him until the owner sent his son, who the tenants kill. When the Pharisees realized that Jesus is talking about them being the tenants who kill the landowner’s son (Landowner is God, Son is Jesus), this sets them off. It is this explicit parable that makes Jesus a marked man, doomed for death.

Then, Jesus goes on with another parable. This one is about the wedding feast—the text we heard preached by Randy Spaulding last Sunday. All are welcome to table. When the banquet owner could not get a positive RSVP from his friends, then he went to the street, and invited anyone in that needed to eat.

Finally, Jesus ended the trilogy of radical stories with this one that we read today. “Give to the emperor, the things that belong to the emperor, and give to God the things that are God’s.”   In our Matthew story today, the Pharisees, along with the Herodians (who are in charge of keeping Jewish ruler, Herod, in power) come to Jesus and try to trap him. They say to Jesus in a typical Torah debate style, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor?” These Torah scholars were pretty pleased with themselves for coming up with this question. If Jesus said that it was lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, he would alienate the people who hated the Roman occupation and Caesar. If he said it was unlawful to pay taxes, the people will be pleased, but Jesus will then be liable for arrest by the Romans.

As it turned out, Jesus didn’t go in either of those directions. He was too clever for all that. He took this issue in a whole new direction. Jesus said to the Pharisees and Herodians, “Show me the coin used for the tax.” And the Pharisees and Herodians—while standing in the temple with Jesus—pulled out a denarius, a Roman coin with the image of the emperor on it. You should know that having this Roman coin in the temple was akin to idolatry. Here in the temple they expose their idol in the form of a Roman coin. Jesus here exposed their idolatry in the temple, in front of God and everyone. Embarassing.

But, Jesus continued. “Give to the emporer what belongs to the emporer, but give to God what belongs to God.”

Give to the emperor—or in our case, give to the empire—what belongs to the empire. And give to God what belongs to God.

What is Jesus talking about here?

What exactly belongs to the empire, and what belongs to God?

The answer is disappointing to some, and terrifying to others. We want Jesus to set some bounderies on what belongs to whom, how much of a percent we give, how much we should give to the empire, and how much we get to keep for ourselves. The answer Jesus gave us is not about how much to give, or whether it is lawful to give. The answer Jesus gives us is a reminder that everything we have belongs to God. The empire can have our coin, because what is truly important is that what is Gods is given to God to be used for the building of the kingdom.

And that, my brothers and sisters, is much more frightening than giving just ten percent. That is much more frightening than limiting the work of God to what we take off the top of our family budgets. All that we have belongs to God. This building, our material possessions, our families, our hearts—they all belong to God.

None of this is ours.

The question left implied in this text is this: will we give to God what already belongs to God? Or will we hold on to these things for our personal, financial, and spiritual security?

Because as co-creators in the work of God—or maybe better said—as co-conspirators in the work of God, the work doesn’t get done when we act like the good news is just for us. The work doesn’t get done, when we treat our possessions as if they actually belong to us, and hoard the resources. More specifically, more directly, God’s people don’t get fed when we don’t share our food with others. God’s people don’t get housed when we don’t share our homes with them. God’s people don’t have opportunities for justice, when we don’t share access to resources, power and networks.

Which brings me back to occupy Philadelphia. These folks—who come from all walks of life, are doing the work of God. They are feeding each other, making sure everyone is warm and clothed, and providing medical care for everyone. They are doing what the early church did.

Using social media, they are gathering the resources they need to care for each other, and showing the government—both local and national—that this is what it means to have “liberty and justice for all”. And, it’s been a kick in the pants for some of us in the church. This is what it means to “do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God.” This is what the early church tried to do. They tried to live the good news with their lives and hearts, and all that they had belonged to God.

This Occupy Philadelphia movement is reminiscent of the Peasant revolts during the birth of the radical reformation. While the gospel was being un-domesticated by reformers who were putting the word into the hands of the people, instead of keeping it safely in the church, the everyday people in Europe were declaring their disgust with the government for overtaxing the poor, while allowing the rich to go untouched. This was an opportunity for the people’s concerns, and the people’s story to be joined with the gospel story, and the liberating message of Jesus. And it changed forever how we do church, and how we read the gospel.

The Peasant revolt wasn’t perfect. Early Anabaptists used violent means to try to built a just society. It was a disaster—many, many people died. But they learned from it. And they changed course.

They learned—as they sought justice—that spirituality must be part of this movement. They learned—as they prayed and studied the scriptures together—that Jesus’ call to all people was the way of peace, and required that they put it all on the line. Because everything they had belonged to God.

And while Occupy Philadelphia is not a religious or spiritual movement per se, there are people at these events that are making this connection. Some of you in this very congregation have seen the connection between the life and practices of Jesus, and the demands of the movement.

Today, there has also been a call among us to remember the need for food in our community. It is world food day, and many of you have brought extra food, remembering that so many in our neighborhood don’t have enough, and recalling that Jesus fed the 5,000 with very little.

There has also been a call to give what we have to the Occupy Philadelphia movement. Katie has called us to bring in blankets, water, food, and other things to support the calls for justice going on at City hall.

Today is also a celebration of communion, an ongoing theme for the month of October here at Germantown Mennonite. As we remember the last meal with Christ, we recall that this is more than a symbolic act, this is a spiritual act, and a justice act. We remember that even as Jesus knew his days were numbered, he made sure there was sustenance for his faithful followers. Those disciple—though they were quite dense at times—gave all that belonged to God, back to God, because they believed Jesus had the power to make a change. As followers in the way of Jesus—as co-conspiritors in the work of God, we too are called to give it all up. Not just 10 percent—we are called by God to give back to God what already belongs to God. And we are called to share all that we have with others—giving strength for the journey in the form of bread and wine (both the spiritual kind, and the physical kind). God calls us to the table to give it all up for the sake of the kingdom.

AMEN.

We are the Manna

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 17:38:35 GMT

Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15

          Last Sunday we met the Israelites as they crossed the Red Sea, and escaped slavery at the hands of the Egyptians. This week, our story takes place about six weeks after the Israelites crossed the Red Sea.

          I would imagine that the Israelites thought things would be better when they got out of Egypt. Their escape was so over the top, and beyond their expectations, that perhaps they hoped for more brilliant moments like that one.

But on the other side of the Red Sea was desert, and lots of it. And after several weeks the people of Israel were tired, hungry and thirsty.

          They complained against God.

          That word is so loaded—they “complained”. It’s something we’ve been told not to do. In my house, everyone knows, “No whining.” People are free to share their concerns and needs, but considering how easy we have it compared to the rest of the world, I just can’t allow whining and complaining.

This word—complaining--it makes the Israelites sounds like a bunch of entitled, self-centered people, doesn’t it? Complaining has a bad reputation, but in reality change starts with a complaint. And what the Israelites needed was bread. Desperately. If they were to survive, they needed to eat. The future of the Isrealites depended on God hearing their complaints and responding to them.

          So they complained to God and to Moses and to Aaron. They said, “God, just kill us. Death would be better than what were are experiencing now.” They recalled the good old days—they days when they were in Egypt—though they were enslaved, they had bread to eat. They cried out to God, “We would rather have been killed in Egypt, when our bellies were full, then die of starvation in the desert.”

          They were complaining, most certainly. But these were the legitimate complaints of a tired, scared and desperate people.

          And, God heard the complaints of God’s people. And God did something about it. Just not in the way that the Israelites had hoped.

They longed for the day when they could have their bellies full of bread, but God did not give them bread. God gave them quail at night—which they didn’t ask for—and manna in the morning—which they also didn’t ask for.

This manna—it’s kindof difficult to understand what this manna stuff is. In fact—the Hebrew meaning of manna is “What is this?” So, God gave them “What is this?”—some fine, flaky something or another—that filled their bellies and sustained them in the desert.

