Reflection on Matthew 19:16-30

Tonight, I want to reflect a bit on how we read the sacred testimony in our scripture. Where we stand shapes how we see things. Because we're so diverse, we each read scripture with different eyes. But in order to understand Jesus, we also need to put on the eyes of the people Jesus was speaking to: the common people, the poor, the outcasts, the marginalized.

I have a bad habit, and many churches in America have this same habit, of reading scripture from the only the perspective of the powerful. Our church is pretty good—maybe you don't have this problem— but I've been various communities where discussions have assumed that "we" are all on the powerful side—the story of the rich young man is a judgment on "us"; how do we respond, goes the discussion, given that we are relatively wealthy or powerful.

Putting on multiple sets of eyes is a both necessary and a hard thing to do. It is true, that living in a place where there might be violence, but not war; hunger but not starvation, makes us all relatively privileged. We need to remember that, because there's a whole world out that that says "we need more". But it is also true that many of us, in important spheres of our lives, don't have privilege: some of us have been without homes, been discriminated against at work, had the government not recognize a marriage, been chronically ill with difficulty getting health care, been afraid to come out to parents, been victims of domestic violence, been a target of racism or harassment. This is not "them", this is us, this is the church, this is who Jesus was speaking to.

So let's take the exercise of reading this story from a different perspective. From the rich and powerful, it's a story of judgment: You read the story, and you hear it's easier for a camel to go through an eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God--this is horrible news.

But put on another set of eyes: you live in a world that tells you the rich have it made, that they deserve to be rich, and that because they are rich, they can do all sorts of good deeds that make them have favor with God. But then in this story, you hear that a rich young guy wants to know what he really needs to do to find favor with God—and it turns out that this guy can't do it, he's too sad. But you, you're following Jesus already, and you are doing what this guy and all his wealth can't do: picking up, following Jesus, a piece of the kingdom of God being revealed on earth.

If you didn't get it the first time, the disciples are there to ask the "dumb" question: "Look, we've left everything to follow you: what do we get?". Jesus says, "what you've left behind, you'll get back a hundredfold." This is a story of good news. Astonishing news, but good news.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that this story wasn't primarily designed to tell people with money what to do with it, thought it certainly is suggestive. Rather, I think this story is telling us that the kingdom of God is so important, that it brings such reward, that we should push aside anything that gets in our way, and if there's less in our way, we should be thankful.

My invitation to you is that to consciously recognize the places in which you stand, to read scripture with multiple sets of eyes, and hardest of all, to try to read it with the eyes of the people Jesus was speaking to.

Reading for Citizens with the Saints

From Ephesians 2, adapted NRSV and the Inclusive Bible.

Remember that you were at one time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For Christ is our peace; in his flesh Christ has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, in order to make the two into one new person, thus establishing peace and reconciling us all to God in one body through the cross, which put to death the enmity between us. Christ came and announced the Good News of peace to you who were far away, and to those who were near; for through Christ we all have access in one Spirit to our God.

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, which is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In Christ the whole structure is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. In Christ, you are being built into this temple, to become a dwelling place of God and the Spirit.

Citizens with the Saints (Ephesians 2)

One of the most momentous and contentious issues in the early church was how non-Jewish followers of Jesus should be incorporated into the church. The writer of Ephesians—either Paul or one of Paul's followers—is addressing this division between Jews & Gentiles, and one of the biggest themes of Paul is the unity of the church, the importance that there be no division in the church, that Christ's life and message made us one.

And so, we "are no longer strangers and aliens, but citizens with the saints and members of the household of God." This line captures one of the most radical things we do as church: the church proclaims that our status or rank does not come not from being a citizen of Rome, a citizen of the United States, a "citizen" of a corporation or profession. It is easy to forget when our entertainment is nationally based, when our news is nationally focused, when we vote in national elections and pay taxes to support the government of this nation—it is easy to forget that our primary affiliation as followers of Jesus is with the universal church, the other followers of Jesus building an alternative society in which the old divisions are healed.

I love our denomination, the UCC, but we are very much an American denomination, organized in the United States even though we have many international partners—and so it makes it hard to see our Christian unity across national boundaries.; international denominations, like the Catholic church, maybe make it a bit easier to see. The church at its best can give the world a sign that unity is possible.

