Germantown Mennonite Church - Pastor Amy's Blog

The world is a shiny place

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Tue, 07 May 2013 14:52:51 GMT

Revelation 21:10-22:5

The world is a shiny place. It sparkes and glimmers. Especially this time of year, when the sun reflects off the water, when the sun gives light to the spring flowers and the colors pop.

The world is a shiny place. It’s warmth compels us into the light, calls us to shake out the winter cobwebs, to feel hope, to sense the possibilities.

The world is a shiny place.

Right?

I want to believe that. I really, really do. But this week has been hard on my optimism.

This week, while listening to my son’s school orchestra rehearsal, I heard three teens from the high school talking. Two seniors were telling a freshman student , “Next year, you won’t have music or art or team sports.” I watched these high schoolers talk about this, while I listened to the middle school orchestra saw out the peppy pop tune, “I feel good”. All this while I held in my hands a long list of the names of government officials given that I need to send letters to, pleading with them, begging them to let the public school system continue at current funding. A funding that is already pathetic.

The world is a shiny place?

Meanwhile, in the federal government, the sequester has impacted millions of poor people in this country—meals on wheels, and other food funding is slashed, head start funding has been cut, many federal employees are furloughed or terminated. That has not impacted congress. But, when the airlines are delayed because of the sequester, the congress jumps into action. They said that they could not have travel being disturbed. Food and education, on the other hand…

The world doesn’t feel too shiny. It feels tarnished and beaten down.

In the book of Revelation, the spirit gives a vision to John of what will be. I probably say this a lot, but this truly is one of my favorite text in the bible. It’s the last story in the bible, and it speaks to the first story. The bible starts in the garden but ends in a city. A city with a garden in it. A city with the tree of life, where people can freely eat from that tree whenever they choose, without fear of punishment.

That image alone is healing for me. It’s a word of hope for this city dweller, who is sometimes beaten down by the difficult aspect of city life. Like poverty and inequality, lack of resources, and being in close proximity to a variety of people; people that I have to love, but don’t always like.

But there is much more to this story than just a hopeful image.

In this story from the book of Revelation, John is taken to the top of a high mountain, and there the spirit points out the holy city of Jerusalem descending from the heavens. They had to go up to the top of the mountain to see this happening. In this beautiful, shining city, there is no need for a place of worship. Because God is in the city, and the city is lit, shining because of the glory of God.

Not only is the city lit up by God and God’s shiny radiance, but those who come into the city are also shining and glorious. God and God’s people together bring good things to this shiny city.

Perhaps this is my own ridiculous take on things, but sometimes life being too good and wonderful sounds kindof dull. But, we are assured in this text that this city is not a homogeneous or boring place. God’s glorious city is made up of many nations, many peoples, and many languages. This is a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic city, and it is flourishing. The gates of the city are wide open. They are never shut in the day, and there is never night.

And from the center of the city flows the river of life. The water is clean, and runs through the streets of the city. And the fruit which is nourished by this clean water then nourishes the people of God .

This holy city of Jerusalem is not based in fear. It is not about trying to protect or hold things back. It’s about openness, flow, prosperity, enough for everyone.

This is a pretty exciting image of a city. And it’s the opposite of the city as we know it.

In our lives, we spend so much time keeping things out, protecting what is ours, closing our doors and gates, keeping water out of our basements and streets. Water flowing down the street would make news in our city—and not in a good way. Gates left open, doors lefts open—they are all signs of disaster or stupidity. We can’t have these gates and doors open. We must hold on, protect what is ours, be careful of the bad people out there.

But in this Holy city of God, the city illuminated by God’s glory, and by the glory of God’s people, unclean things don’t enter. People bring into the city their glory and honor. Good things come into the city and good thing leave.
There’s so much from this text that is appealing. The open gates, the abundance, the difference that is welcome among all people. The shining, unmistakable presence of God.

But, what is also appealing about this text is our role in it. The rulers of the earth will bring their glory to the city. All people will bring their glory and honor into the holy city of Jerusalem. God will be light for the people of the city of Jerusalem and together, God and the people will reign forever.

This co-creation, co-glory work is ours with God. It is reminiscent of the Genesis story. God created all things and everything was good. God put humans in the garden to “till it and keep it”—to care for it. And in that garden a river flowed and nourished the land, and that land nourished the people.

In the creation story, God gave the people food, and there was no shame in eating the food, until the people were not honest with God and themselves. Then there was shame. But in the new Jerusalem, there is no shame in eating any of the fruit. It’s all accessible. It’s all food that we need. All are fed. It is glorious.

This says clearly what is said in the creation story—that we are co-creators with God. But, that’s something that we often miss in the creation story, so it’s reinforced by John in the final vision given to him by God. Together, we make that new Jerusalem a shiny city. Together— by the light of God’s glory—we make that city a beautiful, wonderful and open place. We are co creators in the reign of God.

Lest you feel a little overwhelmed by this whole co-creator idea, and lest your perfectionist tendencies flare up, let me remind you of what is in the Genesis story, but is not in the revelation story: fear. Adam and Eve were afraid, but here in the city of God, no one is afraid.

Remember friends, this is Easter season, the season of resurrection. This is the season where we remember what Jesus did and how Jesus lived after the resurrection. He lived without fear, without vengeance, and he taught us about what it’s like to live with our gates open.

With the news about the school district and the sequesters these last few weeks, I have urges to lock tightly the gates of the city, or to move away from the city altogether. How are we to live in this world?

We live with arms open, we live with hope, we live as co-creators in the reign of God. We eat from the tree of life, and drink from the clean waters it gives.

We—the people of God, co-creators in this new Jerusalem—may not fully see this city, but it is coming in the clouds in all its glory.

And the world—though it feels tarnished today—will be a shiny place, free of fear, free of shame, and full of God’s radiant, glory. AMEN

Who are we to hinder God?

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Wed, 01 May 2013 15:53:21 GMT

Acts 11:1-18; Revelation 21:1-6

I work for a dying institution.

It’s true. While our numbers here are growing, in the rest of North America, the church is dying. People in this nation have been fearing this and grieving the decline in prominence of the church for some time, and statistics confirm it—the church and its influence is shrinking.

I come from a family of men who also worked for dying institutions. My father and grandfather both worked for a coal burning plant in South Jersey. It was directly across the Delaware River from DuPont’s Chemical plant—it was quite a site of pollution, and the pollution hovered over that corner of New Jersey and Delaware like a dark crown.

My father and grandfather were union guys, and fought for the right to have fair pay, good healthcare and a pension. Much of that has also gone by the wayside, but not for their lack of trying.

My other grandfather was an itinerant farmer, working small acreages at a time. He eventually had to stop this work when he could no longer support his family of ten, even with the free labor that came with a large family. The farming industry was taking over the small farms in my grandfather’s community, and he couldn’t compete.

I come from a long line of people who work for systems and institutions that are dying or nearly dead.

I’m working with two biblical texts in the sermon today—our readings from Acts and Revelation. And, they have something to say about the dying church.

In the book of Acts, we hear the story of Peter’s vision of the sheet full of “unclean” animals. This may be the first time you’ve heard this story, but it’s actually the third time Peter has told this story so far in the book of Acts. Apparently, it’s a story that bears repeating—often.

In this version of the story, the Hebrew believers from Jerusalem took issue with Peter visiting the Gentile believers and eating with them. The version from the inclusive bible, printed in your bulletin, says “So you have been visiting the Gentiles and eating with them, have you?” I actually prefer the New Revised Standard Version’s interpretation a little better—“Why do you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?”

Ever since I have been able to understand what the word, “uncircumcised” meant, I’ve wondered—how on earth could the Hebrew believers tell who was circumcised and who was not? How humiliating and derogatory to differentiate a people group based on whether or not a man was circumcised. But I think this differentiation is derogatory with intention. The Jerusalem believers were not thrilled that this new group was part of the early church. There was a sense that the unclean were coming into the church, and that was not ok with the Jewish followers of Jesus. This message was not for them, was it?

So, Peter told the story of his vision—his vision of the unclean animals coming down from heaven in a white sheet, and the voice of God saying, “Kill and eat, Peter.” And Peter finished his story by saying to the skeptical followers in Jerusalem, “Who am I to hinder God?”

Who am I to hinder God? That’s a powerful statement, made more powerful by the Hebrew meaning of the name of God, a meaning that the Jewish followers of Jesus knew well. The name of God—YHVH—means “I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be.” Or—to say it another way—I cannot be hindered. I—your God—cannot be contained.

Our second text—the one from Revelation—is, I believe, saying a similar thing to us about God. Here the writer is talking to the future church, “See—said God—I am making all things new.” God said this to a persecuted church, a martyred people, who were being killed for their faith, and for following the way of Jesus. To this dying church, God said, “See, I am making all things new.” That is a God that cannot be hindered—not by death or division.

The story in the book of Acts, and words of John in the book of Revelation are words to the church. They are words to those early followers who were wondering why this church looked so much different than what they imagined. They are words to followers of Christ who perhaps thought that Christianity would be more victorious and less dangerous and less bloody than it had become. And to these new followers, God said, “don’t hold God back.” “See, I am making all things new.”

Today, the future of the church feels rather uncertain. So, the words from the scripture are more important than ever. Who are we to hinder God? God is making all things new.

The church of the future will not look anything like we expect it to. It will not be what we hope or think it will be. It will be what it will be. God will do what God will do. Who are we to hinder God, to stand in the way of God’s plan?

But, I’m afraid that we often do stand in the way. We hinder God by worrying about who will pass on our legacy—who will keep the church going just as we have. We hinder God by fretting about who will tell the story, who will keep this alive. But who are we to hinder God? Behold, God is making all things new.

We hinder God by worrying about a person’s citizenship, much like the early Christians worried about who was or was not circumcised. We hinder God by worrying about a person’s ethnicity, sexual orientation, marital status and class. We hinder God by judging our fellow brothers and sister’s Mennonite credentials by their last name, by what Mennonite institution they may or may not have attended, and by who they may be related to. But who are we to hinder God? God is making all things new.

The church that is becoming is much like the resurrection—it’s not what we expect it will be. Like the resurrection, it is messy, frightening, and leaves us fearful. Like the resurrection, it is filled with unknowns.

But, like the resurrection, God is not hindered by us. God cannot be contained. God is making all things new. God is not contained by our rules about who should be in the church, what the church should look like, or how the church should be worshipping. God is not stopped by our rules about citizenship, ethnicity, status or class. Our rules and boundaries do not even register to God.

My father and grandfather worked for a dying industry. And—to be completely honest—I’m glad that plant eventually shut down. The problem of pollution is getting better day by day in my home state of New Jersey. The water is getting a little bit cleaner and the air is a little less toxic. Through new technology, cleaner forms of energy are being produced in my home state. Things are being made new.

My farming grandfather had to find other work when the big farms took over. But new movements are responding to the big farms—community supported agriculture, the local food movement, farmers markets—the farming industry is slowly being made new.

Like my father, and both of my grandfathers, I work for a dying institution. The fact that you are here today probably means that you are too. Perhaps it should worry me that the church is dying. Maybe I should be looking for a different line of work. That should have me trying to plug up the cracks in the structures, trying to save what’s left. But, honestly I’m not too worried about it. This institution is falling apart. It’s failing. But, God will make the church what God chooses to make it. God will make all things new.

Who are we to hinder God?

AMEN

Transformed into New Life

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 18:14:28 GMT

Acts 9:36-43, Psalm 23

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday in the Christian calendar. This is the Sunday when the church remembers that God—our great Shepherd—cares for us deeply.

One of our texts today—Psalm 23—focuses on the Good shepherd. But the Acts text does not. It focuses instead on the resurrection of Tabitha. Now Tabitha was an amazing person—she was known in both the Jewish and Greek community. We know this because of her name. Or rather her names. Her name in Aramaic is Tabitha. In Greek it’s Dorcas. Her name in both languages means “Gazelle.”

This text from Acts comes up during the Easter season, on this 4^th Sunday of Easter, and while it’s not about the resurrection of Jesus, it is about the resurrection of believers, and it tells some things about God, our Good Shepherd.

In this story from the book of Acts, as in all the stories from the Bible, details are very important. So, I’d like to look this morning at some of these details, as a way to better understand what this story means.

First of all, did you notice that Tabitha/Dorcas was referred to as a disciple? Tabitha was a follower of Jesus, devoted to what is later called diaconal ministry—she fed the poor, and made clothing for them. She was active in the work of justice for which Jesus was so vocal. She used her gifts to further the work of the church, and to embody the power of Jesus’ words.

And this female disciple was known in both the Jewish and Greek communities. She was known in this metropolitan multicultural community in both worlds, and it appears that she was much beloved in both communities.

This story is reminiscent of a story in Luke where Jesus resurrected Jairus’ daughter. Jesus went to the home of Jairus, a Roman military officer, went into Jairus’ daugher’s room where mourners were weeping and crying for this dead child. And Jesus said to the child, “Talitha Cum.” Little child, get up. And she got up and ate—proving that she was truly alive again. She was healed—brought back to life by Jesus.

Peter went to the home of Tabitha, went to her room where the mourners were crying, and showing Peter the things Tabitha made for them, showing Peter her acts of charity towards them. Peter went up to Tabitha’s body and said, “Tabitha, get up.” Which—while I’m not an expert in Aramaic, I think Peter would say in Aramaic, “Tabitha, Cum.” I find it interesting that Tabitha meaning “gazelle” and Talitha meaning “little girl” are so similar. And Luke, who wrote both the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts, is intentional with this comparison. I believe these connections and these stories are similar for a reason. In the story of Tabitha, Luke is pointing back to this encounter between Jairus’ daughter and Jesus, while telling us the story of Peter healing Tabitha.

What’s similar about this text is the method of healing—calling people to get up, to be transformed and brought into new life. What’s different is, of course, who is doing the resurrecting. Jesus resurrected Jarius’ daughter, and Peter resurrected Tabitha, after Easter, after Ascension, and after Pentecost.

Talitha Cum. Tabitha Cum.

In the similarities and differences of this text I hear the call to the church today. Jesus performed resurrections. Jesus received resurrection. Peter performed resurrection for Tabitha, and Peter received the power of the resurrection in knowing Jesus.

But, I must admit that this has been a difficult week to be thinking about resurrection, to be contemplating living into resurrection. There has been too much death and violence. The violence of the Boston Marathon, and the “manhunt” that followed. The unimaginable explosion in Texas that flattened a town. The flooding in Chicago . The failure of the most mild gun legislation in Congress—a legislation that would require background checks for people who buy and transfer guns. It’s been a rough week for our nation. It’s been a violent week. It’s been a week of destruction by people and accidents, by our leaders and by natural disasters.

And yet, we as the church are called to live the resurrection. To act as if the resurrection has happened, is happening, and will happen again. To ourselves call people up—using the words and actions of Jesus—and empower others to rise to transformed living. To be resurrection in the life of the church.

It’s hard to feel like resurrection when all around us is bad news, bad things, and sometimes even bad people.

Death is messy and at times, filled with fear and terror. But here’s the thing—so is resurrection. Good Friday was a day of terror—it was the worst of humanity in all its fear and betrayal that nailed Jesus to the cross. It was the worst of humanity that left Jesus alone to suffer, and refused to stand up for him. It was the worst of humanity that scapegoated and convicted an innocent man, to prevent dealing with the truth of his message.

And three days later was resurrection, but it had its own fear. It was a fear that had the disciples running and hiding. It was fear that had them convinced that Jesus’ resurrection was a hoax. It was fear that made the disciples need to see it to believe it.

We often describe resurrection as a new birth. But, birth is not pretty. Birth is bloody, messy, scary, painful, and sometimes quite dangerous. We come into life covered in the stuff of earth, the most unclean parts of life. That is our resurrection. We are not resurrected above the stuff of life, but to live deep into it.

Like Tabitha, we are resurrected into a messy broken, hurting world. But we spring forth into life, from deep within the worst that humans and death and sin can do to us.

Resurrection is not random acts of kindness. It is deep sustained compassion, even to those we judge to be undeserving. Resurrection is not hate and stereotyping. It is unflinching love in the midst of hateful circumstances. It is not, “I hope he gets what he deserved.” It is prayer for even the “bad guys” because we know God works with the worst of us. Resurrection is not running away from the scary stuff of life. It is always running towards, every day moving into those places of fear, knowing that God walks with us in the valley, knowing that God never avoids the valley, but moves through it with us.

Resurrection is not just by Jesus. It’s not just for Jesus. It is by God’s people, and for God’s people. It is not avoiding death or the other awful parts of life. It is walking towards it, calling out to each other—Talitha Cum, Tabitha Cum—get up. Take my hand. Let’s walk towards our fear together. There is resurrection. There is hope. There is new life.

Even though we walk through the darkest valley, we will not fear evil. For God is with us, and we are in this together, being transformed, even while we are surrounded by the gritty stuff of life. AMEN.

Redeeming Thomas

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 13:28:30 GMT

April 7, 2013

John 20:19-31

Two years ago, I attended the Mennonite national convention, held in Pittsburgh. There, the subject of homosexuality was at a fevered pitch. The convention and denominational leaders decided to hold a “conversation room” where participants would be led in respectful conversations on difficult, contentious matters to the wider church.

I went to the first conversation about sexuality, and got there late. And they were out of room in the allotted space, so many of us who were also late tried to have an ad hoc conversation in the area outside of the meeting room. It was a disaster of a conversation—which is a story for another sermon perhaps—but there was moment that really stuck out for me in the otherwise disastrous conversation.

I was in a group with an older woman who wore a covering. While we were struggling to talk about scripture and sexuality, this woman looked at me and said sincerely, “So, when I read the bible, I understand that it is true, but when you read it, you don’t believe it’s true?”

Her words took my breath away. “No,” I said, “that’s not what I believe. I believe that every word in the bible is true, but I think you and I understand that truths of the scripture differently.”

That was a moment of breaking open for both of us. I had some compassion for her misunderstanding (because I once shared her perspective on people like me), and I think she realized that I wasn’t being flip about scripture. That moment gave us opportunity to talk together at length.

It turns out that I knew this woman from a long time ago. She and my dad grew up together in the same small, conservative Mennonite community in South Jersey. I used to visit her when I’d go to the Cowtown flea market with my dad—and we’d get donuts and shoe fly pie from her Dutch bakery there. We talked about growing up in South Jersey, our families, and parenting. The conversation went far beyond where it started, amidst a difficult and strained conversation around sexuality. By the end of our long conversation, I felt that I knew her much better.

I’ve been thinking about that moment with my conservative Mennonite sister as I’ve read Thomas’ story this week. How easy it is to misunderstand someone until you’ve come face to face with them until you’ve really gotten to know them. Thomas is terribly misunderstood in the Christian tradition. He’s become the scapegoat for doubt, a victim of people that fear questions, and fear seeing and understanding the story in a different way. We’ve been trained, in some schools of interpretation, to see Thomas as the most incredulous, the most arrogantly disbelieving of all the disciples. So, let’s take some time this morning, and break it open, and get to know Thomas a little better.

There are two references to Thomas that take place before this text from John 20.

In John 11, when Jesus was on his way to heal Lazarus, the disciples were not thrilled about Jesus going there. It was an out of the way trip. They were convinced that Lazarus was only asleep and would awaken momentarily. And they knew that Jesus’ life was in danger if he went and healed Lazarus. But, Thomas said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, so that we may die with him.” Thomas seemed to know the trajectory of Jesus ministry—it would lead to death. This does not seem like the arrogant disbelieving disciple we thought we knew. This disciple knew what Jesus was about, and he was not afraid to follow him, even to his death.