And God gave the Israelites something they hadn’t asked for too. God also gave them quail. Not just bread to fill their bellies, but protein to sustain their muscles and minds for the long journey ahead in the wilderness.

The people of God—“the congregation of the Israelites”—cried out to God, and told God what they needed. And God gave them something altogether different. And the people of Israel were left to wonder about this manna—What is it?

God didn’t drop loaves from the sky. Which is probably good—large, heavy loaves falling from the sky could hurt someone. And they also could be a heavy burden to carry. Instead God left light fluffy bread-like stuff on the ground—easy to carry, filling, can be crammed into pockets, and gathered by children. And, in the evening, when people were settled, and making fires for the night, that’s when the protein food group arrived. God gave the people not what they wanted, but what they needed, and in a way that made their journey lighter.

I was at an event last week sponsored by Shane Claiborne. It was an event called “Jesus Bombs and Ice Cream”, where Shane was encouraging Christians to think about how we can move towards non-violence—less bombs, more ice cream. Kindof preaching to the choir for me, but in light of the remembrances of September 11^th, one thing he said really stuck out. He said: “We cry out to God and ask God, ‘What are you doing with the problems of this world?’ God’s response is, ‘I created you.’”

Shane’s words were nothing especially new to me theologically, but they pierced me last week. And they’ve had me thinking about—in light of our texts today—who has been manna for us, for this congregation. We know that God sent us to address the troubles of this world, but who has sustained us in our wilderness? Who has given us strength for the journey? Who has been an answer to our complaints against God?

Last June, when I was installed as the pastor here, there were 208 people in this room. They came from all over. My family from Oregon and Arizona surprised me with a visit. There was a woman here—who’s name I don’t recall—that came to the installation just so this congregation would know that we are loved.

But the group that surprised me the most were the people from Plains Mennonite Church, where I had interned the year before. When I told the Plains congregation that I was being installed on a Sunday morning, their response, without any thought or deliberation was, “We are going to change our worship service time so as many as can be there, will be there.” And somewhere between 50 and 70 people from that congregation attended that service on that hot, sticky Sunday in June.

The pastors from that congregation were quick to tell me that they were there for me—they were my manna—but they were especially here for this congregation. They were here to be a visible reminder of their love for us. They were all of our manna. The presence of so many here last year was the “what is this” that we didn’t even know we needed.

When I think of how we can be manna for each other, I think of the countless stories we heard from September 11^th—stories of ministers standing on corners near ground zero, just to bless the firefighters and rescue workers. They were the manna for those doing the difficult work in those next hard weeks and days. There were people in New York that day that gave strangers money to get home, cab drivers that refused fares, and churches that opened their doors to anyone that needed a safe place. The people of God were manna for perfect strangers during the “what is this” time.

This summer, a young man named Sam Fox is running the Pacific Crest trail—from Canada to Mexico (2,656 miles). He’s doing this crazy, dangerous thing, not to break a record, but for his mom.

Sam’s mom, Lucy, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease ten years ago. Sam was so inspired by her determination, and knew he had that same determination in him, so he decided to run the trail, and raise money for Parkinson’s disease research. Sam said this about the run, “I’m sure mom would rather get a letter or a hug more than me putting myself at risk on a dangerous and remote trail, but this is what she’s getting.”

Perhaps, Lucy asked God over the years why she had to suffer with parkinsons, and made her complaints against God. Perhaps she asked for strength for her journey, or even an end to her journey. And God answered her prayer. God gave her a son that shared the same determination she had, and that used his gift of running to give her manna for her journey.

When we—the congregation of Germantown Mennonite--called out to God, and asked for strength for the journey, God gave us Interfaith Hospitality Network, a most unlikely bit of “what is this”. When we asked for God to take care of us, God gave us people to care for, and reminded us that pain and woundedness are universal. God gave us relationships with women and children who had lost their homes, who needed a safe place to be. God showed us—here at Germantown Mennonite church—that even in our own pain, we have gifts to share. For the first group of families we tended—for Aislyn, Maria, John and their children—we were their manna. And they were ours.

Change starts with a complaint. That’s how it worked for the congregation of the Israelites. They told God about their needs, and God had compassion on them. God gave the people not what they wanted or asked for, but what they needed, and in a way that made their journey lighter. God gave them “what is this” which sustained them, gave them hope, and reminded them daily of God’s loving presence with them in the wilderness.

Let us praise God this morning for the manna we have received in our wilderness times. Let us recall the ways that God has provided for us, giving us not what we thought we needed, but what we truly needed to sustain us.

Give thanks to the Lord,

And call on God’s name.

Proclaim God’s deeds among the peoples.

Sing to God, sing praise and tell of God’s marvels.

AMEN.

God on our Side

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 00:28:49 GMT

Exodus 14:19-31

September 11, 2011

“God on our Side”

I’ve spent too much time listening to stories about 9/11 this week, remembering the day ten years ago when our world changed completely. I have flashes of memory from that day—I remember hearing the events unfold on the radio as I drove, and looking at the faces of people in their cars, who were crying like I was; I remember holding Willem and worrying about what would happen next; I remember trying to call friends in Manhattan and getting no response; I remember finally getting the call from my friend in New York—and listening to her stories of the day, as she watched paper fall from the sky like ticker tape.

          You are probably thinking about your own day—your own experience of 9/11. There are so many stories in this room about that day. Some of you who were teachers needed to calm your children down, even while you were worried and anxious. Some of you were students in middle school, high school or college. There are plenty of children here today who weren’t even born yet. Some of you were flying when other planes flew into buildings. A few of you were in New York and DC that day.

          One of the questions we as Americans have asked in the ten years since September 11, 2001, is “Where was God in all this?” Perhaps you cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken us?” Perhaps you wondered to God, “how could you allow this—how could you allow 3,000 people die in such a terrible tragedy? Being Christian, or Mennonite or enlightened or educated—none of these factors can prevent these inevitable questions. On that terrifying day, we were all united in our questions, our concerns, our fears, our anger and our sadness.

          I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you were asking some similar questions these last few weeks with apocalyptic weather we’ve experienced—an earthquake two weeks ago, followed by a hurricane which caused some flooding, followed by more rain, which has caused massive, destructive flooding in both Pennsylvania and New York. Where is God in all this flooding, especially when the rains are needed in Texas and Oklahoma.

          Our text from the Hebrew scriptures today was always a favorite of mine growing up. God rescued God’s people—God parted the water for the Israelites, and they walked through the sea, with the water piled up on their left and their right. Those that were previously enslaved by the Egyptian people were now able to walk on dry land. God saved thousands of enslaved people and made them free.

          It’s an incredible story. God made a way for God’s people when there was no way.

But when you get older, you read the story again, and begin to realize that this miraculous Sunday school story has a sinister side. While the enslaved are made free by God’s power and protection there are thousands of Egyptians that God has thrown into a panic, gotten their wheels stuck in Red Sea mud, and allowed to die. The scriptures read: “The waters covered the chariots and the chariot drivers, the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea; not one of them remained. But the Israelites walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left.”



I remember speaking to the Palestinian representative from Christian Peacemaker Teams earlier this year when we hosted them here at church. He said that it is very hard to be a Palestinian Christian because the scriptures say such terrible things about his people. Even these scriptures—though they are thousands of years old—they leave a residue of suspicion and distrust for his people. It’s hard for his people to read the very texts that inspire and guide them.

          The Christians of Egypt experience this same dilemma. This story makes it clear that God takes sides—specifically God takes the side of the people of Israel and NOT the side of the Egyptians. It is a challenge for the people of Egypt to read this story and not feel like the God of Israel is against them.

          When I read this story of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea, especially as the 10^th anniversary of 9/11 approached, I started to feel a little less like the favored Israelites, and a little more like the drowning Egyptians. Particularly as I read this text this week while the water rose around us. At our house, and at many of your homes, it poured in through our chimneys, windows and walls, and leaked into our basement. The shop vacs and sump pumps were not enough to slow down the rising waters in our homes, or in the nearby rivers.

