Calling

Imperfect and Loved

shelliwilliams Breathing Out Series , ,

(part of the “Breathing Out” Lenten Series)

Scripture Text: 1 Samuel 16: 1-13 (Lent 4A)

The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul? I have rejected him from being king over Israel. Fill your horn with oil and set out; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.” 2Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears of it, he will kill me.” And the Lord said, “Take a heifer with you, and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’ 3Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do; and you shall anoint for me the one whom I name to you.” 4Samuel did what the Lord commanded, and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling, and said, “Do you come peaceably?” 5He said, “Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the Lord; sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.” And he sanctified Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

6When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed is now before the Lord.” 7But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” 8Then Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. He said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” 9Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” 10Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen any of these.” 11Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here.” 12He sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. The Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.” 13Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward. Samuel then set out and went to Ramah.

Once again, God has called the most unlikely, the most unexpected, and the most unprepared candidate to do God’s work.  There seems to be a pattern here.  This time, God’s choice is a young, but apparently good-looking, harp-playing shepherd, an eighth son, from the village of Bethlehem, and from a family with no real pedigree or appropriate ancestry at all.  And with this person, God lays the road for the hope of the world.  No pressure there!  But the unlikeliness doesn’t stop there.  What about Samuel? God called him to go to Jesse the Bethlehemite and anoint a new king. Well, I’m pretty sure that Saul (you know, Saul the King) would not have been impressed with that had he found out. What if Samuel had just said, “You know, God, I would really rather not. That just doesn’t work into my plan.”?

Think about it.  What would change about our journey if we knew where we would end up, if we thought that we might end up in a place that we didn’t plan? And what would change about our life if we knew how it was all going to turn out? I mean,…the boy David is out in the field just minding his own business and doing what probably generations of family members before him had done. He sees his brothers go inside one by one, probably wandering what in the world is going on. Finally, he is called in. “You’re the one!” “What do you mean I’m the one?” he probably asked in his teen-age sarcasm. “What in the world are you talking about? Don’t I even get a choice?” “Not so much.” And so, David was anointed. “You’re the one!”

What would have happened if David has just turned and walked away? Well, I’m pretty sure that God would have found someone else, but the road would have turned away from where it was. It would have been a good road, a life-filled road, a road that would have gotten us where we needed to be. But it wouldn’t have been the road that God envisioned it to be.  We know how it all turned out. David started out by playing the supposed evil out of Saul with his lyre. Yes, the good King David had some bumps in the road, so to speak. (OK, A LOT of bumps!  I mean there was that Bathsheba thing and then there was the son who tried to overthrow him and then there was a whole lot of bloodshed that probably didn’t need to happen.  Maybe David actually got a little full of himself.)  But he ultimately is remembered as a great king and generations later, a child was brought forth into the world, descended from David. The child grew and became himself anointed—this time not for lyre-playing or earthly kingship but as Messiah, as Savior, as Emmanuel, God-Incarnate. And in turn, God then anoints the ones who are to fall in line and follow him. “You’re the one”.

Do we even get a choice, you ask? Sure, you get a choice. You can close yourself off and try your best to hold on to what is really not yours anyway or you can walk forward into life as the one anointed to build the specific part of God’s Kingdom that is yours. We are all called to different roads in different ways. But the calling is specifically yours. And in the midst of it, there is a choice between death and life. Is there a choice? Not so much! Seeing the way to walk is not necessarily about seeing where the road is going. So just keep walking and enjoy the scenery along the way!

So…and this is hard…breathe out all those plans you’ve made.  Breathe out the pathway that you’ve laid and perfectly manicured and made sure that no one treads on.  And, then, breathe in…breathe in the imperfect you that God is calling.  Breathe in a way of living differently.  Breathe in the possibility that, unlikely as you seem, you are the one for that way that you are imagining.  Next time you ask, “why doesn’t someone do something?”, breathe in…and start walking.  God doesn’t call perfect people.  I feel certain that that group would be sparse at best!  God calls us and mercifully walks with us through the journey.  But you have to start.

Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only [they] who see, take off [their] shoes—The rest sit round it and pluck blueberries.  (Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Unsettled

shelliwilliams Breathing Out Series , ,

(part of the “Breathing Out” Lenten Series)

Scripture Passage:  Genesis 12: 1-4 (Lent 2A)

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” 4So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him.

We are familiar with this story that our lectionary brings for this second week of Lent.  We know it well.  Abram is called to go forth, called to leave what he knows and become someone new.  We know that it will end with him becoming Abraham.  It is the beginning of Israel, the beginning of Judaism, and, ultimately, the beginning of us and our own faith story.  The story quickly moves from a broad sweep of humanity to a focus on one family and one person.  Perhaps it was a way of reminding us that humanity is not just a glob of no-name people but is rather made up of individuals, each children of God in their own right.

We like this story of our hero Abraham.  What courage, what persistence, what faith it would take to leave one’s home, to leave everything that one knows and to follow God.  It is that to which we all aspire and to which most of us fall incredibly short.  We struggle with what leaving would mean for us.  After all, what would it mean to you to just lock your doors and walk away, never looking back at the comforts and certitudes of your existence, never look back at all the stuff you’ve gathered and stored, never look back at this life that you have so painstakingly created? 

