God in the Wilderness with the Beasts

Mark 1.9-15

3/1/09

To tell you a little secret, I must say that I’ve never in my life been farther east than Evanston, Indiana or farther west than Phoenix, Arizona. Now, I’ve traveled all the way up and down from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico, but I still think from time to time about how I’m not very well traveled, especially not as well traveled as my cousin Tyler who just came back from Denmark. He remarked to me on Friday at lunch, “It’s no big deal. It’s just Europe.” It’s amazing how our perspective on other places change the more we visit places or even live in other places for extended periods of time. I know my perspective of Taylor has changed and keeps on changing even as I have only two months living here as your pastor. After having lived here for two months, I’m beginning to see more of what’s around me as the depth of this place keeps getting revealed piece by piece. Living in a place always changes your perception of that place and deepens your understanding of it and the people who inhabit it.

Just this past Thursday, the conference pastors from this part of the Northwest Synod all got together for our monthly worship and meeting. At the meeting portion of our time together, Mphatso Thole visiting pastor from our companion synod, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malawi, told us what ministry in the ELCM is like – its challenges, opportunities, joys and sorrows. He told us of how there are over 300 Lutheran churches in Malawi, and yet they have just over 50 ordained pastors to serve all those congregations. Each pastor serves upwards of nine churches and uses a motorcycle to get from place to place to be able to administer the sacraments to the people of the church. It’s a different context and a different situation, and I can only imagine what it is like even with Mphatso’s descriptions of what it is like.

One of the things we spent quite a bit of time talking about with Mphatso were the challenges that the ELCM faces. We had opened our time together in worship focused around Jesus being driven out into the wilderness to face temptation, Satan, and even wild beasts. For Mphatso, wild beasts are a very real thing to contend with in Africa, as either large animals like elephants or predators like lions are real dangers that people face in the land of Malawi. Yet, Mphatso also stated quite clearly that the most dangerous wild beasts that Malawi and most of Africa faces are the wild beasts of poverty, hunger, and HIV/AIDS. Each year, these wild beasts prey upon the people of Malawi to the point where the average life span of someone in Malawi is only 37 years. This got me really thinking about all the “wild” places in the world I have no personal experience with, because I’m not well traveled. I don’t mean wild as in terms of savannah, desert, or jungle, but those places in the world where grief and sorrow have a seeming stranglehold on the lives of people.

Yet, this also got me thinking about I push to the side the fact that there are “wild places” all around, even in the places I’ve gotten to know well, as people deal with the wild beasts in their lives. We too deal right here and now with wild beasts that cause grief, break relationships, and strain our ability to see the good in the world God made deemed to be “very good.” People right here, right in Wisconsin, right in this county deal with the wild beast of poverty and malnourishment. People right here deal with the wild beast of drug and alcohol abuse. People right here deal with the wild beast of domestic violence. People right here deal with failing health as disease take control over our bodies that once worked so well.

These wildernesses have existed all over the earth throughout the ages. This was especially true for Jesus, as he dwelled in the wilderness for forty days and contended with wild beasts himself. What’s strange is that Jesus is driven out into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit AFTER the Father from heaven declares that he is the Son of God. It’s as if just as soon as Jesus is declared to be the Son, he has to go into the lonely place of wilderness to figure out what all this means for him. To make matters worse, Jesus has to contend with Satan tempting him. The thing is, the Gospel of Mark isn’t very clear as to how Satan was tempting Jesus. Maybe it was simply Satan trying to see if Jesus really was going to hold onto his proclaimed identity as the Son of God. To think that Jesus didn’t see all the wrong that was all around him in the world would be very naïve. Jesus knew that people struggled with pain and suffering. His temptation could very well have been whether or not he was going to confront that pain and suffering in the world. He saw the wild beasts of his world as clearly as he saw the wild beasts out there in the desert. The question he contended with: How is God going to respond to a creation that is groaning with sin and death?

Yet, Jesus’ presence in the desert should tell us something of how God is answering that question. God knows that there are wildernesses in our lives – real and imagined. God knows that there are wild beasts that we contend with in our daily lives. And God comes out into those wildernesses to be present with us in our pain and suffering, not leaving us in the grip of sin and death.

Jesus had options. He could have answered Satan’s temptation by becoming a tyrant and forcing us into obedience with God’s ways. He could have wiped the earth clean and started over. But Jesus, God, the Son of the Father, sees that he is as much a part of all this creation as every one of us and simply loves all of creation too much to be done with it all. God says in sending us the Son, “there is nothing you can do, no wilderness that you can go where I will not come to you bringing love and mercy.” Jesus’ faithfulness and unending love is the choice he makes in response to Satan coming to be with us in all that we are – even coming into our wilderness and death, facing our many and various wild beasts.

There was one other thing that Mphatso talked about last Thursday. He said that, even though there are many challenges, many wild beasts that the people of Malawi face and the Church needs to confront, the people have a vibrant and strong faith. Even mired in a society where life expectancy is less than half of what it is here in the U.S., the people in Malawi hold firmly onto the promises of God’s love and care for them, because it gives them hope that all the wild beasts around them aren’t the only truths for them in their life. In Jesus, they have a truth of eternal life and release from the Sin and death that is present all around them.

We would do well to recognize this truth that Jesus holds for us in our lives. Jesus comes to us in our lives and brings us hope, love, and forgiveness. We would do well to recognize that Jesus comes for everyone around us as well. We would do well to recognize that Jesus is in the faces of anyone who wanders in wilderness and contends with wild beasts. I keep finding out more about the wild beasts that this parish, this county, this town deal with, but I also keep finding out more and more about how Jesus is alive and loving the people in the lives of the people who live, work and love here. I know this to be true no matter how far I’ve gone or how far I haven’t gone in my life.