As our church reflects on Race, Immigration and Justice these few weeks, these thoughts have been hanging heavy in my heart: How do we live as church, citizens with the saints, when our lives are organized by division, when being born on one side or another of a border means a drastically different life? Our faith teaches that the goods of the earth are gifts from God and belong to all people, but have you seen that in practice? And most of all, what if what God asks of me is too hard or too much?

Recognizing a problem is easier than solving it. But this passage from Ephesians can give us hope. One way to begin to heal is to recall the ways in which we have been strangers: Paul reminds the Ephesians that they were once strangers to God's revelation, Exodus that reminds Israel that they were strangers in the land of Egypt. It is easier to love, to feel compassion, when you recognize that you once needed love and compassion.

Another way to heal is to remember the immensity of gifts we've received: Christ's teaching and sacrifice, our ancestor's work for justice. We would be far off, or even farther, from God were it not for these gifts. And if we've received such gifts, then we sure should pass along more to others.

The good news is that we are being built into a holy temple in the Lord. We're not there yet by any means, but the building is in process. It will take work to make these words true, for too many of us are strangers and aliens from each other in practice: but the truth and promise is that, in Christ, we will be joined together and rise as one from the ruins.

The Conversion of Paul/ Acts 9

This week in the Christian calendar was the feast of the Conversion of Paul/Saul. The story of Paul should spark a bit of fear in all of us, but also hope. It shows how easy it is for us to have things backwards, despite our best intentions—but it also the possibility of dramatic change, the possibility of redemption.

Saul was, to all outward appearances, a good religious man, concerned with upholding tradition and stopping the blasphemous Christian sect from leading people astray. He persecuted the early Christian movement, acting— he thought – on the side of justice…. until he had the original "Road to Damascus" experience: God speaks to Paul, asks: "Paul, why are you persecuting me?"

Paul was knocked off his horse, was struck blind, and then he waited for three days with his thoughts.

Paul's conversion required the Christian movement to stretch as well. Paul was not the only one who was shocked, because God tells Ananias, a follower of Jesus, to go visit Paul: it's almost as if George Bush were told to go unarmed and visit a repentant Osama Bin Laden. But Ananias does go, and Paul becomes a great leader of the church.

Reading this story of Paul on the Way to Damascus reminds me that we need all need humility: no matter how sure we are that we are right, we might be wrong, and so humility demands that we speak and listen to each other, that we grow.

Humility is relatively uncontroversial. But the story also reminds me that we need to question, to actively question our assumptions. Paul persecuted the church because the bundle of assumptions he had about goodness and right living seemed incompatible with this movement. And so, as pray together, I wonder what assumptions I might be holding that are hurting others, that someday God might call me to drop.

A Retelling of Matthew 15:21-28

I am going to tell you a story, in which great faith was able to change a heart, and overcome the walls that divide us, one from another.

Jesus was teaching in Galilee to the people, and he was arguing with the Teachers of the Law who came to him from Jerusalem. People from all over the region came to him, bringing the sick and begging for healing, even to grab his cloak. And so, after some time of this, Jesus left Galilee and traveled to the area of Tyre and Sidon, a foreign area, a Gentile area.

Jesus wanted to remain unrecognized—perhaps to spend some time alone with his followers, so much to say to them; perhaps to have some time to himself, to think and to pray. So Tyre and Sidon would be natural places to lay low, away from the conflict and troubles in Galilee. The people there wouldn’t know much about his work, the crowds, or disputes he had.

Yet there was a woman from Tyre, a Canaanite, a Gentile—she might have been rich, and she might have been poor, we don’t know. This woman’s daughter was ill, seemed tormented by a demon. Somehow, this woman recognized something about Jesus—maybe she’d seen him before, maybe she’d heard Jesus talking with his disciples about what had happened in Galilee. And so, for her daughter’s sake, she took the chance— she a Gentile and he a Jew— and she shouted at Jesus: “Have mercy on me, Son of David! My daughter is horribly tormented by a demon!”

But Jesus ignored her, didn’t answer her at all. But she persisted, again and again: “Have mercy; take pity on me; heal my daughter!” And finally, the disciples said to Jesus: “You’ve got to send her away. She’s shouting at us, she’s drawing a crowd.”

So finally, Jesus turned to the woman and said: “My mission is only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. Go from me.”

The woman threw herself at his feet and pleaded: “Help me, Rabbi. Heal my daughter.”

