I’ve been perplexed and vexed by comments made by political leaders, elected officials, ordained ministers, the Vatican, and others, scape-goating the issues they are really facing by condemning Gay People (read: gay, lesbian, transgender, bi-sexual, inter-sexed, etc.). They seem to feel that if we didn’t exist then their lives wouldn’t be so difficult and the issues they have to deal with would be less complicated. The fact is, our absence wouldn’t make any difference in the issues or difficulties they face, they just can’t bring themselves to admit that and so they attack us instead of themselves.
This is Holy Week when we focus on the Passion of Jesus and remember his Crucifixion and Resurrection. The leaders of his day thought that if they could just get rid of Jesus then they would not face the issues and difficulties that he was pointing out to them through his ministry to the people who lived on the edges of society, the people those leaders thought they could ignore and exclude. But Jesus made it dramatically very clear that God loves everyone and excludes no one by eating with so-called sinners and outcasts, by healing the sick and forgiving sins. Jesus wouldn’t let the criticisms and threats of those in power stop him from proclaiming God’s Good News and the truth about God’s New Community that he was trying to establish…and nor should you or I stop working to bring about that New Community of God in our own time and place.
The disciples had a choice when Jesus died. They could return to their lives as they were before they had met Jesus, before they learned that there was a different way to think about and relate to God than they had previously experienced. When the news about Jesus’ resurrection began to be told, they still had a choice to ignore the truth or to act on the truth and begin to bring about the New Community of God. They could have remembered what Jesus said and how Jesus acted and it could have stopped right there…just a good old memory that could be taken out whenever you felt lonely or depressed. Or they could claim that the resurrected Jesus was the same Jesus speaking the same words or hope and love, the same Jesus touching lives with power and promise, as the Jesus who had walked along with them before the Crucifixion.
We sometimes concentrate on the differences that happened to Jesus with the resurrection, but this Easter I would like you to remember that the same Jesus that walked and talked and cared for disciples and strangers was exactly the same Jesus that rose from the grave and was seen and heard by his followers.
The political and religious powers of ancient Israel gave their final word by condemning Jesus and everything he had represented and taught to death. They thought that was the end of the matter. But God had something very different in mind. And when they killed Jesus and buried him, thinking him no longer a problem, no longer a nuisance, God boldly said, “NO! I don’t think so!” And God resurrected Jesus to continue his ministry and his life, to encourage his followers to keep on working to see that New Community of God come into existence through God’s power and God’s presence every single day of their lives.
We may not like what politicians and religious leaders say about us. We may not like how easy it is for them to reject whole segments of our population on the basis of sexuality, gender, race, ethnic background, political persuasion, economic power, mental or physical abilities, etc., but they don’t get to have the final word on the matter. God does! And how will God have that final word? Through you and me when we speak up and act up on behalf of those who aren’t given a voice in the world, who are ignored and excluded, arrested and condemned simply because they are different from those who are in power.
How do we celebrate Easter? By praising God for God’s actions, of course. But also by taking bold actions ourselves on behalf of God, for the purpose of building the New Community of God in the here and now by standing up and speaking out and acting up on behalf of all the people living on the edges of society. It’s at least something to think about.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Getting Jesus Right--Lent 5, Year C
We are often so self-righteous about our behavior and our thinking that we need a 'spiritual' slap across the face to get ourselves in a better position to listen to God. How many times in life have you thought you had the right answer to a particular situation or problem only to discover later that you were completely off base and not really focused on the truth of the situation? Suddenly something someone else says or does opens you up to a brand new revelation and you have an "Ahh-ha!" moment as your thinking and feeling is readjusted to a new point. I like to call that a "Spiritual Tune-up."
This week's Gospel Reading comes from John 12:1-8 and tells the story of Jesus returning to the home of Lazarus, Mary, and Martha not long after he has raised Lazarus from the dead. Jesus and Lazarus are under threat for their lives from the ruling priests and other religious leaders. Many people are now following Jesus and they fear that Jesus and his followers will upset the way things are and that the foreign Roman government ruling over them will dismiss them from their own positions of power.
Here in the home of this very unconventional family: a single man and his two single sisters...a Queer Family if you will...Jesus, also a single man, returns to his chosen family for rest and renewal. Some scholars even believe that Lazarus is the "Beloved Disciple" that the gospel writer refers to in the book of John. We know that Jesus is intimately connected to this family and has chosen their home as his base of operation when he is in the Jerusalem area. Those of us in the LGBT community can fully understand the importance of our "Chosen Family," those friends we have developed as part of our experience and life in Queerdom. Often our Chosen Family is more important to us than our family of birth, especially if that birth family has rejected us or harrassed and condemned us for being sexually oriented differently than they desire for us to be.