Sorry, I meant to post this earlier...

Mark 1:40-45

2/15/09

It was Tuesday morning, and it was much like all the other Tuesday mornings throughout the year. Chad had woken up at 6:30 am so he could walk the few blocks to the elementary school so he could catch the bus ride to middle school. Chad lived in a small town where the county’s schools had consolidated, so middle school for him meant an eight mile bus ride to a town just northwest of the town he lived in. There wasn’t much about the way that this school day started that foreshadowed the coming event that was about to happen three hours from now. The school day started off normally enough – home room to listen to announcements, and then English class – but it was that switch from English to Algebra that started the ball rolling down the hill picking up speed before it crashed into the wall.

The switch meant that Chad had to stop by his locker and pick up his Algebra book. That seems innocuous enough, but his locker just happened to be set right next to Andy. You see, Andy was a kid that looked for ways to get under people’s skin. He searched for the buttons to press, and this morning he found exactly the right one for Chad. As Chad was getting his Algebra book, Andy started pushing Chad’s locker shut laughing because he knew it was going to rile Chad. It worked, more than Andy could have ever have imagined. As Andy slapped Chad’s door shut just one more time, Chad broke into something that was not quite rage – more like a calm cool resolve to finally put a stop to the incessant annoyance. Chad balled his hand into a tight fist, swinging and connecting with the side of Andy’s face with a satisfying thud.

Chad took no pleasure in how well he connected, although he did say later that was surprised that the single punch opened up a cut on Andy’s lip and brow. No, he simply knew that the job had been done and there was nothing else to say or do to anybody. Chad grabbed his book walked to his algebra class. Of course, there would be repercussions, as Chad was told not much later that he had been summoned to the principle’s office. Chad left that day with two days of in-school suspension. A day for each punch he threw.

Chad had never been well liked. He moved into the area when he was in first grade, but no matter how much he tried, the people in his class would inevitably cast him as the person they could pick, the person they could gang up on to make themselves feel better. The thing that Chad could never understand, though, was how they could be such nice people individually in one on one situations, yet when ganged up together, they could hurl the nastiest insults and dispersions upon, seemingly for only a few laughs. Chad didn’t know why, even after six years of living, working, playing and even praying with these kids, how he could still be such an outsider amongst everyone else.

The next day started off somewhat similar to the one before it. He walked to the same elementary school and boarded the same school bus, but when he got to the middle school, he was immediately ushered off down the hallway to the janitor’s workshop where there was a single desk and a single chair. In a lot of ways, Chad found the absolute depths of boredom. Though homework assignments were definitely given to him, there was no one else in there to talk to or to listen to. He was all alone. In fact, Chad got so bored that he stared at the clock on the wall watching hour hand make its trek from one number to the next. The next day wasn’t much better as the motivation to do or feel much of anything got sapped from him in his time of isolation.

Utter isolation might have been a better term for what he was put through during those two days. The only contact that Chad had throughout the day was the principle, teacher, or janitor popping in from time to time to check in on him. During these two days, Chad was even subjected to having to eat his lunch in that same room by himself apart from anyone else, apart from the normal life and community that he had been a part of. There’s something about being forced to eat alone – not choosing to eat alone – that to Chad felt like the biggest sign of separation and exclusion. At home, he ate almost every evening meal with his family. At school, he ate with his classmates. At church, he ate with everyone else who filled the basement fellowship hall for one of the various pot lucks that came around throughout the year. Now, here he was, forced to eat alone, separated from everyone else in his life, and he began to cry.

None of this was fair. None of this seemed like the correct punishment his standing up to a kid who was constantly pestering him. He was all alone, and in the loneliness and silence, he began to pray through his tears. He began to pray to God, “Take me out of this! I just want to get away from here. I don’t want to be in a place where I’m constantly reminded of how lonely I am. I don’t want to be left on the outside anymore. God, if you are listening, release me from this place, and release me from the constant reminder that I’m not one of ‘them.’”

The minutes passed by, and the tears eventually dried up as silence was the only response he heard. It was a deafening silence, as he could almost hear the air pressure pushing in on his ear drums. He didn’t even notice that the janitor, Bernie, had come to take his lunch tray away from him. Chad couldn’t remember what exactly he said, but looked into Bernie’s eyes and saw in them something saying, “I’m sorry you’re going through this. I’m sorry that you feel all alone.” And he laid a napkin with two chocolate chip cookies in it on Chad’s desk and spoke, “I thought you could use a little pick me up, so I grabbed a couple of cookies from the lunch room for you.”

As Chad ate those cookies, he felt a spirit welling inside of him. All of a sudden he wasn’t alone. Bernie had come to him, just simply by showing a kind face, speaking a kind word, and giving Chad those cookies, Bernie had brought the community to him. Bernie had told Chad, “You are not alone.” It was then that Chad understood that he had never been alone. It was then that Chad saw that something had been with throughout all this time. Chad had seen that he was not too far away, not too bad, and not too much of an outsider for Christ to be with him in his life. He saw that Jesus had been yearning to come to him in his hour of grief. He saw that Jesus had come to him even though felt so separated from everyone else in his life. Those kind words and that kind action had made him see that there was no place where God couldn’t go. Those kind words and that kind action showed him that Christ could break through any barriers that we try to construct for ourselves. Chad saw that God loved him dearly, and there was nothing that could separate him from that love.

