And

It’s a long one, Y’all. You might want to grab another cup before we begin …

When I first started posting my writing on FB in the early fall of 2019 in response to the gun violence that has become way too common in our culture, my intent was to help us all grow more compassionate and to see each other more clearly as beloved children of God. As my topics have broadened and I’ve discovered that what I’m doing is working at separating social ideologies from theology, my intent is still compassion because the better we see the world as Jesus sees it the more compassionate we become.

Part of our compassion journey with Jesus is learning that our words have the power to either build up or degrade other people. How we speak of others and how we choose to label others reveals how we see them with our heart. Jesus tells us that even if we think of harming another we have already caused harm. Our words matter and we must use them carefully and with compassion.

My heart is hurting and I just really need to say this out loud: my belief that every single human being deserves to be treated with dignity, you know, basic things like hungry people need food and everyone needs a safe place to sleep and equal access to competent medical care, does not mean that I bear the labels of liberal, or progressive, or democrat, or socialist, or communist. It means I want to do the things Jesus teaches us to do about loving our neighbor. It means I’m doing my best with God’s help to follow Jesus.

Even before I understood I was on this journey of teasing out societal ideologies from theology, I stopped identifying with any political party in this country (please do not read that as I do not vote. I do and I take it very seriously). When we choose to follow Jesus, we cannot set aside bits and pieces (or the very main thing) of what he teaches so that we can claim allegiance to a particular group of people.

I think a part of the issue is that we’ve decided that everything in life is us-against-them, a fight-to-the-death competition in which we can leave no one else standing; the only way to be successful is to annihilate everyone else. We’ve decided that polarization is normal and that there can only be two, diametrically opposed sides to any issue. We must be ‘this’ or ‘that.’ There is no both/and. And we miss out on so much of who we are when we live in the ‘us versus them’ attitude.

I recently saw a meme that illustrates well how this simplistic way of thinking has permeated our culture and shapes our thinking. It said “kids need germs and dirt and not masks and sanitizer.” In the either/or mentality, when we choose to label masks and disease prevention as a politicized evil because some political leader told us they are bad, we have no choice but to elevate the very things that masks and sanitizers protect us from. Do our kids need measles germs or flu germs or chickenpox germs or even cold germs? Do we say our children need fun not bike helmets, or freedom to move about not car seats? Our children need to develop their immune systems AND proper hygiene and vaccines are critical in the process. It isn’t either/or, it’s both/and. This simplistic, either/or way of thinking and living leaves no room for complex thought and reasoning. This kind of thinking leaves no room for others. It leaves no room for compassion or grace. It leaves no room for relationship development and growth. Life is so much more than either/or. Life as God intends us to live it is a complex, intricate, multi-faceted mixture of all of us, journeying together as beloved children of God.

It may sound contradictory to talk about living in the both/and as a faithful follower of The One who says “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life” but we must also remember that Jesus scolded the disciples for trying to stop others from doing good just because they weren’t members of their little group. Jesus scolded the religious leaders of his day for twisting the rules to be about exclusion rather than inclusion. He fed crowds of thousands on the Jewish side of the lake AND the gentile side of the lake. He washed all the disciples’ feet, including Judas. Jesus didn’t force or coerce or bully anyone but laid out the truth of Whose and who we are created to be as an open invitation to everyone and lets us choose because that’s how love behaves.

We are all God’s beloved children. We are all invited to gather around God’s table. We are all walking this beautiful, mixed up, complex, amazing journey of life together with the relationship status of “it’s complicated.”

Would you join me for an extra cup of coffee this morning? I’d love to hear your thoughts and discover something about you.

What do you want me to do?

A Sunday reflection*.
The readings for the twenty second Sunday after Pentecost are here.

I’d like to start off this reflection with a short explanation: I know that not everyone who may be reading this is part of a congregation that uses the Revised Common Lectionary and there are some who do but don’t know that this is where the scripture readings they hear on Sunday come from. The RCL is a three year cycle of readings from scripture that is used by many denominations. For each week there is an Old Testament, Psalm, New Testament, and Gospel reading assigned appropriate to the church season. I link to the readings each week in my Sunday posts and these are the readings with which I prepare my sermons (and now these every-other-week reflections). I briefly touch on the RCL in my Episcopal 101 video The BCP Part 2 but now wish I had given more information. Perhaps it’s time for an additional video! But I digress … back to the topic at hand.

As I approach the assigned texts for each week, I first ask a two-fold question: What do these readings teach me about who God is and who we are as God’s beloved children? In seeking to answer these questions, I always have to keep in mind that the parts we read on a particular Sunday do not stand alone. They are part of the whole of God’s story as revealed to us in the scriptures.