In John 14, when Jesus said to the disciples, “In Abba God’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again, and I will take you to myself, so that where I am there you may be also. And you know the place I am going.”

The disciples were confused about what Jesus was saying to them. But, Thomas was the only one to ask the question. “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How will we know the way?” Thomas’ question was honest and direct. He didn’t pretend to know what Jesus was talking about. He asked a good questions—a question that I would have wanted to have the answer to, but may have been too afraid to ask.

And Jesus responded to the question by saying, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” That answer didn’t make things any less murky, but at least Thomas and the disciples were clear that they were following Jesus.

The last time we run into Thomas is there in that Upper Room. The doors were all locked, because the disciples were afraid. They feared to go outside, that they like Jesus might be killed. But Thomas–who we can assume was not afraid because he was not in the room—Thomas did not see Jesus the first time he appeared to the disciples there. And because he was out—presumably getting supplies, or scoping out the post crucifixion environment—he missed Jesus the first time he revealed himself to the fear-filled disciples. Jesus breathed his holy calm on the disciples. No revenge, no questions, no anger from Jesus. Just “peace be with you.”

But Thomas, the one who was out of the room, already being fearless, came back to learn that he had missed Jesus. He did not get to see Jesus in resurrected form.

And Thomas didn’t believe it. Perhaps he thought that the disciples had seen a ghost. He didn’t want to see the ghost of Jesus past. He wanted to see the fleshy Jesus, the impure broken body of his crucified Rabbi. He needed to see the medieval gash on Jesus’ side, and the scabbing, oozing holes in his hands and feet. The ghost of crucified Jesus wasn’t going to fill the void. He missed his living friend, his teacher.

Jesus returned to his disciples later that week, and marked by the empire, breathed PAX on them. When Thomas saw Jesus, he didn’t have to put his hands in the wounds to know that it was Jesus, in the flesh. He saw the wounds. He saw the gash. He knew Jesus was no ghost, but was the real, alive fleshy, transformed Jesus.

And Thomas, seeing the flesh of Jesus, the real-ness of Jesus, transformed by the cross, but still alive, declared that which the Gospel writer declared in John 1: In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. And the word became flesh.”

Thomas said, “My Lord and my God.”

And then, it seems as if the gospel writer turns to you, the listener, and says this: Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you might come to believe that Jesus is the Son of God….

A little word about the Greek. When it says “so that you may come to believe” it also can mean “so that you may continue to believe.” Which says something about Thomas, doesn’t it? Thomas already believed, but his encounter with the fleshy risen Christ gave him hope to continue to believe.

This is not a text about Doubting Thomas. This is not a text about a disciple that couldn’t understand what was happening. This is a text about fearless Thomas, faithful Thomas, wondering and questioning Thomas. This is a story about a follower of Jesus that engaged him in a way that no other disciple did—he asked direct questions, he understood the consequences of Jesus ministry, and he had faith enough to leave the upper room when the others were too afraid.

But until we get to know Thomas, we accept this notion that he’s a doubter, and that doubting is bad. Until we look at the scope of the story, we think that Jesus is admonishing Thomas. But, stick with Thomas, get to know him, and you see that he is Jesus’ faithful follower. Read the story all the way through and see the great compassion and openness that Jesus had to Thomas’ questions.

We often meet people like a snapshot. Our opinions of them are based on our brief encounters. Sometimes we can develop unrealistically positive or negative views of someone based on one brief moment with a them.

But what we see is not often what is real or true. It’s not the whole picture, the fullness of a person’s personality, until we spend time with them.

The time spent with my conservative Mennonite sister, opened my eyes and hers. In the same way, time spent in the story—with Jesus, the disciples and Thomas—fills in the story of these characters and gives us a better understanding of everyone in that upper room that day. Jesus was no ghost, but a real in-the-flesh transformed by crucifixion Jesus. Thomas was less of a doubter, and more of a believer than he is given credit for.

I pray that this Easter season—this celebration of resurrection—is a time for us to see the faithfulness of Thomas, the resurrection of Jesus, and the hope and new life in each of us. May we be surprised and delighted by what we find. AMEN.

The Resurrected Jesus

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 15:56:13 GMT

Luke 24:1-12

We Mennonites like to talk about Jesus. We like the guy. He’s cool. We respect his work. We respect his words. We think about how he lived 2,000 years ago, and wonder how he would live now based on his timeless wisdom.

For Mennonites, Jesus’ life is at the center of the story. It’s the lens through which we operate. We follow in the way of Jesus, who lived fully to be who and what God called him to be.

But when we talk about Jesus, I think we talk about the man as he was before the resurrection. We talk about Jesus’ words and life, and they are important to our faith. But, the reason he matters, the reason we have four or more gospels written about him, is that he resurrected. Jesus was not just another radical prophet and teacher who was killed off by the Roman Empire. Jesus was a radical prophet and teacher, killed off by the empire, but resurrected—transformed—by God.

It’s not enough that Jesus was a good guy and did the right thing. It’s not enough that Jesus challenged the empire, and worked towards justice. This resurrection is what makes Jesus unique. This is why Jesus’ legacy lives on and all the other prophets of his time—many preaching messages like Jesus—have fallen by the wayside, relegated to a line or a comment on a piece of papyrus and left on some scroll in a cave.

If this resurrection is what makes Jesus so special, so incredible, so worthy of following, why is it that we give it so little attention to the resurrection in this tradition? Why do we not make this the central thing we talk about in church, in our prayers, in our spiritual communities?

Indulge me in a little thought experiment here:

Imagine that you are ganged up on by people that really hate your guts. And imagine that they accuse you of all sorts of terrible things that are simply not true. They have misunderstood what you are all about and twisted your words. They mock you, and say the most horrible things about you.

Now imagine that these people are beating you and all those that love you have slunk away into the darkness, too afraid to defend you or protect you. They can’t or won’t help you in this terrible, lonely time. These enemies beat the life right out of you, and leave you—dead.

Now imagine that after three days of death, you are alive again. We don’t know how, but it’s true—you are alive. Having already died, you can hardly die again. You have become invincible. What do you do—invincible one--to the people that have mistreated you? How do you approach the friends that have betrayed you?

I don’t know about you, but if this happened to me, I might come back to life angry. I might be out for revenge. I might want retribution. I might have urges to approach my friends, Quinten Tarantino style. How dare they abandon me, leave me alone to be killed by my enemies? Were they not willing to defend me, even if it meant the possibility of their own death?

But this is not what Jesus did. After the resurrection—a miraculous event indeed—another miracle took place. Jesus kept doing what he was doing before he was killed. He continued to preach a message of love and hope. He continued to do what God called him to—except he was transformed. The invincible one did not need to retaliate. He continued living God’s call on his life in resurrected form!

There was no retribution. No payback. No eye for an eye. Because death did not matter to God. It was no obstacle. It did not frighten God. Death did not get in the way of God’s justice being done, God’s message of love and forgiveness being spread. And what power—what incredible power—to have that gospel of love and forgiveness spread by Jesus, who was transformed bodily by death, but who was consistent, both in life and death.

In our gospel reading today, the women (who never betrayed Jesus, by the way) came to the tomb to take care of Jesus’ body. The Sabbath was over, and they made their way to the tomb as quickly as they could—at sunrise the day after Sabbath. They were astonished to find that Jesus was not there. It was the two men that appeared—dazzling, shining, transformed—that reminded the women of Jesus’ earlier words. Jesus himself said that he would be handed over to sinners, be crucified, and rise again on the 3^rd day.

And then the women’s eyes were opened. They understood. They were transformed in understanding what had happened to Jesus. And being the good disciples they were—these women went and shared the story with the others.

And the other disciples thought it was an idle tale. They thought those women were smoking something, or playing a trick on the anxious disciples. But Peter, the one that denied Jesus just a few days before, needed to see it for himself. He needed to confirm it. He ran to the tomb, and was amazed.

I do wonder if Peter’s amazement was mixed with a bit of fear—a little concern about his first encounter with the risen Jesus. I wonder if he felt that he would need to explain himself, to defend his complicity, his denial, his escape when Jesus needed him most.

We don’t hear what happened in this story, but I will give you a sneak peak to later in the chapter. Jesus—when he encountered all the disciples—said, “Peace be with you.” Jesus breathed calm onto the frightened disciples. He did not seek revenge. He did not threaten. He gave the same message of peace, forgiveness and love that he had given in pre-resurrected life.

But the message had more power—more oomph—when Jesus told it after suffering the way he did. The message had more power because in his resurrection Jesus continued to love people, show people the way, and bring hope. Jesus didn’t change the message.

But Jesus was transformed by the suffering. He was transformed, but not in the way you think he would be. He was not transformed to hate, but to love more deeply. He was not transformed to seek revenge, but to forgive fully. He was not transformed to show those that killed him that he won, but to continue to be God’s messenger of hope and peace.

On Friday afternoon, I stood with several hundred people at the Heeding God’s Call Good Friday Vigil. It may be the only Interfaith Good Friday service—ever. Cherlynn and Joe Seay shared the story of losing their son to violence. Joe said, “I watch my son get shot, right in front of me. It changes you. It does something to you. I wanted to retaliate, but I knew I couldn’t. So I join my voice with yours.”

This father—who was opposed to violence, who taught his son peace, and who had to watch his son die in front of him (sound familiar?)—was changed by the violence and suffering of his child. He was changed, not to live into the predictable “eye for an eye” motif, but he was transformed to live more fully into the message of peace for which he already lived. That which he already believed was more fully rooted in him and he now lives this ethic of peace and non-violence as a man transformed.

Jesus’ resurrection does not mean that death never happens, that suffering is over. But it does mean that God is not stopped by it. God’s work is not over because we die. Quite the opposite—Jesus’ resurrection means that we have nothing to fear. Suffering, tragedy and death did not stop Jesus. And it doesn’t stop us.

I invite you today and throughout this Easter season, not to simply follow the Jesus that lived two thousand years ago, but more importantly, in the way of the risen Christ, who showed us that God is not afraid of death, that death is not toxic, that God is not frightened of our violence, of our cruelty, or of our stupidity.

We follow Christ, who is beyond death. Let us live into the promise of our transformation, into the hope of new life, of resurrection. Let us follow the risen Christ, without fear of death, knowing that God has—through the resurrection—shown us a better way. A way of life. A way of hope a way of love and power.
And that message can never be put to death. AMEN.

The Fertilizer or the Ax

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 01:55:24 GMT

Luke 13: 1-9; Exodus 3: 1-15

March 10, 2013

In the yard around the house where I grew up, there weren’t that many bushes or trees. Mostly because my dad was in charge of the yard, he could not be bothered with the mowing around trees, or pruning bushes. In fact, I only remember 3 extraneous trees or bushes on our family’s acre property—we had a boxwood bush in front of the house, a forsythia bush in the side yard by the driveway, and a beautiful blossoming lily of the valley tree in the side yard. The lily of the valley tree was beautiful-- its blooms were purple, and trumpet shaped, and it smelled lovely in the spring. It wasn’t a shady tree—it was purely ornamental. And my mom loved it.

My dad was fine with the boxwood bush—it was easy, and it covered up the uneven front porch, but he had it out for the forsythia bush and the lily of the valley tree. One spring—when mom wasn’t home--my dad had enough of the forsythia—it was too close to the driveway, and he was probably worried that it would scratch his truck—so he ripped it out. He often threatened to cut down the ornamental tree—he just hated mowing around it—but mom would somehow sense it and stop him.

One year, dad thought the tree was looking funny. It wasn’t blooming like it should. He thought the tree was dying. So, he took out the ax and unceremoniously chopped the tree down.

If I recall correctly, my mom wasn’t home, and my brother and I watched this disaster unfold, knowing that my mom would freak out when she saw what happened. Dad chopped down this lovely, dying tree, and threw it into the brush pile in the back of the property.

And then mom came home, and my brother and I got out of there as quickly as we could. Mom was—as we expected—furious and heartbroken and convinced that dad just didn’t want to mow around this tree anymore. Dad was convinced that the tree was dying and could not be brought back to life. Each of them believed that compassion was at the heart of their own motivations.

Our parable today is like many of the parables Jesus tells—very confusing. Jesus told the story of the fig tree. Now, I don’t know much about the vineyards of first century Israel, but I’ve never heard of a fig tree growing in a vineyard. Vineyards are for grapes. Nevertheless this odd ball fruit tree was in the middle of the vineyard, and it was struggling. It was not bearing fruit.

The owner wanted to cut it down. The owner saw the fig tree taking up space, using up resources that could perhaps be devoted to grapes. But the gardener pleaded with the vineyard owner for mercy for this failing tree. “Give it one more year. I’ll cultivate the ground around it, I’ll put manure on it. I’ll tend to it. Give this tree one more year to blossom.”

One more year. One more opportunity to bear fruit. One more year for the crap—the fertilizer, placed around the tree by the gardener—to change this tree and to bring it back to life.

This is a story that can address questions of how God works in our lives—from a META perspective. This story—particularly when we look at the first half of our text from Luke—can cause us to ask questions about why bad things happen to good people, and the role of God in suffering. Those are important intellectual and theological questions.

But what compels me today—in light of our Lenten theme of “outlandish longing”—is the care of the gardener for this lone fig tree in the vineyard. “Give it one more year”, the gardener says. “Give me time to tend to it, to dig around the tree, and cover its roots with fertilizer,” the gardener pleads. “Give it more time.”

One of the benefits of the Mennonite tradition is its focus on community. Our language of salvation is not so much about inviting Jesus into our hearts, as we may hear in other traditions. Our language is about making a choice to follow Jesus. Our journey is a communal one. We are not alone when we follow Jesus. We join our story with the stories of those who have gone before us. We talk about discipleship in this tradition.

One of the things we lose when we talk about this communal discipleship, this communal journey, is the possibility that God works on individuals, that God nurtures and tends each of us.

But it is true. God works with each one of us. Tending and pruning. Digging around the roots, adding nutrients to our soil, to our soul.

When we lose ourselves in the communal identity we can lose the possibility of a personal, devotional, spiritual tending that takes place when God is at work in us.

God did a lot of pruning and fertilizing of Moses, who before he became the leader of the people of Israel, seemed like a lost cause. It seemed like perhaps he needed the ax. Moses, a child of Israelite parents, yet raised as a member of the Egyptian royal family. Moses, who killed an Egyptian man in a fit of anger, then fled to the desert to hide. Moses, who was nervous and anxious, prone to stuttering, was stopped in his tracks by God who revealed God’s self to Moses in the form of a burning and talking bush.

It was just Moses and God on the mountain of Horeb that day. And after years of Moses’ soul being tended in the wilderness, God showed God’s self to Moses, called Moses from the wilderness, told him he was needed, back at the place that he had run from.

And Moses, having been tended and healed in the wilderness, went back to Egypt. He didn’t go back confidently, he was afraid, and needed the help of his brother Aaron, but he went back.

Moses had been transplanted into the desert vineyard. There he found people that nurtured and cared for him, and he found a new role in this desert life. There he tended to sheep while God tended to his spirit, preparing him to bear fruit.

These stories—the parable of the fig tree, and the story of Moses—speak about the ways that God can work with us. Moses—who seemed like the kind of screw up that could only be worthy of the solitary work of mountain herding—was called by God to lead the people of Israel. He was nurtured and cared for in the unlikely vineyard of the mountains of Horeb, and there he was prepared for the work of leading the people of God out of slavery.

I wonder where you feel God is at work in you. Where is God tending and nurturing you, giving extra space to grow? I would invite you to meditate on a few questions today about your personal, individual relationship with God. And, I’ll give you some time here, in the silence to think about them.

What parts of your life are being nurtured and fertilized by God?

Where is God saying, “Give this more time to bear fruit?”

Is there something that may need the ax?

For many years, I was angry with my dad for chopping down my mom’s favorite tree. Truth be told, it was my favorite tree too. I had my own bias as I watched that event unfold that day. But, having had to let go of a few dying plants in my garden over the years, I’ve come to see that sometimes that act of chopping down is as much an act of compassion as the tending and fertilizing. There are years when the ax is needed. There are years when time and fertilizer are needed. There are years that we bear fruit. There are years that we barely bloom.

Parables are tricky and confusing things. But they do invite us to finish the story, to enter into them, and see ourselves in them.

Today, as we examine our outlandish longings, let us open ourselves to be nurtured and tended by God, to allow God to show us those places that need pruning or cutting, that need time. God, the great gardener, is kind and compassionate, whether God wields fertilizer or an ax. AMEN.

A Word of Comfort

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 22:00:48 GMT

Luke 13:31-35

Preached at Hyattsville Mennonite Church, Hyattsville, MD

February 24, 2013

Yesterday I officiated a funeral. A funeral for my cousin’s son, JT, who just celebrated his 2nd birthday a few weeks ago.

My cousin, John’s, house caught fire ten days ago—they still don’t know the reason for it—and John was only able to get his wife and infant son out of the house. He couldn't reach JT in time.

Of all the kinds of funerals you may have to attend in your lifetime, this is among the worst. This is a parent’s worst nightmare—losing a child to a horrific death.

This has been the backdrop for my reading of this Lukan text this week. I can’t get to “Jerusalem, Jerusalem how I long to gather your children together like a hen gathers her brood under her wings….” I can’t get to those words, without thinking about John, Amber and the child that they lost.

But, I don’t think this is the point of the text from Luke. I doubt this image of God as a mother hen is not ultimately the point Jesus is trying to get at when he speaks to the Pharisees. I doubt that Jesus is simply trying to give us a feminine image of God to hold on to in 21^st century times. I don’t think Jesus is trying to make some sort of radical theological statement about the nature of God. Jesus seems to be using this image of a hen with her chicks to help us understand what God wants for us.

But, after this week of watching my cousin and his family suffer with the tragic loss of their child, it’s what I’m drawn to. I want this image of God as Mother hen to be the point of the text we read today. Because, quite honestly, it’s the image of God I need to have for my cousin and his grieving family—I want this comforting image to give them hope and comfort too.

Friday morning, on the way to take my nine year old daughter to school, we were talking about the fire and what happened to my family. My daughter, Reba, asked me, “Mom, are you disappointed in God?”

That was not a pre-coffee kind of question.

But, I took a deep breath, and tried to tackle it.

“No, I’m not disappointed in God, because I know that God is with us, no matter what. But I’m sure that some people think that God made this happen, and some people are angry with God.”

That brief conversation with my daughter brought me back to this image of the mother hen, this feminine image of God. How I long for my family to be gathered under God’s wing, comforted by God’s loving embrace.

I don’t think this text is meant—in the context of this gospel story today—to be what it is for me this week. But, this week I need to know and hear that God longs to gather us, to tend us, to take care of us.

But, there’s a little hook to this word of comfort that has been bothering me this week. The mother hen imagery is comforting, but then Jesus turns it. “How often I have desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”

And you were not willing?

When I have not been willing to be gathered up by God, comforted by God, loved and cared for by God? I have to say, Jesus offends me here.

It’s certainly not the first or the last time that Jesus’ words will rub me the wrong way. If I’m not offended by Jesus words much of the time, I’m probably not paying attention.

But given this week, I’m angry at Jesus words. Nothing is holding me or my family back from wanting to receive the comfort of God, the mother hen.

Perhaps—before I become too angry and indignant—this would be a good time to step back from the text, and see why Jesus is saying what he is saying.