Mark 1:21-28

Mark 1:21-28

2/1/09

There’s a show that I really like to listen to on the radio from NPR as I’m driving or as I’m doing things about the house called This American Life. If you’re not familiar with it, it is a radio program that presents three or four stories all revolving around some central theme. There are a few episodes that really stick out in my mind and one of them was an episode called “The Devil Inside Me.” This episode revolved around stories about people struggling with inner demons or experiences that haunt the way they live their life. The show separates into “acts” or story segments, and the second act of this particular episode was a story entitled “Vox Diaboli.” This act was simply a series of confessionals that people gave about the “inner voice” that pushed or urged them to keep on living in a habit that they had become accustom to. One of the people interviewed had this to say:

I remember realizing just how finely calibrated the voice was to every nuance, every part of my feelings. Including the feeling that I didn’t want to smoke cigarettes. And it’s just like, “Might as well have another cigarette, cause this is it. Tomorrow you’re gonna quit..” Tomorrow something would happen, and there was a good reason to smoke that day. And then it was, “Oh you already smoked today, so today’s not the day you’re gonna quit. So, smoke another cigarette.”

Now let me say before I go any farther, I’m not bringing this up because of the particular vice this gentleman struggled with. It’s because of his struggle that I mention his story. This struggle with our inner demons can feel all too real, and it can be about a number of things that we wish or want to be different about ourselves. Another interviewee said:

Go back to bed for just five more minutes. In five more minutes, you’ll feel great. And then I’ll get up five minutes later, it will be like “Eh, I mean you don’t need to iron the skirt. If you don’t need to be ironing the skirt, do you need to be wearing the skirt? Maybe you could wear a different skirt, and then you could sleep for ten more minutes.” And that seems like a reasonable negotiation.

At the beginning of the story, each one of them described this inner demon as a real voice. They said it was something other, something that spoke in the back of their minds. This idea that you could even have a negotiation like this woman described is not something that is foreign to me, and I would guess that it isn’t something that is very foreign to you all, even if it is simply a little voice saying that you really can just have that one cookie when you know that you probably shouldn’t. But these demons are not so innocuous all the time as one pushing you towards that cookie. These, what I would call very real demons, whether or not one thinks of them as imps and fallen angels serving the devil, cause us to struggle. They cause us to lose our trust in who we are or who we could be. They cause us to lose trust in those people who are all around us making us think the worst rather than reality of the person or group of persons. They even cause us to turn from our faith in God who creates us and gives us the life that we hold so dearly. This doesn’t release from the responsibility to the things that we do, but it does describe the either real or perceived powerlessness as we turn away from the God who gives us life, loves us, and declares that we are good creation. That is sin, and that is what we struggle so mightily with.

As I read this short account from Mark’s gospel, I see Jesus encountering this very same thing – encountering a demon in the synagogue. I keep bringing back up what has just happened in Mark, because, even though it seems like a while since Jesus was baptized or called the disciples, we are still in the midst of the very first chapter of his gospel. As Mark tells this story, Jesus is not far removed from his baptism. So as Jesus encounters this demon in the synagogue, he is not far removed from his time in the wilderness where he himself was tempted by Satan. Jesus sees and lives in a world where these demons are a very real thing – where they are a very real power actively opposing God’s will for creation. That’s what this demon, this unclean spirit, is trying to in the midst of this synagogue – he’s trying to subvert the teaching and authority of Jesus’ teaching that was enthralling the people there.

This demon is trying to plant the idea that Jesus has come to destroy not only him, but the demon is trying to convince the people that Jesus has come to destroy the normal lives of everyone who was gathered in that synagogue. The thing is that the demon is exactly right, but not in the way that he was thinking he would be right. Jesus has come to destroy the current way of life, not in a way that a warring despot might kill people and destroy house and home. Rather, Jesus has come to destroy the old life that is in bondage to such demons, in bondage to such sin, and in bondage to our inevitable deaths. Jesus comes to bring truth and life, so that in hearing and knowing him we might have the faith that restores our trust in our life giving God. Jesus comes to throw away all that brokenness that separates us from God, from each other, and even with ourselves. This is the authority that is astounding the people, because it is the authority that restores life, that restores faith in God and who God is.

We will still struggle with our demons. We will still struggle with our sin. Yet, be rightly assured that Jesus has come to destroy these old powers by restoring us in our faith through his death on the cross uniting with us and giving us the promise of eternal life.

Answering the Call of Discipleship

John 1:43-51

1/18/09

An ancient rabbi once asked his pupils how they could tell when the night had ended and the day was on its way back. “Could it be,” asked one student, “when you can see an animal in the distance and tell whether it is a sheep or a dog?”

“No,” answered the Rabbi.

The past week it has been just about as cold as it will get here in Wisconsin. That actually warms my heart, because as someone who has just moved here, it is good to know that this usually doesn’t occur too often – cold, but not -25 degrees cold. The cold of the past week has made the nights seem a bit longer and a bit harsher as we more often than not were trying to stay indoors where it is warm rather than be out in the cold too much. It has been a few nights where it doesn’t seem like it ever will change and it will certainly be this cold and dark. As Garrison Keillor usually laments at some point during winter in one of his News from Lake Woebegone, “spring is a distant memory, and winter and cold dark nights dominate our consciousness.”