In today’s Gospel reading, we encounter a blind man named Bartimaeus who is making a ruckus because he desperately wants Jesus to notice him. The crowds try to silence him but he cries out even louder. Jesus stops and asks for the man to be brought to him and suddenly the crowd’s attitude does a 180* and they encourage Bart to approach Jesus. Oh, the fickle, fickle crowd.

As he comes near, Jesus asks, “what do you want me to do for you?”
“Teacher,” Bart says, “I want to see.”

This is the same question Jesus asked James and John when they approached him and told him to give him whatever they asked. The juxtaposition of these two stories highlights the disparity of understanding between the ones who walked closest with Jesus and the man in the margins of society. The disciples were presumptuous: ‘give us what we ask.’ Bart called out from a distance “have mercy.” The disciples wanted recognition and prestige as they defined it so that they could place themselves above others. The man from the margin wanted to be healed so that he could move in from the margins and wholly be a part of the community again.

The comparison forces us to ask ourselves, “what do we ask Jesus to do for us?” Do we demand what we want or look for healing so that we can participate wholly in God’s Kingdom?

After restoring his sight, Jesus tells Bart to ‘go’ and yet we are told that he followed Jesus on the Way. Bart wasn’t disobeying Jesus; his way was now Jesus’ Way. Where else would he go? Do you remember the story in John’s telling of the good news where many have walked away from Jesus because of the difficult teaching about the Bread of Life? When Jesus asks the disciples if they too want to leave, Peter says, “where would we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

Which way do we go? Do we follow Jesus on the Way with healed eyes to see and ears to hear the words of eternal life, wanting to participate wholly with Jesus on earth as in heaven?

What do these stories teach us about who God is and who we are as God’s beloved children? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

God’s peace,
Mtr. Nancy+

*Now that I am back in parish ministry, I will be preaching every other Sunday. For the alternate Sundays I will still do a short(ish) reflection on the lectionary readings.

Present Tense

When was the last time you heard or read the Twenty Third Psalm? I’m going to venture to guess it was at a funeral. It does appear as the optional reading in the lectionary for certain Sundays in years A & B and also every year in the readings for the 4th Sunday of Easter. (My apologies to those of you who do not participate in a Lectionary congregation – I do not intend these words to exclude but to explain.)

Most of us think of the twenty-third Psalm as a funeral psalm. The beautiful setting described brings us comfort as we picture the person who has died being cared for by The Great Shepherd; we consider the dark, shadowed valley to be death, rather than the threat of death in this life. But the reason we read it every year during the season of Easter is because it is a Psalm about Life as God intends it.

Let’s read it together and I invite you, if you are where this is possible, to read it out-loud and let your heart hear the words.

The LORD is my shepherd.
I lack nothing.
He lets me rest in grassy meadows;
he leads me to restful waters;
he keeps me alive.
He guides me in proper paths
for the sake of his good name.
Even when I walk through the darkest valley,
I fear no danger because you are with me.
Your rod and your staff—
they protect me.
You set a table for me
right in front of my enemies.
You bathe my head in oil;
my cup is so full it spills over!
Yes, goodness and faithful love
will pursue me all the days of my life,
and I will live in the LORD’s house
as long as I live.

Psalm 23, Common English Bible

All of the verbs are present tense. Life. Here and now. Walking with God. Following Jesus on a journey of love and grace, even in the difficult steps. We miss out on so much when we relegate our faith to some future time when our physical bodies die, when we seek Tod’s presence only when we are in the shadows. God loves us and desires the best Kingdom life for each of us. Jesus tells us that the Kingdom is here, it is us, living as God’s beloved children on earth.

God wants us to know the beauty of life in God’ presence wherever we are: a meadow or a stream or a beach or lake or your back porch. Walking the “proper path,” following Jesus, is where we live fully as we are created to be.

As you journey through your week, take this Psalm with you, read it as often as you can. Let it shape the way you experience life. Invite someone for coffee or lunch and talk about how the words influence you.

God’s peace be with you, my friends.

Measuring Success

A sermon preached at St. Francis by the Lake Episcopal Church, Canyon Lake, Texas.

The lectionary readings for the twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost are here.

I’m going to start us off today with two questions:
1. Do you know what the definition of insanity is? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
(And not to deflate any bubbles, but there is absolutely no evidence that Ben Franklin, or Albert Einstein, or Mark Twain ever said such a thing but we can factually trace the quote to the recovery group Narcotics Anonymous.)
2. Does Jesus call us to be successful or faithful?

Now, before I get into the meat of these questions in regards to following Jesus, let’s remember what Jesus has been saying to the disciples and the crowds as we’ve been journeying with Mark’s telling of the gospel narrative these past months:

Jesus said:
Those who want to save their life will lose it and those who lose their life for my sake and the sake of the good news will save it.
Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.
Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.
But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.