This is a tricky bit of scripture to preach on—our Lenten text from Luke is a transitional passage. It’s the middle of the book of Luke, so plot-wise, the author is building some tension, pointing to the future, the inevitable result of Jesus’ ministry, while referring us back to Jesus’ purpose for ministry.

In this morning’s text, we have a sense of foreshadowing in Jesus’ words. Today and tomorrow he will be casting out demons, and on the third day he will finish his work. Jesus knew he had work to do, but also knew it would end. In Jerusalem. With his death.

But we also can recall Jesus’ first words as he began his ministry. Jesus—even in the middle of his life’s work—had a clear sense of what he was called to do. Jesus was there to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and to set the opposed free. The words at the beginning of his ministry—there in the temple, where he opened the scroll and read from the prophet Isaiah--they were no less true at the beginning of his ministry than they were in the middle of his work.

And , as Anabaptists, we know Jesus’ call is not just for him. Jesus is calling us to follow in his way. To do these things with him. To participate in bringing about the reign of God with him.

We aren't taking the journey to Jerusalem with Jesus. Only he can go there. That’s not what we've been called to. But, we are called to follow in the way of Jesus, to set the captives free, to heal, to proclaim, to bring the good news of Jesus.

There’s something very fearless about Jesus’ ministry in this passage today. He knew he would die. He knew that it would not happen right then, but that it would happen in Jerusalem. He knew that his death was inevitable. But he didn't seem to be consumed with fear. In fact, in this text, he dared the Pharisees to go tell Herod the fox about his ministry, his healing, his acts of power. What could this man, Herod, do? Whatever Herod wanted to do now would eventually be accomplished in Jerusalem.

It’s the fearlessness of Jesus that seems to be at the heart of Jesus’ message to the Pharisees and to us. From that place of fearlessness, Jesus wished for a bit of that same spirit from the people of Israel. That they would have the courage to listen, to follow in the way, to live out God’s call on their lives.

Ironically, it seems that in living a life of fearless following, no longer ashamed, that God’s protection is most present. Listening, following, doing the hard things are where God gather’s us like a hen gathers its brood. This is what Jesus was asking of his people in this passage.

And today, Jesus calls us to follow him without fear, and in our following, we are offered the care and shelter of Mother God.

This is a comfort to me today. In doing the difficult work of discipleship, there is a comforting God walking beside us. When we wake up every morning and choose to follow Jesus, there is much we give up. But, we know that what we give up are not the most important things. We gain something far greater than what we’ve lost—a relationship with a God that loves us, nurtures us, gathers and comforts us.

And implicit in this text is a profound notion for me. Jesus makes no promises that in following him we will avoid suffering and death. In fact, Jesus is pretty clear in Luke that his work will lead him to his violent death in Jerusalem. A life of following Jesus will not mean that we will avoid suffering, or that we will avoid our own inevitable end. But it does mean that we are never alone in our joys and suffering—God is always there, and so are all of the other chicks God is gathering and comforting under God’s wing.

This is not the easy answer we may want from God. God’s shelter is not protection from harm, a talisman to ward off evil. God’s shelter is not to avoid the pain, but to be there with us in it. God’s shelter is a journey through our suffering, through our joy, with God’s presence there all along the way.

Perhaps this is—in fact—the point of this text today. To give us, in this season of lent, the season of self-reflection, a way to understand how God is with us. It’s certainly not found in the easy answers, but this image—of a mother hen gathering her brood—gives us a window into how God loves and cares for us.

This is an image I can share with my cousin and his family. This is an image I can give to my daughter, to answer some of her questions about God. God is with us on our journey of discipleship. This is a comfort to me—in my questions, in my anger, and sadness—God is there, with me, gathering and comforting me, as I walk this wonderful, difficult road of discipleship.

Blessings to you on your Lenten journey. AMEN.

Body Image

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 15:53:09 GMT

I Corinthians 12:12-31a

January 27, 2013

In our modern culture, we’ve developed an unhealthy relationship with the body. We’re obsessed with perfecting our bodies, getting the perfect washboard abs, reducing the size of our rear ends, while increasing the size of other body parts.

That obsession with body image has even been transferred to images of Christ. I recently saw an image of Christ on the cross, with well toned abs and pecs, and long flowing, brushed and highlighted hair. Even while being tortured and dying, Jesus’ body looked like he’d just taken a boot camp class at the gym.

I don’t see the obsession with body image play out in this congregation the way it does in our wider community. But, this is a community that tries to stay fit. Some of us adhere to special diets—maybe you follow a low carb, low fat, or low sodium diet. Maybe you are gluten free, or vegetarian, or even vegan. I’ve seen plenty of you headed to the gym, or yoga or aikido, or for a run or bike ride in the park—all in an attempt to keep your body fit and healthy.

We do our best to take care of these bodies of ours, to control these vessels made of tissue and fluids. But, ultimately they are out of our control. Our bodies are our downfalls. They will fail us.

I regret to inform you that no matter what you do, you will all suffer the same fate—you will die. We will all die. We are mortal.

Our text today from I Corinthians feels like a classic Mennonite text. It affirms our belief and practice of mutuality. We all need each other. And we are all needed in the body.

It seems like a good text for today, since we are having a potluck, and a congregational meeting. We’ll share our food together, and share our stories over a meal. We’ll taste each other’s cooking, and maybe even share a few recipes with each other.

And then we’ll get together and talk about what’s been happening in the congregation in the last year, and where we’re headed in 2013.

What we do in worship, at the potluck, and in our congregational meeting is all about this community—the body of Christ—what we’re doing and how we’re doing it.

This could be an overly warm and fuzzy text—we all need each other. Let’s hold hands and sing kum by ah.

But there is a grim truth here. We need each other. We need all the body parts to function.

We need each other, from the big toe that helps us keep balance, to the tiny little pinky toe with the funky nail.

We need each other, from the knee that gives out, to the hip that gets creaky in rainy weather.

We need everything from the muscles that keep the bones together, to the skin that keeps all the inside parts protected.

We need all the organs, from the glamorous heart that keeps blood pumping throughout the whole body, to the less glamorous intestinal system that….well, you know.

We need all the parts of the brain, from the cerebral cortex to the reptilian brain with its fight or flight responses.

Every part of this body is important in the eyes of God.

And this is what it means to be a part of the body:

If the body is hungry, we feed it.

If the hip is hurting and creaky from the rain, we give it rest.

If the feet are tired and sore, we put them up, allowing them to recline and be relieved from holding up this old body.

While the feet are resting, the back and arms are giving extra—sharing the burden that was once places on those bunions and bones.

And if there is a particular part of the body that is hurting, that is sick or in pain, we direct our resources there.

This is what it means to be part of the body. This is what it means to be in the body.

But, the way we treat our body is not always perfect.

We don’t always nourish the body as we should. We eat things that contribute to our body’s ailments. Sometimes we prefer twinkies or cheesesteaks to vegetable.

We take medicines temporarily relieve our symptoms, but don’t get to what ails us.

Or, we outright ignore our body’s problems.

And, we don’t always work our muscles or increase our heart rates with exercise as we should.

We are not a perfect body. We don’t always get it right in caring for ourselves. And we certainly don’t have a perfect body.

But, this is the body of Christ. This is the body—imperfect and mortal—made in the image of God and called to follow in the way of Jesus.

This is the wonderfully imperfect body given to us. This community, is made up of many parts, and each little piece is necessary to make the whole thing work.

There is this trend in our culture to do spirituality on our own. We are “spiritual, but not religious” is a phrase I hear…a lot. Especially when people find out that I’m a pastor, and they are worried that I might try to convert them, or judge them for not going to church, or hand them a tract. It’s almost as if people are saying with this idiom, “I can do this on my own. I don’t need a faith community. Thanks.” This phrase, “spiritual, but not religious” implies that we have the ability to live out our faith on our own—in our own individual practices. With the private spirituality, there’s not the accountability of a community, there’s no commitment that needs to be made, and no one to challenge you or push you further. There’s no one there to lift you up in prayer, to tell you the story of faith, when you don’t have one to tell. Spiritual but not religious can be a solitary place.

I’ve met plenty of people who are “spiritual but not religious” because they’ve been hurt by religious communities too many times. We have a room full of folks here today that can probably testify to being hurt by a faith community, maybe even this by this church. This hurt makes people nervous, edgy about being part of something bigger. It’s easier, safer to keep that distance, to prevent any future hurt from taking place.

But, this text tells us what the church has known for centuries. This text tells us what Jesus told us, and what his ancestors for thousands of years said and lived. We need each other.

One part of this body can’t say, I don’t need the other parts. One part can’t say, I’m more important than the other parts. One part of the body can’t say, “I don’t feel the hurt of the other parts of the body.”

We need each other.

But it’s not enough to just need each other. This needing each other is work. Spiritual work. Communal work. Justice work.

We must attend to the body, care for it, feed it well (without needlessly indulging it), make sure it exercises. We must take care of the parts that are ill, and do our best to work off the “wiggly bits.”

But we don’t need to spend so much time focusing on the body’s wellness that we become obsessed with making this body into an unnatural shape. We don’t need rock-hard abs, or a perfectly coiffed hair-do. We need to give ourselves the grace to be human, and imperfect, with our moles, scars and imperfect features.

We are human. This body will fail us. This body will not be all that we want it to be. But it is our body. It is this beautiful body, created by God, made in the image of God, that feeds our spirits, that nurtures our hope, and that helps us to see the word made flesh.

Friends, sisters and brothers, this is the body of Christ. This mortal, imperfect body is broken, blessed, and ours to love and share.

Unlike our own bodies, what we have here is a body handed to us by our ancestors, and—if nurtured well, will be here for our descendants, and for generations to come. We are the body of Christ. So let us treat this body well. Because we need each other.

AMEN.

Jubilee Life

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 00:50:44 GMT

Luke 4: 14-30

February 3, 2013

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because God has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
God has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
   to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Jesus had just been baptized, and spent forty days in the desert where he was tempted by money, power and resources. From the desert, he went to his home congregation, took the scroll out, unrolled it, and read:

Jesus declared the heart of the Hebrew scripture’s instruction. He declared that which the people of God had been instructed but never put into practice. He declared a resurrection of Jubillee.

Jesus read Isaiah’s vision—that which Isaiah hoped but never dreamed could really happen—the vision of all people living in freedom and experiencing good news, experience jubilee healing and hope.

Jesus read this to his hometown crew, then solemnly rolled up the scroll and sat down.

And all of the eyes of the community were on him.

Then came the real zinger—the audacious claim:

Today the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

And, as you might imagine, everyone freaked out.

But Jesus refused to sugar coat this message. He got the crowd even more riled up. He picked a fight with the entire town, and provoked their anger.

He said, “You have heard what I’ve done in other places, but I don’t know if you can handle this from me, your hometown boy. No one will be happy about this good news in Nazareth.”

Then Jesus told the story of the prophets—of Elijah who—during a famine in the land, was sent to help the widow of Zarephath. An outsider . Jesus told the story of Elisha who healed an outsider, a non-Israelite, while the other people of Israel went un-healed.

Jesus said to the his hometown that no one would be happy with this good news, they would not receive the blessing they were expecting.

The good news, this jubilee, was not so good to the people of God. It was so not good that Jesus’ hometown friends and family tried to kill him. They tried to push Jesus off of a cliff.

This was not good news for Jesus either—a shocking beginning to his ministry. But this little revolt didn’t kill him—yet. But it certainly seemed to be an indication of what was to come for Jesus. He proclaimed good news—the year of jubilee, and it scared and enraged everyone.

So, what is Jubilee exactly?

There are three models of jubilee in the Hebrew Scriptures.

Deuteronomy 14 laid out a 3 year pattern of Jubilee. Every three years, the people of God brought their tithe to the temple (one tenth of all they owned) so that the widows, orphans and aliens could “come, eat and be satisfied.”

Deuteronomy 15 laid out a 7 year pattern of Jubilee. Every year, there was a one year holiday from work. No one worked—the land was not tilled, the slaves did not work, even the animals rested. In the seventh year, all debts were cancelled, and all slaves were made free.

In the 50^th year Jubilee—the one we hear the most about—there was a one year holiday. All debts were cancelled, slaves were released, and all the land that people own was returned to their original owners.

That’s a lot of giving.

When the people heard Jesus declaring Jubilee that day in the temple, this is what they heard Jesus talking about.

This did not seem like good news to the people in the temple that day. And it doesn't feel like good news to me today.

This is a difficult practice to swallow. Jubilee upsets the system we've bought into. It means that in order for healing to happen, we must let go of our power, our wealth, our material goods. It means the structure we've built our life on will collapse. It means everything changes.

This may not be good news to us.

Or is it?

This jubilee model—giving 10% of what we have, of declaring all debts paid, of freeing slaves, of returning the land—we could look at it as giving up our wealth, of letting go of what we've earned, of philanthropy.

But, the heart of it is doing justice, having different relationships with our neighbors, with our possessions, with the way we understand what is ours and what is God’s.

It means changing our model from one of scarcity—where there’s never enough—to abundance—where there is always enough for all who have needs.

To be honest, I’m at a bit of a loss as to how to bring about Jubilee. I spent a whole week with pastors talking about it this week, and I feel like I have more questions than answers. Last night, I went to see Yes, And Collaborative Art’s musical, “The Clean Green Machine”, which in many ways was about jubilee, and I didn't have it figured then either. I've been left wondering how to make this agrarian model work in a 21^st century urban environment. I’m wondering how to get started, and how to make it work.

I learned about plenty of models this week that worked for a time, that had the best of intention, but that couldn't be sustained. Shared community, shared resources, a common purse ideology—all these things worked for a time in community, but could not be sustained . There are some models that continue—like Reba Place in Chicago, Hutterite communities around North America, etc—but most communities struggle to keep doing the radical work of jubilee in their lives. It’s really hard work.

I want to proclaim jubilee, I want to participate in the good news Christ proclaimed in Luke 4, the good news Christ borrowed from Isaiah.

I want to participate in the radical work of jubilee, but where do we even begin?

In this week of hand-wringing started me down a path of shame. I’m not doing enough. I’m not sharing enough of my resources. I live in a model of scarcity.

But I have to look at this differently. This jubilee doesn’t happen overnight. It is happening little by little. It is jubilee when we know a routine or path hurts our brothers and sisters, and we choose a different way. It is jubilee when we share generously what we have, and learn in the Kingdom of God that there is always enough. It is jubilee when we rest on Sunday. It is jubilee when we plant extra vegetables in our garden, and give their bounty, not to our table or our freezer, but to our neighbors in need. It is jubilee when—in the budgeting process—the call goes out for help, more resources are needed, and all the needs are met.

And every time we do a small act of jubilee, we can learn little by little the lessons that God is teaching—that when we let go of our resources, and share them with others, all are healed. We are healed of our blindness—of thinking that we must hold on to power and resources, because there is never enough. And when we share our resources, others are healed, others have access to what they need. And we learn together, that in God’s reign there is always enough.

This doesn't exactly look like the jubilee model set forth in the Hebrew Scriptures. But, the jubilee of the New Testament didn't either. Together, we gather to understand this model, to find ways to practice it in our lives, and to let go of what we think is ours, to be healed and to heal others.

I've pondered this week what led the people of Jesus’ home town to try to kill him, to try to throw him off a cliff. It is the same fear that keeps us from practicing Jubilee that led those people to want to kill Jesus. Jesus’ message here, and throughout the scripture is scandalous, it’s impossible, it’s counter-intuitive. And yet, when we let go of that fear and follow Jesus, it is what saves us. It is Jubilee Life.

And today the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

AMEN.

Arise, Shine

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 16:37:39 GMT

Matthew 2: 1-12; Isaiah 60:1-9

January 6, 2013

If you drive by this church building between Christmas and January 6, and you are really paying attention, you’ll notice the Moravian star shining in the balcony window at night. It’s subtle and lovely.

This year I caught sight of it when it was frigidly cold and dark, and I was trying to fill up the car with gas across the street. The kids were in the back of the car—worn out and cranky from what they described as “being dragged around” all day by me and Charlie.

I pointed the star out to the family, and we turned our eyes away from the cold and dark, and towards this little, beautiful light in the big window of our church.

Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and God’s glory will appear over you. Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. Lift up your eyes and look around; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from far away, and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses’ arms. Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice, because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you.

The Magi saw the light. These watchers and studiers of the stars noted a new light in the sky, and were compelled to follow it. The gospel of Matthew does not indicate how these wise people came to know that this star would lead them to the “King of the Jews”, but they knew. We are only left to assume that God was at work in their traditions, showing them the way through their spiritual and scientific learning.

And being powerful, intelligent people, they went to the leader of the Jews—King Herod—and asked him where this new king was. And Herod freaked out.

The scripture said he was “frightened, and all of Jerusalem with him.” Herod and all the people of Jerusalem were terrified by this news for which they had waited and hoped. They feared he same news that excited the magi.

And yet, Herod gathered his priests and scribes together to find out where the Messiah was to be born. And they looked at the scripture, which said that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem in the region of Judea. And, Herod shared this information with the magi. And the magi went to Bethlehem.

They followed the light—the star—to Bethlehem. The scripture says that they knew they were in the right place when the star stopped over the house where Jesus and his family were staying. So they went into the house and they worshiped Jesus.

These wise, perceptive, Gentile magi followed the light of God to the child—God incarnate—and there they were overcome with joy, and they shared their gifts.

The shepherds were also moved by the light—the light from the angels, from the sky, from the angelic singing—they followed what the angels told them, and there they found that newborn child. And they worshipped this child. They followed the light and found the child of God.

Every Friday night, as Shabbat, or Sabbath, begins for the Jewish community, families gather around the table, and welcome the light. They say a special prayer—a blessing of the candles that they light.

It begins—in Hebrew—like this: Barukh atah Adonaii, Eloheinu.

The blessing in English is: Bless are you, Lord our God, Sovereign of the Universe, who sanctifies us with the commandments and commanded us to light the lights of Shabbat. AMEN.

Every Sabbath, Jews around the world welcome the light by lighting the candle, gesturing for the light to come to them, then they hold their hands over their eyes, to hold the light inside of them.

That light is a symbol of the Source, God. And it shows all who are open to it, the direction God is calling them to.

Today is Epiphany. It’s not often that Epiphany falls on a Sunday—it’s always 12 days after Christmas—so sometimes it gets overlooked . We tend to be over Christmas by the day after Christmas. We get to the manger—with the full cast of characters—and the story trails off, just as Christmas is beginning.

But Christmas starts on Christmas day and lasts for 12 days. We have 12 days to focus on the beauty of this newborn child, this son of the most high God. And then we focus our time and attention at Epiphany on the life of Jesus. We move from baby adoration to discipleship . We are—during this time between Epiphany and Lent, being shown the way to Jesus.

In truth, this happened during Christmastide too. The shepherds were shown the way to Jesus, when they listened to the angels. The magi were shown the star for years before they encountered Jesus. This happened just as the prophet Isaiah said it would. The glory of the Lord appeared over them, the light rose and in the darkness.

Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

Today—on Epiphany—we welcome the light. We embrace it and hold it. The light shines within us, and it leads us in the coming months to follow in the way of Jesus, God incarnate, the word made flesh.

Let us use this Epiphany to see Jesus. Let’s use this time between now and Lent to let the light shine on the life of Jesus, to be inspired by his words, his actions, his questions, his trials.