Can you imagine the emotions that must be at play as Jesus returns to this home? Here sitting with them again is the one who brought their brother back from the dead. Here is the man who did the impossible. Here is the Messiah, come from God, and he's eating and talking witht them. Mary, moved with what I can only describe as passionate thanksgiving and supreme adoration, takes a bottle of very expensive perfume...worth a year's wages, probably her 'trust fund' in case something did ever happen to Lazarus and she had no one else to support her...and pours it out onto Jesus' feet, massaging his feet and wiping the oil from his feet with her long hair, an extremely intimate and almost erotic kind of action. There are very deep emotions flowing here.
Some who were present that evening are offended by Mary's behavior and criticize her wastefulness of the costly perfume in such a disturbing...to them...demonstration of love for Jesus. Why we could have used it to feed the poor...or built a new chapel...or paid the pastor's salary...or sent a missionary to Africa. There is always something that needs to be done, there is no doubt about that. But Mary ignored all that kind of so-called important thinking and truly spent a very emotionally necessary moment adoring her Savior, for he literally was the one who saved her from what would have happened to her if her brother had remained dead. Jesus meant all the world to her at this moment and she took the time to focus her attention on him, and only on him.
What was Jesus' response to her actions? He accepted her adoration and claimed that generations throughout history would remember what she had done for him before he died. She annointed his body with oils prior to his death, which was coming soon. He was loving and kind in his acceptance of her sacrificial gift to him.
How much time have you spent this week truly focusing your thinking and feeling on Jesus? What sacrifice have you made in your own life to demonstrate that God is supreme in your life? Have you spent time with God in prayer, in Bible study, in reflection finding the peace within yourself that only God in Christ can give to you?
I encourage you this week to be extravagant in your praise and adoration of God in Christ Jesus. Don't worry about what anyone else thinks about what you are doing. Lose yourself in praising God. Remember: Like Jeus was to Mary, God wants to be just as accepting, and extravagant in love toward you...even more so. It's at least something to think about.
This week's Gospel Reading comes from John 12:1-8 and tells the story of Jesus returning to the home of Lazarus, Mary, and Martha not long after he has raised Lazarus from the dead. Jesus and Lazarus are under threat for their lives from the ruling priests and other religious leaders. Many people are now following Jesus and they fear that Jesus and his followers will upset the way things are and that the foreign Roman government ruling over them will dismiss them from their own positions of power.
Here in the home of this very unconventional family: a single man and his two single sisters...a Queer Family if you will...Jesus, also a single man, returns to his chosen family for rest and renewal. Some scholars even believe that Lazarus is the "Beloved Disciple" that the gospel writer refers to in the book of John. We know that Jesus is intimately connected to this family and has chosen their home as his base of operation when he is in the Jerusalem area. Those of us in the LGBT community can fully understand the importance of our "Chosen Family," those friends we have developed as part of our experience and life in Queerdom. Often our Chosen Family is more important to us than our family of birth, especially if that birth family has rejected us or harrassed and condemned us for being sexually oriented differently than they desire for us to be.
Can you imagine the emotions that must be at play as Jesus returns to this home? Here sitting with them again is the one who brought their brother back from the dead. Here is the man who did the impossible. Here is the Messiah, come from God, and he's eating and talking witht them. Mary, moved with what I can only describe as passionate thanksgiving and supreme adoration, takes a bottle of very expensive perfume...worth a year's wages, probably her 'trust fund' in case something did ever happen to Lazarus and she had no one else to support her...and pours it out onto Jesus' feet, massaging his feet and wiping the oil from his feet with her long hair, an extremely intimate and almost erotic kind of action. There are very deep emotions flowing here.
Some who were present that evening are offended by Mary's behavior and criticize her wastefulness of the costly perfume in such a disturbing...to them...demonstration of love for Jesus. Why we could have used it to feed the poor...or built a new chapel...or paid the pastor's salary...or sent a missionary to Africa. There is always something that needs to be done, there is no doubt about that. But Mary ignored all that kind of so-called important thinking and truly spent a very emotionally necessary moment adoring her Savior, for he literally was the one who saved her from what would have happened to her if her brother had remained dead. Jesus meant all the world to her at this moment and she took the time to focus her attention on him, and only on him.