And in today’s reading:
Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.

Do you see the consistency of Jesus’ message?
How is greatness measured in God’s Kingdom?
And if the first is last and the last is first, is there really any ranking at all? Isn’t Jesus saying that we are all on equal footing?

This is the good news! All are welcomed and loved in God’s kingdom; there is no way to earn it; there is no rank or status we can achieve on our own that will gain us entry. Being in relationship with God is a gracious gift of life from the God who created us. And there is absolutely nothing we can do that will make God love us any more or any less than he already does. Or, make God love us any more or any less than any other human being.

The disciples keep trying to get Jesus to tell them how to be the greatest in God’s Kingdom and he keeps answering them the same way: with the good news that following Jesus is about being faithful not successful.

And I get that this may sound like bad news to some: We like clearly defined goals so that we know we’ve done well. We like to confidently proclaim achievement with numbers and facts. We like the certainty of measurable achievements. We like checkboxes we can check off and feel good about ourselves.

And when we become completely goal oriented, we often lose out on the joy of the journey. If you are planning a hike to the top of a mountain and you only think about being the first to the top, you will miss the beauty along the way and more than likely you’ll miss out on some good conversations and relationship moments as you zoom past the others on the same path.

Our relationship with God through following Jesus is just that: a relationship. We can’t quantify the success of our relationships in numbers. Just how long is a successful relationship? When our kids turn 18 do we say we’ve reached the goal and sever ties? When we’ve been married ten or twenty years do we say we’ve reached the goal and leave? Relationships don’t have goals to reach. Relationships are successful because of a whole-self, continuous commitment. Relationships are an ongoing journey of growth and development and a deeper knowing of who we each are. Our relationship with God is no different.

In all of his servant and first/last talk, Jesus isn’t telling us that those who are currently powerless will miraculously have power over those who’ve been lording power over them. He isn’t turning things upside down. Jesus is giving us a whole new way of living, the Way of Love in which no one has power over anyone else and we all work together with God so that everyone has what they need.

Soren Kierkegaard, the 19th century Danish theologian, philosopher, and social critic, describes our faith as the very thing that keeps us grounded in our existence in the here and now because our faith is in the eternal goodness of God. Our faith that enables us to live in joyful expectation is knowing that God is always faithful. We can see God’s faithfulness in our history and we set our hope in what Kierkegaard calls the “excess of possibilities” of God’s promise to restore all things to the proper order because that is God’s greatest desire for all of us and for all of creation.

Kierkegaard said, “Life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.” Only he said it in Danish.

We cannot measure the “success” of our faith by any earthly standards. Jesus doesn’t show us how to be successful, he teaches us with his very life how to live in faithful relationships: with God, with each other, and with the world around us.

Jesus invites us into this journey of relationship with the invitation “follow me” and then he tells us that it is in the way we love that others will know we are on the journey with him.

Being faithful followers of Jesus is about showing up with a willingness to keep learning and growing and being transformed by God’s love. Faith is a lived reality not a checkbox on a ‘good person’ list somewhere. Living our faith means we are all in, mind, body, soul, on what God is doing through Jesus’ command to love God and our neighbor whether they be a friend or an enemy.

This is pretty heavy stuff, so let’s go back to the questions we started with: Do we keep trying the same behaviors, like the disciples, and expect to find a different answer in Jesus’ words? How have we tried to prove our faith successful?
Have we tuned our ears to hear Jesus calling us to be faithful rather than successful as we walk together the Way of Love?

Jesus says, “whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” Do we take this to heart or dismiss it for our own way of doing life?

This leads to one more question before we wrap up: what is a ransom? A payment for the release of a captive, right? Which leads to yet another question (I may need a white board to keep us with all of these questions – is anyone taking notes?): who or what was holding us captive so that a ransom was even necessary?
It can’t be the devil because this mean that the evil forces of this world had some negotiable power over God.
And it can’t be God because Love does not hold anyone captive for any reason.

Do you remember our Yokes discussion two weeks ago and I talked about the yokes of our own choices – those things we let weight us down so that we lose sight of Jesus. In what ways to we let our ideas of success cause us to lose sight of what it is Jesus calls us to be? Perhaps what Jesus ransoms us from is our need to prove ourselves worthy, our need to make it to the top before anyone else or to rank each other according to our ideas of success.

“Doing” is easier to measure than “being”. Yet we are created by God as Beings, human beings. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we use this language to describe our state of existence. Jesus calls us to BE servants of all so that we are freed from the bonds of ‘doing’ in order to prove our worthiness.

Jesus’ ransom sets us free from our own bonds so that we can live on earth as it is in heaven, in the “now and not yet” of our journey following Jesus.