I’ve always wondered what Abram really thought.  I mean, he wasn’t young.  He and Sarai had been around a long time.  They had wanted children, a big family, someone to carry their legacy on, but it hadn’t happened.  But they were fine.  They had settled into a wonderful life.  Perhaps Abram had plans to spend lazy afternoons napping in the hammock and watching the sheep.  Maybe he had plans to get a couple of camels.  Life was not what they had wanted but it was good—really, really good.  And then, without warning, everything changed…

I mean, “Go”…Go where?  I’m not young.  I have arthritic knees.  Where am I supposed to go?  What is it I’m supposed to do?  I’ve got a lot of things going on.  Sarai needs me.  The sheep need me.  This is not a good time.  I have too much to do.  You have the wrong person.

Yes, I took liberties.  The Scriptures don’t focus on anything resembling this fight of wills.  But Abram was human.  Isn’t that what we would feel?  He was asked to just blindly go, trusting in the God in whom he fiercely believed.  But there had to be some reticence.  I mean, think about it.  The plan he was given was a little sketchy.  Why would God call this person who was settling into the end of his life?  Why would God tell him to go into the unknown, into the wild unpaved terrain, away from everything he knows?  And, really, he was just told to go with only a faint promise of legacy and greatness and history.  How in the world was Abram supposed to grasp that?

It’s probably even harder for us.  I mean, at least Abram was already part of a nomadic lifestyle.  And then there’s us.  We don’t just “settle” down.  We actually strive for it.  In fact, it’s our goal in life—family, home, a little money to spend, time with our loved ones, and some private time.  But maybe a little unsettling wouldn’t be such a bad thing.  But what would we do?  I mean, how big of a storage unit do I need to rent for all my stuff?  Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if we breathed out some of this settling, some of this way of life to which we hold, and breathed in the new pathway God is calling us to traverse.

I’ve always found it interesting that the season of Lent begins not in the Temple, not in the “settled” place, but in the wilderness, where the winds blow the pathways into changing patterns rather than roads and the sands swirl and blind us at times.  Maybe it is when we leave behind what we know that we can finally hear the way Home.  That is the Promise in which we trust–that somewhere beyond what we have figured out and what we have planned and that for which we have settled is the way Home.  I mean, really, would it hurt to unsettle your life a bit?  Because, otherwise, how will you be able to know when God is calling you to “Go”?

Let yourself get shaken up. What are you willing to give up to ensure your own unfolding, and the unfolding of what is holy in your life? Where you stumble, here is your treasure. (Joseph Campbell)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Just Go

shelliwilliams EPIPHANY , ,

Matthew 4: 12-23 (Epiphany 3A)

12Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. 13He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: 15“Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles— 16the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.” 17From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

18As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. 19And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” 20Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 21As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. 22Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.

23Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.

Simon got up early that morning.  No big surprise there…he ALWAYS got up early.  He was always the first one up in the morning, hurriedly dressing and then going behind the house to untangle the still-damp nets from the day before.  As he got them ready for yet another day of fishing, he smelled the fish cooking in olive oil and the fresh bread baking in the oven.  It smelled good just like it does every morning.   He began to hear stirring in the house as the children got up and began to help their mother. It was just an ordinary day.

After breakfast he made his way the mile or so down to the shore where he and his brother had left the boat.  It was a good, sturdy boat and they felt so fortunate that they were finally doing well enough to buy it.  He carried the heavy nets that still smelled of yesterday’s catch.  As he approached the boat, he saw that Andrew was waiting for him and had already begun to untie the boat and ready it for the day.  So without even saying good morning to each other, they together hoisted the heavy nets up to the boat, Andrew got on, and Simon pushed the boat into the water, walking into the lake until it was about waste deep.  He then pulled himself up into the boat as it moved toward the middle of the lake.

This was his favorite part of the morning—that quiet trip from Bethsaida down the shores of the lake.  They were headed toward Tabgha this morning, near the Capernaum side of the lake but it was usually not near as busy.  The fog was lifting and you could see all around the lake itself.  Then they slowed and, without speaking, Simon and Andrew put their nets down into the lake to see what they could catch.  Yes, it was just another ordinary day.  

After about two hours of a really unbelievable catch, Simon steered the boat back toward the shores below Capernaum.   He looked up on the hill and saw the synagogue at the top of the hill.  It made him feel good just to look at it.  He hoped that someday he would be able to make the trip to Jerusalem and see the temple that it faced.  As they neared the shore, they began to drop their net again hoping to snare some of the common musht fish that tended to congregate there at the shore.  As the net went down, he looked up.  There on the shore was a man, a man he had seen before around the lake, a man that he thought they called Jesus. He had heard about this man, a rabbi, he thought.  Just then the man spoke:  “Follow me.”  Simon turned around expecting to see the one whom Jesus was calling standing behind him.   But there was only lake.  He touched Andrew’s arm and they both looked up.  “Follow me,” Jesus said again, “and I will make you fishers of people.”