          We Christians—American Christians—have always seen ourselves as the chosen ones. Our civil religion declares it to be so, as does much of the Christian theology out there. God is on our side. We are God’s chosen people. We are the ones that are carrying out the work of God. In President Obama’s inaugural speech, he referred to the “God given promise” that we are equal, free, and deserve a chance to pursue a measure of happiness. He invoked God’s blessing on this nation, invoked God’s grace on us.

          We hear all kinds of things in our cultural language about God’s promises to this nation. God will take care of us, protect us, defend us. And yet…and yet, where was God on September 11^th? Why was God not protecting us on that day? Was God on our side on the day that a handful of men flew planes into the Twin Towers, into the Pentagon, and nearly succeeded in sending another plane into the Capital building?

          This is a question is one I ask of this Exodus story—God seems to be on the side of the Israelites—but what about the Egyptians? Doesn’t God care about them? Doesn’t God care about us?





Rabbi’s throughout time have struggled with this very question as they read this text. There is an Jewish old midrash—an old text study—that struggles with this same question. What about the Egyptian people that were killed that day. One Rabbi tells a story about the angels as they watched this event unfold. The angels saw the Hebrew people leaving Egypt and they danced and rejoiced. They saw the people come to the Red Sea, and they murmured and wondered what would happen next. They saw Moses part the Red Sea and they cheered. They rejoiced when every last Israelite made it to the other side. And when the waters came together again, and all those thousands of Egyptians were killed, the angels also celebrated with songs of joy. But, God stopped that celebration. God stomped God’s foot and said, “Angels, you are celebrating, but my people are drowning in the sea!”

          This is a comforting account of God’s grief. And it’s a reminder of what we must remember about this story—this is a story of the work of God, but it is written by humans. It is written by people that need—that want—God to be on their side. But, God is bigger than that. And God does not take sides.

          So if God does not take sides, where is God in all this? Where was God on September 11^th? I have asked that question a lot in the last ten years. Especially when I have seen my New York friends suffer from the effects of the trauma. Where was God on this day of tremendous pain, fear, and unbelievable tragedy?

          The best answer I’ve heard came from an interview Teri Gross did of a firefighter who was trapped in one of the towers, and survived. He said something like this, “You know it always makes me so mad when I hear people say that God must have been with you that day. Because it implies that God was not with my brothers who died. God was with my firefighting brothers who refused their captains orders to get out of the building—he refused to get out of the tower because there were people up on the 74^th floor that had burns that needed his attention, and he was going to be with them until the end. God was with my brother on the 74^th floor, as his took his last breath, and God was with me too.”

          God was with the Israelites as they crossed the Red Sea. God was with the Egyptians as the sea closed around them. God was with every terrified New Yorker on September 11^th, every police officer and firefighter—whether they lived or died.

God was with those who lost their homes and property this week, and God was with those of us with leaky roofs and musty basements.

And—dare I say it—God was with those men that flew those planes into buildings ten years ago today.

There’s so much we do not know about God. We don’t understand why these tragedies happen. We question where God is in all this. We wonder if God cares about us. We wish God would be on our side. But God cannot be contained.

The only thing we know—I mean really, really know—is that God is here. God is with us. And God loves us.

As we remember the events from ten years ago. As we replay that awful day in our memories, we can see God’s presence among us. Even in the tragedy and fear. God was there.

As we remember the last few weeks of apocalyptic weather, we don’t understand it. We don’t know why we had 20 or more inches of rain in the last several weeks, and why Texas is burning for lack of water. But, we do know that God’s presence is with us.

And as we recall the story of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea, we certainly don’t understand what seems like God’s favoritism at the expense of others. But, we know that God was there, grieving for the Egyptian people that were lost. God cares about each and every one of us.

Maybe that’s not enough information about God. But it’s what we have. And it is our hope on this day, September 11, 2011.

AMEN.

One in Christ

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 14:03:26 GMT

I preached on Sunday at West Philadelphia Mennonite Fellowship. They asked me to preach about the congregation's journey to be welcoming of queer folks. I can only speak from my experience--I haven't been a part of this congregation for as long as the difficulties with the crisis have existed, so I spoke based on my own experience. I'm sure that many of you have other experiences, and opinions about this matter. I'm grateful for the opportunity to speak with another Mennonite congregation that is seeking the spirit's guidance on this matter. --Amy

September 4, 2011

Ezekiel 37: 1-14; Galatians 3:24-26

Preached at West Philadelphia Mennonite Fellowship
I’m the pastor at Germantown Mennonite church. I’ve been attending GMC since 1996, but I’ve been the pastor for a little over a year now. I began attending Germantown when our congregation was at the height of its conflict with Franconia Conference over issues of sexuality. Specifically, we had welcomed into membership several gay and lesbian folks. It was a strange time for a new person to begin attending the congregation. Who wants to attend a congregation in turmoil—a congregation that was in the process of being removed from the conference and denomination.   Yet, when I went to visit—just to see what it was like—I never ended up visiting anywhere else.

There was something about the turmoil that was a strange comfort to me. My mother had just passed at the age of 45, after a long and difficult battle with cancer. I couldn’t talk to God, let alone walk into church. But, I took a chance to walk into GMC, and I felt safe there—like I was in a spiritual home for the first time in a long time. The sadness, grief and questions of the congregation mirrored my own to God about my mother’s death.

It was also the first place that I felt I could truly ask questions of faith—there was no question that was off limits. I felt free to express anger at God, to question absolutely everything. I could destroy the foundation of my beliefs system, so that I could create a new structure with my Germantown brothers and sisters.

I had not settled on the theological issues of homosexuality when I arrived at GMC in 1996. I honestly didn’t care that much about the issue when I arrived. I just needed a safe place to be angry.   It was the gay men at Germantown that modeled a new spirituality for me. It was the gay men that held my questions and anger—gave them credence. It was with these men who hung on to the very edge of the church, and faith itself, that I found a new understanding of what it meant to be a follower of Jesus.

The texts I’ve chosen for this morning may seem like ones that shouldn’t go together. Exekial 37—the valley of dry bones text—is usually reserved for lent. And the Galatians one—a very familiar Pauline text, is the heart of Paul’s ministry as he works with Jews and Gentiles alike.

These two texts are key to GMC’s journey together over the last several decades. These are the texts we have come back to so many times over the years. So often we have asked the question—“can these bones live?” So many times we have exclaimed, with joy and celebration, “We are all one in Christ!”

The first year or two after being removed from conference affiliation with Franconia were difficult ones for us. As it is with a lot of Mennonite congregations, there are familial connections. The vote to remove us from the conferences then was a personal, family thing. It was brother against sister, mother against daughter. So, we wondered during those raw and painful times, “can these bones live?” Are we going to make it? Will we survive this? Not just would this congregation make it, but would our faith survive the blow?

God said to Ezekial: “Mortals these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘our bones are all dried up, and our hope is lost. We are cut off completely.’” Germantown Mennonite stayed in this portion of the Ezekial text for a long time. People would visit the church, and note that we sang a lot of sad songs—songs in minor keys. Visitors would not have to know our story to know that something happened to us, and we were afflicted.

Some folks were interested in attending the church, but ulimtately didn’t want to commit. Being a member of this congregation for a while meant being part of a suffering body. And some just couldn’t commit to being on that painful journey with us.

But then—slowly, over time—we came to see ourselves differently, and experience church community differently. I attribute part of that to the fact that we had a baby boom in the congregation. We went from having 10 kids (most of whom were teenagers) to having 40 children in a decade. A few of us started having babies, and then when people realized that there are children in the congregation, they started coming with their kids.