It can be said that Epiphany is a season of darkness where we are given little flashes of light. It is a season in the church when we are given glimpses of who this Jesus is and what he has come into the world to do. We saw a flash of light illuminating who Jesus last week as he emerges from the waters of the Jordan after being baptized by John the Baptist. The heavens split open and the Spirit descends like dove upon Jesus a voice says from above, “You are my Son, the beloved. With you I am well pleased.” This is a moment where we see Jesus as the Father’s only begotten Son – a moment where Jesus’ divinity is revealed. And now this week we have a story from John’s gospel where Jesus himself gives not only Nathaniel, but also gives us a flash of who Jesus is as that which brings creation back into relationship with God.

However, it is all too easy to be concerned and maybe even consumed with all the worries of our present situations as we face questions of maintaining our buildings as the reality of repairs still stare at us in our face or questions of whether or not there will be a next generation who will fill these walls with all the emotions that come along with living our lives here on earth. How can we know when night has ended and day is on its way back?

Going back to our little story about this ancient Rabbi, another student inquired, “Could it be when you can look at a tree in the distance and tell whether it is a fig tree or a peach tree?”

“No,” the Rabbi replied.

Nathaniel, in this story from John, is described as someone who almost smirkingly quips to Philip, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” The center of religious authority and power had long since been centered in and around Jerusalem as the northern kingdom of Israel had been lost in the Assyrian invasion leaving Judah to stand as the land and kingdom of God’s chosen people. If anyone was to be the one whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets spoke about, it surely was going to come from in or around the area where the temple was located. You might even say that Nathanael is described to be a good Israelite who would know something about this. Yet there is something that is very interesting in the exchange between Philip and Nathanael – despite his first reluctance to Philip’s invitation, he comes to see who this person that Philip is talking about is.

You may not recognize it, but Nathanael responding to Philip’s call is the very first step into a life of discipleship. Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book The Cost of Discipleship describes it this way, “The call goes forth, and is at once followed by the response of obedience.” This single act of obedience is what begins that life lived in faith. Whatever Nathanael’s motives might be in coming along with Philip to see Jesus, his obedience, you might say his willingness to do what Philip called him to do put him in the place where his confession of faith can occur. He comes to see who Jesus is. He comes to hear what he has to say. In that, his faith is created. In that, he is called to live a life of discipleship. Now, before we get ahead of ourselves and start to think that this is something that Nathanael did for himself, we must remember that the life of discipleship is something we are always called by God to – not something that we create for ourselves. This is very important for us to remember, because it is because of this fact that the light shines in the darkness and the well spring of eternal life is a reality that we all can hope for.

The rabbi’s students soon grew weary of trying to guess at what the rabbi was getting at as they often did when he posed questions to them. “Well, then, what is it?” his pupils demanded.

The wise old teacher responded with words of immense wisdom: “It is when you look on the face of any woman or man and see that she or he is your sister or brother. Because if you cannot do this, then no matter what time it is, it is still night.”

This hope that we have of the coming light, the well spring of eternal occurs when we answer Jesus’ call to follow. Bonhoeffer calls this life of discipleship “grace and a commandment.” The call of Jesus is a call into an uncertain future where we paradoxically live in the certainty of God’s eternal love for us. Bonhoeffer writes:

The old life is left behind, and completely surrendered. The disciple is dragged out of his relative sercurity into a life of absolute insecurity (that is, in truth, into the absolute security and safety of the fellowship of Jesus), from a life which is observable and calculable (it is, in fact, quite incalculable) into a life where everything is unobservable and fortuitous (that is, into one which is necessary and calculable), out of the realm of finite (which is in truth the infinite) into the realm of infinite possibilities (which is the one liberating reality).

The life lived in discipleship is a life lived where the possibilities to witness in word and deed to all those who are around us. We should look at all the men and women that we meet as brothers and sisters who deserve our love, care and invitation to come and see and be a part of the body of Christ. This is what we are called to do even in the midst of everything that seems to be distracting us in our lives. That is when the dark, cold of night gives way to the hope and warmth of the hope we have in Christ.

Struggle and Hope

Luke 6:17-36; Jeremiah 17:5-10; 1 Corinthians 15:12-20

2/11/2007

“Woe to you who are rich, Woe to you who are full now, Woe to you who are laughing now, and Woe to you when people speak well of you.” I have struggled with these words all week long. I’ve wondered how I’m going to preach these words to you. In some way, they should be very easy words to preach. They would fit very easily into a sermon where I could get into a fervor pounding my fists onto the pulpit, using a loud voice, and shaming all of you for what you are doing in your lives. But I struggle with these words. For me they are very hard to hear. They are hard to hear, because I see them pointing directly at me and all of the good things that I think I have going for myself in my life. I live very comfortably. I have never known hunger. And I think as you have gotten to know me, I believe that I’m a fairly jovial person. I’m quick to smile and quick to laugh. Surely these aren’t bad things, right? But still I hear those words ringing in my ears.

Is there only woe for me in my life? I have so much. I have good friends, family, and a job that I feel that I am called to do. Why do I deserve such hard words that seem to be pointing directly at me? What I have done to deserve such harshness? I come to these scriptures looking to receive God in to my life. I come looking to find God, and all God has to tell me is woe and woe and woe. Where is the hope for me? Where is God’s abundant grace for my life? But still I hear these words. But do you know what? Maybe this message isn’t for me. I have hope. I have an expectation that things will go well for me. I believe that I will laugh. I believe that I will continue into a life of ministry. I believe, nay know, that will not be hungry tomorrow. I know that I will not know the pain and anguish that comes with extreme hunger.