But something happened.  Simon and Andrew looked at each other in disbelief.  You want me to do WHAT? After all, they were fishermen.  They had nothing to offer and no real gifts.  But Jesus repeated his call.  They knew that he was asking them to join him, to join him in ministry.  And they both knew that they would go.  They lifted up the nets, now filled with fish—more fish than they had seen in the last two weeks combined.  They pulled the nets up out of the water and then tied the boat to the shore.  As they stepped into the water, the sun seemed to shine brighter than ever.  The synagogue on the hill was radiant in light.  It was just an ordinary day.  But life would never be the same again.  And they couldn’t do anything else.

OK, I took a little poetic license with the story.  But the point is that Simon and Andrew were not especially gifted people.  In the first century around this lake called Galilee, Simon and Andrew were pretty ordinary.  But Jesus asked them to follow anyway.  And they went.  In fact, the text says they went immediately.  They didn’t wait until they had enough money or enough time or enough talent.  They didn’t hold back because they thought they were too old or too settled.  They just went.

Simon would become Peter, the “rock”, one of Jesus’ apostles and ultimately would be made a saint in the tradition of the church.  Frederick Buechner says, “Our calling is where our deepest gladness and the world’s deepest hunger meet.”  Think about what that means.  God calls us.  Sometimes it’s pretty scary.  Sometimes we want to run away.  Sometimes we try to hide on the back pew hoping no one will notice that we’re there.  Sometimes it means that we have to leave the life we’ve built behind.  And sometimes it just means that we need to do something different.  But following wherever God leads means that we will truly find joy.  We will finally know what it’s all about.  So, what about you?  Where is God calling you?  We are all called but it usually means that we have to fish in different waters and look at things in different ways.  And, if we’re honest with ourselves, we will find that we can’t do anything else.  God is calling you.  So, what now?  Just go…

God…leads us step by step, from event to event.  Only afterwards, as we look back over the way we have come and reconsider certain important moments in our lives in the light of all that has followed them, or when we survey the whole progress of our lives, do we experience the feeling of having been led without knowing it, the feeling that God has mysteriously guided us. (Paul Tournier)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

A New Kind of Beautiful

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(part of the “Waiting on the World to Change” Advent Series)

Luke 1:26-38

26In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” 29But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. 33He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” 34Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” 35The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. 36And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. 37For nothing will be impossible with God.” 38Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

The text says that Mary was much perplexed.  I’ll bet she was!  The truth is, this young girl was so confused at first. Well, of course she was confused!  And on top of that, she was terrified.  You see, to put it into the context in which Mary lived, there is a folktale that is told in the Apocryphal Book of Tobit that tells of a jealous angel who would appear on a bride’s wedding night each time she married and kill her bridegroom. This story, of course, was part of the culture in which Mary lived.  She had grown up hearing that story. And remember, that even though Mary and Joseph had yet to be formally married, they were betrothed.  This is more than just being engaged.  The commitment had already been made.  There had already been a dowry paid. So, Mary could have thought that this angel was coming to kill her bridegroom.  Not only would she lose her intended spouse but she would be left with nothing.  As one who was already betrothed, she would essentially be relegated to the class of widow with no resources.  Then the angel tells her not to be afraid.  Don’t be afraid? Good grief…she was terrified!

I think Mary’s initial response (as its translated in our Scriptures) is one of the most profound phrases ever: “How can this be?” How can this happen when it doesn’t make sense?  Why me?  Why of all the people in the world that you could have chosen, why choose me?  In other words, you have got to be kidding me!  We identify with this.  Even when we intend to obey God, we struggle when it is so far out of the parameters of the life we have or the life that we have planned that is makes no sense.  It is the question of faith. It is what we all ask about our lives.  Because, surely, in this moment, Mary saw her world toppling down.  And the world waited.  God waited.  How can this be?  Because, you see, it CAN’T be–not without God and, interestingly enough, not EVEN without Mary.

The passage tells us that Mary pondered these things.  I love that image of pondering.  So, what does it mean to ponder?  If you read this Scripture, it does not mean thinking something through until you understand it or until you “get it”.   Nowhere does it say that Mary was ever completely sure about what was going to happen.  Nowhere does it say that she ever stopped asking questions, that she ever stopped pondering what this would mean for her life.  It really doesn’t even tell us that she actually stopped being afraid.  Nowhere does it say that she expected this turn of events. 

And then this angel shows up.  What if Mary had said no?  What if her fear or her plans had gotten the best of her?  What if she was just too busy planning for whatever was going to happen next in her life?  What if she was waiting for the world to change before she committed to something that would so drastically change her life?  What if she really didn’t have time to do any pondering today? Now, as much as we’d like to think that we have the whole story of God neatly constructed between the covers of our Bible or on that nifty little Bible app that you have on your iPhone, you and I both know that there is lots of God’s work that is missing.  We really just sort of get the highlights (or at least what the writers think are highlights).  Who knows?  Maybe Mary wasn’t the first one that God asked to do this.  Maybe she was the second, or the tenth, or the 386th.  After all, this is a pretty big deal.  I mean, this pretty much shoots that whole long-term life plan thing out of the water.