The church began to grow, despite the blow of being removed from the conference. Despite feeling isolated from the denomination. We had to focus on our youth, and we had to focus on our growing population of baby boomers, and their aging needs. We went from having two generations of people in our historically young congregation—to having 3 or 4 generations under one roof. The events of 1997—of being removed from the denomination—had made their mark on us, but couldn’t we just sit around and lick our wounds. We had to move on. Life goes on. And we could move on now. We could be a church, and care for each other.

In the Ezekiel text, God tells the prophet: “Mortal these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely. Therefore prophecy and say to them, ‘Thus saith the lord God, I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I the Lord have spoken and will act, says the Lord.”

We have felt the spirit moving within us these last several years. We have come to life again. We feel alive, and able to stand on our feet, despite the war wound of our experience with the conference. I’ve joked in recent years—especially when I was looking for a pastor job within the denomination—that members of the congregation wear our own scarlet letters—we bear the “scarlet GMC” on our chests. We are branded within the denomination by our experience. Yet we live. We are being placed again on our own soil. We see the mighty work of God in restoring this congregation. We trust that God will act and is acting.

And we see a prophetic place that we can live in the denomination. I often attend conference and denominational events. I am part of a group of younger Mennonite women pastors that get together every month. I write in Mennonite publications. I attend convention. I keep showing up at Mennonite things because I believe that Germantown Mennonite—the first Mennonite church in the hemisphere—has a prophetic word to say to the denomination. These dry bones live—these dry bones have a home, these dry bones can speak and act, with the help of the Holy Spirit.

We have come to believe that we have a prophetic witness in the church. We have a role to play in the denominational structures, even though we aren’t part of the denomination at this time. I believe that our prophetic witness is to keep showing up, to keep being a voice for inclusion of all God’s people. And in showing up, we do not compromise any of our beliefs or any part of our spiritual journey. We can be fabulous and welcoming, and hospitable, without fear of being kicked out of the denomination. That already happened, and we are ok. We are a growing, thriving congregation, that stepped up and did what God called us to do—to live into that challenge from Paul to be “one in Christ.”

Of course, just because we made the move to be a welcoming congregation doesn’t mean we have arrived, or that we are above it all. In fact, we have come to realize that being a welcoming congregation means more than just welcoming queer folks. It also means welcoming folks of difference classes and races. This is our new frontier—this is the place that we realize we are not “one in Christ.” We are being challenged again to be one in Christ—with all barriers down.

At Germantown Mennonite we have celebrated this Galatians text—we have held on to it as a reminder that our response 25 years ago to a gay man asking for membership—our response was one of thoughtful, prayerful welcoming. We did what we know God called us to do. And we paid a price for it. Our “one in Christ” position on this matter of sexuality left our congregation united, but left us alienated from our families and our denomination. In fact, that’s what’ happened to the Apostle Paul too. He declared, by the power of the holy spirit, that we are all one in Christ, and he paid for it with Peter and the other apostles in Jerusalem. His vision of the gospel was just a little different than the rest.

We know that God is not done working on Germantown Mennonite—we cannot rest on the fact that we made a decision many years ago to be welcoming. In fact—I think that what we did in welcoming the GLBT community may be easier to do than what we’re called to do next. I contend—though perhaps the folks at Germantown Mennonite may disagree—that welcoming our white, mostly Mennonite queer friends into fellowship was not much of a leap. The gay and lesbian folks we welcomed shared our worship style and our music tastes. What may be harder for Germantown is to welcome all races, cultures, and classes into mutual, equal fellowship. We’ve been challenged over the last year—as we’ve attended Damascus Road Anti-Racism Trainings, as we’ve contemplated our vision and our future, and as we’ve listened to the spirit—that we need to be one in Christ in more ways than one.

Every church struggles with this “one in Christ” challenge from Paul. For Germantown Mennonite, it began in the 1680’s when we welcomed Mennonites to this country who understood their Anabaptist tradition differently, and has moved today to welcoming the GLBT community. But it doesn’t end there—it should never end. The movement of the spirit invites—and sometimes pushes—us to be one in Christ, breaking down barriers to race, sex, culture, class and creed. And, it can often mean that we go against institutions, in a struggle to be the hands of feet of Christ in our context.

But in the movement of the spirit, taking us to places unknown, God is faithful. May God bless us—or afflict us—with the courage to be “one in Christ”.

Impossible Things

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 13:54:39 GMT
The following sermon was preached by Lamar Freed at Germantown Mennonite on September 4th. Thanks, Lamar, for your openness and honesty. I have a new view of communion because of you.

--Amy

In keeping with the tradition of using extra-Biblical sources in my sermons, let me quote from Lewis Carol's Alice in Wonderland:   Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said: "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
(Through the Looking Glass, Chapter 5)

In my experience, most religious arguments are about what Christians have been told to believe. These arguments are typically irresolvable and can be viewed from many different angles. I've always had a secret admiration for the ancient Greek philosophy of the Sophists. Among their practices was their ability to argue any side with equal vigor, twisting facts to fit their preference or goal. They might feel comfortable among contemporary politicians, I think, and maybe even contemporary Christians.

Back in my all too distant youth I may not have believed 6 impossible things before breakfast, but I'm quite certain that their were many times I argued a theological issue 6 impossible ways before dinner. More recently, for me theology and what we believe is in the netherworld of obscurity where I can make myself believe any particular thing so long as I get to put a little sophistry to it. The right spin. You know what I'm talking about. The Trinity. The Incarnation. Heaven and Hell. The problem of Evil. You can pretty much get me to agree to anything, so long as I get to spin it. Saying I believe something is easy.

What I find is far more difficult is doing what Jesus tells me to do. Indeed, I find that almost all of Jesus instructions fit the category of impossible things. Perhaps in short bursts some of these difficult instructions can be followed. I think I've sometimes witnessed this kind of obedience here in this congregation over the years. I often make decisions that move me in the direction of Jesus instructions, but I don't think I have ever really been successful.

I started thinking about this earlier this year when there was a series of lectionary readings where Jesus told us to do impossible things. On Feb 27th the lectionary reading was from Matthew where Jesus tells us not to worry about tomorrow. The week before that we read that Jesus told us to turn the other cheek. On the 13th, we were told to pluck out our eye if it causes us to sin.

Then my childhood friend Charlie Kraybill started posting some of Jesus' instructions on facebook: (Charlie is not pious. Almost half of the instructions he posted came from the book of Thomas)

Luke 12:33-34 "Do not treasure for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and gnawing deface and where robbers dig through and rob, but treasure for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor gnawing defaces and where robbers do not dig through nor rob. For where your treasure is, there will also be your heart."

Matthew 6:41 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 42 How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Luke 3:11 And he answered them, “Whoever has two coats is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.”

Matt 19:21 Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

Luke 6:27 “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

These are but a sampling of the impossible things Jesus told us to do.

In the context of these sayings from the Biblical Canon, it is very easy for me to see how completely consistent it was for Jesus to say that it is easier to get a camel to fit through the eye of a needle then for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

And today we have another impossible instruction. If another member of the Church sins against you... The famous Matthew 18 passage.

I don't know about you, but as I've racked my brain, I don't remember this process being followed either by me or, what probably ought to have happened more often, toward me. Now, that could mean that no one has ever sinned against me, and that I've never sinned against anyone else. Or maybe it means that everyone has always immediately and secretly reconciled in the privacy of individual conversation. Somehow I don't think so.

I mean, really, I've been associating with Germantown Mennonite Church for over 30 years and have left angry twice, each for over five years. I don't know if the Matthew 18 process should have been used during these and other times. But in my experience the process was thwarted – by pride, by expediency, as a consequence of group dynamics, because of the time and energy required, or the emotional intensity or exposure involved, perhaps for the sake of confidentiality: there are many reasons that this passage gets put on my list of the impossible things Jesus asks us to do. There is also the subjective nature of who is sinning and who is being sinned against. Each of us swinging planks at specks of sawdust.