However, there are people in this world who have on reasonable expectation to laugh in their lives. There are people who have no reasonable expectation to have food to eat today. There are people who have no reasonable expectation to find work. In some ways, I look at their situation and wonder if they have any hope for anything in their lives. How then are they supposed to hear the promises that Jesus makes? History tells us that those promises all too often do not come true for them in their lives. In some ways you could stand up and tell Jesus that is all just a bunch of malarkey. These people come face to face with their most very basic needs everyday of their lives. I can almost see why the people of Nazareth would want to throw Jesus off that cliff after saying similar things in the synagogue their synagogue.

But what is amazing, is that these words to bring hope for the future for so many people. These people feel abandoned by almost everything in their lives, yet Jesus is saying to them that he will not abandon them and will be with them through their struggle. He is telling them that they are not to be discarded and given up on simply because their situation seems to be too hopeless. He is telling them that the crap of this world is not all that there is for them. He says, “You will not know only hunger. You will not know only poverty. You will not only know sorrow.”

It’s funny in that their faith in God is only thing that they can hold to. Their faith is the only thing that cannot be taken away. They see their need for God as plain as day. Maybe that’s why those woes cause me to struggle so much. I have so much that I am not always confronted with my need for God. I do desperately have a need for God in my life, but I don’t see it though, because I’m too wrapped up in all the things that I can do for my life. I’m too wrapped up the happiness I’ve acquired that I forget that it is all for but a fleeting moment in the fullness of time.

In some ways I am like that shrub in the desert we heard about in Jeremiah. My trust, my faith is in what I can do and what others do for me so much that I could very well not see when relief comes for me. In other words, not be able to see God at work in my life.

Consider that imagery of a tree that gets played out in these words from Jeremiah. A tree, in a lot of ways, is a 100% receptor of all the things it needs to survive. A tree must get planted in place. Once it is planted, the tree cannot move. It is dependant on good soil that is full of nutrients. It must receive water, or it will dry up. It must get sunlight to be able to make the sugars that make it possible to grow. It must take in air to complete that chemical process called “photosynthesis.” In short, the tree must receive all of these if it is going to bear any fruit, seeds, or nuts.

I believe that that’s kind of what faith is. Faith is trusting in God and receiving God’s abounding grace. Faith is what happens when we receive God’s gracious love for us in our lives. You know what? I find it to be amazing when we receive this grace we start to bear its fruit in response to the nourishment it gives us. What’s even more amazing is the fact that this grace, this love is there for us even when we put our trust into other things that don’t give us the nourishment that we need. We try to take this or take that and forget about just receiving the God who loves, creates, and gives us life. God is life giving. Life giving in abundance.

This is what we believe about Jesus and what he does for us. And Paul reminds us that this grace, love and mercy extend even beyond our present lives. He reminds us that the reason that we can trust that God gives us life, is because Jesus rose from the dead. His resurrection gives us the hope that we will too will be raised from the dead. As Paul states, “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” Christ is hope for the future. Jesus is hope that the hungry will be fed. He is the hope that there is more to this life than what we live. This is ultimate promise that is made to us.

I think those woes do apply to my life. They apply, because in some way, they separate me from seeing my absolute need for God in my life. I will die, and without God there would be no hope for any future. But I say, “Thanks be to God” that God’s grace and love and mercy extends even to me. I have been watered through those life giving waters of baptism in which I am given the nourishment I need to grow and have the faith that I have today.

Remember that you too have been nourished by those life giving waters, and come to this Holy Supper to receive the grace that God gives you to grow. For in the body and blood of Jesus Christ, we are nourished and strengthened to grow and bear fruit.

Hope for the present and future...

1 Kings 17:8-16
11/12/06

What does the future mean to you? A very simple definition of “future” could be defined as a set of events that have not yet come to pass. Events shaped by the past and the present, but still events that will or may happen. Since we haven’t experienced the future yet, it is almost impossible for us to know what is going to happen in the future, but that doesn’t tell us really what the future means to us.
For some people, they talk about the future as something to have. We say, “That person over there has a bright future.” Meaning, that it seems like that person has worked hard and gotten opportunities in life. For that person, the future is something that seems fairly certain – sense that it will happen. Others talk about the future in terms of plans that are already made. I look at my calendar I know that I will be heading off to Colorado on Friday with a group of our youth for a weekend gathering. To yet other people, the future contains hope for better times. This view of the future usually comes from the reality of the past and present. We say things like, “Next year I’ll have a better paying job, and we’ll be able to do more of the things we would like to do.”

Just this past week has been filled with talk of what the future will be like, what that future will mean for us. I speak mainly of last Tuesday’s elections. The past year politicians have been telling us how they will make life better if elected as representative, senator, or governor. Many people base their votes on what they think that politician is going to do. We take into account the past and these promises and make a decision on who we think is best for us and our governments. And now, we find ourselves here at All Saints Lutheran Church doing some more thinking and pondering over what the future is going to be like at our annual meeting today. We will decide on a budget that, in a lot of ways, tells something about what the next year is going to be like. We will also decide how we want to affirm our belief that all people, including those of different sexual orientations and gender identities, are welcome in this community by becoming a rostered Reconciling In Christ congregation.

To tell you the truth, it sometimes seems to me like a lot of my time is spent worrying and planning for the future. I think that is true for many other people as well. That is a part of what it means to be human, because the future holds so many uncertainties that we cannot plan for. The bright future may not turn out so bright because of an unforeseen illness or hardship that befalls us. Our plans can change very easily because of the unknown. The better days may not come. The future is very uncertain. Uncertain to the point that we become afraid of what might happen. In this fear, we get locked up in trying to ward off what might happen so much that we forget about what is happening – right here, right now. We become jealous and guarded of our resources and spend time trying to stockpile money and resources. This usually comes to the detriment of those who could use our help and attention right here and right now. I’m a big guy, and that’s due in large part to the fact that I sometimes eat as if I don’t know where my next meal is going to come from. Truthfully though, I’ve never known a moment of real, sincere hunger in my life. But there are times when we come face to face with the reality of the present to where the future holds almost no meaning for us. The widow at Zarephath had come face to face with that very same reality when Elijah meets her.