But, you see, this story is not just about Mary; it’s also about God.  And through her willingness to ponder, her willingness to let go of the life that she had planned, her willingness to open herself to God’s entrance into her life and, indeed, into her womb, this young, dark-haired, dark-skinned girl from the wrong side of the tracks was suddenly thrust into God’s redemption of the world.  We don’t really know her.  We’re not given a resume’.  We don’t know her family (except for the one cousin that would birth the one known as John the Baptizer).  Who are her people?  Maybe that’s the point.  Because it is in this moment that all those years of envisioning what would be, all those visions that we’ve talked about, all of the waiting, all of the preparing, all of the journeying and planting that the people of God have done, it is here, in this moment, that they begin to be.  This is the moment.  Just let it be.

That’s what this whole Advent journey has been about:  Preparing us to respond, to respond not to the gifts that we think God will bring, not to what we have experienced before, but to what God offers us in this moment. We are no different from Mary.  God is waiting on our response; waiting to hear whether or not we, too, will say “yes” to birthing the Christ Child in our own lives.

What do we miss as we wait for the changes we so desperately want in our world today?  What do we miss when we are unwilling to put ourselves out there, to risk that our lives might dramatically change?  What do we miss when God calls us and we make excuses or turn and look away?  We miss what could be.  We miss the world changing, if only a little bit.  We miss becoming who God sees we can be.  We miss the new kind of beautiful God has waiting for us.  When the world begins to change, even in small ways, have we situated ourselves to see it?  When the world begins to change, where are we?  When the world begins to change, are we so grieving our losses and our sadness and our regrets over the past that we let the beauty that begins to be slip through our fingers?

So, God waits patiently for Mary to respond. The world stops, hangs suspended if only for a time, its very salvation teetering on the brink of its demise. This is a world that is wrought with injustice and poverty, with corrupt leaders and wars, with economic peril.  This is a world like ours.  Oh, sure, if Mary had said no, God could have gone to someone else. Surely God could have found SOMEONE to birth the salvation of the world. But it wouldn’t have been the same. After all, the Divine did not just plunk a far-removed piece of the Godself into a womb. Our understanding is that, yes, the Christ was fully Divine; but Jesus was “born of a woman”, fully human and, as a human, Jesus carried Mary’s unique and specific DNA with him. Mary was not just a container through which God came into this little world. Mary’s DNA, Mary’s response, Mary’s “how can this be?”, Mary’s “yes” is written all through the salvation of the world. In this moment, this moment for which the world has waited, the moment for which we have prepared…in this moment, the history of the world begins to turn.  The Light begins to come into focus and the heavens begin winging their way toward us, full of expectancy, full of hope.  Mary said “yes” and the Divine began to spill in to the womb of the world. Salvation has begun.  The world is with child.  The world is beginning to change.

“What is the good if Mary gave birth to the Son of God 2,000 years ago, if I do not give birth to God today?”  He says that “We are all Mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born.” (Meister Eckhart)

Lyrics

… Told my troubled heart don’t worry
Hope is here
The tides are turning

… I can see
I can see
A new light shining down on me
A new way
A new road
Oh to a new kind of beautiful
A new kind of beautiful
Not like it was before
It’s a new kind of beautiful

… Take my hand
The worst is over
Weight is lifting off our shoulders

… I can see
I can see
A new light shining down on me
A new way
A new road
Oh to a new kind of beautiful
A new kind of beautiful
Not like it was before
It’s a new kind of beautiful

… Oh, ohhh
Whoa
A new kind of beautiful
Oh, ohhh
Whoa

… I can see
I can see
A new light shining down on me
A new way
A new road
Oh to a new kind of beautiful

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Why Exactly Are We Reading This?

shelliwilliams Uncategorized , , , ,
“Herod’s Birthday Feast”, Edward Armitage, 1868

Scripture Text: Mark 6: 14-29 (Proper 10B)

14King Herod heard of it, for Jesus’ name had become known. Some were saying, “John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; and for this reason these powers are at work in him.” 15But others said, “It is Elijah.” And others said, “It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.” 16But when Herod heard of it, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.”

17For Herod himself had sent men who arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because Herod had married her. 18For John had been telling Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” 19And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him. But she could not, 20for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him. 21But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers and officers and for the leaders of Galilee. 22When his daughter Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests; and the king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it.” 23And he solemnly swore to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom.” 24She went out and said to her mother, “What should I ask for?” She replied, “The head of John the baptizer.” 25Immediately she rushed back to the king and requested, “I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.” 26The king was deeply grieved; yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her. 27Immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John’s head. He went and beheaded him in the prison, 28brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl. Then the girl gave it to her mother. 29When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.