Following this or most of Jesus other instructions throughout the gospels requires a singularity of purpose and commitment beyond the capacity of anyone I've known. Or perhaps I should say, in the spirit of first attending to the log in my own eye, it is beyond my own courage or capacity.

In my experience, we do not want to admit that these are impossible things. Christian theologians and writers, particularly, do not want the things Jesus tells us to do to be impossible. So for each of these impossible tasks, they apply the methods of the Sophists, spinning every single one so that it can be separated out into a comfortable bite size and be swallowed by eager consumers, if not whole, at least in intellectually regurgitated little bits. It is explained on Sunday morning as allegory or parable. It is a teaching story. It has to be taken in it's context. Or perhaps Jesus was using a little hyperbole. Even better, Jesus was pointing to one particularly egregious practice at that time or to some blatantly hypocritical group. It wasn’t meant literally. Not for now. Not for us.

I don't mean to belittle the dedicated, erudite and very admirable scholars who have informed me throughout my life. But as I see it, Jesus simply sets the bar very, very high when it comes to living a life centered on loving God with all your heart and loving your neighbor as yourself. We can't help but fail to meet this standard. Paul says it best: “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” I think we have. Certainly I have.

Yet, even as we accept the Apostle Pauls’ understanding of divine forgiveness for our faults and failings, we still have to live with this impossibly high bar held up for us in the example, teaching and the sacrifice of Jesus. When we look at the composite of the impossible instructions that Jesus gives us it is easy to realize how short we come and, I suppose, it is essential that we use one of the tricks the Sophists might have used: we are but followers of Jesus, and we must learn to accept our frequent failures as part of the path we have chosen.

It is so much easier to go back to believing impossible things. Even the impossible things that Jesus taught us: that there is a merciful God who loves us. That there is purpose in the travails of this life. That the universe has some order and that we each play a part in it. That there is ultimate meaning and that, if we want, all we need do is look around us and the Kingdom of God is already here.

We are more than distant admirer's basking in the lingering glow of God's universal love exemplified in Jesus and the community he inspired 2000 years ago. We are followers of Jesus. We are ever reaching to find ways to move closer to the impossibly high bar he set for us, not, if I may borrow the phrase from the communion litany, because we must, but because we may. For what better way to respond to the message that God loves us, than to try to love the rest of the pathetic bunch of grasping, clawing, selfish Human Beings that God also loves? And what better way to do it than to try to grasp and follow the instructions given to us by the one in whom we see God's love most dramatically exemplified?

In this context, I have found myself wishing that Jesus would have given me something easy to do. And in my sojourns I think I have found it. I think I've found something that I can do, confidently, regularly that says, “I am a follower of Jesus. I am not just trying to do what he told me to do. In this, I am doing what he told me to do. ”

1 Corinthians 11:23-26 Paul writes:

23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

This is not an impossible thing. What we get to do this morning is the simple act of remembering Jesus. We do this by breaking bread and sharing the cup. As I surveyed the many instructions we have from Jesus, this may actually be the only one that is easy.

Of course, eerily reflective of the way Christians have engaged in impossible contortions to make Jesus instructions easier, in the case of communion Christians have tried to make remembering Jesus more difficult. We have tried to make it into yet another impossible thing. We have bickered over the precise meaning of these words, spoken in Aramaic, a language, I am told, that is rich in metaphor and allusion and which does not easily lend itself to precision. The complexities have been, in my opinion, inflicted on this simple act by misunderstandings, by abuses, by political intrusions and, most frequently, by the well intentioned obsessive-compulsive bickering of theologians. But Jesus instruction in this instance is not impossible, it is not even complicated. Jesus says “remember me.” “Remember that I was flesh and blood among you.” He asked us to remember him at His table and all are welcome.

I understand that you will be dedicating a month to exploring the meaning of these symbols this fall. I do not mean to intrude into this discussion – when I told Amy I would love to have an invitation to preach again, I did not know you would be focusing on this in the future, nor did I know when I might be invited to preach. But I did want to have this opportunity because I wanted to share with you how meaningful this simple act of remembering Jesus has become for me.

For me, the table of the Lord, the communion table, has become the place where I go to express my desire to understand the impossible things and my intention to try to live up to the bar that will always be higher than I can achieve. It is my statement that I wish to receive the Grace of God despite the fact that I have failed in so many ways and my acceptance of this grace, even though it is undeserved. It is a table of peace, a table of forgiveness, a table where love is found, a table where I can experience the presence of Jesus in a visceral personal and concrete way: Christ's blood shed for me; Christs body, broken for me. In the symbology of the Christian story, this is it's center. When I remember Jesus I remember that I fail to do what is right. I remember that God loves me anyway. I remember that Jesus made an incredible sacrifice to show me this truth. I remember his sacrifice and love him for it. And then I try, again, to do what is right.

I am certain that while there are followers of Jesus coming to gather together here we will share the bread and share the cup and we will remember Jesus. And if we are dispersed to other places we will still remember Jesus and all of the unforgettably impossible things that we try to believe and try to do both before and after breakfast. Especially what is perhaps the most difficult: to love one another.

I Have Power

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 18:37:11 GMT

Yesterday on my way to take my ten year old son to camp, I was telling him my plans for the day. I was driving to Harrisburg from Philadelphia with a van full of Mennonites (white and non-white, citizens and undocumented) to oppose the attempts of some State Representatives to make it a crime to be undocumented.

My son’s response was surprising, and a little funny—“Mom, who invented power? And I’m not talking about electricity here!” I’ll admit that I was proud of his question and his outrage. I’m glad that he can recognize that power is being abused, and used to perpetrate violence and hate.

I reminded my son, who is prone to violent flashes of anger, that power is neither good or evil, what’s more important is the way you use the power you have. Case in point, a ten year old raging about needing to practice his cello certainly wields a lot of power in our house. So can his loving response to his little sister who just needs some big brother hugs.

I’m not the kind of person that meets with my state representative or writes letters to politicians. It’s not my style—I’m not articulate under pressure. I do better with some time to craft a statement, or in one on one conversation. But yesterday, I went to the Pennsylvania State Capital to support the Dream Act, and to oppose the attempts of legislators to make it more difficult for my undocumented friends to live in country we all love. I sat in hearings where we heard testimony from law enforcement, and from tea party activists, who called my friends “aliens”, “illegals”, and “those people”. They said that my friends didn’t care about this country, but only wanted to drain our welfare and social security system. They said my friends were murdering, raping, and stealing from citizens. The testimony was so distorted, so shockingly racist—I couldn’t make it up if I tried.

During the hearing, I sat next to an especially smug Tea Party representative from the Tea Party Immigration Coalition. After his disgusting portrayal of undocumented people in his testimony, he returned to his seat next to me. It took all I had to maintain my respectful composure as I sat next to him, especially when a woman who grew up in North Philadelphia testified about her experience as an undocumented person. As she shared her story, he huffed and puffed, he groaned and mumbled under his breath. It was worse than sitting next to a bored teenager in church. I took it on as my cause to love the hell right out of him, and to remember that even angry, racist, fearful people needed Jesus.

In Exodus 3, Moses saw the burning bush, and turned off the path to get a closer look. When he heard God calling him from the bush, he responded with three of the bravest words you could say to God—“Here I am.” While Moses had his issues—stuttering for one—he certainly was in a unique position to speak to Pharoah. As a former member of Pharoah’s royal court and as a Hebrew, he was poised to be able to speak to the Egyptians in their own language, and from their own shared experiences.

I had one of those “Here I am” moments yesterday. Sitting between a tea party activist and an undocumented activist, I realized that I can contribute to this conversation. I have the power—as a privileged, white ally, to speak. I don’t like using my power—I certainly don’t feel especially articulate (Moses and I have that in common!)—but in the face of the Holy One, the God of my ancestors (who themselves were immigrants), how can I not speak out about injustice? How can I not cry out to the Pharoahs of this world on behalf of my undocumented brothers and sisters?