And I’ll end not with a question – aren’t you relieved – but with a quote from Kierkegaard, “Now, with God’s help, I shall become myself.” We discover our created identity in our relationship with God. Our faithfulness to who Jesus calls us to be leads to the things we do in order to serve others. And when we are all serving others, everyone is taken care of because while you are serving others, someone is also serving you. We are all to be servants of all. The doing, the serving, is how we function in our existence as beloved, faithful children of God, living and experiencing life on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.

Enough

We need some cupcakes with our coffee this morning, Y’all!

Exactly one year ago today, I posted the first articles on this blog! Now, granted, I’d been writing them for a year prior to that but today marks the anniversary of when this website, by God’s grace and my keyboarding skills, officially opened. I write simply because I cannot contain all the words inside of me but it’s always nice when someone is willing to read those words. Thank you for giving of your precious time to read what I write. I pray it has blessed you as that is the purpose of blessings: for the benefit of others. I pray the posts have been enough for all of us to see a bit more clearly into God’s Kingdom on earth as in heaven.

When someone says the word ‘enough’ what comes to your mind? Do you perceive the word as positive or negative?

We’ve been taught through our culture that enough is not good enough. We must have more and we must have the best and since we’ve also been taught that ‘best’ and ‘newest’ are synonymous, we are always in need of a new thing. We’ve taken God’s promise of abundant life and decided it means we will have an excess of all good things (meaning what we want) and nothing bad. When we get what we want, we claim that God has blessed us yet in doing so we imply that God is showing preferential treatment toward us. Blessings are given not because God loves one individual or group of people more than another; God bestows blessing SO THAT we will share with others and help everyone have enough.

I’ve learned a lot about enough this past year.

On September 30, 2020 I walked out of a parish that had chosen to dissolve our pastoral relationship because they told me to leave God out of their business and money and I could not do that. My husband and I had no idea what was next but we trusted God would provide.

On October 1, 2021 I began a new position with a new parish who invited me to be a part of their community because of a conversation we had about listening to where the Holy Spirit is guiding us to serve our community as we move into the new post-pandemic norm.

Exactly one year transpired between these two events and with each and every of the 365 days in between, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is God who provided all that we have needed: the right people to help me process and recover from the trauma of being betrayed and fired; the right people to help my husband deal with all that comes with being a priest’s spouse in such a time; sufficient funds to pay for rent, insurance, utilities, and groceries and even to do the occasional ‘ice cream date’ that we enjoy so much.

A full year of seasons, holidays, church seasons and celebrations, birthdays, anniversaries, births, deaths, and moves. God provided enough. God has blessed us beyond our imagination, not with material things but with growing wisdom, compassion, and grace SO THAT we are better equipped to live as Kingdom people and I pray we will steward these blessings appropriately as we, with God’s help and in community with the good people of our new parish, flavor the world with God’s love.

The abundant life of God’s Kingdom, lived here and now, day by day, is trusting that we will all have a sufficient supply of daily needs and that we all work together to participate with God, living the answer to the prayer, “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.” We live in a way that works toward all people having enough. If I have more than enough and you don’t have what you need, my excess has no value.

The treasures of God’s Kingdom, love, compassion, grace, forgiveness, kindness, hope, and gratitude, increase the more we give them. We will never run out and we can’t hoard these things (because they aren’t things). As we follow Jesus we will have a never ending supply, abundance, enough.

I give thanks to God each day for all of you who are on this Kingdom Journey with me.

God’s peace, y’all!
Mother Nancy+

Lacking

A Sunday reflection*.
The readings for the twentieth Sunday after Pentecost are here.

In the prayer for today, we ask that God’s grace always precede & follow us – surround us – so that we can do good works. The order is important: God’s grace enables us to do good works, we do not earn God’s gift by doing good works. Grace is a gift that costs the giver everything and the receiver nothing; God gives God’s self to us freely. We cannot earn God’s presence or favor; God alone makes us worthy of God’s love. As we accept this grace, recognize it for what it is, we want to spread it around, do good things for others because of who God is. God’s amazing grace transforms us to be who we are created to be in this life.

I grew up in a denomination that focused our faith on what happens after our physical death and taught that salvation was about having a ticket into heaven and avoiding going to hell in the next life. And as much as I’d like to say the idea of an eternal-life-insurance policy type faith doesn’t permeate the denomination I’m currently in, I have often seen it played out in the way some people live. I think it’s more of a cultural thing than a denominational thing. We want to live life on our terms with the peace of mind that we’ll have an easy next life, even if we aren’t quite sure there will be a next life.