Why are we reading this and what, pray tell, does this have to do with us?  No, I didn’t choose to write on this passage.  It’s actually the chosen Gospel passage for this week based on the Revised Common Lectionary.  And, when you say you’re going to write on the lectionary, this is what you get.  So why is this Gospel passage part of our Scriptures at all?  It’s often recognized as one of those so-called “texts of terror” and seems to be tastelessly and somewhat haphazardly nestled among tales of Jesus’ healing and teaching and miracle-making.  And then this passage appears which isn’t even really focusing on Jesus at all.  That is the reason that I love the Lectionary.  It invites us to broaden our scope of what life holds and our view of where God is and how God moves in and through our lives.  No longer can we pick and choose that to which we will listen or plan the way in which God speaks in our lives.  No longer are we limited to our thirteen favorite passages.  Instead, we must open ourselves to God’s Holy Presence in every aspect of life, including those things that we’d rather just ignore.

We usually know John the Baptist as our “Advent guy”.  He was the one that leaped in the womb when Mary, pregnant with Jesus, entered the house.  He would grow up to be this wild wilderness-sort of man who wore animal skins and ate locusts and honey and preached a seemingly hell-fire and brimstone version of repentance to all he saw.  He was the forerunner, the one who would point to the Light that was to come.  And, if you remember, he was the one that baptized Jesus.  And after the baptism, we are told that John was arrested.  And today’s passage begins to come to be.

It’s an odd story, almost fable-like.  Herod Antipas has had John arrested because John had denounced Herod for putting aside his legitimate wife and marrying the wife of his brother. (Whoever told us that soap operas were a modern invention?)  And yet, on some level, Herod found John sort of fascinating, maybe even respected what he had to say and yearned to hear more, although he definitely thought it was disturbing and confusing and there was no way he could admit this fascination to anyone.  But he certainly did not wish him dead.  But this was not the case with Herod’s wife. So, in order to accommodate his wife’s wrath, he has John arrested.

And then Herod throws himself a birthday party, a big to-do with lots of good food, good wine, and dancing.  And the entertainment for the evening was provided by the young, beautiful, dancing daughter of either Herod’s new (and John had contended illegitimate) wife or of Herod himself (the passage is a little confusing on that fact).  Some people think that this was Salome’, who is depicted as one of the “bad girls” of the Bible. (Don’t know one way or the other!)  Well Herod was so pleased with her performance that he promises her anything.  The world was hers.  She could have anything that she wanted.

So, the young girl runs to her mother just outside the room.  Here was Herodias’ chance.  Her nemesis John would meet his demise and she would be rid of him forever.  And the young girl returns to the party and makes the fateful request for John the Baptist’s head on a platter.  Herod must have nearly choked.  This was not what he wanted!  His vengeful wife and this spoiled child had crossed the line.  He knows that no matter who John is, he does not deserve death.  But, as the governor, he was in what he construed as a tenuous position at best.  After all, he had made a promise and had voiced it aloud in front of numerous witnesses.  If he didn’t follow through with it, no one would trust him again.  So, to save face and to secure the balance of power, he complied.  After all, he was governor.  Some things have to be done for the good of society and for the preservation of the way things are.  And, let’s be honest, there is not one of us here who doesn’t want to be liked by others.  Herod was no different.

But this is not just an historical account about Herod.  I really do think that somewhere in this passage, we are meant to find and look at ourselves and our own lives.  Because we, too, make our own concessions—not to the point, obviously, of ordering someone’s death but in our own way we also bow to convenience and convention.  On some level we all live our lives wanting to be victorious and successful, wanting people to like us, and, like Herod, we sometimes miss the opportunity to do the right thing.  We close our ears and our minds and we look away, hoping the whole messy thing will just go away (or at least we won’t have to read about it!).  And we miss the opportunity to stand up and be who God is calling us to be.

Maybe that is the reason that this horrible story is here in the first place; otherwise, we’d all be tempted to start thinking that this Christian walk involves following some sort of miracle working-healing-rock star-Superman character.  Well, sign us all up for that!  But it’s not about that.  Jesus kept telling everyone not to say anything about all those miracles because following Christ does not mean going where the miracles are; it means becoming Christ-like.  It means becoming holy.  It means, finally, becoming human—fully human as Christ showed us how to be.

This story is one that is not about Jesus; it is rather about one of his followers, one who never wavered in his powerful witness.  This, like so many of the Scriptures, is a story of contrasts.  I think maybe the Gospel is a story of contrasts.  Think about it.  It’s always presented this way:  You can follow the crowd, be accepted, be what the world expects you to be.  You can follow the norms that society has laid down for us.  Or you can follow Jesus.  You can back away into the crowd and say that something should be done or ask why no one is doing anything.  Or you can follow Jesus.  You can BE the change.   We’re not called to admire Jesus; we’re called to become like Jesus.  And sometimes that means that we stand up.  Sometimes that means that we speak out. Sometimes that means we don’t follow the jerks down a terrible storyline.

Years ago I had the opportunity to visit Auschwitz.  I was struck by the obvious, of course. But what surprised me was what was around it.  It is located on a former military base in southern Poland near Krakow.  It’s out in the country away from the town with a railroad track running straight through it.  But around it are farmhouses—century-old farmhouses.  In other words, they were there in 1942.  And I wondered why they didn’t say anything.  There were cattle cars coming and going and the smell of burning flesh at times.  And I realized that as German as I am, those could be my relatives.  Why didn’t they say anything? Would I have said anything?  I fear that answer.