I don’t know who invented power, but I know I have some. And I know I have to do something good with it. I may have to start going to the state house more often, I might need to start writing more letters—I don’t like doing those thing, but I have power, and my voice has an impact on these conversations. I have power—it’s time I start doing something good with it.

Here I Am

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 18:22:28 GMT

August 28, 2011

Exodus 3: 1-6
There was not worship on August 28, due to Hurricane Irene, but this is the sermon for that day. After the text, there's also a link to You Tube, where you can view the sermon (delivered from my home during the height of the storm) via youtube.

I’ll ask you to indulge me in a bit of hypocrisy this morning.

Part of what I do in my role as pastor is to encourage others to look for God, listen for God speaking, but I struggle to take my own advice. I run around, my mind abuzz, I schedule, organize, prepare, and tend. I move at the speed of sound.

I find that all that moving around helps me to ignore the voice inside that tells me to slow down. To stop. To listen. Perhaps the moving around that I do will hush the still small voice. Perhaps the constant activity is an attempt to lessen it.

So, for you who are—like me—afflicted with business, with too much to do, and too much on your list…this is for you. But, of course, this sermon is most especially for me.

We meet Moses today he’s already experienced a lifetime worth of excitement. Moses, born to a Hebrew slave family, was adopted by the Pharoah’s daughter, but nursed by his mother. He knew he was a Hebrew, born of slave parents, but he had an Egyptian name, and was treated as a member of the royal family. But when he tried to help his Hebrew people, he accidently killed an Egyptian man, and Moses fled .

He fled 200 miles south, across the Sinai peninsula to Midian. There he met a Midian woman, who mistook him for an Egyptian. He married this woman, and they had a child together. And Moses began a new life with a new family. He helped his father in law, Jethro, with the family business—Moses went from being a member of the royal court to being a sheep herder, and the son in law of a local priest.

It’s hard to know how long Moses was in Midian, but I’d imagine that it was long enough for those difficult memories of Egypt to fade some, memories of confused identity, of an accidental murder, memories of an enslaved people.

While Moses was herding the sheep for his father in law, he came across an angel who appeared to him in the form of a burning bush. Seeing a bush on fire in the desert was probably not that big of a deal—it’s hot and dry. Things catch on fire. But what was shocking about this bush burning was that it didn’t consume. The bush was on fire, but the leaves weren’t burning up, the twigs were not combusting. This was something worth stopping for—this was something worth Moses turning off the path—turning aside—and getting a better look.

It’s then, when God saw that God had Moses’ attention that God called out to Moses. God called Moses by his name, and Moses responded, “Here I am.” Now, based on my experience with the text, I think that the words of Moses—Here I am—are three of the bravest words anyone in the scripture can say. “Here I am” are the words spoken by Samuel when he heard God calling him in the night. “Here I am” are the words spoken by Mary when the angel spoke to her. (check that) When you say “Here I am” to God, you are declaring that you are fully present, you are opening yourself up to be used by God. And, as we know from scripture, that can be dangerous stuff.

And then God identifies God’s self. And in this identifying—it is so complete, so undeniable. God says, “I am God”. And since God—YHVH means “I am who I am”, it is as if God says to Moses. “You know who I am.” It’s not a statement that you can ask for clarification.

Notice here that God also identifies God’s self as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Moses knew the stories of his ancestors from his mother. This was no simple burning bush. This was the bush that was burned but not consumed by the God of his people. He could not run from the God of his ancestor, those who were enslaved by Egyptians.

This is how God called Moses. With an angel disguised as a burning bush. With a flash of nature that took Moses out of his everyday shepherding routine.

The really nice—and really terrifying--thing about being part of the Anabaptist tradition, is that we believe that God calls all of us to follow. Which means that all of us can face our own burning bush. Of course the only ones in this community that have faced an actual burning bush are the children in Jay Gemberling Johson’s Sunday school class. A few years ago, Jay demonstrated what the burning bush might look like by setting some brush on fire in a trash can. In the Sunday school room.

But besides those children we all face our burning bushes. Those things that cause us to turn aside, turn our eyes from the path we thought we knew, to the path God has in mind.

There are always a few things that have a way of getting to me—of causing me to turn aside and notice. One is in Wissahickon park, specifically the path from kitchen’s lane to valley green. For those of you who have walked in the park in this area, you’ll know that there are actually two ways to get from Kitchen’s lane to Valley Green. One is on Forbidden Drive, that wide path where people can walk, run, bike or even go horseback riding. It’s a beautiful two mile stretch. I like to take that path with the kids—it’s level, and wide with plenty of room for darting and dancing around, as those two are prone to do.

But there is another way to get from Kitchen’s Lane to Valley Green. Just before you cross the bridge at Kitchen’s lane, if you make a right, you’ll take a foot path that follows the water. On this path, you often have to climb over or under trees that have fallen in the path, or jump puddles, or avoid a rogue stream that is winding its way through to the river.

It’s one of those places where you have no idea what time it is, how long you’ve been there, and—honestly—those questions don’t even matter. You can’t hear horns, or voices, or any unnatural sounds. You only hear nature—birds, secada, trees rustling, the water moving down the river. It’s almost unnerving. Nature burns with sound but is not consumed.

It’s a good 45 minute hike from Kitchen’s lane to Valley Green, but it’s not the direct route. You have to choose to turn aside, to look at the park that is alive with sound and sight. Beautiful as forbidden drive may be, it doesn’t compare to that treacherous hike on the other side of the river.

On this narrow path—there also happens to be a site of great importance to this congregation and to our tradition. It is the site of the first Anabaptist baptism in the hemisphere—there on that narrow, muddy, tree strewn path, if you keep your eyes low and facing the river, you can turn aside and see a bit of our tradition, and our story.

But the thing about this path is that I have to choose it. I have to choose this beautifully treacherous route from Kitchen’s lane to Valley Green. I have to choose to turn aside.

There are two things that happen in this story of Moses and God—first Moses sees the bush burning, and then Moses chooses to get off his path and pay attention to it .

It’s no wonder those of us who are inclined to busy ourselves don’t want to slow down. If we stop, notice things around us, God might call our name. If we slow down, perhaps God will think we aren’t doing anything important, and put us to work. If we stop and notice the world around us, then perhaps we will experience the profound—a relationship with the holy one, the God of our ancestors.

It’s one thing to notice that burning bush, but it’s another thing altogether to turn aside, to really pay attention to God’s work. Because when you do that, you lose all control. God takes over. God calls your name, identifies God’s self to us. And, brothers and sisters, when that happens, it’s all over.

I do get a chuckle from the people of God that get on the news declaring that the latest earthquake is a sign from God that we’ve done something wrong. The hurricane that devastated New Orleans was a warning about sexual immorality. Apparently the earthquake also brought similar warnings to the eastern seaboard. God must only want to say something to us about our sexual sins using the power of the earth, water and wind.

But it has me thinking this week about the power of nature to—sometimes literally—shake us up, wake us up, cause us to turn aside. Just look at what happened this week. This earthquake this week, mercifully had limited damage. But it shook us out of our regular ways of thinking. In fact, at least two people from this congregation emailed me and said, something about that earthquake shook me up, and made me wonder about some things. They weren’t existential questions per se, but it shook something loose in people.

The hurricane—happening right now, right outside my window—forces us out of our routine. It may force an internet and cable outage. We may even lose electricity. Our regular ways of interacting and being in the world are forced to change. We must turn aside and notice this storm.