May the epiphany light—the one that guided the shepherds and magi, the one that shines here in the darkness of winter, guide you to Christ, our example.

Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. AMEN.

Treasuring and Pondering

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 13:40:49 GMT

December 30, 2012

Luke 2: 1-20

I watched two Christmas movies this week with my family. One was the classic Christmas musical, White Christmas, with some of the best singers and dancers of their time—Rosemary Clooney, Danny Kaye, and Bing Crosby. I love the dancing, the singing, and the story. It’s all so magical.

The other movie I watched over the holiday was also about magic—or, trying to find the magic, the specialness in Christmas. In A Christmas Story, Ralphie was doing all he can to get the most wonderful, special Christmas present--official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model BB rifle with a compass in the stock. Whenever Ralphie told someone what he wants, he’s disappointed to hear the familiar, “You’ll shoot your eye out, kid!” But, this did not deter Ralphie’s enthusiasm for this toy.

On Christmas day, Ralphie did finally get the gift he’d hoped for. And the moment of opening that gift is magical—Ralphie jumped up and down and screamed for joy as he realized that the gift he was opening was the one he’d wanted all along.

But, the joy and magic quickly ended when he took the long awaited gift outside to try it out. Ralphie took aim, fired, and fell back; the pellet bounced off the target and hitting him on the cheek, knocking his glasses off. Fearful for a second that he actually did shoot his eye out, Ralphie collected himself and looked for his glasses but accidentally steps on them, breaking them.

And just like that, the magic of Christmas was over for little Ralphie.

In both movies, the magic—that special feeling you get around Christmas—only lasts for so long. Then, the music is done, the wrapping paper is recycled, the ornaments are back in their boxes. And, it’s back to reality, back to responsibilities, and back to work.

In our story from Luke today, we hear the story that must be the absolute height of Christmas magic—the story of Jesus’ birth. Mary gavebirth to Jesus, in a stable. She wrapped her child with strips of cloth, and laid him in a feeding trough.

Meanwhile, the shepherds were visited by angels, who told the shepherds where they would find Jesus, while the angels sang, and filled the heavens with music.

After the light and music show from the angels (because really, what’s Christmas without a good show?), the shepherds headed out to look for Mary, Joseph and Jesus. And when they found this family, they told them everything the angel said.

The nativity story as we usually tell it leads us to believe that this is a serene, tranquil, carefully orchestrated scene. But, I rather doubt it. It’s chaotic—with shepherd strangers announcing themselves to an exhausted Mary and Joseph. Shepherds were not exactly known for being full of grace and decorum. I’ve equated them to being the modern equivalent of a biker gang. The angels met a biker gang, and the biker gang showed up to see this baby Jesus. That is a chaotic scene.

It’s a smelly scene—it smelled like animals, and feces, and newborn babies.

And it’s a scene full of differing agendas. The shepherds want to see Jesus, Joseph is probably feeling a little protective, and Mary—well, I’d imagine that Mary just wants to get some rest, and make sure Jesus gets a little rest too.

But with all the chaos, the smells, and the people in this stable, with differing needs and agenda, Mary did a most unlikely thing.

Mary treasured all these things, and pondered them in her heart.

There’s a lot about this story—particularly in Luke’s telling of it—that is unlikely, and unexpected. There’s a lot about this story that is surprising and should never have happened. But this moment of Mary’s has become one of the most unexpected of them all.

In the middle of all the chaos of the first moments after her child’s birth—in a stable, with animals standing around, and uninvited, unrefined shepherds banging on her door, Mary looks around at all of this, and treasured it. She enjoyed it. And she reflected on it.

Now, I can understand treasuring and reflecting on the goodness of the season from the comfort of my sofa, while watching my loved ones open their gifts, and watching my children enjoy their special gifts. I can understand feeling the magic watching the greatest holiday movies of our time, listening to songs about snow and family love. I understand the magic of Ralphie’s most notable Christmas as he finally received that gift for which he has longed.

But sitting in the middle of a stable, among animals, a newborn baby, and a bunch of gruff, uncouth shepherds, Mary treasures all of this. She saw the special-ness, the unlikely magic of it all. She pondered it, reflected on it, and held it close to her heart.

Remember also, all the events of Mary and Joseph’s last several months. Mary was visited by an angel, she visited her cousin, Elizabeth, who confirmed her pregnancy and rejoiced with her. Mary waited to hear whether Joseph would accept her as his wife, even though she was pregnant, and they traveled together to Bethlehem for the census. After a few days of riding on the donkey, Mary was ready to give birth, and when they couldn't find any other place to stay, they ended up in a stable, where she gave birth to Jesus, the child God promised would save her people.

That’s a lot of chaos in a few short days. And it was one of those situations where one twist in the story could have destroyed this fragile plot. What if Mary had refused to take on this job as incubator and mother of the most high? What if Joseph had refused to stand by her side? What if they had found a room? What if Mary had chosen to focus on the terrible, crazy things that happened in the previous months. She could have chosen fear and anxiety about the conditions of her first born’s birth, the visitors to her moments after Jesus’ ill-timed arrival, and all the things that went wrong.

But Mary—only a teenager--treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart.

I’ve been wondering this week what I’d do if I was Mary. I am an introvert, I don’t enjoy being at the center of things, and I don’t like a lot of noise and chaos.

Even as the new parent of God’s human child, shepherds telling me their story and animals bleating and braying in my ear would be too much. I’d need some time for quiet, some time to think, to deal with my anxiety.

But Mary treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart.

Sometimes we have the curse of trying to make things too perfect, of trying to make our lives too magical and too right. We try to make our holiday, our lives conform to a certain pattern or our events happen in a certain way.

And let’s face it, this kind of “magic” rarely happens. We rarely find magic in the careful planning and orchestration of our lives.

It’s often in the unplanned, un-orchestrated chaos that we see God at work, or that we feel that special feeling that we long to feel.

We could choose to focus on the chaos of family gatherings gone wrong. But those are indeed moments to ponder and treasure. They are holy moments, moments of interruption and chaos. They shake us out of our regular way of looking at things, and they upset the prescribed way of living and being.

And they make the best stories.

Life does not go according to our best laid plans. But they are—even in the chaos—holy moments to reflect on, moments of grace in chaos. In all these moments, the tranquil and the terrible, the perfect and the disastrous, God is there, making things new. Interrupting, confounding, comforting and disturbing.

And leaving us many moments to ponder and treasure.

Dreams of the Women

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 16:33:24 GMT

December 23, 2012

Luke 1: 39-55

Dreams of the Women

I’ve heard it said from time to time that dreams are for the young. The older you get, the more realistic you are. The older you get, the more of your own dreams have been squashed. The older you get, the more you realize that your dreams are just that—dreams. Reality takes hold, and you need to be responsible. You need to pay your mortgage, become respectable, grow up.

Mary was young. Some say she was13 or 14. Some would even venture that she’s younger than this. She was a poor girl from a poor family, living in a poor village. She had no prospects to do better than this. She was a nobody.

But God saw something in her. God saw in Mary someone that was strong enough, brave enough, and just enough of a dreamer to believe that she could be part of this unlikely plan.

After Mary met the angel, Gabriel, who informed her that she would be the mother of the Messiah, she went “with haste” to her much older cousin, Elizabeth’s, house. She didn’t have to tell Elizabeth that she was pregnant. Elizabeth just knew—as did the child, John the Baptist, who was still in Elizabeth’s womb.

John knew, Elizabeth knew, Mary knew. And it was exciting to them.

Perhaps it’s the responsible, pragmatic person in me, but how on earth could this be exciting? This is terrifying! Mary pregnant with God’s child is not good news. It’s dangerous news for Mary. It’s awful news. It’s nothing for Elizabeth and Mary to share blessings about. As a young, single, pregnant woman, she could be stoned to death for adultery, regardless her consent in the act. She could bring shame and stigma to her family, and her betrothed could turn against her. Mary’s life was on the line.

And yet, Elizabeth exclaimed, “Blessed is she who believed, for here will be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

And yet, Mary sang her song of praise to God.

My soul magnifies the lord, and my spirit rejoices with God my Savior.

For God has looked with favor on the lowliness of God’s servant.

Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed.

For the mighty one has done great things for me, and holy is God’s
name.

God’s mercy is for those who fear God from generation to Generation.

God has shown strength with God’s arm, God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their heart.

God has brought down the rulers and lifted up the lowly.

God has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.

This week, as many of us have reflected on the innocence of life taken from us in the recent shooting, I’ve been hearing this song—Mary’s song—through the voice of this young girl. And three things have overwhelmed me as I’ve read this song.

Mary sings this song of praise to God, but it is not an original song to her. Mary sings an updated version of Hannah’s song, sung thousands of years before her by the mother of Samuel.

Hannah was unable to have a child. And she wanted to be a parent so badly. So, she went to the temple and promised God that if she had a son, she’d give the child to God.

And when she gave birth to the child, and had weaned him, she brought him back to the temple, and “lent him to God.” Hannah—older and wiser than Mary sang a triumphant song of God’s deliverance.

Mary took Hannah’s song and sang her own version of it. At a time when she did not have plans or hopes to be pregnant, but God made it so, Mary sang a song of God’s deliverance, of God’s power and might.

Mary wove her story of being used by God into the story that Hannah was also part of. This child placed herself firmly in this tribe of Israelites, claimed her right to it, and sang it out with joy.

Second, Mary saw this pregnancy as a blessing and a gift. This dangerous, risky pregnancy was a good thing to Mary, “For God has looked with favor on the lowliness of God’s servant. Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed.” It didn’t take Mary a long time to move from “How can this be” in her conversation with the Angel Gabriel, to “God has looked with favor on the lowliness of God’s servant.”

What was within Mary that she could say this as a young teenager? What was within Mary that gave her the certainty to trust the Angel, to trust her place in history, and to trust that God was blessing her with this child.

Mary’s song also brings me to the story of Esther, the Jewish woman who married King Ahasuerus to save her people from the evil laws that were being passed against them. Esther didn’t want to marry the King, but was convinced by her Uncle Mordechi, who said, “Do not think that in the King’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for such a time as this.”

I wonder if this powerful story of young Esther came to Mary. I am inclined to this that that was floating around in the minds of Mary and Elizabeth. When Elizabeth spoke to Mary, she said, “Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” It sounds like Mary’s place in history was based on her simple, hopeful, radical act of believing that she was part of God’s cosmic plan. Just as Esther had to believe that she was part of the plan to save her people, Mary had to believe in it too.

I’ve heard it said that dreams are for the young. The older we get, the more we must leave our dreams behind, in favor of dealing with our current reality.

But this is not the case for Elizabeth. Mary’s older cousin, Elizabeth, was almost too old to have a child. But she and her husband wanted a child so desperately. And God gave them the desires of their hearts. Elizabeth continued to dream, and her dreams were fulfilled. She said, “This is what the Lord has done for me when he looked favorably upon me.”

This Advent story can be made too perfect. We make Mary too holy, and Elizabeth too wise. I want to see these women in their human forms, not the sanitized version we’ve seen in the movies.

But, even in—or especially in—the more human telling, we see incredibly strong, confident, and brave women. We see women who know their place in history, who know their story and the story of their people. We see women who have such confidence that God is using them, just as God used Hannah and her child, Samuel, and just as God used Esther to save God’s people from oppression and enslavement.

God calls each of us and has put each of us where we are, for such a time as this. God has given us opportunities to gestate hope, joy, peace and love, and to bring it to life where we are. God has given us example after example in the Christmas story alone of the ways God uses everyday people to do great things. We do not need to look for the powerful to do the great things, God has given us the prophetic words and prophetic actions to bring it to life—here and now.

Dreams are not only for the young. They are gifts to all of us—young and old, weak and powerful, women and men. These seeds of dreams have been planted within us, often generations before us in the stories of our ancestors. These dreams are not to be tossed away in favor of being a grown up. These dreams are stirring within us that call us to better things. These are dreams that go back as far as Hannah’s song, and further than that. These are dreams of God’s justice, of God making things right, of God’s work being completed in heaven as on earth.

Hannah dreamed of a child of her own. She prayed and petitioned God, and God gave her the desires of her heart. In return, she gave that child back to God, and God used Samuel to build a great people.

Esther did not want to be in the palace of the king. She did not want to be the person that would save her people. But she knew that she was the person that could do it at such a time as this, and God used that which she dare not dream to save her people.

Elizabeth wanted a child and prayed for one, and God gave her the desires of her heart. She believed that this child of hers was special, she dreamed that he would prepare the way for the Messiah. She raised him with that expectation. And John the Baptist opened the way for Jesus’ message to be heard.

Mary was barely old enough to be thinking about being a mother. And yet, when she was visited by Gabriel and told of God’s desires for her, she took on the dreams of her people, and accepted the responsibility. With joy carried this child, God’s son, into the world.

As ancestors of the people of Israel, we carry this story of hope and live into it. We declare God’s mercy, we long for the day when the hungry are filled and the rich are sent away empty, when the mighty are scattered and the lowly are raised. We see this story as a gift from God, and as a call to live our dreams into reality.

Let us pray:

God and maker of all,

You chose the most unsuspecting of women to mother your Son, and by your choose gave new glory to human flesh and eartly parenting.

With the joy that was Mary’s, may our souls magnify the Lord, and our bodies be the means through which you continue the mighty work of salvation, for which Christ came. Amen.

The Other Side of the Story

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 19:19:10 GMT

Ruth 3: 1-5; 4:13-17

November 25, 2012

A few weeks ago, the Germantown Mennonite kids from our Kid’s Club headed over to the Johnson House for a tour. Most of the kids had never been inside that historic building, and only knew it as that place we go for the Easter egg hunt every year. And because these are kids who have a passion for justice, it felt important that we go and learn these stories of justice from this neighborhood.

This is the kindof trip that could have gone either way. The kids could be bored by the stories and whine and complain about the event. Or they could get really into it. But, lucky for us, the event was a great success. Many of the kids went home and told the stories they heard back to their adults—word for word.

If you ask one of the 15 kids that attended the tour of the Johnson house, you might hear about Harriet Tubman—a free black woman who worked tirelessly for the freedom of slaves. If you ask the kids, they’ll tell you about the time when Harriet was a slave, her master threw a metal doorstop at her brother, but missed. It instead hit Harriet in the head, leaving a large dent that remained there for her entire long life.

You may also hear about William Stills, the son of free parents that escaped slavery in the South. Stills made a lot of money in the coal industry in his lifetime in Philadelphia, and used his wealth to help many slaves find freedom. What drove him to be involved in the underground railroad was the hope that he might someday meet his older brothers, who were left down south when his parents escaped slavery. And—by the grace of God—he did have the opportunity to help one of his brothers to freedom.

Those stories, while hard to hear, certainly made an impression of the kids of this congregation. And, I was so glad we were able to hear them. I was especially glad that these stories were not as much about the white Quaker family—the Johnsons—reaching out to the oppressed slaves as it was about the slaves making freedom for themselves. Don’t get me wrong—those are important stories, and the stories of the Johnson family need to be told. The Johnson were indeed courageous. But what incited the passion of the children who heard these stories, were those of William Stills and Harriet Tubman, who understood freedom, because they went from slave to free status, and they desired for others to have that same freedom.

The story of Ruth, Naomi and Boaz is a bit like the Harriet Tubman story or the William Stills story. It is not the official story of the people of Israel, just as William Still and Harriet Tubman are not the dominant stories of our nation. Let me be clear—abolition of slavery happened through the network of white and black, free and enslaved people in this country. But in many textbooks, or at least the textbooks of our youth—before African American history was brought to the light--we heard far less about the Stills and the Tubmans than we did about the “courageous Johnsons” or others like them.

The story of Ruth, Naomi and Boaz is not the official story of the people of Israel—in fact, it almost feels like it is shoved in the Hebrew Scriptures between the book of Judges and I Samuel.

Why on earth would this story even be here? It’s not the official approved story of how the people of Israel came to be. The story of the making of the people of Israel is reserved for I and II Samuel and I and II Kings. They are the official propaganda of the making of Israel.

The book of Ruth is the story behind the story, or the story before the story. It’s told from the women’s perspective, with the women’s relationship at the center. The men who are involved in this story are passive, and secondary to what is happening between Ruth and Naomi.

This is not the story you’ll hear in the book of Judges, the book that comes right before Ruth. In fact, at the end of the book of Judges, there is a story about a woman, but told from the point of view of a man. She is an unnamed woman—she is beaten, raped repeatedly, and cut into pieces, with each body part being sent to each of the tribes of Israel. The story of the unnamed woman at Gibeah takes place just before we turn to the book of Ruth, a book which focuses on the care and love shared between two named women, two women who do most of the talking, and all of the plotting. We move from a story about a woman whose life felt inconsequential to these men from the tribes of Israel and Judah—so inconsequential that she wasn’t even bothered with a name. Then we move to Ruth and Naomi--whose negotiating and social maneuvering was pivotal in making David the king of Israel, and consequently, making Jesus the one we call Messiah.

Last week, I talked about the new family systems that these women were forging. Naomi and Ruth were each other’s redemption and salvation. This week, we see in the text the lengths these women will go to save each other.

I don’t know if you realize this but this story of Ruth and Naomi is pretty risqué. A reading of it in its original Hebrew is bound to make a few of us blush. In the second half of this book, Naomi finds a man for Ruth—a man that would give Ruth the opportunity to act as a redeemer for Naomi, a man that would carry on the line of Naomi’s husband. His name was Boaz—he was a somewhat distant relative of Naomi’s, and a kind man. He had been helping out Ruth and Naomi, making sure that they were able to claim some of the leftover wheat after his workers were done in the field.

So, Naomi hatched a plan—a plan to get Ruth and Boaz together, join their wealth, and get herself a grandchild. She instructed Ruth to go to the threshing floor, where the field workers were gathering, threshing and sorting the crops. When Boaz fell asleep late at night, Naomi instructed Ruth to uncover Boaz’s feet and lay next to his feet.

This is where it gets a little risqué. The word “feet” in Hebrew is actually a polite euphemism for anything below the waist. This was no timid attempt to wake Boaz up with cold feet, this was a bold gesture—a direct statement of Ruth’s desires and intentions with Boaz.

Naomi also told Ruth to uncover Boaz’s “feet”, and he would tell Ruth what to do next. But that didn’t happen. Ruth took matters into her own hands. When Boaz woke up and was trying to figure out what was going on, Ruth instructed him—“cover me with your blanket, because you are the redeemer of our family.” This was a marriage proposal.

Boaz seemed a little surprised by this overture, a little embarrassed to be uncovered, and instructed. Yet, he complied with Ruth and Naomi’s wishes. He married Ruth, and they had a son, Obed, who was the grandfather of the future King David.

But, this child was not for Boaz. When that baby was born, Boaz was silent—he was not even in the final frames of the story. Boaz seemed to be the means to an end. He was a redeemer of Ruth and Naomi, but more than that, Ruth and Naomi were the redeemers of the people of Israel. Their relationship, their love for each other, was key in ensuring that the people of Israel lived on, that the story continued.

Unfortunately, it was not so for the unnamed woman at Gibeah. She had no voice, and she could not save herself. The powerful disregarded their role of redeemer, of caretaker, and destroyed her. But, Ruth and Naomi, claimed their roles as redeemers, and informed Boaz that he too would be part of that. They made a way for themselves, and in doing that, saved themselves and the people of Israel.