Earlier in this account from 1 Kings, the prophet Elijah prophecies that a severe drought is going to overtake the region where not even a drop of rain will fall unless God wills it. Elijah survives for a while by living next to a watering hole of sorts, but the water eventually dries up for lack of rain. It is at this point that God tells Elijah to go to Zarephath where he will be fed by a widow.
Imagine what it must have been like for the widow during these times. With each consecutive day without rain, the closer that the reality of the present situation came. She had maybe thought that things were going to go like they had in the past. She couldn’t have foreseen that this drought could have been this severe or lasted this long. Each day the meal and oil in her jars became less and less. Each day the time of her death became more and more apparent. Pretty soon there wasn’t much future to look forward to. This becomes most evident after Elijah asks her to bring him some water and a morsel of bread. She responds flatly saying, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.”

She has given up at this point. But Elijah hasn’t. He presses on and says the she should go make him something first and then make something for herself and her son. He tells her not to be afraid, but I can’t see how afraid she could have been if she had been so resigned to it. In fact, at this point, there is nothing more to be afraid of. In her sight, the future’s gone. I can hear her saying to herself, “Why not give this man what he wants? I’m going to die anyway.” Essentially she has resigned herself of any notion of control that she has over her life and begins to trust in Elijah and Elijah’s God.

It is in that stripping away of her illusions of control over death that she is able to fully give herself to God. You know what? In doing so, she finds out that God is a God that sustains life even in the midst of death. And when her son dies, she also finds out that God is a God that sustains life even beyond death when Elijah brings him back to life. Ironically, by trusting in God and not herself, the widow finds a sure hope for the future that God will always be present in her life.

That is such a hard thing for us to do – to be able to trust God through every part of our life. As much as we may not like it, we begin to take comfort in those things that give us an illusion of security of the future. When the reality is, that there will come a time when each one of us will die – no matter what securities we may have stored up for us. This seems very disheartening at first, but when I lose that notion of absolute control over my life and trust in God, I find that I’m then free to enjoy the journey that is life and help others to be able to enjoy that journey as well.

So what of the future? Are we to stop planning all together? Should we all turn in our insurance policies? Should we give up our dreams and visions? To steal a line from Paul, “By no means!!” It just means that they shouldn’t become so beholden to our future plans that forget what is important in our lives. If you go along in life measuring your security and success by these attained goals you will always be sorely disappointed, because of all the unknowns and uncertainties. Martin Luther tried very hard to attain absolute perfection, but he realized that God loves us and claims us as God’s own anyway. He called it a liberating experience. Indeed, it is liberating to come to this realization. Our dreams and vision then stop being a burden, and we can then adapt to those “curve balls” that life throws at us.

That is why we begin each service on Sunday morning at the baptismal font. To remind us of our need for God and also to remind us that God is present and has forgiven and claimed us as God’s own. In little bit, will go into that annual meeting and discuss our future financially and as a Reconciling In Christ congregation. As you discuss what this is going to mean for our future as a congregation, I encourage you to think about how God is present in your life right now. We are called to trust in the grace that God has shown us through the life and death of Jesus Christ and spread that good news to everyone in word and deed. I leave you with just one question. How will what we decide today spread that good news in the future?

On call at the Hospital...

Well folks, 14 hours to go for first on call of the summer, and it already has been a pretty crazy day here at the hospital. I've visited with a family whose mother/grandmother was dying, and I've visited with a mother whose daughter has just been intubated. Oh well... I think I'm handling the situations I've seen pretty well, but I still don't know exactly what to say to people while this is all going on. Hopefully, I'll get better at it as time goes on.

Media Violence (Or Violence in the Media)

For the past day or so, I have been thinking a lot about what someone presented to us about the ethics of Media violence. The place I'm stuck on in thinking about this issue is where the presenter made the comment that one of the ways we can take responsibility for our lives as people centered in Christ is to boycott films or TV shows that utilize violence as a part of their story. My reaction starts by thinking and asking myself is right to blind ourselves to images that, even if they are hyperbole, emanate from a violent world? To me, this in some ways is an attempt to insulate oneself from things that one does not like to see. Can we really just close our eyes and just say, "This isn't happening?" Then, the artist in me starts to speak up and say that violence can and is an artistic statement made by an "artist" or "artists," choosing not to see an (often) important aspect of the artistic message being delivered. For example, when director Quentin Tarantino uses gratuitous violence in his his movies, is he just painting with images of violence much the same way some of Monet's brush strokes are purple rather than red or green? Then the thought that comes into mind is that in my own personal experience, I have watched many violent images in TV, movies and video games, but doesn't the fictional aspect of media violence in effect just simply a way to explore violent feelings without actually committing real acts of violence? Can't I person who has a center that is Christ and still explore all of those feelings that are a part of my humanity?