What was Jesus' response to her actions? He accepted her adoration and claimed that generations throughout history would remember what she had done for him before he died. She annointed his body with oils prior to his death, which was coming soon. He was loving and kind in his acceptance of her sacrificial gift to him.
How much time have you spent this week truly focusing your thinking and feeling on Jesus? What sacrifice have you made in your own life to demonstrate that God is supreme in your life? Have you spent time with God in prayer, in Bible study, in reflection finding the peace within yourself that only God in Christ can give to you?
I encourage you this week to be extravagant in your praise and adoration of God in Christ Jesus. Don't worry about what anyone else thinks about what you are doing. Lose yourself in praising God. Remember: Like Jeus was to Mary, God wants to be just as accepting, and extravagant in love toward you...even more so. It's at least something to think about.
The Amazing Grace of a Prodigal Parent: Lent 4 Year C
This week's lectionary uses Jesus' parable of the Prodigal Son as an example of the kind of grace and love that God pours out upon us. The parable might more appropriately be entitled "The Prodigal Parent." The word prodigal means 'extravagantly wasteful' which describes both the young man's spending of his inheritance and also the father's demonstration of love toward his son upon the son's return.
If you read the passage in Luke 15:1-3, 11-32 you will quickly see that Jesus is dealing with Religious leaders who feel that Jesus is hanging out with the wrong kinds of people, with those that they find unacceptable to themselves and who they also wish to define as unacceptable to God. So Jesus tells them a story about a horrible son, a child who goes against all that is acceptable to their society by behaving in an unthinkable manner and demands that his father give to him his portion of the estate that would be left to him when his father dies. This is basically the same thing as saying, "Drop dead, Dad...and do it right now." In order to fulfill the son's request...something the father does and which would have been not only outrageous to Jesus' listeners, but totally unexpected of a Jewish father in that society...the father apparently divides his property in half and gives each son a half. Law said only one-third would go to the youngest son, while the oldest son would get two-thirds of the inheritance.
The younger boy apparently converts his property into cash, again a horrendous kind of action because you did not sell the family farmland as it was entrusted to you for future generations as a gift from God, departs with his wealth and spends it recklessly. He went to a Gentile city and hung out with unclean Gentile people. Soon he is destitute and must go to work for a pig farmer in order to stay alive, the worst kind of employment a Jewish man could have taken in that society. It would have made this sinful and unacceptable boy completely unclean. No one could have wanted such a person in their community, let alone in their home. Faced with starvation the boy decides to go home and offer himself to his father as a servant on the farm reasoning that his father treats his servants better than the boy is being treated by his own employer.
Off the child goes back home. Now Jesus' listeners would have expected the father to reject the son and kick him back out, but there is another turn of events, another unexpected action by a character within this story. The father has been watching for the return of the son and upon seeing him walking toward the house, the father runs out to him and embraces him and bestows upon the son all of the honors reserved only for a beloved, well-behaved child. This would have been a horrendous situation to the listeners. How could this father do this after all the son has done to hurt the father? And most important of all, if you notice, the son never got to tell the father that he was sorry for what he had done. No real repentance if you read the story carefully, just pure and simple self-preservation on the boy's part knowing his father would at least feed him and he wouldn't starve. That's not real repentance. And anyway, the boy never even gets to tell any part of his story because the father overwhelms him with love, care, restoration, hope and a future. This is, if you will, a glimpse of the resurrection Jesus himself will experience in a short while.
Many teach that in order to receive God's love and blessings we must repent, we must enumerate our sins and beg God to forgive us, throwing ourselves upon God's mercy. Many think that some so-called sins by their definition are so horrible as to almost cause God to fail to forgive anyone who commits those sins. Homosexuality, pre-marital sex, pregnancy out of wedlock, divorce, and more have all been treated almost as unforgiveable 'sins' by many on the religious right. But even with such "unspeakable and horrible" sins we have the reassurance from this parable that God goes running past those who say God cannot act in love toward such sinners, and we see God embracing all persons with God's amazing grace, enfolding them with God's unlimited love, and restoring them to their rightful place as God's own children.