See, holiness is sort of a complex thing.  We crave it, we pursue it, and we try our best to attain it.  But most of us have to be honest with ourselves.  We want it at our beckoning and on our terms.  We don’t want to stir things up or get involved in places that are uncomfortable, that might reflect badly upon us.  We are a lot more like Herod than any of us care to admit.  We opt for convenience and convention and complacency and in a way spend our lives fearing the mystery of holiness, fearing what entering holiness and the unknown would mean for our lives.  Because, I will tell you, holiness will mess up your life more than you can possibly imagine.

You know, I once heard someone refer to the Christian life as linear—as a sequence of steps as we move from creation, through growth and the pursuit of Christian perfection so that we might finally reach that place where we are one with God.  I don’t think that’s right.  I don’t think of Christian perfection, or heaven, or whatever you imagine it to be as something to which we somehow graduate.  It’s actually here and now.  If we just open our eyes, we will see glimpses of the sacred and the holy everywhere.  We will be aware that God is calling us to do something different–now.  And I think God knows that there is a time when things that are wrong come to light.  There is a time when we really are called to look at our own lives and sort of re-evaluate. When we finally stop doing what we think we should be doing or maintaining the life we’ve worked so hard to build or trying to please those who we think we should be pleasing and listen for that which God is calling us to be we will become aware of that holiness of which we are already a part.

There is no doubt that this is still a bizarre thing to include in our Lectionary or even in our Scriptures.  But maybe it’s a call to us to redefine what we think our lives are.  Maybe it’s a way of realizing that becoming holiness does not mean our comfortable business as usual.  Retired United Methodist Bishop William Willimon says that “It’s a fearful thing to commend our spirits to God because well, who knows what God will do with our lives?”  That is the crux—submitting one’s life to God means that one gives up control, gives up the “plan” that one has laid out for his or her life.  Submitting one’s life to God means that one’s life as he or she knows it ends.  And that is indeed a scary thing. 

A familiar poem by Robert Frost includes the line, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”  That is it.  That is discipleship.  It is not straight; it’s not linear; it is not easy; it is not predictable.  Sometimes it’s messy.  Sometimes you will lose standing or power or that comfortable existence that you’ve so hard to maintain.  Sometimes you will find yourself waiting for someone else to do something, to do the right thing.  What if that’s supposed to be you?  Sometimes you have to stand and do the right thing. 

How would history have changed if Herod had done the right thing, if he had ignored his need for power or recognition and instead had done what he knew was right?  We’ll never know.  What would have happened if some of those farmhouses had had the courage to speak out?  We’ll never know.  But we can do the right thing now.  We can stand and speak for justice and equality and mercy.  We can be the change that the world needs.  That’s what discipleship is.  It’s showing the world what it means to be courageous, to be the one, to be fully human.

Never for the sake of peace and quiet deny your own experience or convictions. (Dag Hammarskjold)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Sent

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Scripture Text: Mark 6:1-13 (Proper 9B)

He left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. 2On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! 3Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. 4Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” 5And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. 6And he was amazed at their unbelief.

Then he went about among the villages teaching. 7He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. 8He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; 9but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. 10He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. 11If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” 12So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. 13They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

This story is told in all four Gospels, so it must have been seen as important.  It must be a story to which we should listen.  The truth was that Jesus wasn’t seen as a prophet or a Messiah by this crowd.  He was just one of them, this little kid that had made good and of whom they were very proud.  This was the kid that they had helped raise.  They probably thought that his ministry would be a reflection on them.  But Jesus was going off-script, so to speak.  And when they looked at him, they did not see a reflection of what they were expecting but a dim view of something that was a tad unfamiliar.  Jesus was standing there, calling them to change, calling them to look at things differently, to step out of their carefully constructed boxes and away from their earthly temples of who they thought they should be and actually become the people of God. So, who did he think he was?  God?

And then he called the disciples and sent them out.  Now, truthfully, they were already “called”.  That had already happened.  This was the sending.  This was the place where he gives them the authority to go out and BE his disciples. And, if you read a little farther, he tells them not to take any food or money, not a bag, not even a change of clothes.  This always struck me as weird.  So, they go out into the world without really being prepared?  I think maybe Jesus didn’t want them to be weighed down.  He didn’t want them to rely solely on themselves because when we do that, it becomes about us.  And this was not about the disciples; it was about the journey on which they were called to go. 

Then (still reading farther) Jesus tells them that if someone doesn’t welcome them, if someone doesn’t listen, if someone doesn’t extend hospitality to them, if someone out and out rejects them, don’t worry about it.  Just “shake off the dust from your feet”.  That is hard.  When you feel like you’re right, when you feel like you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing, it is really hard to walk away from rejection.  But it’s another reminder that it’s not about us.  Sometimes stuff just doesn’t happen the way we plan.  Maybe the person that comes to them next will get through.  Maybe no one will ever get through.  Maybe they’re just locked into their own preconceived notion of who God is and who they should be.   Jesus essentially tells them not to worry about it.  Do what you can because that’s what you’re there to do.  Just let it go.  Your mission is to bring healing and reconciliation to those who need it.  Your mission is to tell the story.