Reflections on Ethics and Violence

So, now I'm almost done with my journey through my study of violence through the lens of ethics, and I must say that I have learned a lot about the complexities that surround the use of violence and non-violence, especially in the light of my (our) faith in Jesus Christ. The weirdest thing about my study into this issue is that it's not my faith that has been challenged - it's my use (for lack of a better term) of that faith to take action in my life. I ahve come face to face with the reality that the cross of Christ was a very violent event, and, because of that fact, it is very hard to think of it as victorius triumph. I guess, in some ways, I'm still stuck in that Good Friday service that I attended almost two weeks ago. I'm still awestruck by how Good Friday exposes exactly how sinful a creature I am, and I will die, in part, because of that inate sinfulness. I know exactly why Jesus had to what he did, and it doesn't make me feel all that good. In fact, I'm so sorry that it had to come to that. But could there have been another way? I don't know. I only know that that is the way it happened. Dear Jesus, why did you have to let it come to this? I know that you are risen, but I cannot get out of my mind that our sin killed you on that day. The tomb is empty, but I don't know how worthy I am to carry out the proclamation of Jesus' love for the whole world. Come Holy Spirit and give me the strength to see that it doesn't matter how worthy I am to proclaim the Word made flesh - It only matters that I proclaim.

Violence in Music

Lately, I've been thinking about the use of violent images in music. For example, Ice T's "Cop Killer" is a song about frustration with police corruption in dealing with people (mainly Blacks and Hispanics)in the ghettos of America. On one level, the level that put everyone into such a flurry of protest in the mid-90's, it seems to be a mere indiscriminate advocation of violence brought against a whole group of people. On another level, though, it speaks to the raw emotional response to the opression and discrimination brought upon minorities by the very people who swear to "protect and serve."

In thinking about the tension that the two viewpoints espouse, it makes me wonder if there is space in our lives as Christians to express that very real emotion of anger that we all feel at one point or another in our lives. As people called to christain service in response to our justification, can we have time to express our anger in truth before we start to turn to our called christian response of love and care for neighbor? Is there any place for the emotion of anger in our response to "love your neighbor as yourself?" I think that if we are to enter into true recociliation after repentance and forgiveness, then we need express and think about all those emotions that might come up in those difficult situations in our life.

If that is the case, then I truly think that those expressions of violence in music need to be present within the music scene, because they are artistic expression of emotion just as much as any love song is an artistic expression of emotion. One has to be careful, though, to discern what is artistic expression and an outright call to violence and hatred of a person or people.

Vindictive Violence

I just watched "V for Vendetta" last weekend, and it has brought up quite a few questions as to what, in pop culture, kind of violence is acceptable. The main thing that bugged me as I thought about that movie and other images it reminded me of was that there seems to be a notion in popular culture that not only can violence become the necessary route; but also, in some ways, vilence is the RIGHT thing to do in some circumstances. For example, the movie I watched basically hovered around the theme of vengence against a government that controls and kills people to an astonishing degree. The main character "V" knows exactly what the government is trying to do, and puts into action an elaborate plan to expose the government for what it is AND kill those who made him what he is. By the end of the movie, you feel as if the only course of action "V" could take was to kill those who made him what he is.

There is an interesting twist to the whole movie, however. Near the end, large numbers of people march on parliament where a large military force is stationed to stop them from going further, and instead of a violent clash, the people end up being able to walk through the soldiers ranks unharmed. It worked so beautifully that I wonder if the murderous vedetta that "V" carried out was truly necessary. Maybe that means that popular culture is subconsciously espousing an idea that non-violence is great and all, but you still need to have some violent actions take for it to be truly affective and effective.

A Tale of Two Strangers

Today I heard two very different, very amazing stories from a couple of people who I consider to be friends.

"It was the best of times..."

I walked into chapel choir today, and walked right in on a story of the kindness of strangers being recounted to the choir. Our choir director told us how he ended sleeping on a cold steel bench for three hours in O'Hare airport, and afterwards, he noticed how much he and other people around him trusted each other with their possessions. Not only that, but he also noticed how because of the kindness of strangers, sleeping people were woken up to be able to catch their planes by strangers. Strange people looking out for other people.

"It was the worst of times..."

I walked into my classroom building today saw my good friend and noticed that his glasses were gone. When I asked him about it, he told me that he had been jumped and beaten by strangers while walking around town just last night. Unknown people, for whatever reason, stole from and beat up my friend for no apparent reason. How can somebody devalue another human being to the point where she or he can steal from and violently attack another human being? Do they just not care that the person they attacked was a person full of love and compassion for other people? I must admit that this is first time in a long time that someone close to me has been the victim of un-aggravated violence. Heck, it may be the first time ever. The whole event seems so raw and disconnected with the depictions of violence I've seen on TV and in the movies. The fake events in "entertainment" pale immensely to reality. It also makes stories like the one I heard in choir today seem unbelievable.

Cycles of Violence

Well, here I am at a new weekend right before my school takes a small break to let students catch up on some reading, and I find myself immersed in a particularly difficult text from I Peter. The basic problem with this text is that one can easily read it as a text saying that one should just quietly endure in her or his suffering because the present life does not matter. Truthfully, that's not a reading I can in good conscience relate to other people. Besides, it seems so contrary to the life Jesus lead and strove for in his ministry, death, and resurrection. All throughout the gospels, we hear time after time stories about how Jesus was either challenging established conceptions of how to act, confronting social structures, healing the sick, or feeding hungry people. That is most certainly NOT a philosophy of inaction. So what are we to do with I Peter and it seeming language of silent suffering? Well, yes it is about suffering. It is about a very real reality that all of us face at one time or another within the world. But, it is not just pointing out an obvious fact of life. It says that the only way one can end suffering, violence, and abuse is to break the cycle of retribution with a radical love and care for other people and breaking down the situations that enable suffering, violence, and abuse to be carried out. So, wives shouldn't just sit quietly as their husbands physically and mentally abuse them, but neither should they return in kind the suffering, violence, and abuse directed at them. They should instead remove themselves from the situation and put into action a sequence of events that either leads to incarceration or treatment for the abuser - a kind of love heals both parties involved. But, as per Jesus' teachings, we should leave it up to the abused to be the sole one responsible for ending the cycle of violence. Indifference and inaction of people on the outside are just as culpable as people personally involved in the suffering, violence, and abuse. We need to be just as active if not more active in finding ways to end cycles of suffering, violence, and abuse we see all around us in the world.