This is what Ruth and Naomi have in common with the Williams Still’s and Harriet Tubman’s of the world. They claimed their own freedom, they created their own redemption. They knew who they were—they knew they were free—and yet they also knew they couldn't rely on the powerful for their own freedom. They had to make it happen for themselves, and help others to find it. Their lives depended on it. And future generations depended on it.

If you ask church historians, they’ll tell you that something is happening in the Church universal. A shift is taking place. Many are calling it the great emergence. This is a shift that takes place in the church every 500 years or so. The last great shift was the reformation, where our church tradition and Anabaptist understanding was born. In this great emergence we expect to see the end of denominationalism, and new ways of being church forming.

We've seen the Mennonite denomination in chaos, struggling to hold together this increasingly theologically diverse group of people, and choosing who’s in and out in the process.

We don’t need church historians to tell us that there is a shift in the church. We live it. We know we cannot rely on denominational structures. We never should have. That is not the heart of the gospel. What stands at the center of the gospel is the redeeming work of Christ, who called us to follow in his way, who calls us to some frightening places, and who calls us—like Naomi and Ruth, like Harriet Tubman and William Stills—to bold acts of justice and redemption for the sake of all people. It’s difficult to do that from the center of a denomination. It’s much easier to do that from the margins, from the edge of the fields, from the shadows of the threshing floor, from the underground railroad, and from the very edges of faith.

We are here not to preserve a tradition or to hold tight to something. We are not here to tell the story of the dominant culture. We are here—as a people of faith—to save each other, to lift up each other, to name each other, and to welcome each other. We are here to claim our voices and our freedom, and to help others do the same.

Thanks be to God for Ruth and Naomi, for William Stills and Harriet Tubman, who act as models for how we are to live—one hand lifted in praise to God, the other extended, an offering of freedom and hope to all who wish to have it. AMEN.

Where You Go I Will Go

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 15:03:49 GMT

Where You Go I Will Go

Ruth 1: 1-18

November 18, 2012

Every week, National Public Radio shares a story featured from the Story Corp project, a program that records the everyday tales of people in this country. This week, the story was about two men--Denny and Larry--who were married to the same women—Sharon--at different times in their lives. One year, Sharon said to Denny, “I want you to go to Larry’s house with me for Thanksgiving”. Denny was incredulous—why do you want me to go to your ex’s house for Thanksgiving? But, he finally agreed to go—for one hour. Denny and Larry—to their surprise—hit it off immediately. And they quickly became best friends.

When Sharon got sick, and was dying, Larry called Denny every day. And, he asked for forgiveness from Sharon for his failings as a husband. Denny and Sharon were important to him, and he cared for them.

Larry still calls Denny every day—they are bonded. They are family to each other. Denny said this to Larry, “When you lose someone you love it creates a hole in your soul, and you (Larry) helped fill that. You are more like a brother than a friend.”

Larry and Denny continue to spend Thanksgiving together every year. They are family to each other.

Their story reminds me of the story of Ruth and Naomi we heard this week. Ruth and Naomi were nothing to each other—they had no blood family relationship, no reason to remain together after the death of their husbands. Yet, in this story they chose each other.

The story of Ruth and Naomi is sweet, isn’t it? A young widow chose to go with her widowed mother- in-law back to her country of birth. It’s a sweet story, a story of hope, a story of choosing one’s own family. But, oh my goodness, it’s so much more than sweet. It is intensely radical. So, let’s put some context into this story.

Naomi came to Moab with her husband and sons when there was a famine in Judah. Leaving was the only way they thought they could survive the famine. Soon after they arrived in Moab, Naomi’s husband died, and then Naomi’s sons married Moabite women. Naomi’s sons and daughters-in-law cared for Naomi in this foreign land, but then the sons died unexpectedly, leaving the three women on their own.

What else could Naomi do but return to her hometown of Bethlehem in Judah, and hope for the kindness of a relative there. She had no reason to stay in Moab, and she had no expectation that her daughters in law—Orpah and Ruth—would stay with her. She could not provide for them. They would have to go back to their family’s home, and hope for provision and protection there. These women’s lives were at the mercy of men. The patriarchy was strong, and determined their survival.

It was perfectly reasonable that Naomi would tell these women to go home. They had no hope and no future in Judah.

And yet, Ruth insisted on accompanying Naomi, saying, “Where you go I will go; where you lodge I will lodge. Your people will be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I’ll die there too and I will be buried beside you. I swear—may God be my witness and judge—that not even death will keep us apart.”

Most of the stories about women in the scripture are about sisters or mothers and daughters. They are about family members relating to each other. Unlike most of the stories we hear about women in the scriptures, these women had no reason to relate to each other. They had no reason to stay together. Despite this, Ruth made vows to Naomi, promising to be with her for better or worse, in sickness and in health, and not even death would tear them apart. This is a strong covenant—stronger even than marriage, it was a soul connection that not even death would end. This young Ruth grafted herself to Naomi—agreeing to take on Naomi’s Jewish tradition, and be a stranger in a foreign land.

Ruth had to realize what she was risking to be with Naomi. She had to realize that although the famine in Judah was over, she and Naomi still could starve to death, without a patriarch to look after them. She was risking her life to go with Naomi. There was something powerful between these two women that bound them together—something even more powerful than a sibling relationships or a parent child relationship.

We see a story similar to that in Ruth’s great grandson, David and his friend Jonathan. David was secretly friends with Jonathan, the son of King Saul, the son of the King that hated David, and was trying to kill him. These two men became friends, and became so close that they knit their souls to each other. Jonathan gave up his royal status, to be with David. They had a strong love, and intense bond, and like Ruth and Naomi, they bound themselves to each other.

Ruth and Naomi chose each other over patriarchy, over culture and expectations. So did Jonathan and David—they chose each other over country and family. They found their family and their home in the bonds they created with each other, in their souls knit together in life and death.

This is a radical story, and we can imply many things about these relationships from their stories. But friends, it only gets more interesting. Let’s look at this impassioned speech from Naomi to Ruth. Keep in mind this patriarchal system in which these women lived. Naomi said, “Go back my daughters, back to your mother’s home.” Back to your mother’s home. It seems odd, that the mother’s home is stressed when the father and brothers were the protectors.

Additionally, the word for daughters here is the female equivalent in Hebrew of “redeemer.” Typically the words for “son” and “father” come from the word “redeemer”, but Naomi used this unusual feminine form of the Hebrew to refer to these women as “redeemers.” “Go back, my redeemers, back to your mother’s house.”

To hear the story in this way, one is left to wonder, why didn’t Orpah stay with her Naomi? Naomi spoke out of both sides of her mouth—she told Orpah and Ruth to go back to their family, but then called them her redeemers. She gave them plenty of reasons to leave and one compelling, radical reason to stay. These women could be her salvation.

Naomi, in her speech, also dared to align herself with the notable men of history like Job who questioned God. She dared to challenge God for her undeserved suffering. She dared to say that the Lord had turned against her, she dared to challenge God, and to call God out for her suffering.

There are so many things that makes this story radical—the strong connection between these unrelated woman, the creating of new words and new structures and the choosing to be together in a world where their relationship was quite unlikely, and where the depth of their relationship was unknown. Just like Jonathan and David. And in many ways, just like Denny and Larry.

We live in a time where we know what it means to create new structures. We know what it’s like for our structures of birth to be ill-fitting. We know what it’s like to choose a different path than what has been prescribed for us. We know that many do not understand these new structures and paths that we have created, chosen, embodied.

And we know what it’s like to suffer for opting out of the prescribed structures. We felt that last week when Eastern District chose to end a symbolic dialogue with us. We have again lost relationship with a structure that does not understand us. That’s sad in so many ways. But, this week, when I came into the church building and there was Interfaith Hospitality activity downstairs, and the Museum of Art and Peace activity upstairs, I was filled up. We at GMC chose a different path, and we suffered some institutional consequences for it—we lost affiliation with two conferences and a denomination. Some of us even suffered with some strained family relationships. But, we gained so much here in what has been created in this community. We have gained a new family, a new system, and lots of room to imagine and dream.

Today we look at the story of Ruth and Naomi—we recognize a bit of ourselves in Naomi’s Job-like sentiments. We recognize the questions and bitterness of her unjust suffering.

We look at this story and recognize the new relationship that Ruth and Naomi forged. We recognize these relationships because we have created these new systems—perhaps in whom we’ve chosen as life partners, or the priorities we've set for ourselves, or the church we've chosen to attend.

We recognize this story in the ways that we’ve used language differently, or changed language—to express the expansive nature of God and these new systems we’re building.

We also recognize this story as we leave our familiar territory and go into a world unknown. We join together to go to new places, and don’t know what we find on the other side. But we know that we are together in it.

A few weeks ago in a sermon, I said that folks outside of this congregation would say that we are radical, but we don’t feel that way most of the time.

But, as we look at this story of Ruth and Naomi, and see a bit of ourselves in it, we can recognize just how radical these new structures and relationships are here. But from these new things—created by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit—we have found a home, a family, and people that love us and care for us. And perhaps, just like this relationship, created by Ruth and Naomi—will come generations of women and men committed to the radical gospel we do our best to follow.

Let us love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves. And let us continue to do that in creative, radical ways, inspired like Naomi and Ruth, Jonathan and David, Denny and Larry, and all those people we know personally, both within and outside of this congregation. AMEN.

Be on your Guard

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 14:34:01 GMT

Mark 13:1-8

Be on your Guard

November 4, 2012

On November 5, 2008, I walked into the yard at the neighborhood elementary school in Mt. Airy. It was not a normal Wednesday morning—you could feel it in the air. Every last child on my playground was running, screaming, jumping up and down, and flagrantly disregarding the dress code in favor of t-shirts that bore the name of their new president. If Barack Obama had shown up on that school yard that morning, the children of Mt. Airy would have laid out their coats for him to walk on, they would have rolled out the red carpet, and they would have cheered for him—their new president.
In 2008, plenty of Philadelphians were caught up in Obama-mania. The people of Philadelphia found hope in the words of a man who looked like them, sounded like them, and shared some of their own experiences.
One week before that election, Philadelphians celebrated another momentous occasion—the Phillies won the world series. This was a big deal—because Philadelphia sports teams don’t win. They may get close, but when it comes down to it, they have always let us down.

But not the 2008 Phillies. Cole Hamels, Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins, and Chase Utley became heroes in our typically disappointed Philadelphia psyches. We Philadelphians celebrated with an epic parade—we rolled out the red carpet for our heroes, cheering and wildly singing their praises, as they paraded down Broad Street.

We hoped that they would do it again in 2009, but were disappointed. The Phillies saved us in 2008 from our sports mailaise, but in the end despite our hopes and prayers, they let us down in 2009, and every year since.
Philadelphians know that heroes are few and far between, and Saviors even more elusive, but the amazing thing about the people of this city is that we keep hoping for the next great politician to care about the needs of the people, we keep hoping that this year’s lineup will win the big one, even though it rarely happens.

At this point, we’ve given up on baseball and football for that matter. But we still have hope. Hope that our presidential candidate of choice will change things, make our lives better, move us forward.

We pin our hopes on political leaders. (Sometimes we pin our hopes on sports heroes, though they make no claims to save us from our current condition). An no matter how good our politicians are, no matter how excited we are when our guy wins, they are going to let us down. That’s just how it is.

I know this on one level. But then I get sucked into the debates, into the political smack talk that goes on afterwards. I get indignant about what the other guy said, when—in truth—my guy is posturing in similar ways. I wonder why I get sucked in, why I choose sides so voraciously and why I think these debates and pandering change anything.

We are just two days away from the big presidential election—where we pin our hopes for our country, our community and our families on one guy. One guy who will save us. Both guys in the race use religious language, mixed in with language about our nation—and even for those of us who understand, that language can get manipulative.

“God bless America.”

“One nation under God”

“We are here to do the work of God.”

“God calls us to shape an uncertain destiny.”

“With eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us”

These are the words we hear our presidential candidates speak.

I hear the words of Jesus ringing in my ear, even as I hear these quotes from our government leaders. Jesus said, “Many will come in my name saying, ‘I am the One,’ and they will deceive many.” Perhaps we could amend the words a little to say “Many will come in my name, using my name to defend their policies and positions. And they will deceive many. ”

It’s always been in fashion with both parties to invoke the name of God in inaugural addresses, stump speeches, and during times of crisis. This is a reality of the complexity of our nation. And—in honesty—there is a strange comfort to our political leaders declaring that God is blessing us. But there is another side to that . Despite our fierce belief in the separation of church and state, we treat our nation’s documents as sacred—akin to the sacredness of scripture. We have created rituals and liturgies to celebrate God’s blessings on us. We have assumed in our national songs that God loves us best. And because we believe that God loves us best, we spread our gospel far and wide. We believed that God wanted us to spread our gospel of Manifest destiny in the 19^th century, just as we today spread our message of democratic freedom across this globe.

Yet, Jesus says to us, “don’t be deceived. People will come claiming to be the one, and they will deceive many.”

This quote from Jesus is in the context of a larger question Jesus is addressing. Jesus told the disciples in chapter 13 that the temple would be destroyed, and not a single stone would be left on stone. The disciples wanted to know when it will happen and how they will know it will happen. “What are the signs that we are at the edge of apocalypse?”

Jesus replied, not with an answer, but with a caution—“Be on your guard that no one deceives you. Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the one,’ and they will deceive many. When you hear wars and rumors of wars, don’t worry. Things like this must happen, but the end is still to come. Nations will rise against nation, and empire against empire; there will be earthquakes throughout the world and famines—yet this is only the beginning of the labor pains.”

Later on in chapter 13 of Mark, Jesus goes on to say, “And if anyone says to you, ‘Look, there is the Messiah!’ don’t believe it….be on your guard.”

Both presidential candidates claim to be the solution to our problems, to be “the one”. Both candidates have done good things in their careers—yes, both candidates. Both candidates have not lived up to their promises. Both candidates have failed to address some of the most crucial, complex and un-talked-about issues of our time—global warming, fracking, infrastructure, gun violence, the war in Afghanistan. Both candidates have chosen character assassin over addressing the real issues. Both claim to be the ones to save this country from the brink of disaster.

Now, I know this is a congregation of politi-philes. This is a congregation that cares about politics, because we want to see our country take care of its people. And we have a guy in mind that we think might do that.

But he will not save us. He will not make everything better. He alone will not improve the economy, feed poor people, make sure everyone has adequate health care, end wars, get the guns off the streets. He’s not our Messiah. He’s just a human. He’s just one person.

We do our faith and our own story a disservice to think that politics alone will solve our problems. Our call is not to vote, but to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God. Voting is only part of that. There’s a lot of other activity involved. Spirituality is involved in our call to discipleship—listening for God’s voice stirring among us, reading and discerning texts together, going into those places where God calls us. Action is involved in our discipleship—we are called to be people who pray with our feet, who advocate, who build, who do. Our discipleship leads us to do more than vote—it calls us to speak our minds to our elected officials, to live the gospel in the way we treat others—interpersonally, and as part of the systems to which we belong.

The political rigor and intensity of the season can lull us into believing that there is one guy that will save us. Many will come—using the name of God, and making promises that they will save us. Many will come with an exciting new message of hope and change, and we will want to roll out the red carpet for them. Be on your guard.

Vote, but don’t do it believing that your vote is all that it takes—that voting for your guy will solve all our problems. Vote, and pray, and work, and engage in acts of justice. Act compassionately, as the hands and feet of Jesus, who modeled a way for us to follow God’s call. And, most importantly, put your trust in God, we look towards the reign of God, our hope and our salvation. AMEN.

The Impatience of Job

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 15:18:10 GMT

Sermon by Becca Tatum, 10/14/12

When I was a kid growing up, I remember the story of Job being used as a kind of folk wisdom in my family. When something was really tough, we would say that it could ‘try the patience of Job.’

Have you heard this expression? It makes a pretty clear summary of this text, doesn’t it? God and Satan together try to test Job’s patience, to see how much he can tolerate. Lose all 500 of your cattle? No problem. Windstorm blows down your house? Fine. Bubbling sores all over your body? Oh, OK. Easy? No, but Job refuses to curse or even engage God- to his wife he says, ‘how could I expect God to be good all the time? I must be faithful even now.’

I think Job’s answer is crazy no matter how you look at it, but it’s at least a little more passable if we think of it in human terms. No, we don’t tend to give one another bubbling sores. But most deep friendships, marriages, partnerships have their bumps, times when things aren’t easy or when we disappoint one another. In this sense, Job is indeed patient, and inordinately forgiving of what’s happening to him.

But Job isn’t talking to his wife, or his children, or his brother or best friend. He’s talking about a God who has made and will make covenants with other people – with Abraham, and Elijah, and Moses. As a follower of the One God, he’s one of a covenant people, one who has agreed to keep the commandments to show that he is keeping his end of the bargain.

The problem is, Job never got to talk to God about this situation, did he? They never exchanged vows; there was no burning bush, no angels, no widow of Zarapheth, no miracle. God didn’t warn him that things would be tough, or explain why he was going to suffer. Halfway through the story, Job still doesn’t really even know if there is a God on the other end of his prayers, does he?

The Job story was written over three thousand years ago. But I think it seems remarkably modern and surprisingly familiar.

The truth is, we are like Job in many ways. Mostly we have not had a visiting angel or a conversation with the great I AM, but we agree to some faith, some seeking, some covenant about living in this world together. We suffer, perhaps not in the way Job suffers, but with pains as great, losses as large, sorrow as deep.

Like Job, we, too, are often patient. We may try to accept that life is sometimes difficult. That sometimes, bad things just happen.

But like Job, at some point, we grow tired of being patient, and we begin to look for control, for an explanation for our suffering. I don’t know where we got this idea of the ‘patience of Job.’ When I look at this text, Job doesn’t seem at all patient to me.

“I would lay my case before him, and fill my mouth with arguments!”

“I might come even to his dwelling!”

I’m gonna find that SOB and when I do, he’s gonna hear it. And if I could only sit down with him for a little while, just a little while, I bet he would listen to me.

But we know something which Job does not. We know that there is no reason for Job to suffer. God isn’t making a point to a wayward people; God isn’t testing God’s covenant; in fact, God seems to just be showing off. Job is just in the middle of someone else’s drama; he’s the innocent bystander who gets shot by a stray bullet. He’s the unlucky guest chosen from the audience. In fact, sometimes suffering is just like this, isn’t it? It’s an accident of fate, it’s collateral damage, a side effect of the medicine we take to fix another problem.

We live in a remarkably learned time, and we have explanations for so much more of life than Job did. Hurricanes and earthquakes, economic recession, market forces, depression, anxiety, cancer- we know why they all happen. But knowing the explanation really doesn’t lessen the suffering at all, does it? It’s not any better than it was for poor Job, imagining he must have done something, demanding that God, who must have a good reason, explain what he has done.

I’m not willing to believe in a God who has prescribed every ounce of suffering in our world, any more than I believe in a God who has planned every moment of joy.

But I’m also not patient. Like Job, I don’t like my own suffering, and like Job, I want to find a way to control it. How very human he is! And here, for me, is where we may want to honor impatience and let it go at the same time.

No matter the cause, suffering is often outside of our control. Our house doesn’t sell; we lose our job or we lose our parent. I wonder: how does it change our suffering to imagine that we can’t control it, through God or otherwise?