Like the man in today’s gospel reading, we confront Jesus in an assumed posture of humility and ask for the minimum amount of work that we must do in order to gain eternal life. I show up on Sunday mornings several times a month and I contribute financially to help pay the church’s bills; I haven’t killed any one and I love my parents. Is there anything else that I can check off my list so that I sleep peacefully knowing I’ll go to heaven when I die?

And Jesus looks at each of us and reveals what it is we lack. For the man in our story, Jesus knows he lacks compassionate generosity, so Jesus tells him to sell what he has and give it to the poor. The man was unable to see others through a Kingdom of God lens because he let his stuff block the view. Jesus knew that in learning to give the man would gain a life that is other-focused rather than the self-centered life he had.

What do we let block our view? What do we lack? What keeps us from letting Jesus refocus our worldview to be a Kingdom of God view? What blocks our view of Jesus so that we can’t see where and how to follow him?

Jesus’ talk of lack has nothing to do with physical possessions but with the traits of our hearts, our character. When we choose to follow Jesus, we are asking to be transformed into Kingdom of God people. We step into the path of Love behind Jesus so that we learn more and more each day to be like Jesus and flavor the world with the light of God’s love because eternal life includes now. Eternity isn’t the future but always. Eternal life is the life we are created to live, a life grounded in God’s unconditional love for all.

We follow Jesus not because we think we are now perfect because we made the right choice but because we know we are not and that God’s grace surrounds us, it fills us so that we know we are loved and can give in love, lacking nothing.

God’s peace be with you, my friends.

*Now that I am back in parish ministry, I will be preaching every other Sunday. For the alternate Sundays I will still do a short(ish) reflection on the lectionary readings.

The Journey on Which I Find Myself

Have you ever gone on a walk, just to walk, to wander, what my granddaddy would have called ‘meandering’? When you set out, you don’t have a destination in mind but while you are walking and paying close attention to all that is around you, you realize you’ve been paying extra attention to the texture of the path, or the cloud formations, or the butterflies? You didn’t intend to focus in on this thing, but you are so glad that you have done so and now you want to design more walks just to continue to explore what had gained your primary attention. Do you know what I mean?

One of the (many) things I’ve come to learn more deeply in the journey of this past year is how everything we experience in life, whether good or bad, simple or complicated, helps prepare us for something else. We all know that life isn’t just a series of isolated incidents but a continuous journey on which we are always experiencing, learning, and observing new (even if we try to fool ourselves that we can live life in various silos). I think this is why Jesus used the invitation “Follow me” instead of something like “be with me” or “join me.”

What I’ve been noticing most is how much of our collective life is a mixed up casserole of societal ideologies and theology. We’ve selected what we like from Jesus’ teachings and from our culture and society and made our own ideological framework. We fit in the stuff from Jesus that suits us rather than letting the life of Jesus transform us into a new people. Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls it ‘cheep grace.’ Lisa Sharon Harper calls it ‘thin theology.’

Sometimes clouds bring a storm, rocks trip you up, and butterflies get caught in spider’s webs. Beauty is not without danger, growth requires discomfort and pain. Jesus says we must die to ourselves in order to live the life we are created for. Teasing out from our hearts and minds what is from Jesus and what is from our culture is difficult and painful, and, yes, very, very necessary work. It is rewarding and freeing and joyful work on the journey of discovering who and Whose we are as God’s beloved children.

I’m going to do my best to begin to articulate this journey of teasing apart Jesus’ teachings from the societal and cultural ideological yokes that I have taken on. My most recent Tuesday posts about Oversharing on social Media and Finding our Identity are part of this writing. I hope and pray that my words are good and useful and kind and that they enable us to journey together.

Together, with God’s help, we will be re-membered as the children of God we are created to be. And, I hope you are willing to share your thoughts and your journey with me.

God’s peace, my friends.
Mtr. Nancy+

Yokes

A sermon preached at St. Francis by the Lake, Canyon Lake, Texas.
The readings for the Feast of St. Francis are here.

Once upon a time in a town in the Midwest United States, a woman put a five foot tall gargoyle statue on her front porch and named the gargoyle Frank. As Christmas approached, she put a Santa hat on Frank one morning and left for work. When she returned, there was a note taped to her front door from a neighbor that informed her that gargoyles had nothing to do with Christmas and to remove both the hat and the gargoyle immediately. Over the weekend, she gave Frank an wreath and then added some fake snow and a little Christmas tree. At one point Elf on the Shelf joined in, sitting between Frank’s ears. The neighbor was not impressed and left additional notes, threatening to report this to the HOA and then even the mayor. Frank’s owner took to the internet and created a page to tell the story and immediately began gaining followers. Wanting to show the goodness of Frank, she used it as a way to raise money for her local food bank, asking those who enjoyed the story of Frank-the-Gargoyle vs. Karen-the-neighbor to donate. Through the seasons and holidays of the new year, Frank’s apparel changed and new porch friends joined him. All the while the neighbor’s complaints were getting uglier and uglier. Frank’s owner uses his fame to continue to raise money for various charities and to bring humor to the 3/4 of a million followers.