Accidental Shooting

Just last week, the Vice President of the United States of America shot a 78 year old man in face while hunting for farm raised quail at a Texas ranch. No big news here, as this happened about a week ago. But, as funny as this story has been for me and for a lot of people, I'm starting to wonder about the whole dynamics of the accidental shooting in terms of it being an instance of violence. I think that in a lot of ways it boils down to whether or not an accident is a violent act or not. When looking at violence defined as something that has an intentionality to it, it doesn't seem to be a violent act. In other words, what makes this accident any different than the inattentive driver who "t-bones" another car in a intersection? When a car slips on the ice and hits on-coming traffic, does one commit a violent act? That being said, intentionaliy can become a cop out for all those times in history where where a person or persons become un-intentional casualties to people's accidents. I don't mean to say though that intentionality doesn't have anything to with the value judgement pertaining to the accident.

This event in which Dick Cheney shot his friend in stead of a small bird has another little wrinkle to it than just being purely an accident. That wrinkle is the situation Cheney found himself in in the first place. That situation is one in which he felt that he needed to use vacation time to hunt farm raised birds almost literally from his car. I wonder why Cheney needs to commit a violent act in the first place. As the Vice President of the USA who has been gainfully employed for all of his life, his need to hunt that bird had nothing to do feeding himself. Moreover, any aspect of sport has to be ruled out since he had someone else find the bird for him before getting out of his car to "hunt" the bird. The only thing I am left with is considering why he or anyone else needed to kill something. Is this an innate need in all humans? And, if it is, what does that say about us as human beings, animals living in an ecosystem, as the children of God?

A Shift in Function...

Hello. I know it's been a long time, dear blog, but I think I'm gonna change the functionality of how this blog has been working for me. This bascially stems from an assignment I recieved in my "Ethics in a Violent World" class this semester. The professor told me and my classmates that we would be writing a journal of reflection recounting our thoughts and ideas on the issue of violence in the world.

To start off then I suppose, I have been thinking a lot about what it means to be aggressive and violent. The in-class definitions we came up with last week were a big help, but I still have one question about aggression and violence. That is, "Are aggression and violence necessarily fundamentally "bad" actions or are they integral parts in how this world works?" My first reaction is that no, they are not bad, because of the way aggression and violence not lonyl has preserved life, beauty, art, and freedom but also has progessed humankind to develop new ways of thought, new inventions, and (at least) a new standard of living. But then, another part of me asks whether or not that preservation and progression has to be accomplished in such a way that, ultimately, hurts another in one way or another. I come back with this because, all too often, another is hurt in the name of progress and preservation.

Take a look at Hebrew scripture. Once the Hebrew people are brought out of the land of Egypt and brought out of the wilderness to their promised land, they immediately begin a process of progression through invasion, exclusion, and violence that is mandated by God. They preserving and progressing their society, but they are doing it at the expense of peoples who had not harmed them at all in any way, and God seems to utilizing aggression and violence God's self to get done what God needs to get done.

Now take a look at our current situation in Iraq today. God didn't mandate or invasion, but we saw fit to invade that country because they might, just *might*, harm us in the future. And now when it turns out that Iraq really didn't have the capabilities to harm us, we start to justify our action by saying that we did it for the cause of spreading democracy in the Middle East. We want to prgress them further through our aggression and violence. This has now backfired on us and now we are stuck there trying to create some semblence of a stable society. There just has to be another way.

Maybe that's what the Kingdom of God will be like. Maybe it will be a time and place where aggression and violence are not needed anymore to survive and thrive. God I hope so. May the Kingdom of God come.

Random Rumblings

Well, here I am as I stare at another weekend full of expectation that it will be as good as the last.

No, really. I had a good weekend last weekend. I rested, partied, studied, and even caught "Be Cool." (Not a fantastic movie, but pretty funny nonetheless.) Oh, yeah, I also did some karaoke as well. (I killed with my rendition of Sinatra's "My Way.")Alas though, I did not make it to the Gun Show.

Eventhough I'm a pretty liberal guy, I grown pretty used to the same old bullshit that comes from Washington and figure that there's not much anyone can do about it. But, the recent crap flowing down the open sewer of American policy just makes me sick. Bankrupcy has now become an option for the rich, and W's is demanding that social security invested and intrustred to the wealthiest people in America. I think that's just great. The only thing that keeps us from abject poverty should be given to the people whose goal it seems is to make sure the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Yay! Woo! Whippie!

Good news though. It's that time of year again. Can you say MARCH MADNESS? Okay, so it isn't tragically hip to absolutely love college basketball, but I don't give a hoot. It's amazing. Every year seems just about as exciting and full of potential as the last. Too bad my Jayhawks always seem to break my heart come tourney time. Oh well. I think that is why I like them so much.

And in other sports news, the Vikings actually look intent on winning next year. Hopefully, the defensive additions help. (Man, I haven't been able to celebrate a championship since 1991.)

In closing, I am getting tired of snow. I want spring. Now. Dammit.