You know what Jesus DOESN’T say?  (I am fascinated by this idea…maybe what Jesus doesn’t say is just as important as what he does!)  Surprisingly, he doesn’t tell them what to say to people.  He doesn’t give them a prescribed set of Biblical interpretations or some pre-ordained “orthodox” theological premise.  He gives them no notes, no reading hints, and no check-off list of beliefs that they are supposed to accept and espouse.  He gives them no bulletin or video screen to prompt their words.  He doesn’t give them some bizarre 1-minute “elevator speech” to convert someone to the faith while they’re flying between Floor 1 and Floor 4.  (I’m sorry.  That was always an odd concept to me.  I actually think starting a faith journey is a lot more substantive than a 1-minute elevator ride.  But that’s just me.)  Instead, Jesus tells them to proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God.  He sends them out to tell the story—to anybody, to everybody, to whomever they encounter who will listen.  And he tells them to adapt, to be nimble.  He reminds them that it’s not about them or what they think.  It’s about the good news.  It’s about God.  And he leaves room for them to wrestle with their own understanding.

I know.  “Adaptable” and “nimble” are not the first words that come to your mind when you’re talking about our faith.  They are certainly not the primary words used to describe the church.  But maybe they should be.  What if faith is not, after all, a fortress?  What if belief is not intended to be rigid or staid? What if our theological understandings actually grew?  (Goodness, mine have!) What if our faith means openness to change, openness to the newness that God offers us?  What if our faith was adaptable to that change?  What if our faith grew into something we never imagined because we were open to it?  What if our next crisis of faith, our next crisis of the church, made us recognize the way that God had turned our path just a bit?  What if we went out into the world as God’s disciples to tell the story, to invite, to gather, rather than to convert?

So, the picture on the left is an image of the Choluteca Bridge over the Choluteca River in Honduras.  It was built in the 1930’s by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and it’s an important bridge on a very busy road called the Panamericana.  The picture on the right is the same bridge after Hurricane Mitch in 1998.  Now, contrary to your first thought, no, the hurricane did not do anything to the bridge.  The bridge is fine.  The hurricane moved the river.  (Oh my!) Adaptable and nimble…things happen, things out of our control.  But our faith tells us that God will turn our paths toward the new river.  But if we don’t listen, we will find ourselves on a bridge to nowhere.

Faith and belief and religious expression are messy.  Jesus knew that.  I think he also knew that they change.  They grow.  Sometimes they even shrink.  That’s why we’re sent out—to keep telling the story.  The words will change.  The people will change.  Churches will change.  (They grow, they split, they regroup, they rediscover who they are…looking at you United Methodists!  It’s all OK.)  Sometimes even the river will move.  But, most of all, WE will change. And God will walk with us through the bends and curves and speed bumps that we find.  If someone doesn’t want to hear us, it is not our job to ram it down their throat.  There is someone else that has the words they will hear.  Let it go.  Faith is not about rules or prescribed beliefs or, of all things, laws and politics.  Faith is about a story.  Just tell the story.  Tell it from your heart.  It’s there.

Jesus told the disciples he sent out to take nothing with them, to travel light.  It was so they weren’t weighed down and tempted to stay where they were.  We could take a valuable lesson from that.  It’s hard but sometimes we need to be more open to change.  Because this world that God created is always changing, always growing, always alive.  There’s sort of a wildness to it, not to be tamed or fixed, but to be embraced and entered.  We are called to go out into the world and change it.  But, more importantly, we are called to move to where God is leading us and allow ourselves to be changed.  Our traditions and our theological understandings and our beliefs and our religions are not theories.  They simply give us the words to tell the story and the story is God’s.  So they went out.  And we are called to do the same.

“Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair.” (G.K. Chesterton)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

What Now?

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Lectionary Passage:  Matthew 2: 1-12

2In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, 2asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” 3When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; 4and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. 5They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: 6‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.’” 7Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. 8Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” 9When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. 11On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

New Year’s Day is always somewhat mixed for me, filled with hope for the future, maybe a chance at a “reset” but also regrets for what the past year has left undone and a sadness for what is left behind.  I always have this feeling that I’m somehow leaving those that are not here to celebrate behind, like I’m moving into a place where they are not.  This year is especially bittersweet.  The good part is that 2020 is over.  I don’t know about you, but I’m glad to see this one leave.  But as I write this, there are officially 346,859 Americans that are not stepping into the new year with us because of Covid-19. One of those is my funny, flamboyant friend Brian.  And left behind with him is my friend Lahonda and sweet Maynard, the wonder dog.  Brian and Lahonda were musicians.  Maynard just sort of had his own song.  The music is still here but it is different.