And Jesus answered her: “It’s not right. It’s not right to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

“True, Rabbi,” she replied. “But even the dogs get to eat the scraps that fall from the table.”

There was a pause. By now a few people had gathered, and looked to Jesus for an answer.

And Jesus said: “Yes, woman, you are right. You have great faith, and your wish will be fulfilled.”

And at that very moment, the Canaanite woman’s daughter was healed.

Something changed after Jesus’ encounter with this woman. He healed again in the area, and eventually great crowds came, largely Gentile crowds. And as he had done, back in the land of Galilee, he fed these thousands, with bread in the desert, not scraps from a table, but abundant loaves and fishes.

Reflections on the Christmas Stories

The gospels give us the only stories we know of Jesus’ birth. We really have two very different stories of the first Christmas, and two other introductions to Jesus.

The earliest gospel, the gospel of Mark, dives right in, with John the Baptizer appearing in the wilderness, proclaiming a gospel of repentance—change—and the forgiveness of sins. And that is how Mark introduces us to Jesus: John is preparing the way for Jesus, and Jesus comes to John to be baptized by him, and the Spirit descends on Jesus. What Mark wants us to know about Jesus’s origins is this: John prepared the way for Jesus, and Jesus is the fulfillment of John’s message.

The gospel of John begins in a very different way: with a Poem in the Prologue that harkens back to the book of Genesis and the beginning of time: “In the beginning was the Word—the Logos— and Word was with God, and the Word was God…. It continues: And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The Gospel of John goes back to the beginning of the creation story, and there was the Word. “Word” in Greek is “Logos”, but this Logos in Greek thought wasn’t just a spoken word, but the divine principle of reason, of thought and ordered mind. And so John is linking Jewish thought and Greek thought in Jesus: Jesus is coming from the Jewish God, but is the Logos, Reason, The Word in flesh, is breaking in to the world. And then John jumps right in where Mark began: Jesus coming to John the Baptizer to be baptized.

And so now we come to the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, which give us the stories of Jesus’ birth that are familiar to us. The stories might actually be too familiar—they’re difficult for us to hear afresh. And though we’ve combined them in our minds into one Christmas story, with shepherds and Magi and Gabriel visiting Mary, Luke and Matthew tell us two very different stories of Jesus’s birth. The story we’ve created is somewhat sentimental, but Matthew & Luke are anything but. The stories are different, and each of them is a mini-gospel—what theologian Marcus Borg calls an “overture”, a statement of the theme of the gospel.

We have to begin, though, by getting our genre correct: we would never mistake John’s Prologue for a newspaper account: that’s a poem. And neither are these birth stories newspaper accounts: instead they tell a true story about who Jesus is, in a genre familiar to ancient readers—where great leaders have great origins— but not quite analogous to anything we’ve got now.

The Gospel of Matthew is perhaps the most “Jewish” of the 4 gospels: it presents Jesus as the New Moses—who gave the Law and who lead the Israelites out of Egypt. Jesus here is the authoritative interpreter of Moses, a Moses for Jews and for Gentiles alike.

Remember the story of Moses: Moses was born as Pharaoh was killing the infants of the Hebrews. Ancient Jewish legend says that Pharoah was murdering the children because he had a dream that a liberator of the slaves would be born.

Matthew’s birth story focuses on a series of dreams to Joseph—Mary doesn’t get a speaking part or a dream in this story. In Matthew’s story, Mary & Joseph are engaged, and they live in Bethlehem. Joseph is going to separate from Mary when he finds out she’s pregnant, but Joseph is told in a dream that it is ok, that Mary will bear a great savior. The Magi—wise men, gentiles from the East—show up in the story, looking for this great child. They encounter the Roman appointed king, Herod, and ask for the child who will be a great ruler. Herod doesn’t like that idea, and so like Pharoah, Herod decides to slaughter the infants to prevent the rise of a new king. God warns Joseph in a dream, and so Mary, Joseph and Jesus flee to Egypt. When Herod dies, they move to Galilee, not to Bethlehem.

This is not a warm and fuzzy Christmas story, but the start of a story where the world is turned upside down: Jesus is the new Moses, who will set his people free. And it is the Roman rulers and Herod, the Jewish collaborator, it is they who play the role of Pharoah; the holy family flees to Egypt, of all places, a refuge. Matthew is telling us that Jesus has come to save the people, not from some eternity in hell, but from living in the midst of oppression and injustice. It’s a story where the poor are blessed, and the dispossessed will inherit the earth, and gentiles are invited into the kingdom of God.