Now, you may or may not be wondering why I’m telling you a story of Frank the Christmas Gargoyle in the beginning of October and I really hope you are wondering what on earth does any of this have to to with Jesus talking about yokes. Any ideas? If you stick with me, I promise I’ll bring it all home in the end.

So where are we in the whole of God’s story in our reading today? Jesus has called his twelve disciples and gave them authority to throw out unclean spirits and to heal every disease and every sickness. He’s given them real expectations: not everyone will like them or what they have to say, sometimes not even their families but that God will provide what they need when they need it.

Jesus sends them out to proclaim the good news and begins doing some public teaching in which he scolds the towns of Galilee in which he had done some significant miracles because they hadn’t opened their hearts to God’s way. He compares them to towns outside of the region which were not predominantly Jewish, basically saying that those outside of the tribes of Isreal are more accepting of God than those who claim to be God’s chosen people.

And then he immediately breaks into this prayer, “Thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth. you’ve hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have shown them to infants” and extends an invitation of goodness and rest with the seemingly inappropriate image of a yoke.

A yoke, as you know, is a tool used for harnessing animals in farming. It enables the farmer to guide and control the animals.

It is also the word used for taking on a Rabbi’s teaching as a disciple.

The Old Testament prophets spoke of the yoke as the brutal weight of slavery and oppression and of God breaking the yokes of the nations and kings opposing Isreal.

Yokes, real and symbolic, are used to control others. In first century Palestine, the Roman yoke was one of brutality; the yoke of the Pharisees was fear and guilt and shame.

What are our 21st century yokes: consumerism and consumption, aka “keeping up with the Joneses.” Anger? Fear? Political affiliation? What are we letting guide and control our behavior? Who are we letting yoke us and how do we try to control the behavior of others by attempting to force our yoke on them?

And the best question yet, why would Jesus even use the idea of a yoke to describe his way?

Because that’s what Jesus does with all of his parables and stories: Jesus offers us a whole new way of being in this world. He takes something common and gives us a completely different way of seeing it. Jesus gives us a whole new definition of ‘yoke’.

Jesus extends the invitation “follow me” and then let’s us choose. He doesn’t coerce or manipulate or force us. Jesus tells us his yoke, his way of guiding us is easy. Not easy in the sense of ‘not difficult’ because following Jesus can be quite difficult. But easy in the sense that Jesus’ way is what we are created for, the way God intends for us to be. The Greek word would be better translated, as it is in other places in scripture, as good or useful or kind.
My yoke is good. My yoke is useful. My yoke is kind.

Jesus doesn’t force his yoke upon us but invites us to take it up with intention.

And to take on Jesus’ yoke we must first take off the yoke we already wear, because we can’t wear two. We have to let go of the yoke of having to prove ourselves worthy of God. Let go of the yoke of being good enough for our family, the yoke of presenting the right image to the world, the yoke of looking a certain way, the yoke of being perfect, the yoke of being the best helper so others will like us, the yoke of having the perfect plan, the yoke of knowing everything, the yoke of doing everything, the yoke of being everything to everybody.

These yokes of our choosing are burdensome and do not enable us to live as God’s beloved children. They are not good or useful or kind. And they definitely aren’t easy. But we wear them, we keep putting them on because we’ve let this world teach us that somehow they will make us whole. And yet that emptiness inside of us isn’t fulfilled and so the yokes become more and more burdensome.

Blaise Pascal, the seventeenth century physicist, philosopher, and theologian said this, “What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.”

Jesus’ yoke – that which is to guide and direct us – is love, God’s unconditional, uncontrolling love. Jesus’ yoke of love enables us to discover who we are at the core of our being, the image of God in which we are created.

Jesus’ yoke enables us to know we are loved so that we can love God, our neighbor, and ourselves. It is in these relationships that we participate with God and each other in bringing about the Kingdom on earth.

To choose Jesus’ yoke, we have to let go of our ‘adultish’ habits of self-sufficiency and assuming control and enter into Jesus invitation as children, with the child-like willingness and openness to learning a new way, a better way, a good and useful way.

So, back to Frank the Christmas Gargoyle. Frank’s owner could have let the yoke of anger guide her but she chose differently. She chose to use the situation to raise funds to help others in need. She chose love.

We choose our yokes: We can choose the yoke of anger and complaining, looking for all that is wrong in this world and with our neighbors. We can choose the yoke of having to prove ourselves. We can choose the yoke of being perfect. We can even choose to try and force our yokes on others so we can control them.