This Scripture is used for Epiphany, which is not until January 6th but is celebrated by most churches this Sunday.  But it’s also a good reading for New Year’s, for that time of resetting what is normal, of rethinking what it is that is your life, and perhaps figuring out a way to carry the past with you in a new way. Now is the time to go back to what is “normal” (or in our case, parademic-normal).  But, regardless, what does that really mean?  What do we do after it all ends?  What now?  The truth is, “after” is when it begins, “after” is when it becomes real, and “after” is the whole reason we do this at all.

The text that we read begins by setting us “in the time of King Herod”.  And in it, we find that the last question of Advent comes not at Christmas but afterward and is asked not by an individual but by a group.  They believe that the star (or, for some, an unusual conjunction of heavenly bodies that produces an especially bright light—hence the “Christmas Star” name given to the recent conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in our solar system) marks the birth of a special child destined to be a king.  And they ask, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?

And so Herod hears that a king had been born in Bethlehem.  Well, the formula is simple—a king is born, but a king is already here; and in Herod’s mind and the minds of all those who follow him, there is room for only one king.  The passage says that King Herod was frightened and all Jerusalem with him.  They probably were pretty fearful.  After all, there was a distinct possibility that their world was about to change.  It seemed that the birth of this humble child might have the ability to shake the very foundations of the earth and announce the fall of the mighty.  Things would never be the same again.  So Herod relies on these wisest ones in his court.  The writer of Matthew’s Gospel says that they’re from the East.  Some traditions hold that these wise ones were Magi, a Priestly caste of Persian origin that followed Zoroastrianism and practiced the interpretation of dreams and portents and astrology.  Other traditions depict them with different ethnicities as the birth of this Messiah begins to move into the whole world.  In fact, the early Western church gave them names that depict this.  (No, these names are not in the Bible.)  But according to tradition, Melchior was a Persian scholar, Caspar was a learned man from India, and Balthazar, a scholar with a Babylonian name.  These three areas represented the known world at that point.  The Messiah had come to every nook and cranny of the world.

But, regardless of who they were, somewhere along the way, they had heard of the birth of this king and came to the obvious place where he might be—in the royal household.  So, sensing a rival, Herod sends these “wise ones” to find the new king so that he could “pay homage” to him.  We of course know that this was deceitful.  His intent was not to pay homage at all, but to destroy Jesus and stop what was about to happen to his empire.  It was the only way that he could preserve what he had.

According to the passage, the wise men know that Christ was born; they needed God’s guidance, though, to find where Christ was.  When they get to the place where the star has stopped, the passage tells us that they were “overwhelmed with joy”.  They knelt down and paid the new king homage and offered him gifts fit for a king.  Even though later interpreters have often tried to place specific meanings on these gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, it is possible that the writer of the Gospel of Matthew simply thought that these gifts, exotic and expensive as they were, were gifts that would be worthy of a great and mighty king.  They were gifts of joy, gifts of gratitude, gifts of celebration. 

And then the passage tells us that, heeding a warning in a dream, these wise and learned (and probably powerful and wealthy) members of the court of Herod, left and returned to their own country, a long and difficult journey through the Middle Eastern desert.  But rather than returning to their comfortable lives and their secure and powerful places in the court of Herod, they left and went a different way.  They knew they had to go back to life.  But it didn’t have to be the same.

We often profess that Jesus came to change the world.  But that really didn’t happen.  Does that mean that this whole Holy Birth was a failure, just some sort of pretty, romantic story in the midst of our sometimes-chaotic life?  Maybe Jesus never intended to change the world at all; maybe Jesus, Emmanuel, God with Us, came into this world to change us, to invite us to travel a different way.  Maybe it has to do with what we do after.  It has to do with how we choose to go back to our lives.  Do we just pick up where we left off?  Or do we, like those wise visitors choose to go home by another way?  Do we choose, then, to change our lives, to listen to the familiar music in a new way?

God did not just visit our little earth so long ago and then return to wherever God lives.  God came as Emmanuel, God with Us, and that has never changed.  The birth of Jesus means that God was born in a specific person in a specific place.  The Christmas story affirms to us that God is here, that the Messiah for whom we had waited has come, that we are in God’s hands (and God is in ours).  But the Epiphany story moves it beyond the manger.  And all of a sudden we are part of the story.  We are part of the Incarnation of God, the manifestation of God’s Presence here on our little earth.  The God in whose hands we rest danced into our very lives and is now all over our hands.  It is our move.  God was not just born into the child Jesus; God is born into us, into humanity.  And the world really hasn’t changed.  I don’t know. Maybe it never will. But we have.  Our music is the same; but it sounds different to us.  Because, it’s up to us.  Christ’s coming means that we need to get going.  We are called to change the world.

When the song of the angel is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone, 
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
     
To find the lost,
     To heal the broken,
     To feed the hungry,
     To release the prisoner,
     To rebuild the nations,
     To bring peace among brothers and sisters,
     To make music in the heart.
                                                               
(Howard Thurman)

I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, ‘Give me a light that I might go safely out into the darkness.’ And he replied, ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God.  That shall be more to you than a light, and safer than a known way.’ (M.L. Haskins)

Happy New Year!

Shelli