The young man in this story was loved by the father before he demanded his own way, before he left home, in the same way that he was greeted and loved and welcomed back home when he did return. Jesus' story is about an unthinkable, extravagant loving parent who exceeds all social standards to demonstrate love for the child. I think Jesus is trying to tell us that there is nobody who falls outside of the boundaries of God's love and grace. God's love and grace are truly Amazing and beyond expectation and belief. God is truly prodigal in God's love for you and me. It's at least something to think about.
Pastor Ray
If you read the passage in Luke 15:1-3, 11-32 you will quickly see that Jesus is dealing with Religious leaders who feel that Jesus is hanging out with the wrong kinds of people, with those that they find unacceptable to themselves and who they also wish to define as unacceptable to God. So Jesus tells them a story about a horrible son, a child who goes against all that is acceptable to their society by behaving in an unthinkable manner and demands that his father give to him his portion of the estate that would be left to him when his father dies. This is basically the same thing as saying, "Drop dead, Dad...and do it right now." In order to fulfill the son's request...something the father does and which would have been not only outrageous to Jesus' listeners, but totally unexpected of a Jewish father in that society...the father apparently divides his property in half and gives each son a half. Law said only one-third would go to the youngest son, while the oldest son would get two-thirds of the inheritance.
The younger boy apparently converts his property into cash, again a horrendous kind of action because you did not sell the family farmland as it was entrusted to you for future generations as a gift from God, departs with his wealth and spends it recklessly. He went to a Gentile city and hung out with unclean Gentile people. Soon he is destitute and must go to work for a pig farmer in order to stay alive, the worst kind of employment a Jewish man could have taken in that society. It would have made this sinful and unacceptable boy completely unclean. No one could have wanted such a person in their community, let alone in their home. Faced with starvation the boy decides to go home and offer himself to his father as a servant on the farm reasoning that his father treats his servants better than the boy is being treated by his own employer.
Off the child goes back home. Now Jesus' listeners would have expected the father to reject the son and kick him back out, but there is another turn of events, another unexpected action by a character within this story. The father has been watching for the return of the son and upon seeing him walking toward the house, the father runs out to him and embraces him and bestows upon the son all of the honors reserved only for a beloved, well-behaved child. This would have been a horrendous situation to the listeners. How could this father do this after all the son has done to hurt the father? And most important of all, if you notice, the son never got to tell the father that he was sorry for what he had done. No real repentance if you read the story carefully, just pure and simple self-preservation on the boy's part knowing his father would at least feed him and he wouldn't starve. That's not real repentance. And anyway, the boy never even gets to tell any part of his story because the father overwhelms him with love, care, restoration, hope and a future. This is, if you will, a glimpse of the resurrection Jesus himself will experience in a short while.
Many teach that in order to receive God's love and blessings we must repent, we must enumerate our sins and beg God to forgive us, throwing ourselves upon God's mercy. Many think that some so-called sins by their definition are so horrible as to almost cause God to fail to forgive anyone who commits those sins. Homosexuality, pre-marital sex, pregnancy out of wedlock, divorce, and more have all been treated almost as unforgiveable 'sins' by many on the religious right. But even with such "unspeakable and horrible" sins we have the reassurance from this parable that God goes running past those who say God cannot act in love toward such sinners, and we see God embracing all persons with God's amazing grace, enfolding them with God's unlimited love, and restoring them to their rightful place as God's own children.
The young man in this story was loved by the father before he demanded his own way, before he left home, in the same way that he was greeted and loved and welcomed back home when he did return. Jesus' story is about an unthinkable, extravagant loving parent who exceeds all social standards to demonstrate love for the child. I think Jesus is trying to tell us that there is nobody who falls outside of the boundaries of God's love and grace. God's love and grace are truly Amazing and beyond expectation and belief. God is truly prodigal in God's love for you and me. It's at least something to think about.
Pastor Ray
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Second Chances (Lent 3, Year C)
In this week’s passage from Luke 13:1-9 Jesus confronts the question of why bad things happen to good people. In the thinking of ancient cultures a person deserved whatever happened to them, that is, bad things only happened to bad people. If you were a good person, then God would bless you with wealth, health, and happiness. If you were a bad person then God would punish you with bad health, accidents, and you would end up poor and homeless. In other words, blame the victim was the ruling thought of the day.
But Jesus contradicts this kind of thinking by saying that those who do encounter difficulty in their lives are no different from anyone else. But the idea that bad things only happen to bad people still persists in our society today. How often have you heard that anyone who gets HIV/AIDS deserved to get it by their faulty behavior? When I was growing up my parents would quote the following statement whenever I was in trouble, “If the shoe fits, wear it,” or “You made your own bed, now lie in it.” They were basically telling me that whatever had happened to me was my own fault. That wasn’t always true.