My life is guided by my calendar, my to do list, and my smart phone. These things lay out for me the course of my day and my week. But my smart phone doesn’t work very well in a hurricane. My to do list is meaningless when I can’t accomplish those things because of weather. I have to turn aside from what I’m doing. I have to look up from my screen, my list, and notice what’s happening around me. God is happening all around me.

The question is—what do I do with this burning bush in front of me? Do I simply notice it? Do I get off of my path—do I turn aside—and shift my focus towards this thing that is happening? Do I allow that thing that is burning this bush, but not consuming it—do I allow it to burn in me too?

That was a choice Moses had to make—Moses noticed it, but he had to respond to it. He had to say, “Here I am.”

Are you—am I—willing to say to God, “Here I am”? It was the bravest, riskiest thing Moses could have ever done. That bush was only the spark—Moses’ openness to God was the ignition of the flame inside of him. Moses noticed God, Moses turned aside, Moses said, “Here I am.” And he never returned to his shepherding path again—well, I guess he did. Just not as the quiet shepherd he hoped he’d be.

I hope this sermon was more than an exercise in hypocracy. I hope—that I have and you have—the courage to stop, to turn aside, and to allow God to burn inside us.

May God set you on fire today. AMEN.

Click here for to view the sermon on youtube.



Lorelei Shingledecker's Sermon from Hiroshima Sunday, 8/7/11

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 18:38:31 GMT
The bombing of Tokyo and other cities in Japan during World War II
caused widespread destruction and hundreds of thousands of deaths,
nearly all civilians, predominantly women and children. For example,
Toyama, an urban area of 128,000, was nearly fully destroyed, and
incendiary attacks on Tokyo are believed to have claimed 90,000 lives…
On August 6, 1945, the Atomic Bomb "Little Boy" was dropped on
Hiroshima by an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, directly killing
an estimated 80,000 people. By the end of the year, injury and
radiation brought total casualties to 90,000–140,000. Approximately
69% of the city's buildings were completely destroyed, and about 7%
severely damaged. (from wikipedia.org)

We come together today to honor the lives of those who have been
affected by violence. The first reading today echoes the many prayers
for strength from God that those have spoken in times of need, in
situations of danger, emergency, and collapse. It is in God’s love
where we draw the strength to endure.

From the short time I’ve served on the Peace and Social Concerns
committee, I’ve learned that the symbolism of Hiroshima Sunday has
pointed to the destruction brought onto communities by the military
and government leaders. Unfortunately, Hiroshima is not the first or
last example of this. Besides the horror experienced during Nazi
Germany, the war in Afghanistan, or what is currently happening to our
brothers and sisters in places like Somalia or Syria, there have been
countless instances of unreported or underreported violence that have
ruined the lives of many and unraveled entire communities and
countries.

Specific to our congregation, I’d like to take this opportunity so we
can reflect on how we as individuals relate to what is not only
happening globally, but also what occurs in our own backyards, in our
own homes, in our relationships, in the interactions we have with
others, in the city we have planted our roots in. Some will disagree
with me when I say this, but it is simply not enough to claim oneself
as non-violent, or pacifist, however you wish to identify, without
exploring the complexities of how violence plays out in various
scenarios. A lot of this exploration requires the grace to listen to
many perspectives of those affected by violence, some of which we may
or may not agree with.

This is an ongoing topic that is much larger than the 7 minutes I have
allocated to address the church today, but for now, I invite all of us
to start thinking about what it means to be peaceful in a different
way.

My stepsister who is now in her late-twenties decided after graduating
high school that she and her boyfriend were enlisting in the military.
I was in college in Manhattan at the time, and the privileged
theorist/immature 21 year old in me was initially appalled. My liberal
stepdad was going to let my 18 year old little sister and her
boyfriend learn how to shoot guns and go to war-torn places like Iraq
and Bosnia. My rationale at the time – if she wants to travel, why not
let her backpack in Europe for a year, or build sustainable housing in
the Philippines? Why should she be denied the privilege of an
education and the four years in college where young adults around the
world explore and “find themselves?” My family was patient in my
legitimized rants on how the U.S. military capitalizes on minorities,
on low-income youth, on young people who haven’t yet determined a
sense of purpose, on our children who can’t figure out any other way
to get a college education besides enlisting.

It took me awhile before I realized several important revelations –
first, that my sister was not me. I wanted for her so badly the
opportunities afforded to me - the exciting life of a city like New
York for a person in their late teens, the opportunities to wax poetic
with professors over over-priced lattes, the fertile ground in which
new ideas could be planted and explored, where the world was your
oyster and anything you imagined was possible.

Secondly, I had to accept that my sister was making the best decision
for herself, that after much thought and consideration, she wanted to
dedicate her life to serving her country and contributing to an
infrastructure that would keep us safe and allow us the liberties,
like my own, of the freedom to explore.

Around the time she was enlisting, 9/11 happened and for the very
first time, this invisible shield of security that I had taken for
granted my whole life had temporarily dissipated. It was then that I
started to understand that despite my sometimes wariness of the
military, they existed to prevent such atrocities from happening. I
will be the first to admit that living in New York during 9/11, one of
the things that made me feel safe was the drone of army helicopters
above my neighborhood in the Bronx.

My sister has grown up to become a lovely, thoughtful woman whose
persistence, focus, consistency and endurance are attributes which I
myself still am trying to hone. Growing up in the Midwest, I have
witnessed firsthand how war has affected young lives –a family friend
who served in the Marines was killed in a helicopter crash. Another
friend having served in the U.S. Army has post-traumatic stress
disorder and impaired hearing from a roadside bomb in Iraq, and his
family has experienced long periods of separation from him because of
his multiple tours. My deceased grandfather, who had served for the
U.S. Army in the Philippines, was taken prisoner by Japanese soldiers,
and his experience was one that we have never been allowed to discuss
as a family.

What I am trying to convey throughout all of this is that this is not
a black-and-white issue – violence affects people on both sides of the
fence and the chances of the entire world exploring non-violent
resolutions for at least one day are very slim. So where does this
leave us? My mistake with my sister was that I was judgmental, and it
took me awhile before I actually could listen to her. But I was also
(and still am) afraid for her life, as well as the lives of those who
serve and those victimized by acts of war. With this, I have nothing
but the utmost respect for her because, similar to those who serve in
law enforcement or certain missionary work, she is engaging in
high-risk situations that not all of us want to do.

It is an overwhelming thought to know that the ways in which we
participate in a culture of violence are ways that we are either not
conscious of, or choose to look the other way. By using the term
“violence,” I don’t only mean what we see on the news when a country
is bombed, or what we read about in the papers when a shooting takes
place in Kensington, where I live. The violence I speak of is a
broader umbrella term that includes the ways in which we are
destroying our environment, or making consumer decisions that involve
inhumane labor on the production end, or the decision to not
acknowledge what is happening in distressed neighborhoods that are
part of our larger Philadelphia community. I’m the first to say that I
am guilty of this, despite my struggle to evaluate every single choice
I make.

The second scripture reading is a sound summation of the undying
compassion we must have as Christians towards those who have inflicted
pain. This scripture is a complicated one, in that we ask ourselves
what we would do (or what have we done) in situations where we or our
loved ones have been victimized. I think the challenge and beauty of
identifying as Christians is holding true to the belief that we are
all indeed children of God. And one of the things I have to always
remind myself when learning of a violent situation taking place,
whether it is in my community or within this world, is that it is just
as important to pray for the oppressor as it is to pray for the
oppressed.

On the cover of your bulletin, you’ll find an image of an oleander
flower, which was the first flower to grow in Hiroshima after the
bombing. In the many acts of destruction we read about and witness on
a daily basis, there is always the opportunity to rebuild and grow
again, just like these gorgeous flowers. As a part of this, what I ask
all of us to consider doing today, as part of your religious and
personal identity, is to rethink the language we use when describing
ourselves as a community of peace. It is not enough to lay a verbal
and spiritual claim of non-violence or pacifism; a significant
component of achieving this and bringing these words to life is by
creating a safe, non-judgmental environment where these complex issues
can be explored thoroughly and with love. I invite you to continue
these conversations and acts of peace in whatever ways you can.