Or we can choose Jesus’ yoke, becoming childlike in our willingness to be guided by Jesus’ teaching of love.

One of my seminary professors says, “it is the vocation of every Christian to DARE to follow Jesus on his terms.” Do we dare to take on Jesus’ yoke? Not everyone will like it when we do. But we will be living in the freedom of knowing whose and who we are: God’s beloved children, following Jesus in the revolution of love that is very, very good. Amen.

At Peace

A sermon preaced at Grace Episcopal Church, San Antonio.

The readings for the eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost are here.

So, do you remember where we left off last week? Jesus has been teaching about true greatness, and he held a small child to help illustrate his point that we are all God’s children and says, “whoever welcomes one of these children in my name welcomes me and really is welcoming God.”

And immediately, with the child still with them, John interrupts the moment and tries to steer the conversation back to the “who’s the greatest” theme by telling Jesus about some folks who were doing good things in Jesus’ name but weren’t consider by the disciples as “one of us.”

Again, I picture face-palm Jesus. Had they even been listening? They didn’t like the answers Jesus was giving them so they were determined to find a situation in which their answer was the right one. They understood us versus them and one must be the greatest. They could not, or would not, wrap their heart around the idea of a whole new way in which power comes from love and compassion.

They wanted Jesus’ invitation to be exclusive.

They wanted to force fit Jesus into their existing worldview, rather than letting Jesus transform them as Kingdom people.

Let’s take a minute for a reminder about where these men had come from: In their culture, young jewish boys all went to school until around the age of 12 at which point their teacher, their rabbi, would invite the best of the best to continue to study as a disciple, to learn to be just like the rabbi, and the others went to work in the family business or were apprenticed to another craftsman or profession.

Do you know what the 12 men were doing when Jesus called them:
We are told that Peter, James, John, and Andrew were fishermen, Matthew was a tax collector, Simon was a zealot, in other words an unemployed revolutionary fighting against the Roman Empire, and that Judas was a known embezzler. We aren’t told the other’s profession but we can pretty confidently say, they weren’t disciples of some other Jewish Rabbi because rabbi’s didn’t pilfer other rabbi’s students. And we can confidently say they hadn’t been part of any exclusive class in either the Jewish or the Roman culture of first century Palestine. They were average working folks and they had been taught their whole life that class and rank and societal position not only matter but are core to your identity.

So, when a Jewish Rabbi comes along and says, “follow me” it’s no wonder they thought it meant a step up the social ladder for them. I suspect most of us would react in much the same way.

We don’t have to work very hard to imagine what it’s like to spend your whole life being taught that to climb the social or corporate or political ladder, we have to step on others to get to the top because there’s only so much room at the top and if I want to get there I have to stop you from doing the same. It’s just the price of doing business. Greatness is defined by what’s beneath you.

And everything that Jesus does and teaches makes it plain that in God’s Kingdom, there is no ladder, only a level path big enough for everyone to come along on the journey. To be first we must be last and servant of all. To gain this new Kingdom life, we must let go of the life we have crafted for ourselves. We must learn to practice a Kingdom economy in which our relationships – with God and with each other and with our neighbor – are more valuable than anything. These relationships not only matter, they become the core of our identity.

Alright, so back to our story, face-palm Jesus looks up and says, “No one can use my name to do something good and powerful, and in the next breath cut me down. If he’s not an enemy, he’s an ally. Why, anyone by just giving you a cup of water in my name is on our side. Count on it that God will notice.”

Seeing other people – each and every single human being on this planet, yep, even that person – as a beloved child of God transforms our vision from seeing enemies to seeing allies.

And then Jesus continues with some very harsh words designed to teach us all to let go of our own behaviors that put up barriers to God’s love.

Instead of having a hand clenched in a fist of anger or retaliation, Jesus says, let me heal your hand to one that opens with invitational love and compassion.

Instead of having feet that stomp and trample on others, Jesus says, let me transform your feet into feet that walk in love with those who are struggling.

Instead of having eyes that see enemies instead of neighbors and allies, Jesus say, let me give you eyes that see the image of God in every human being.

Just like the disciples missed the resurrection part of the “I will be killed and rise again” lessons, we tend to miss out on the ‘gaining life’ part of the gospel message.

It’s much easier to point out what everyone else is doing wrong than to evaluate our own behavior and change. Letting go of our own behaviors is as painful as an amputation. But the Great Healer will give us a new way of being, the life we are created to live, life grounded in God’s love.

Denying ourselves is followed by knowing Whose we are as God’s beloved Children.
Losing our life is followed by living as we are created to live in God’s Kingdom on earth as salted people. Not salty like an old fisherman, but saltED.