When my younger sister was born with facial deformities my parents decided that her handicaps meant that God was punishing them because they didn’t go to church and my father smoked tobacco and drank the occasional beer. Even as a five year old child I couldn’t understand the logic of that kind of thinking and if it was true wondered if God would get back at my parents by doing something horrible to me. My parents did start taking us to church and my dad did stop smoking and drinking any alcohol. But they also stopped playing Rook and cards and wouldn’t let me go to movies thinking that all of these things were somehow so sinful that God would punish them again if they didn’t clean up their lives completely.
We still have that kind of thinking going on in our own minds when someone has trouble in their lives. We ask: “What did they do or not do in order for this to happen to them.” Two hundred people get laid off because a company has economic problems but we ask our friend is one of the 200, “What did you do that they laid you off, too?” Like our friend might have some greater importance or ability than the other 199.
The fact is that we don’t control the future. But I guess I’m also saying that God doesn’t always control our future either. God has established a world where there are consequences to human actions like economic depressions and natural events like earthquakes and hurricanes that have nothing to do with what you and I might decide to do or how we might be living our lives. You cannot always, nor should you even try, to connect a natural event that causes you trouble with God deliberately punishing you in particular. That is a very childish way of relating to God. Grow up and take some advice from Jesus.
Jesus ends this discourse by talking about the fig tree that doesn’t bear fruit and the owner that wants it cut down. However, another person suggests that the tree may need some special attention and that by loosening the soil and adding some good old manure to the soil the tree just might bear fruit. Jesus is saying that God loves us enough to give us another chance, another opportunity to recover from our troubles and begin again. We are so much more important than even a barren fig tree that gets a second chance.
Got trouble in your lives? Don’t blame God or think that God is punishing you. Instead do turn to God for encouragement and God’s presence and power in your life to start all over again. God loves you enough to give you a second chance. It’s at least something to think about.
But Jesus contradicts this kind of thinking by saying that those who do encounter difficulty in their lives are no different from anyone else. But the idea that bad things only happen to bad people still persists in our society today. How often have you heard that anyone who gets HIV/AIDS deserved to get it by their faulty behavior? When I was growing up my parents would quote the following statement whenever I was in trouble, “If the shoe fits, wear it,” or “You made your own bed, now lie in it.” They were basically telling me that whatever had happened to me was my own fault. That wasn’t always true.
When my younger sister was born with facial deformities my parents decided that her handicaps meant that God was punishing them because they didn’t go to church and my father smoked tobacco and drank the occasional beer. Even as a five year old child I couldn’t understand the logic of that kind of thinking and if it was true wondered if God would get back at my parents by doing something horrible to me. My parents did start taking us to church and my dad did stop smoking and drinking any alcohol. But they also stopped playing Rook and cards and wouldn’t let me go to movies thinking that all of these things were somehow so sinful that God would punish them again if they didn’t clean up their lives completely.
We still have that kind of thinking going on in our own minds when someone has trouble in their lives. We ask: “What did they do or not do in order for this to happen to them.” Two hundred people get laid off because a company has economic problems but we ask our friend is one of the 200, “What did you do that they laid you off, too?” Like our friend might have some greater importance or ability than the other 199.
The fact is that we don’t control the future. But I guess I’m also saying that God doesn’t always control our future either. God has established a world where there are consequences to human actions like economic depressions and natural events like earthquakes and hurricanes that have nothing to do with what you and I might decide to do or how we might be living our lives. You cannot always, nor should you even try, to connect a natural event that causes you trouble with God deliberately punishing you in particular. That is a very childish way of relating to God. Grow up and take some advice from Jesus.
Jesus ends this discourse by talking about the fig tree that doesn’t bear fruit and the owner that wants it cut down. However, another person suggests that the tree may need some special attention and that by loosening the soil and adding some good old manure to the soil the tree just might bear fruit. Jesus is saying that God loves us enough to give us another chance, another opportunity to recover from our troubles and begin again. We are so much more important than even a barren fig tree that gets a second chance.
Got trouble in your lives? Don’t blame God or think that God is punishing you. Instead do turn to God for encouragement and God’s presence and power in your life to start all over again. God loves you enough to give you a second chance. It’s at least something to think about.
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