Suffering also makes us isolated. We are isolated by the inward focus of healing and the challenge of our own emotions. And we also isolate one another because it is so difficult to see others suffer. I think of the homeless woman who I pass every day at Union, and how it feels to see her wearing the same clothes, asking the same question. I think of how hard it can be to watch another person cry. Or I think of the awkward responses of folks to we who are teachers, or chaplains, or social workers. “Ooh. Autistic children? Whoa. Middle schoolers? I hated middle school. Dying people? Wow. Good for you.” Job has his friends to argue over the nature of his suffering, true. But the very course of their argument reinforces the point: it’s Job, and Job alone, who sits in ashes, scraping his sores.

But Job, and we like Job, are part of a larger covenant, a community of people. We have friends, and partners, parents and wives, husbands and children. We enter into covenant, from birth, with a sense of moral life – a divine agreement, a commitment to a larger humanity. Into this imagined agreement we live our lives, knowing even so that we will suffer. And like Job, we bear suffering within this larger body.

Our suffering is joined to the life of a human community, one which shares a covenant with the divine in one another. Our God is in this shared space, one which does not expect us to be fully in control of our lives. We are not called to control over our broken world, nor are we called only to patient acceptance. I urge us to be im-patient, just like Job. Demand more of the God who lives in our relationships and society. Demand more of ourselves.

But in our im-patience, let us find a space to relinquish the control we wish to have- over our suffering and the pain of others. I don’t think we can control suffering, and I don’t think we can always even explain it. What we can do is share it. Be present. Let our pain be known. Let ourselves be affected by the suffering of others. Our hope lies in this sharing, in human connection which is in our control. May we be blessed with the impatience of Job, and may wrap one another in the divine love of our human connection.

Blessed be the Name of the Lord

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 13:22:14 GMT

Job 1: 1, 2:1-10

Oh, Job. What are we going to do with the book of Job? What are we going to do with these characters—with Job, with God, with Satan, with Job’s wife? What are we going to do with this story?

The book of Job is a difficult one. There’s no happy ending. There’s not even a good beginning. It’s a hard story to read—terrible things happen to Job, to his family, to all the people that Job cares most about. It’s a lifetime worth of sadness and suffering piled on Job in one short span.

That might not be so terrible—so hard to take—and Job might be an almost relatable character, if we didn't have this conversation between God and Satan.

What we heard in today’s text is actually the 2^nd of several conversations between God and Satan in this book. In the first conversation—in Chapter 1 of Job—God and Satan gathered together “in the heavenly courts” and God pointed out Job, his faithful servant. Job, honest and upright, was offered to Satan by God. God said to Satan, “You can take anything Job has, but don’t lay a hand on Job himself.”

And that’s what Satan did. He took away—with God’s permission—all of Job’s animals—the oxen, donkeys, sheep and camels. He took away all of Job’s children when a great wind knocked down the house where they were eating together.

To this, Job grieved deeply. He shaved his head, lay down on the ground, and worshiped God, saying, “God gives, God takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

God and Satan met again, and this time God consented to have Satan take away Job’s health. God instructed Satan to take Job’s health but keep him alive.

And Satan did. Job was afflicted with painful boils all over his body.

Job’s wife responded to this tragedy by saying to Job, “Why are you still holding on to your integrity? Just curse God and die.”

This is a disturbing story. There’s just no getting around it. It’s disturbing and it’s so complex. Because what we hear on the surface, in the English translation, it is made more complicated by the Hebrew.

Job’s very name is makes things messy. In Hebrew, Ayyub means “hated” or “persecuted”. So you already know—before the story even begins—that Job was going to be set up.

Satan or “hasatan” in Hebrew has meanings that go in a far different direction than the pointy eared red devil living in the depths of hell, as we have come to know him in our own mythology. In this story, Satan was part of the heavenly courts. And, Satan was an adversary. His role was to oppose. He was—in much of the book of Job—in legal terms, acting as the opposing council.

And the wife—she told Job to “Curse God and die.” But it’s more complex than just curse God. This word that was used for curse—Barack—has another meaning. It also means “to bless.” So, while most translations will convert this piece of text to “Curse God and die,” we also have a sense that curse and blessing are intertwined. What is a blessing is also a curse. What is a curse may also turn out to be a blessing.

This story of conflict between Job and God and the Adversary is not the only place that we hear this story. This story is part of all three major religions. It goes back as far as the ancient Egyptian mythology. The questions that the story of Job addresses are questions that all people in all cultures wonder about, and struggle with. Why do bad things happen to good, righteous, upright people? Why is there evil in the world?

I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to answer this difficult question in one sermon. Truth be told, I don’t have the answer to this question at all. I take comfort in the fact that so many theologians don’t know what to do with this book. I take some comfort that some theologians are pretty mad that this book is even in the Bible. It’s not clear, it doesn't take a side, it doesn't give any answers. It begins in much the same way it ends. In awkwardness. God gives Job things. God takes everything from Job to see what happens. Job tries to fight with God, and God replies with a “who do you think you are?” Job gives up. God gives Job a new family.

Uncomfortable. Mysterious. Unsettling.

Those are the same words I’d use to describe the communion table. On the night before Jesus was to die at the hands of his political and religious enemies, Jesus gathered his disciples together in a small room, and they shared a meal. Jesus washed his disciples feet, he warned them that he would die, and that he would be betrayed by his most loyal followers.

Uncomfortable. Mysterious. Unsettling.

And that night, after Jesus left that meal, he and his disciples went up to pray. Actually, Jesus prayed, and the disciples slept. But they woke up pretty quickly when Jesus was arrested, taken to religious and political authorities, and sentenced to death by crucifixion.

And then Jesus was interrogated, beaten, and crucified. He died a humiliating public death. All hope was gone.

Until the third day when the women found an angel in the tomb, who assured them that Jesus was alive. According to Mark’s gospel, the women “fled from the tomb bewildered and trembling; but they said nothing to anyone because they were so afraid.”

The story of Jesus’ death and resurrection is uncomfortable and unsettling. And yet, it is a story of hope. Jesus lived an upright life, he followed God’s call on his life. He was tortured and killed because of it, but he also was resurrected because of it. We still struggle to understand why it had to happen. Why Jesus had to die. Why he had to suffer. Why there was so much evil that was against the good he brought. But the end of the story brought with it resurrection, new life.

Uncomfortable. Unsettling. And hopeful.

Job’s story and Jesus’ story are uncomfortably similar. Both are upright people, faithful people. Both are tried and tested by Satan, the adversary. Both have moments of hopelessness. Both relent and have new life.

And both ask questions of God. Jesus says to God, “God, why have you forsaken me?” Job shaves his head, grieves while he worships God. He says, “God gives, God takes. Blessed be the name of Adonai.”

Our questions persist—God, why is this happening to me? To us? We are good people! Why is there evil in this world? We ask these questions of God. And while we ask, we recognize that there are some things we’ll never understand fully in this life.

We grieve that suffering happens in the world. We grieve that we suffer, and those we love feel pain. We grieve the suffering in this neighborhood, city and world. We are not content with trite answers to the questions of evil and suffering in this world—we have questions. We hold our grief in prayer together—here in this fellowship of believers.

And even as we grieve, we see the good things happing around us too. We have been given eyes to see hope in this world—hope that comes from suffering and destruction. So, we celebrate that hope we see. We bless the love that brings two people together. We bless the babies that are entrusted into this congregation. We celebrate the milestones that individuals experience in this congregation—new jobs, new opportunities, the talents and gifts we are given. And we celebrate the great mystery of faith at this communion table—Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

We have much to grieve. We are humans, living in a sinful, broken world. But, we have much to celebrate. We are God’s people, made in God’s image, reflecting the light of God within us. So, let us celebrate today. Let us bless our newest baby this morning. And let us celebrate God’s love for us as we gather around this table. Let us celebrate with food, with singing, with gifts, with hugs and love. And let those celebrations today feed our spirit, and sustain us through the times of grief and sadness.

Blessed be the name of Adonai. AMEN.

The Questions of a Child

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 13:56:34 GMT

Mark 9:30-37; James 3:13-4:3, 7-8

I am always surprised by how many questions my kids have for me. Sometimes they are questions about how things work. “Mom, how does money come out of that plastic card?” or “ How do bones heal after they are broken?”

Sometimes they want to know what’s next—to frame the day, and plan things out. “What’s for dinner?” What’s happening this weekend?”

Sometimes they are questions of permission--
Mom, can I buy a pocketknife?” or “Can I have a sleepover with my friends?”

Sometimes, they are asking questions to push the boundaries—“Why can’t we watch TV on school nights?” “Do I have to practice my instrument?”

Often the questions can come at exactly the wrong time—“Mom, what’s the worst song you’ve ever heard?” comes just as I’m trying to talk on the phone, check my calendar online, and make dinner.”

But, in my heart, I’m glad for the questions. I’m glad they are still asking, and wanting to know how things work. They are still curious. They are still trying to seek understanding. At a certain point, it stops being a good thing in the minds of kids to ask questions. At some point, asking questions of clarity may seem to their peers like they are not paying attention, or aren’t’ smart enough to figure out how things work. This is—of course—not true. But, the questions—the curiousity—fades over time, and as children develop into adulthood a sense of certainty creeps in.

In the gospel of Mark, we hear a series of vignettes from Jesus’ ministry. First, Jesus told the disciples the disturbing truth; that “the son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.”

The disciples did not understand this news. They couldn’t process what Jesus just said to them. They wanted to ask questions, but “they were afraid to ask him.”

Instead, as they walked along towards Capernaum, the disciples argued about who was the greatest of all disciples.

Jesus must have put his head in his hands, wondered why God called him to such a group of disciples, before he told them to sit down. Here, sitting on the ground, Jesus pulled a child into the conversation , and said, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not only me but the one who sent me.”

Jesus addressed the immediate issue—the arguement about who was the greatest disciple—and he addressed it with a confounding statement. If you want to be first you must be last. You must be a servant.

When I was in my Christian elementary school, I remember a particular incident where this statement was invoked. My classmates were scrambling to get in line for the water fountain. I hung back a little—the tussling over the water fountain never made sense to me. I knew we’d all get a drink eventually. The teacher most have noticed this, and citing this text, “whoever wants to be first must be last”, she had us reverse the line. The person in the back of the line (me), got to be first to the water fountain. And I really enjoyed it. I recall taking a long slow drink from that water fountain, looking at my peers sideways as I drank. I savored the feeling of being first, while self-righteously rubbing it in to my thirsty classmates. I don’t think that’s what Jesus had in mind for the use of this text.

The disciples were self-seeking, pursuing ambition instead of serving the least of these. In fact, Jesus’ disciple, James, says in our other text today that “where there is jealousy and ambition, there is also disharmony and wickedness of every kind.” Today’s text proved it to be so among to disciples. I makes me wonder if—when James was writing these words—he wasn’t thinking about his fellow disciples and this particular disagreement, on this particular day.

While Jesus was calmly addressing the childish debate over who among the disciples was the greatest, I think he was also saying something about the other behavior of the disciples—I think he was reflecting on the disciples’ inability to ask important, clarifying questions to Jesus’ disturbing words.

Maybe Jesus’ words don’t sound so shocking to you right now. Perhaps you’ve heard them enough that they don’t upset you. But imagine hearing this for the first time, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.”

This is the second time the disciples have heard Jesus say this so far in the gospel of Mark. It’s a lot to take in. They certainly had questions and concerns, but unfortunately, they were too busy worrying about who was the greatest, that they could not humble themselves and ask a simple question. “Jesus, what does this mean?”

And if the disciples were going to ask any questions about Jesus, his work and his ministry, this might be a good thing to ask about. “The son of man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.”

At my middle schooler’s school back to school night this week, several teachers encouraged the kids to ask questions. “Just because you are a smart kid doesn’t mean you know everything. Asking questions is how we expand our knowledge.”

Jesus brought a child into the midst of the disciples that day. It was a reminder to focus on the least instead of the greatest. But, it was also a reminder to them that they must humble themselves—and like a child—ask questions.

And what greater quality do children bring than their curiosity? Children’s desire to learn is encouraged when they ask questions. They learn by answering the questions that they develop as they interact in the world.

But that curiosity has potential to be squashed out of children by folks like the disciples who are so certain, so together, so positive that they are right. I recall the moment it happened to me.

I was 12 and I wanted to join the church. So I met with the Pastor and he explained to principles of the church and the particular holiness tradition to which we belonged. I remember this moment so vividly—I can still picture the basement Sunday school room, the musty smell of the damp room. I can picture my pastor, very stern and serious, all business.

And I remember asking questions about holiness—“Can we really be so holy that we become perfect? I thought that God was the only perfect one.” “We are sinners—how do we make ourselves perfect?”

I think my questions were getting on his nerves. Or maybe he was surprised that I was asking them. Or that I was persistent, or that I cared that much. But, he said to me, in a clearly irritated way, “Listen, if you don’t believe in this, don’t join the church.”

I had a choice to make—fit in and be a joiner, or persist in asking the questions, and be relegated (in this particular community) to the edges.

And while kids are curious, they also want to feel like they are part of something. Like they belong. So, I joined the church. I set aside my questions to belong.

It might be fun to question the motives of my pastor at that time, but it doesn’t seem especially fruitful. (Or maybe I’m a little sensitive about judging pastors, being that I am one.) What I took away from that as an adult is that there needs to be space to ask questions. There needs to be a space where questions from everyone can be heard, reflected on, discussed, challenged.

Jesus words and use of the child imagery reminded the disciples of the radically egalitarian nature of the movement and the ministry, but it also challenged the culture of silence around children. Serving the little children was a radical idea, but it was not just stooping to their level, but listening to their questions, engaging them where they were.

Perhaps we know this idea too well, and this is preaching to the choir. So maybe this is a sermon to just me. But, I’m aware that the curiosity, the enthusiasm of children, their insistence on asking a question—with persistence—is exhausting. I don’t always want to take the time. I’m tired. I’m on a singleminded path and don’t want to take a side trip somewhere. We do not always want to be bothered with questions. We don’t want to stoop. We have an agenda—we are certain of what we are to do.

Jesus suggests something much different—instead of seeking greatness, let us ask questions. Instead of worrying about our ambition, let us stop to listen to everyone—from the least to the greatest. Instead of rushing around, Jesus asks us to take our time.

Maybe we’ve heard these things enough that it doesn't seem so radical. But, even in the urgency of sharing the good news, Jesus is calling his disciples to slow down, to sit on the ground to listen. And perhaps even to learn from the child-like, the curious, and the questioning.

Even though the timing of my kid’s questions are not optimal, I’m so glad they ask them. It means they haven’t lost their curiousity, their child-like questions, their desire to make sense of the world. I hope they never do. I hope we never do. I hope we always make space for questions—even in the midst of our agendas, our busy lives, and our adult certainty.

For in welcoming the questions, the curiousity, the uncertainty and the wonder, we welcome Christ into our midst. AMEN.

What's in the Heart

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 19:12:15 GMT

Mark 7: 1-23; James 1: 17-27

September 2, 2012

This month, we’re embarking on a sermon series—a conversation between the gospel of Mark and the book of James. Sometimes in the lectionary, texts coincide for a reason, but mostly that’s during lent and advent. During the rest of the calendar year, the texts are not necessarily designed for a conversation. The lectionary texts are designed so we get a broad look at the Bible over the course of the lectionary’s three year cycle.

But—in the month of September—it does seem like Jesus’ words and stories speak to the words from James. Jesus and James both have something to say about religion and faith.

In the gospel of Mark, Jesus was on a bit of a rant against the religious leaders. It was observed by the religious leaders that Jesus’ disciples did not ritually wash their hands before eating. It was a tradition in some—but not all—Jewish communities, to ritually wash ones hands, to ritually cleanse food and to ritually clean all pots and pans before and after eating. And these disciples did not adhere to these particular religious traditions. And the fact that they did not do this ritual cleansing, caused some eyebrows to raise among these religious leaders.

So Jesus—using Isaiah as his starting point—tore into the religious leaders. “The people honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me. The worship they offer me is worthless; the doctrines they teach are only human precepts.”

Jesus ended this portion of the text by getting to the heart of what he’s saying—“It is what comes out of us that makes us unclean. For it is from within—from our hearts—that evil intentions emerge.”

So, religion doesn’t make us better people. Our rituals and traditions don’t make us better. The external things we do don’t make us more holy. Our external influences don’t matter much either. The focus on our traditions—the external ways our faith plays out—is a distraction from the real stuff; it’s a distraction from what is in our hearts.

James, on the other hand, is concerned about the behavior of the faithful. “Pure, unspoiled religion, in the eyes of God is this; coming to the aid of widows and orphans when they are in need, and keeping oneself uncontaminated by the world.”

Didn’t I tell you these two texts are in conversation? Although it feels more like an argument between Jesus and James about what matters—the state of the heart and our actions.

Truthfully, the books of James is a bit of a controversy. Scholars can’t figure out who wrote it—though tradition holds that Jesus’ brother, James, is the author. Scholars can’t figure out when it was written either. But, what we do know is that James is a letter of advice to his “brothers and sisters”.

This book was very upsetting to reformers in the 16^th century. In fact, Martin Luther argued that the book of James should be removed from the canon. He argued that because it did not mention the death and resurrection of Jesus—or anything about Jesus for that matter—that it wasn't gospel, or truth. He also was troubled because the theology was contrary to other texts—mostly the rest of the Greek testament. And the idea that “works” or our actions determine our heart—well, this was guiling to Luther. This is what Luther argued was a central problem with the Church—that people were so bent on actions determining faith, that their hearts were empty of faith.

So then, what is faith about—is it about our hearts or our actions?

This is one of the tricky parts of preaching—we have some texts to work with, texts that often feel plucked at random—and from these stories and words of faith, the preacher must determine a truth, a thing that has meaning for us today, that reaches to our context, and gives us a new view of Jesus and faith.

The problem with this is that when we preach the part of the story or text we’re given, it is not the end of the story. It’s never the end of the story. It’s a snapshot of a moment in time. And it’s rather unfair of us to determine what Jesus is saying unless we actually pull back, and see what Jesus does next, after he gives this exhortation to the religious leaders. How do his words of exhortation manifest themselves in what happens next?

After Jesus, in utter frustration, explained to his disciples, to the crowds and to the religious leaders, that one’s heart is the issue, Jesus took off. He went to the territory of Tyre and Sidon, a largely Gentile and Samaritan region. He intended to hide there. To take a break, a little sabbatical.

But unfortunately for Jesus, he was recognized by a Gentile woman, who approached Jesus, begging him to heal her daughter of demon possession. But Jesus, trying to hide, and probably a little unsure of this Gentile woman, said some hurtful words—“Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food, and throw it to the dogs.”

Yes, Jesus just said this. He compared this woman to a dog. Now, I’ve heard a lot of theological justifications for what Jesus said in this text and why. It could be said that Jesus was talking about his people—the Jews—as children (children of God), and that may be true. But no one has ever been able to convince me that Jesus meant anything but slander by calling this Gentile woman a dog.

This Gentile woman called Jesus to task—in a gentle way. She replied to Jesus, “Even the dogs under the table get to eat the children’s crumbs.” Jesus rewards this woman for her bold words. He said, “For saying this you will go home happy; the demon has left your daughter.”

After Jesus spoke to the religious leaders, the crowd and the disciples about faith and belief being rooted in the heart and not the actions, Jesus’ words were put to the test.

This woman—not from his Jewish flock—exposed what was in Jesus’ heart. Here in this personal moment between Jesus and a Gentile woman, he admits that the gospel was not intended for her, that she was not worthy of the bread of life. Jesus’ heart was exposed—in it, he found the prejudices of his own culture, of a world in which he had been steeped.