Jesus says, “have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.” Both salt and fire are used to purify. Salt is essential to life and throughout history has been a valuable commodity, even used at times as a currency. Roman soldiers were paid partially with salt which is where we get our word ‘salary’ from. Salt also has antibacterial and antiseptic properties.

In order to bear proper witness to God’s’ healing grace, we ourselves must accept that we need to be healed and restored and reconciled to God. We must be salted by God’s love so that all that we do is flavored with love.

The power of God’s Kingdom is found in the relationships we cultivate as we are healed by God’s grace so that we are at peace with one another.

And this ‘peace’ isn’t simply an absence of conflict. The Romans maintained their so called peace with violent force. And, I know I can avoid conflict simply by ignoring that which disturbs my peace and not be at peace at all, just in denial. If we think of peace as having no conflict then we will never attain it. There will always be conflict in this world, Jesus assures us of that. He even points out that when we give our whole life over to God and walk the Way of Love that we will be in conflict with the ways of this world.

This peace that Jesus speaks of is the peace of God, which is about wholeness, restored relationships, and healing. The Hebrew word is shalom.

In her book The Very Good Gospel, Lisa Sharon Harper says, “[shalom is] what the Kingdom looks like and what Jesus requires of the Kingdom’s citizens. It’s when everyone has enough. … It’s when human dignity, bestowed by the image of God in all humanity, is cultivated, protected, and served…. At its heart, the biblical concept of shalom is about God’s vision for the emphatic goodness of all relationships.”

Jesus is clear that we need to be concerned about how what we do impacts others. If my greediness causes a shortage of something, say for instance, oh, I don’t know, toilet paper or something like that, and you then yell at the store clerk because there is no tp on the shelf because I bought it all, I am responsible for my own behavior and yours! But if I take just the minimum of what I need so that there is some left for you and you take only what you need, then we’ve put others first and have maintained peace for everyone.

Following Jesus isn’t about our individual goodness but about living collectively, in relationship with each other as the Body of Christ, the hands and feet and eyes of the risen Jesus so that the world sees a whole new way of life through our transformation. Be at peace with one another, my friends. Amen.

Over Sharing

Can we talk about the over-sharing on Social Media? I’m not talking about divulging too much personal information but the over sharing of memes that appear to be Christian themed but are, well … how can I put this politely … are … not.

Probably the most common are the “share this and you’ll receive a blessing” type memes and posts. These sound encouraging on the surface but what they are actually doing is promoting the vending machine god idea: we put something in and we get something out. It makes our relationship with God transactional rather than grace-filled. When we share these we are presenting a false, and yes, harmful picture of who God is and who we are as God’s beloved children. God’s greatest blessing – life on earth as it is in heaven – is given to all without condition. No amount of social media sharing is going to earn this for us.

I saved one I saw recently because it was so very disturbing but I’m not going to share the picture here because I don’t want to help it circulate any further. So, as I take a deep breath and a long draw from my coffee mug, I’ll type the words: “God give you another week because He wants to give you another chance to pursue your dreams. Please never take this great opportunity for granted. This is your chance to make your dreams become reality. Do your best and allow God do the rest. Have a nice day!”

Whew, I need a moment, Y’all … that was painful. Let’s look at what this is actually communicating about our relationship with God.

This post presents a fairy-godparent and cheerleader type god who indulges our every whim and cheers us on whatever we want to do; a god that we can control. This post tells us that the point of our existence is to pursue our dreams. And yet, Jesus teaches us to pray “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” the ‘Your’ of course referring to God, not us. Our purpose when we follow Jesus is to be image bearers of God, to reveal God’s dream for all people to live now on earth as in heaven. We pray that God shapes our desires to be like God’s. We can’t ‘allow’ God to do anything and we are at our very best when we participate with God in bringing about God’s Kingdom.

In his second letter, Peter tells us, “Don’t let it escape your notice, dear friends, that with the Lord a single day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a single day. The Lord isn’t slow to keep his promise, as some think of slowness, but he is patient toward you, not wanting anyone to perish but all to change their hearts and lives.” (2 Peter 3:8-9)

God gives us the gift of every moment and every day because God wants everyone to know unconditional (and unearnable) love. God doesn’t want us to relegate God to the background while we pursue our dreams and turn to God only when we are in trouble (cue the song “Jesus take the wheel”). God’s desire for us is that we know that God is the center of our life as we discover the joy of pursuing God’s dream every moment of every day.

If you’ve shared such things in the past, please don’t beat yourself up about it. I know your desire is to spread God’s love. To paraphrase Maya Angelou, we all do our best and then when we know better, we do better. This is one way we can do and be better: before sharing something we look at it, really look at it, and ask “what does this really say about who God is and who we are as God’s beloved children?”

We are all in this amazing thing called life together and together we help each other do better.

God’s peace, my friends!