Luke’s story has more of the familiar elements you’d see in a Christmas pageant: pretty much everything, except for the Magi & Herod. Luke begins with two birth stories: first, the birth of John the Baptizer to his parent Elizabeth and Zechariah, and then, of course, the birth of Jesus to Mary and Joseph. Like Abraham and Sarah and other characters in the Hebrew scriptures, Elizabeth and Zechariah are “getting on in years”; they are old and childless, but then are blessed with a miraculous child. Mary also has a miraculous conception—but a type not found in the Hebrew Scriptures: a virgin birth, with a divine father, the start of a new thing. And unlike Matthew, Luke has a strong focus on women, as well as men: Mary & Elizabeth get major parts, and while Zechariah gets a major song, Joseph stays in the background.

In Luke’s story, Mary & Joseph are living in Galilee; Mary is visited by the angel Gabriel, and she is told the good news: she will bear a son, who will be great: the Son of the Most High, the Son of God—to which Mary essentially responds, “Ok”. A little while later we get Mary’s famous song, the Magnificat, which gives us a window into the meaning of Jesus’s ministry: Mary says her spirit rejoices in God, her Savior— because with Jesus, God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, lifted up the lowly, filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.

And then we come to the birth itself. Remember, Mary & Joseph are living in Galilee here. But, like Matthew, Luke has Jesus born in Bethlehem, the city of King David. And so we get the story of the Roman census , which required Joseph & Mary to travel to Bethlehem. They arrive in Bethlehem, and there is no place for them at the inn, and so Jesus is born in a manager.
Then we get the inspiration for many Christmas carols: angels appear to shepherds in the fields, and give the news that a Savior is born: singing “Glory to God and peace on earth.” It is the shepherds, low class and on the margins of society, who the first to hear of Jesus’ birth.
In his Christmas story, Luke tells us about the kingdom of God: it’s for all people, Jews and non-Jews, it’s here on this earth: there will be peace, the poor will be lifted up. And less obvious to the modern reader—Luke is setting the Kingdom of God against the Empire of Rome. The descriptors of Jesus— Savior, Son of God, Bringer of peace—these are what the Romans claimed for their leaders. But Luke says it’s not the great power, Rome, that will bring peace, but this guy, Jesus, born in a manger, honored by shepherds.

I invite you, this Christmas, to consider what these Christmas stories mean today—for you and how you live your life. The gospels say something very particular, to a particular time. It can be a lot of work to translate that into our own lives. I find inspiration in these stories because that are full of hope and promise, that a better world is possible, that God is breaking into history, that a mighty Savior has shown us the way to living in harmony with God. It can be hard to follow the Way during our Christmas season—shopping and gift giving can seem far from the Way of peace and justice. But there are also seeds of generosity and faithful living that can be planted this season, and with God’s grace, bloom.

Sacred Text: Two Verses from Isaiah

From Isaiah 59
Justice is far from us,
and righteousness does not reach us;
We wait… for light, and lo! there is darkness;
… for brightness, but we walk in gloom.
From Isaiah 2
The people who have walked in darkness
have seen a great light.
They that dwell in the land in the shadow of death
Upon them the light has shined.

Advent: Waiting

The theme of darkness and light recurs throughout advent. The two sacred texts for today bookend the season of advent: advent is about being in the first passage of Isaiah, dwelling in the land so dark, it is in the shadow of death—but waiting, hopefully, expectantly for the promise of that second passage: the shining forth of the great light.
We’ll sing a verse from O Come, O Come Emannuel each week during advent. The verse for this week—by design— pairs beautifully with the sacred text for this week: we sing from the darkness, imploring the light to come:

O come, Thou Day-Spring, from on high,
and cheer us by Thy drawing nigh.
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death's dark shadows put to
flight.

And then, the refrain of hope that we proclaim throughout season:

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

Advent was originally a time of fasting, with the color purple like at Lent; a time of preparation for the coming of the light, of recognizing the darkness we dwell in. This is why John the Baptist, preaching the message of repentance and forgiveness of sins, why he is an advent figure. But Advent has developed into a season of hope amidst the darkness. But you can still hear the edge in the traditional prophetic texts.