Perhaps you think that I’m skating on thin ice here, that I’m getting too comfortable with the idea that Jesus was human. I get it—it’s a frightening place to be, when we think that Jesus should be a certain way, and he doesn’t act in accordance with our beliefs. But, walk with me down this path for a second.

Jesus said something very human here—but his response to the reprimand is what reminds us of just how amazing Jesus is. His response was to, in effect, shine a light onto his own flawed views, and to be changed by the exposure. Jesus wasn’t going to help this woman. But, when she exposed his own limiting view of the gospel, his very heart, he was changed. And, he offered her daughter the healing she desired. And in doing so, he experienced his own healing. He was healed of his prejudicial views, and the gospel was made more expansive.

Jesus railed against the religious leaders for making religion about a set of traditions, about the things we do, about a correct way to do things. And he was right. We spend too much time worrying about the right way to do things, and in doing that we miss the heart of the gospel. Even us Mennonite—who are pretty casual about worship and tradition—can be pretty staunch in our view of what is right and correct.

But Jesus also learned something important in his encounter with the Gentile woman—Jesus learned that our words and actions expose what is in our hearts. And we don’t always like what we see.

Jesus warned people to watch out for what is in the heart, and not worry about what we do. James, on the other hand, warned us against listening to the word of God, but not putting it into action. Perhaps these words seems contradictory, but they really are two sides of the same coin. And we see that in the story of Jesus and the Gentile woman. Jesus put his beliefs into action, and when the truth of them were called to task, Jesus had to change. He had to change both his heart and actions.

What resulted was a change in his ministry, a change in his heart and a change in the way he interacted with those around him. This courageous woman changed Jesus’ heart, and in doing so, made the gospel an invitation for all of us.

May we, like Jesus, have hearts and minds that are willing to change, and actions that reflect our deepest convictions. AMEN.

Miriam's Sermon

Michelle Bruhn — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 16:32:02 GMT

Miriam Roberts

Zambian Cinderella

This is a story about Cinderella. That is not her name, of course, nor is she named Ella or Elaine or Eleanor. Her name might be Choolwe, or Luyando. Perhaps Beauty, although that is a different story. We will call her Choolwe.

The story begins with death. This story always begins with death: the mother dies. Perhaps the father marries again, and the stepmother does not like Choolwe. Or perhaps the father already has a second wife. But the mother most likely died of AIDS, which means that the father is also dead, or will be soon. We do not need to introduce a stranger into Choolwe’s story; her own relatives will do just as well. Choolwe is sent to live with an auntie: the sister of one of her parents, or perhaps their cousin. Perhaps the auntie is kind, and loves Choolwe as one of her own. But perhaps she does not, because the auntie has many children already, and she does not know Choolwe, who is just an extra mouth to feed.

Choolwe’s life with her auntie is not so different than that with her parents. She still cooks nshima and relish, washes clothes, sweeps the house and yard, fetches water. There is more work to be done, but also more hands to do it, even if more of it falls to Choolwe than to anyone else. The uncle has more money than her father did, a bigger house and a herd of cows. Her uncle’s house has electricity, and a television, but what money there is is spent on his own children before Choolwe, and her clothes do not fit, her breasts are shoved into a too-small shirt and bounce when she runs, but she is not yet a woman, to have a woman’s clothes. If there is no money for her schooling, perhaps that is just as well, because the auntie needs help with the children. Perhaps there is less love — there are many children — but perhaps Choolwe was never accustomed to love. How do you know your parents love you? They feed me.

Any story about Cinderella needs a prince. The prince is white, of course, a mukuwa, a muzungu. The prince is always white. Haven’t you seen Disney? He would not need to be, because there are men in Choolwe’s village who have enough that they could spare a little, but she would not ask them — they are not white — and they do not see her. Perhaps if she asked, they would find charity in their hearts — it is Christian to share with one’s neighbor — but perhaps they would not. After all, there are many mouths to feed.

The prince is white. The prince must be white, because in the stories we tell each other, like the stories the bakuwa tell themselves, the prince who steps in is always white. If only someone would give me some money. If only someone would give me a tractor. If only someone would pay for the mortar — of course someone means a mukuwa. Who else would it be? Your relatives do not have money like that. The government? When has the government ever done anything for you? But look, that church, that school, that pump — they are all gifts from the bakuwa. It is not impossible. If you ask, and you are lucky, he will step out of his country — Fairyland, Holland, Canada, England, United States — and give you what you need.

The prince does not need to be male, but English pronouns are complicated, and ‘he’ is easiest. One day, Choolwe meets a prince.

Good morning, how are you? Please, I am asking for money for my school fees. I am asking for books. I am asking a pencil. Please, I am asking, one pin — five hundred kwacha! Please, I am hungry. Please!

It is not so much money. A bus ticket. The price of a few restaurant meals. The prince is inclined to be generous — why else is he here? He takes a few pictures, proof of his kindness. Ndalumba, ndalumba! The prince smiles. ‘Thank you’ is one of the few words he knows. He cannot say ‘You are welcome,’ but that does not matter. Princes need not be polite. They exist only to give money.

Perhaps the money goes to Choolwe’s school. Perhaps it does not. Even if it does, what does it matter? She is already behind, and there are 63 other children in the class, and half of them are boys. Her English is not so good, and perhaps the teacher did not come today anyway. The dishes need washed, and the uniforms, and there is no money for candles. She does not have a uniform. It does not matter. She can be late today, and perhaps tomorrow.

The prince has gone, back to his country, to Europe or America, by next week, or the week after, when Choolwe is again asking. Perhaps she finds another prince. Perhaps he is again generous, but it does not matter. If she is lucky, if it is luck, she will be married, and keep her husband’s house, polish his shoes, feed his children. He has a good house — four rooms — and does not mean to be cruel, and surely that is all a girl with no parents can hope for. But there are many children more important than Choolwe, many daughters to be married, and surely it is easier to keep Choolwe at home to help with the house.

Choolwe becomes pregnant. How does not matter — the uncle, the cousin, the boy in her class with his hand down her skirt. By the time the prince might think of marrying her, he will not. What prince wants a woman with a baby at her suckles and a toddler in each hand?

The auntie is no longer so pleased with Choolwe’s help, and Choolwe goes to live with another relative who does not yet dislike her, but nothing changes. Choolwe is tired, and thin, and the children cry with hunger. A prince would not look at her now; emaciation that is charming in a child is merely displeasing in a grown woman.

This story ends in death. It does not end in suicide, because Choolwe is a woman, and only a man has the agency to end his own story. But she dies. AIDS, childbirth, tuberculosis. It does not matter.

Choolwe’s oldest daugher is sent to live with an auntie.

Drink my Blood

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 13:53:52 GMT

Drink my Blood

John 6: 51-58

Drink my blood. Eat my flesh.

The communion scene is often an illusion to this less than pleasant idea. We usually chalk it up to metaphor. But, here in this text, it’s hard to get past this direct statement from Jesus. “My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Everyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me, and I in them.”

It sounds pretty real to me. No so metaphorical. It sounds a lot like…vampires.

With Alan Ball’s provocative HBO series, True Blood, and the young adult series book and movie series, Twilight, vampires have become the genre du jour.

While I don’t know much about Twilight, I do confess that I have a bit of a thing for True Blood. In this series, vampires that have lived a hidden life for centuries, now mainstream into society because they’ve figured out a way to manufacture fake blood, which they call “True Blood”. They no longer need to count on human blood—they can live on “fake blood” as upstanding citizens, without being a threat to their human counterparts.

The problem with this True Blood drink is that while it satisfies the hunger pangs for the only thing they can eat as the living dead, it does not satisfy the hunger for intimacy that comes with biting into human flesh and drinking warm, human blood.

For humans, vampire blood is not necessary to live, but it is intoxicating. It is like an elixir, and a drug. If a human is sick or injured, it heals them. And if they are not sick, it makes them high. It gives them the ability to see things differently and understand a new reality.

But here’s the thing about humans and vampires sharing blood in this series—when they share blood, they become connected to each other somehow. Because they’ve shared each other’s blood, vampires know when their human friends are in trouble. And when a human has had a little vampire blood, they think about that vampire. They are psychically connected to that vampire. They long to be connected to them again—to share blood again.

All this sounds rather disgusting to us humans living in the real world, a world where there are no vampires. But this drinking blood thing is in the Bible. It’s in the text we read from John today. Eat my flesh. Drink my blood.

It’s not easy to come face to face with today’s text. It’s awkward. It’s gross. It’s a little too literal—lacking the poetry and metaphor that we hear in other parts of the Gospel of John. It’s. Just. Too. Much. We would like Jesus to be a little more metaphorical about this flesh eating and blood drinking thing. We’d like Jesus to not seem so much like vampire Bill. But Jesus does not make it easy.

In fact, Jesus makes it very difficult. His choice of words become more intense. Up until this passage, Jesus has used the greek word—esthia—to describe “eat.” This is civilized eating. But here in John 6: 51-58, Jesus transitions to a more graphic word—trogo—which means to gnaw, to eat primally, to fully consume.

Jesus does not seem to want people to follow him. And, his word choice, leads many of his disciples to leave. In John 6:66, It says, “From this time on, many of the disciples broke away and wouldn’t remain in the company of Jesus.”

Jesus has crossed a line here. He is not talking about the metaphorical. He’s not talking civilized. He’s gone beyond the laws of his people. In fact, he’s stomped all over the sensibilities of his people—on top of this, Jesus says this in the temple. What Jesus is suggesting is an affront to his people’s understanding of what is clean and what is holy. It’s no wonder they walk away. It’s no wonder they decide that they cannot follow him.

Jesus is not doing us any favors here. So let’s step back from this text for a minute. Let’s look at this text in its larger context.

There’s a word that appears over and over in the Gospel of John, and it appears also in this text. In greek it’s “meno”, which means “to abide, to remain, to stay. And, in the case of the inclusive Bible translation that we’re reading today, it means “to live in”. In the gospel of John, there’s a circular conversation that’s happening. Jesus keeps going back to this concept of abiding. And every time he talks about this “abiding”, he goes a little deeper, the abiding becomes more personal, more intimate, and a little more scary.

This word from the greek root—meno—appears at early as the first chapter of John, where the Spirit descended on Jesus and remained (meno) on Jesus.

A few verses later, the disciples met Jesus and remained (meno) with him.

In chapter 4, the Samaritans came to him and remained (meno) with him for 2 days.

In chapter 6, this word, meno, starts to take on a different meaning. “Do not work for food that perishes, but for the food that endures, remains (meno) for eternal life.”

And now, at the end of chapter 6, Jesus goes even deeper. “Those who eat my flesh, and drink my blood, abide in me, and I in them.”

Jesus is making a case for what it means to remain, abide, stay, be present to God. The abiding—meno—doesn’t mean just hanging out with Jesus, it doesn’t mean our simple presence. It means an unmediated relationship with God incarnate. It does not mean bringing a sacrifice in the temple, not an appeasement of an angry God. It’s relationship—a mutual relationship—with a God who wants to abide, remain, stay, endure with you, and wants you to do the same.

Jesus is not talking about the stuff of vampires here. Jesus is talking about a deep, wonderful, terrifying, unmediated relationship with the son of God. But there is something to be said about the vampire analogy—to a point.

The reason the vampires and humans in True Blood have this attraction to one another is because they have shared their life blood. They understand each other because they have had a taste of the very thing that keeps them alive. There is an intimacy, and a sensuality to that—a deep mutual vulnerability in the sharing of life-blood.

In the non-vampire world, this translates to the vulnerability we have in our most intimate relationships, or in the intensity of childbirth. We share each other’s life-blood. We share the deepest parts of each other.

Jesus here is pushing the limits of his potential followers. They can remain with Jesus for a few days, for a meal. They might even be able to seek after this eternal food—the food that doesn’t spoil, but sustains forever. But, Jesus wants to push his followers further. Are they prepared to remain, abide with him, eating the eternal food of life, and living in deep and mutual intimacy with God? Are they prepared to abide, when Jesus’ life blood is poured out, and his flesh is broken open in death?

Jesus requires an unmediated, vulnerable relationship with us. And Jesus is offering the same for us—that he will break himself open, and fully share with us all of his own incarnated self.

That is a frightening prospect—that God might know all of us fully, and that we would open ourselves to that. For those followers of Jesus that turned away after Jesus said the frightening and confusing words—drink my blood and eat my flesh—you can understand why they left. Eating flesh and drinking blood—it sounds like Jesus is going very extreme. But even those who could see past those extreme words to the intimacy Jesus is requiring—that is also frightening. Jesus wants to know all of us, see all of us. Jesus wants us to know all of him.

I said at the beginning of this sermon that it is very difficult to be metaphorical about this text. The words from Jesus feel so real, and so raw. Drink my blood. Eat my Flesh. But to be honest, there’s no way we can do otherwise. It is easy with metaphor to distill things into palatable pieces, into images that make sense. But this text from John disturbs us, disrupts us, makes us question our desire to follow. Jesus asks us in this text, and all throughout the gospel of John—are you ready to abide with me, to be in deep communion, and deep relationship with me? It’s the eternal question for Christians—can we be disciples? Can we follow Jesus into the unknown?

Incarnate God, Intimate God,

Give us to courage to follow you into the unknown.

AMEN.

John Linscheid's Sermon: Rooted and Grounded in Love

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 16:34:11 GMT

July 29, 2012
Germantown Mennonite Church

What images spring to mind when you hear the word “love”?

[Congregational responses included: warmth, family,parent and child, grandparents]

So what does it mean to be rooted and grounded in love as the Epistle to the Ephesians puts it?

Is it a feeling? A set of obligations?

Does love mean, a la Shel Silverstein's Giving Tree, the part about getting all used up by someone or the part about being happy about it?

It is all fuzzy feelings, or is it all doing something nice for someone.

In cultures such as the New Testament world, love and hate were less about internal feelings and more about social relationships. Was someone in your group or out of it? Were you socially connected or not?

Being rooted and grounded in love fundamentally has to do with being rooted and grounded in each other. The Ephesian prayer begins as an appeal to Abba God—Universal Parent. The source from which everyfamily takes its name. All families of peoples (cobbled together by blood or intent or circumstance) belong to one large family. We all belong to each other.

That is frightening. It is hard enough living with people we are related to, let alone those who randomly walk through church doors each Sunday or stumble across our path in the wider world.

Relationships are blessing and curse. Ecstasy. Agony. Empowering. Disheartening. And love means doing what is necessary to keep on living through all that with each other—and with the intent of making it work better with each other.

To do that, we must embrace even what involves conflict and is challenging in the relationship—without illusion or romantic denial. It means confronting and listening. Demanding as well as giving. Making life a three-way, five-way, hundred-way street.

Church, like most social institutions, is not very good at this. Institutions—collections of people—like control just as individuals like control.

A hundred-way street can’t be controlled. So let’s not beat ourselves up too much when we resort to short cuts that patch the connections in less-than-ideal ways.

But we must constantly envision better, and find ways to strengthen the connections, to open our hearts wider to each other. To risk deepening relationship.

This morning's Gospel story struck me.

In the story, the disciples head off in a boat without Jesus, struggling against storm conditions on the lake.When they see Jesus walking toward them on the water, coming in a way they don’t understand, they are frightened. And how is their fear overcome? Jesus says, “I am. Fear not.”

Not by their own will but by that great I am, by the one in whose image they are created and who takes their flesh. Who shares their nature and whose nature they share. It is a revelation that they are rooted and grounded in the same being.

When the fear of the unknown in another is overcome by knowledge of their common nature, the disciples want to take Jesus into their boat. And at that moment they have arrived.

Love involves recognizing others through our fears.

The moment we decide we want to be in the same boat with each other is the moment we arrive.

That doesn't mean a smooth path from there on. Indeed,for Jesus and the disciples, more difficult days lie ahead.On that last night, in the upper room, the disciples will still be trying to understand Jesus, what the relationship means, and where it is all going.

As we still are today.

The Ephesian prayer that “Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, so that you, being rooted and grounded in love,” etc. is all you plural. It refers to Christ dwelling in a group and the group being rooted and grounded in love. It is not about Christ dwelling in me, or my personal spiritual grounding. To “grasp fully the breadth, length, height, and depth” and to “know the love of Christ” is a collective enterprise; something we engage in with one another.

It is not about how I treat others or my personal moral standing in the group or in the Spirit. It is about how we treat each other, what we do with each other, how we live together.

We can only be filled with that divine reality, which we speak of as the knowledge of God, the love of Christ,the Holy Spirit—as we open ourselves together.

We must collectively want each other in the boat. We must listen together for the great I am that grounds and roots us all. And we must as one body invite the power that we know as God and Christ to come aboard with us. Then, in the words of Ephesians, we shall experience the love that surpasses understanding and be filled—all together—with the fullness of God.

Seeking the Face of God

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 17:04:14 GMT

Psalm 24

July 15, 2012

In Exodus 23, before Moses etched the ten commandments into the tablets of stone, Moses made a request to God. “God, show me your face. This is how I will know that I have found favor in your sight. And, in this way, we—the people of Israel—will be distinct from all other people, because we have seen You.”

God pondered this, and replied to Moses, “I will grant your request, because you have found favor with me, and I know you by name. I will pass by you so that you can see me in all my glory, but you cannot see my face, for no one will see my face and live.”

So the next day, Moses went up to Mt. Sinai, with two stone tablets, as he had been instructed by God. And God was there, but God did not show Moses God’s face. But Moses saw God, fully present, as God passed by him. And there, Moses was given the 10 commandments by God, and there Moses etched them into stone.

This beautiful story has become a family joke for us—God would not show Moses God’s face, but God was ok to pass Moses by, so Moses could see God’s butt.

Maybe this says more about my family than about this story, but in my defense, Hebrew scholars, by the way, call this story, “the divine moon.”

This story, as irreverently as it may have been told today, it does illustrates an important point—the people of God are always seeking God’s face, even if they never see it in its fullness or completeness.

Our Psalm today is all about seeing the face of God. The people of Israel, with this story of Moses rooted deeply within them, long for the face of God. In fact, this Psalm is actually a liturgical hymn, sung as the people of God enter the temple. And, it looks like the hymn is broken up into three verses.

The first verse of the hymn is Psalm 24:1-2:

The earth and everything on it—

The world and all who live in it—

Belongs to God.

God built it on the deep waters,

Laying its foundations in the ocean depths.

In this first verse of the hymn, we hear references to “In the beginning”, our creation stories. God made all of this. All of this belongs to God. It’s the equivalent of the praising portion of our service. “Thank you, God, for being so big, for creating everything, for being in charge of this vast universe.” You can imagine hands raised, praises being sung, to God the creator.

The second verse of this 24^th Psalm is the equivalent of the confession and words of assurance.

Who has the right to ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who is allowed to enter God’s holy place? Those whose hands are clean, and whose hearts are pure, who do not worship idols or make false promises.

God will bless them;

God their savior will declare them innocent.

Such are the people who seek the Lord,

Who seek your face, God of our ancestors.

We hear references in this verse to the story of Moses, ascending Mt. Sinai, to see a little bit of God, even if it was only the rear of God. Even if he couldn’t see God’s face, he needed to see something of God.

We also hear allusions here to the 10 commandments, and to the beatitudes. Some scholars have even wondered if this hymn inspired Jesus in portions of the Sermon on the Mount. “Those whose hands are clean, and whose hearts are pure, who do not worship idols or make false promises. God will bless them.” This sounds a lot like “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God”.