New Name, New Blessing

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 17:11:48 GMT

Genesis 32:22-31, Matthew 14:13-21

July 31, 2011

When our kids were born, we labored a long time with their names. Every name—first middle and last—was important and had significance. We connected our children’s names to important people in our lives, people we wanted our children to be like. We connected our children’s names to historic events, as a way to remember things that happened in our family, and as a way to share those moments with our children’s children.

Charlie and I put a lot of thought into our children’s names, as did your parents when they named you. But the way that naming happened in the Hebrew scriptures weren’t just the beauty of a name, or who possessed the name in the past. It was a descriptor, an indicator of a person’s character. For example—the name for God—YHVH—means in Hebrew “I am”. That is a name not to be trifled with.

Jacob ‘s name had significance—Yaccov in Hebrew means “heel holder”. When he was born, his twin, Esau came out just before Jacob, entitling Esau to all the benefits and responsibility of the first born child. But, Jacob was born right behind Esau, and held onto Esau’s heel. Thus the name—Yaccov. Heel grabber. Jacob the heel grabber. Jacob the heel.

Esau’s name was also significant. He came out of the womb covered in hair, so he was called Esau, which means “Hairy” or “Rough”. So, Esau the hairy, rough one.

What started out as a strange birth set the stage for a strange relationship between these twins. These brothers lived into their names. Jacob was a heel—he did whatever he could to gain access to that birthright. He cheated and tricked his brother Esau into trading a meal for his birthright, the blessing that was a right belonging to his older brother by culture and custom.

And now, in today’s story, Jacob, along with his wives and children, was on his way to meet Esau and his family—these brothers hadn’t seen each other since the “birthright incident” and Jacob was anxious to meet his brother and kin. He’s anxious, but not in that “I can’t wait to meet my brother” kind of way. He’s worried that his brother was still holding this grudge, and that his brother would try to kill him. Jacob knew he’d been a heel, and he deserved the wrath of his older, rougher brother.

The night before Jacob was to meet his brother again, he sent his family across the river called the “Yabbuk”, (which means “Crossroads”), and he returned back to the empty camp. There he encountered someone. The word for this someone has been interpreted as “angel”, “God”, “human”. Truly, the literal translation of this word is “human” or “mortal”, but over the course of the encounter we come to know that it is more than just a human that Jacob has encountered at the empty camp.

And there—at the camp—Jacob engaged in an all night wrestling match with this being. And Jacob and this being are pretty equally matched. They struggled all night. And when dawn was coming, and this mortal saw that Jacob could not be defeated, he hit him in the hip, and dislocated the hip while they wrestled.

This word “hip” as we have always had it translated, may not be the most accurate word for where Jacob was actually hit. Hebrew is full of euphamisms, and double meanings. We’ve already heard that in the names given to Jacob and Esau, in the name of the river Jacob had to cross. And here’s another one.

The word used here for “hip” means in Hebrew anything below the waist. It’s often a word that is used to refer to the genitals. This word also is used to refer to a person’s power, to the core of their being. And since the seed of life is located here, in the genitals, it is very likely that this person who was wrestling with Jacob actually kicked him in the “core” of Jacob’s being. He broke something in Jacob’s core.

And still—after being overpowered by this character—Jacob would not let go. Wounded and hurting, he continued to hang on. Until finally, Jacob’s adversary said, “Let me go, for day is breaking.”

But, Jacob—for the second time in his life—seized this opportunity to ask for a blessing. He said, “I will not let you go until you bless me.”

Clearly Jacob is obsessed with this idea of blessing. Why is he always trying to get one? Why is that the prize for him? It seems so dysfunctional, doesn’t it?

But, perhaps, he seeks a blessing from this godly stranger, because he has known all along that the blessing he took from Esau was never his. He could not possess something that was not for him. This certainly fits with the anxiety and fear he’s displaying about his upcoming visit with his brother. He knows that blessing, that birthright taken from Esau in a moment of extreme weakness for Esau, was tainted. He had been a heel to take it, and had lived fully into his name.

But God gave him a new name. A new blessing. A new reputation to live into. He was given the name “Israel”, which means “Wrestles with God” and “God wrestles.” Another name with multiple meanings. And another name for this new man to live into—this man that was transformed by his encounter with the Holy one. And from his seed—seed that has just encountered divine righteousness in that overnight wrestling match—the people of Israel descend.

          The other story we encounter today is of Jesus feeding the 5,000. This is a much beloved story, but what makes it so juicy is to know what is happening before this. Just before Jesus fed the 5,000 with five loaves and two fishes, he heard that his cousin and friend, John the Baptizer, had been beheaded by Herod, and his head delivered like a trophy to Herod’s daughter.

This was terribly devastating news to Jesus, who went off immediately to be alone. John the Baptist was dead. The one who baptized Jesus, who recognized the work of God in him, who recognized Jesus’ mission in the world. If John the Baptist was dead, what did that mean for Jesus, whose name means “God is with us”. How does Jesus live into this name, and into this role to which he has been called?

          And, while Jesus was trying to be alone, to understand what had just taken place to his dear friend, his was pressed by the crowd in Nazareth to heal their sick. And with the weight of John’s death still heavy on him, Jesus, he took bread and fish, he divided it and blessed it, and something incredible happened. It sustained all of those people that were there.



          This act of blessing is not something that we do much. We pray for people. We cook for those who are sick or transitioning. Do things for people. But do we bless them with our word? And do we accept blessing from people?

Barbara Brown Taylor writes about blessings in her last book, titled, “An Altar in the World.” She says that blessings are a way for us to recognize God in the world and in each other. It’s an acknowledgement of the divine all around us, even in the midst of terrible suffering.

          She writes, “Blessings do not overlook the complexity of the pain and suffering that can accompany it. They simply decline to adjudicate it. Rightly or wrongly, they decide that given a choice between a blessing or a curse, a blessing will do more to improve air quality.”

         Several years ago, some friends of mine had some marital problems. Things happened and were said in their home—they made a mark on the space. You could feel the pain when you walked into the house. And so, we decided we were going to do something about it. We did not know the future of this family, but we were going to bless the house. So, we walked around the house, going to every room with candles, and we blessed it. We claimed the house for good things. We welcomed God’s presence into the house. We welcomed love back into the house. We blessed the house with good smells from the kitchen, with sounds of love in every room. We blessed the house with reconciliation.

          It felt strange to do it at first. We felt silly, and we kindof giggly about the whole things at first. But as we continued through the house we could believe that blessing thing might just work. Just like Jacob begged for his blessing, begged God to give him a new name and turn him in a new direction, we begged God to show up, to make a change in this family, to give it a new direction.

          There were no fishes or loaves the multiplied, but there was loved multiplied. And the family was able to make a turn, to move in a new direction, to accept the blessing that God longed to give them.

          And in this world—where relationships are fragile, and human love can be so fleeting—we could witness together the miracle of hope and reconciliation.

        So, let us bless each other. Let us say to each other—God bless you. May God give you a new name. May God give you new vision. May God heal you. Those are powerful, prophetic words to throw around, and we should feel free to do it. Partly because the blessing is already there—we’re just naming it, and giving it power to be seen.

  And we should feel free to do it, because we have experienced the blessings already. We have—each of us—experienced suffering, and received a blessing in the middle of it. We have demanded a blessing—even though we didn’t think we deserved it—and have seen God at work in our lives.

          And, in our blessings, we are moving from the lost to the found, the blind to the seeing, the alone to the united, those who are named by our reputation, and those who are named children of God. Our blessings—no matter how we give or receive them, remind us of God’s power to work in the world, and the loving name God has given each of us.