The second set of verse is the heart—the real meat—of this Psalm 24 temple hymn. Those who have pure hearts may ascend the holy mountain, may enter God’s sacred space, the temple. Those who are pure in heart may see God.

The third section of this Psalm 24 hymn is sung as the people of God process into the temple.

Fling wide the gates,

Open the ancient doors,

And the Glorious Liberator will come in!

Who is this Glorious Liberator?

The Lord, strong and mighty,

The Lord, victorious in battle!

Fling wide the gates,

open the ancient doors,

And the glorious liberator will come in!

Who is this glorious liberator?

The Lord God is our Glorious liberator.

This verse makes me think of the regal hymns we hear in Handel’s Messiah. “Who is the king of glory”. You can just imagine folks processing into the temple, inviting God, the glorious liberator to enter, opening the gates to allow the glory and the presence of God to enter in, and hoping, hoping, hoping, to catch a glimpse of God’s glory, of God’s face.

The people of Israel understood, just as we do, that you don’t really know someone until you see their face. You can hear a voice, and understand the inflection, the raising of the voice in anger and frustration, or the quiet voice of reflection and uncertainty. But, until you hear the voice in combination with seeing the face, I would argue you do not fully know someone.

Face to face reflects an intimacy, an openness to be vulnerable to another person. Face to face also admits to the other person that you are paying attention. You are focused an attuned to what they are saying, to the emotions they are expressing.

This is what makes long distance relationships such a challenge. This is why family and good friends try to get together over holidays. We need to see each other’s faces. We need to experience each other in a real way. Not just through social media or phone or text. We need to see the face of our friends and family members. We need to experience their presence.

Hebrew scholars actually define “seeking the face of God” as “seeking the full presence of God.” Moses longed to see the face of God, to fully experience God. But even he couldn’t handle all of God. Even Moses couldn’t handle seeing God’s face. God’s backside was as much glory as Moses could stand.

There are a couple of other places where people in the scriptures have said they have seen the face of God. Jacob, when he wrestled with the angel, said “I have seen the face of God, and lived.” But he saw the face of God, mediated by a human/angel form. And Hagar, the abused slave of Sarah and Abraham, saw the face of God, also in an angelic/human form. And she lived.

If Moses, who God loved and with whom God found favor, could only handle seeing the back of God, why do the people of Israel keep seeking the face of God? If Hagar and Jacob saw the face of God, but their experience is mediated by a holy figure, why do the people of Israel continue to long for the face of God? Do they wish to die in the presence of the holiness of God?

The desire to know God, to be in the presence of God, to seek God’s face, comes from a desire to understand. To know. To be more deeply connected to God.

The people of God continue to seek God’s face, knowing that it will never happen in this lifetime, knowing that we can’t handle it seeing the face of God, that it will be too much. But we seek God, hoping to catch a glimpse of the holy one in our seeking.

The moments that we see God on the mountain sustain us. The moments that we welcome God into worship, and God shows up, keep us going. The times we have called out to God, and asked for a sign, for God shows us God’s glory—in those moments when God shows up—we hold on to those moments. We cling to those moments when we have seen the mystery and the glory of God.

Three years ago, when my dad turned 60, my brother and I treated my dad to a trip to the Oregon coast. We went together to a place that had been very special to my parents, a place they went just a few weeks before my mom died. We did our typical Yoder things, we ate too much, laughed too hard, played too many card games. And we also took long walks on the beach.

The walking on the beach was the most important part of the trip. We all knew that the place we were was a special place for my mom, and the last time she was able to see the ocean. I wanted to see that last piece of ocean she had seen.

But I was not prepared for what I saw.

After walking about 100 steep rickety steps down to the beach, my family came upon hundreds of rock formations. I asked my brother, “What is this?”, not expecting an answer. He answered, “they are ebenezers.” I laughed at him. Because I had always thought ebenezers were larger glasses used for wine or ale back in the day. In the song, Come Thou Fount, the second verse says “Here I raise my Ebenezer, hither by thy help I’m come”. I always thought the author was raising a glass to God. But it turns out, the author of this hymn, and hundreds of people , had experienced the presence of God and had to erect a monument to the moment. Right there, in the place where they had seen a glimmer of God, they made a rock formation. Some of them were short little things—some incredibly tall. But I knew from seeing them, that because these unknown souls had experienced God on that beach, and because my mom had experienced God there, I too had a moment of resting in the presence of the holy one.

We may never see the face of God. No one has seen the face of God and lived. But, we still long for a glimpse of God, our glorious liberator. And when we catch it, we build an Ebenezer, we mark the occasion, we share it with others, we write about it, we sit in holy reverence, we dance and sing. AMEN

And She Told Him Everything

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 17:43:12 GMT

Mark 4: 21-39

July 1, 2012

Last week, I spent five fun filled days camping in the hills of North Carolina at the Wild Goose Festival. This is a festival of progressive Christianity, and a glimpse of the ways that the church is changing and evolving.

It’s an interesting mix of people, ranging from recovering evangelicals to social justice Mennonites to charismatics to post-Christian types.

One thing that characterizes this event is that it is coming out of the emergent church movement, which—in a nutshell—is a movement (especially among young people) to re-imagine what church looks like. Now, I have a lot of questions about the movement—I love the theology that’s emerging, but I have a lot of questions about the worship style that’s coming out of it.

The worship style tends to be a lot like you are hanging out in your friend’s living room. It’s sharing stories, with a focus on a spiritual theme. It’s not my bag. But—this is not a sermon criticizing the emergent movement. What I appreciated about this casual worship style is that people really opened up. They talked about times when they were really down, and God was there. In God’s presence, it wasn't all warm and fuzzy, it wasn’t perfect, it was still bad. But God’s presence and God’s people were there, being the hands and feet of Jesus in broken and terrible situations.

There was a transparency and openness at this event, an openness that perhaps comes with living together in a field in extreme summer heat and humidity, sharing trips to the water pump and ingredients for s’mores, and taking turns looking after each other’s kids. It was a glimpse into the Christian community, as it was intended when we love God, listen to the spirit, follow in the way of Jesus, and bear each other’s burdens.

Our gospel story today comes from Mark. It’s actually a series of stories, all of them important to each other, and all of them connected. In this stories there are four main characters—Jairus, the father of the unnamed girl; the 12 year old girl who is ill then dies; the unnamed women with a gynecological problem; and Jesus.

Jairus, a religious leader and a rabbi, went to Jesus to ask for help. He managed to get the attention of Jesus, who was surrounded by a large crowd. He begged Jesus to help his daughter. Jairus got on his knees and begged Jesus—in front of this large crowd—to heal his daughter.

Imagine that. A religious leader, a man respected by the people in his community, on his knees in front of a controversial yet popular religious leader. Jairus was desperate for help, and was willing to put his reputation on the line to save his daughter’s life. And he had faith in Jesus, that Jesus was really the one that could heal his daughter, at a time when she was about to blossom into womanhood.

As Jesus and Jairus were heading to Jairus’ home, Jesus was surrounded by people clamoring to see him, to be near him. And Jesus, in the middle of this crowd, notices that someone has touched the edge of his robe. Even in the middle of all this attention, the crowd pressing up against him and demanding things of him, Jesus managed to be open enough to notice the needs of someone desperate enough to touch even the edge of his clothing. He noticed this, the text says, because he was aware “that power had gone forth from him.”

Jesus asked the crowd, “Who touched me?” Probably a dozen people could have answered, “I did!”, but this woman knew what Jesus was talking about because she knew she had been healed. She felt the power too. So, in front of the pressing crowd, this woman told Jesus everything. She told Jesus that she had been bleeding for years, that no one could help her, that doctors only made it worse. She revealed her intimate, personal, reproductive problems in front of this crowd of people.

And even in the middle of this confession, Jairus’ friends arrived and told him that Jesus was too late—that his daughter, herself about to be of child-bearing age, was dead. But Jesus had faith and encouraged those around him to believe, particularly Jairus, the Rabbi. He brought just a few of his disciples to the home of Jairus, and when he arrived, there were already mourners everywhere. It was a scene reminiscent of the raising of Lazurus.

Jesus told these mourners, rather matter of factly, that the daughter was not dead, but sleeping. And they laugh at him. Which is a much better reaction than what I may have had. I could see myself lashing out at Jesus for making such a ridiculous claim.

Jesus went upstairs to where Jairus’ daughter was, took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha Kum”. Little one, get up. Now, as an aside, I’m struck by the use of the Aramaic here. Talitha Kum. We know Jesus spoke Aramaic, but the story of Jesus is written here in Greek. Why did the writers leave this statement in Aramaic? I haven’t been able to figure out the why, but from a cursory read it strikes me that speaking in one’s native language the sweet words, “Little one, get up” is very parental, very pastoral, very kind and personal.

This story is actually 3 stories wrapped into one. It’s the story of Jairus, the story of the woman who touched Jesus’ robe, and the story of Jesus healing Jairus’ daughter. And at the center of all of this is Jesus. Now, as a preacher, there were about 100 different and wonderful directions I could have gone with this sermon. But, today, in the context of Germantown Mennonite Church, what strikes me about this story is that Jesus doesn't say much. There’s a frenzy of activity, people trying to get near to Jesus, people pressing against him, crying, or telling Jesus intimate things. And in all of this, Jesus said little. He noticed when the woman touched his clothing, and asked “Who touched me?” He gave her words of hope, saying “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” When he heard that Jairus’ daughter was reportedly dead, he said “Do not fear, believe.” And when Jesus saw the girl, he said to her, simply, “little girl, get up.”

The words from Jesus were simple. Simplistic, perhaps some could say that they are simple-minded. But they come from a place of deep listening, of being deeply in tune with what’s happening around him. When Jairus came to Jesus, begging Jesus in front of the crowd to heal his daughter, risking his reputation, his community standing, Jesus didn’t say anything. He listened and followed Jairus to his home.

With the woman who was ill, Jesus said so little. He asked “who touched me” and the woman told Jesus everything. She poured out her soul to Jesus, and all he did was ask a perceptive question, a question that indicated that Jesus was aware of himself and his surroundings, even when the crowds were pressing up against him.

And with Jairus’ daughter, Jesus only had to say, “Talitha Kum”, and the power and gentleness of those words restored her.

At the Wild Goose festival, there is a forced community atmosphere that takes places. There’s something about camping and heat and sharing stories that creates an intimacy. But, the intimacy cannot and does not happen when there is not vulnerability. I would not have gotten to know my neighbors if I didn’t ask for a can opener, or if I my kids hadn’t asked the neighbor’s kids to play frisbee.

The folks in this story were vulnerable in this community—perhaps in desperation, thinking that Jesus was their only hope, or perhaps with hope that Jesus truly had the power to heal.

We gather today as a community of believers. Some of us talk more than we listen, others listen well and intuitively. Some of us come with heavy burdens—we are grieving, we are sick, we fear the future, we are worried about our finances, we are underemployed. We bring those burdens here, and here we can share them. We share them, and those whose burdens are lighter gladly pick them up, carry them for a while, and help the load feel lighter.

And as those burdens are indeed lightened, we have stories of hope to share, stories of the ways that God has been fully present in difficult situations. We testify to them here too, offering words of encouragement to those who need them. We say to our sisters, “Talitha Cum”, friend, get up. We stretch out our hands and help our sister up. We say to our brother, “I’m listening to you, and I’ll walk with you.”

This is what it means to follow in the way of Jesus. It means not having it all together. It means sharing our burdens with others, and holding each other up when we have the strength. It means listening, it means being perceptive, it means asking questions.

This is not a contrived community, born out of being forced to be together in the heat and discomfort of five days of camping. This is a real and voluntary community of people. We choose this. Which means we choose it when we are struggling, and when others around us are struggling too. And in choosing this community, we covenant to walk with each other, to listen, and to speak words of healing and hope to each other.

AMEN.

The Invasive Reign of God

Amy Yoder McGloughlin — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 16:55:21 GMT

Mark 4: 24-36

June 17, 2012

When we bought our first house in West Philadelphia, I didn’t know what Wisteria was. I only knew that it was growing on the porch, was beautiful, smelled great, and would flower in the spring. That’s what my neighbors told me anyway.

Two months after we moved in, I saw the beauty of the vine. As spring warmed up, the vines became green and leafy, and provided shade for our porch, perfect shade for a future warm and sunny afternoon. Then, it bloomed a spectacular purple flower that hung from the vine, and smelled better than any flower I’d ever smelled. It was intoxicating. My neighbors would walk by and find me with my nose in a wisteria flower. I was smitten by this beautiful fragrant vine.

When the last blooms had gone, I realized that there is another side to the wisteria vine that no one had told me about…It is really invasive.

I felt like I was out there every day, clipping away the vines that were trying to get into my porch structure, trying to keep the vines away from my neighbor’s porch, and trying to keep the wisteria from taking over my entire front yard.

I knew that I was fighting a losing battle when I was weeding another part of my garden, about 10 feet from the site of the wisteria, and there was a wisteria vine, sneaking through the grass like a snake, weaving its way through my azalea bushes, and trying to lay claim on the front retaining wall of my garden.

I also found bird nests in the wisteria. Three of them. Which is sweet and lovely with all the tweeting and chirping and the new life growing, until the families of birds began to poop on my porch and porch furniture, preventing me from enjoying the part of the porch that was shaded by the wisteria.

This beautiful vine has a sinister side to it. It gets into things, sneaks around, and develops a life of its own. It allowed a little ecosystem to blossom within its hardy vines. I had no control over it. Despite my efforts to control it, it did what it wanted to do.

This morning we look at two parables from the gospel of Mark. Before we jump into these agricultural parables, allow me to clarify exactly what a parable is and is not. It is kindof like a fable. Kindof. Fables are stories with animals that take on human characteristics, and they depict some sort of human truth or principle. They are life lessons made easier to hear because they are done with cute, furry animals.

Parables are human stories, using human scenarios to illustrate a truth about the reign of God. We like to think that parables illuminate the reign of God, shed light and truth on it, make it easier for us to understand and wrap our heads around. Often that is true. However, to define a parable as such is too limiting, too easy.

I’d like to think of a parable more like this (and I borrow this definition from David Lose, a professor from Luther seminary whose work I admire): Parables are stories that are meant to overturn, to deconstruct, to cause frustration and, for those who stay with them, transformation.

This is not a comfortable definition. It’s not easy—it makes the gospel more complicated, not less. It makes understanding the reign of God seem less possible. Was Jesus trying to frustrate us? Was he trying to make the message impossible to understand?

Well, yes. Kindof. A parable is meant to enlighten, but it’s also meant to complicate the picture, because the reign of God is not a simple thing. If we think know what the reign of God looks like, we have it all wrong.

Today’s parables are a great example of the complicated nature of the reign of God.

The reign of God is like this: it’s like farmer scattering seed on the ground, and the seed sprouts and grows, and the farmer doesn’t know how it happened. The earth takes care of these seeds, and they grow--first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. When the crop is ripe, the farmer goes in and harvests.

There’s a kind of obliviousness to the gardener that is unsettling. The farmer is throwing seeds out on the ground, and just hoping that something happens. There’s no weeding, no watering, no miracle gro. The farmer plants seeds, and when the plants look good he goes out and harvest the fruit of the land.

It’s a rather whimsical image—to just throw out the seeds and hope for the best—but it’s not how my grandfather taught me to garden. My garden this year involved making a raised bed, filling it with good soil, and using every square inch of the soil for plants so the neighborhood feral cats wouldn’t take it over as an litter box. It was carefully orchestrated and negotiated. I didn’t just throw plant seeds out there and hope they’d grow. I carefully selected seedlings of a variety of tomato plants, so we’d have options for canning, eating, and making sauce—all of this in 4 square feet of soil.

But the reign of God is like a farmer that throws out seed, willy nilly. The farmer doesn’t really know how the seeds gorw, but he is ready to reap whatever comes of the random seed throwing.

Maybe we are thinking that the kingdom of God may need a little help from the more organized among us—perhaps a good business plan or a lesson in farming techniques. Or, perhaps the parable is doing exactly what a parable is supposed to do. It’s inciting discomfort and frustration, it’s making us nervous about the reign of God, for which we long.

The second parable is no less assuring about the wonders of God’s reign. It’s the parable of the mustard seed. How many of you were hit over the head with the “if only we had the faith of a mustard seed” line in your youth? That’s an important part of the parable. We do need just a tiny little bit of faith for the reign of God to grow within us. But that’s only half of the truth of the parable of the mustard seed. The other part of the story is about the mustard plant itself.

The mustard seed is not a crop that people intentionally planted. It grew up—like a weed. It was an unwanted, undesirable plant. It has some medicinal qualities, but mostly it grows wild. It is uncontrollable plant, and once it takes root it can take over a whole planting area. Farmers do not want to see this stuff anywhere.

But on the plus side, it provided shade for birds, right? That’s a good thing. But, in Mark 4:1-9, in the parable of the sower, we hear about what the birds to do the good seed: the birds come and eat it up. I don’t think the fact that the mustard bush sheltered birds is a good thing. This weedy bush is sheltering the creatures that a few stories earlier have eaten the good seed.

So this is what the reign of God is like? A small seed growing into an invasive plant that ends up sheltering the creatures that eat the good seeds?

John Dominic Crossan says this about the mustard seed story:

The point…is not just that the mustard plant starts as a proverbially small seed and grows into a shrub of three or four feet, or even higher, it is that it tends to take over where it is not wanted, that it tends to get out of control, and that it tends to attract birds within cultivated areas where they are not particularly desired. And that, said Jesus, was what the Kingdom was like: not like the mighty cedar of Lebanon and not quite like a common weed, [more] like a pungent shrub with dangerous takeover properties. Something you would want in only small and carefully controlled doses -- if you could control it (The Historical Jesus, pp. 278-279).

The kingdom of God is like an invasive weed. Some good properties, but mostly a real pain in the rear. The kingdom of heaven is like a wisteria vine, intoxicating at first, but then you find out that dirty birds live in it and poop on your porch.

The kingdom of God is sometimes pretty great—it’s freeing, and beautiful, and full of promise. But then you discover that it is out of your control, it is not what you hoped it would be, and it brings in the undesirables.

If you think the reign of God looks like a careful organized worship service, or perfect four part harmony, I think you are in for a surprise. If you think the reign of God looks like a well-manicured English garden or a perfect piece of art, think again. This is not what God’s reign looks like. These things that we aim for—beauty in perfection—are not where the reign of God is to be found. And that—for most of us—is very disconcerting.

God’s presence, God’s power, God’s reign, is not what we think it is, or what we want it to be. God’s reign is elusive. It is disorganized, like the farmer who just throws out seeds without watering it or nurturing it. It is small like a mustard seed. It is unwanted, like a mustard bush. It is invasive. It is out of control. It’s not safe, at least not if we’re even a little bit satisfied with the way things are. The reign of God comes to overturn, to take over, and transform the empires of this world.

We say we long for the day that God’s justice will roll down, that God will make things right. But, when we say this, we can forget that God’s justice will have an impact on us too. God’s reign will break up our structures and systems, and will demand something of us.

The reign of God, begins as small as a mustard seed, and it’s invasive plant grows unto an unwanted, unwelcome presence in our landscape. And yet, with faith and hope we pray for such a disruption. We pray that the invasive qualities of God’s reign will transform us. We hope and long for the day when we let go of our own need to control and prune, and can allow God’s invasive work to grow—with all its fragrance, beauty and destruction.

AMEN.