So listen again to Isaiah: “Justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us; We wait for light, a lo! There is darkness.”

What darkness do you wait in? We live amidst darkness, all of us. You are not alone. We light candles and put up decorations to dispel the vary physical darkness of winter—but there is a darkness we can’t dispel.

The prophetic texts describe the darkness that befalls the entire world: justice is but far away, and righteousness might be moving toward us, but isn’t here yet. The world is broken, but we are looking forward to the coming of the One who will show us the New Way, the way to live in the realm of God.

The Good News is that we are a people of the light. It is because we look forward to the coming of the Light of the World that we can name the darkness, and face it with hope. In the middle of all the trials we bear, even at life’s very bleakest, we can—a little piece of us at least--- we can rejoice, becuas we known Emmanuel has already come. And even in the bleak midwinter of our lives, we can trust that God’s love is constantly breaking into the world, that spring will come.

Sacred Text for "Thanksgiving"

From Paul’s Letter to the Philippians: [NRSV]

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

Reflection: Thanksgiving

This week, we continue our series on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is predictably coming up this month, and predictably we’re going to talk about it.

It’s hard to argue with the idea of giving thanks, whether you’re secular or religious. No one wants to be ungrateful. But because giving thanks is so uncontroversial , it’s less thought out and more hazy—but good— warm fuzzy feelings. And the hazy-ness around giving thanks can leave us with some deep puzzles, and perhaps extra burdens.

One model of thanksgiving is based on reciprocity: someone has done something nice for you, and so you respond with thanks. This is one model of approaching giving thanks to God: we’re created, there’s lots of good parts of life, and we give thanks because God has been good to us. It’s worked ok for a long time.

The puzzles start when we begin to wonder: what if I don’t feel like God has been good to me? On the Thanksgiving holiday, I give thanks for this food, for this house, for harvest, for the family. If God’s been good to me because I’ve received these things, doesn’t that mean God’s mistreated someone who hasn’t had a good harvest, who’s lost their house, who’s lost their family. If those things happen to me, shouldn’t I be peeved at God, not thankful? And if I’ve really suffered, how dare you say I should be thankful—maybe God hasn’t been good to me.

I think there’s an alternative model for Thanksgiving, that of appreciation. When we give thanks, we rejoice in the good in our lives. Rejoice in the Lord always, Paul says. And why do we give thanks and rejoice? Not because we’ve been better treated than we expect or deserve, but because it is a discipline that improves our lives and our harmony with the world.

Paul provides the hint: whatever is good, just, pleasing, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. That’s what we do when we give thanks—we attend to the good things in life. That’s how the disciples could give thanks, even in prison. That’s how Jesus on the night he was to die could give thanks at the Lord’s supper.

Thanksgiving is for us: Keep on doing the things that you have learned, the practice of thanksgiving, the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard our hearts and our minds.

Text for Reflection: from Psalm 109

God of my praise, do not be deaf!
For the mouth of the wicked
and the mouth of deceit have opened against me.
Words of hatred surround me.
They make war against me for no reason!
In exchange for my love, they oppose me—
Yet I am all prayer!
(*...)
Set over him a wicked man;
Let an opponent stand at his right hand.
When he is judged, let him come out guilty;
Let his prayer miss its target.
May his days be few;
Let another take his possessions.
May his children be orphans,
And his wife a widow.
May his children wander about and beg,
Going in search away from their hovels.

Translated by Ellen Davis, in Getting Involved with God

Reflection on a Text of Terror

This Psalm is not often read, and it’s a good followup to the sermon this past Sunday on “Texts of Terror”: “Set over him a wicked man… may his children be orphans, wandering and begging.”
This anger is ugly, and even if the man were evil—wishing him death— but wishing suffering on his children? But it’s in there, in our Psalms.

It’s so offensive to find this, in fact, that NRSV thinks it is not even in there: it puts these words in the mouth of the bad guys, adding in, “they say” at the beginning on really limited textual evidence. It’s controversial.

I think it’s important that we remember that the ugliness is in there, not because it tells us something good and true about God, but because it tells us something about what the psalms are, what the bible is.

The Bible is rough—it doesn’t paint a picture of a lovely world, of perfect people, or even a perfect God. The Old Testament is full of people haggling with God—“God, what if I can find just one nice person, can you hold off your wrath?” Jesus gets snippy, and makes some ethnic comments about Gentiles (comparing them to dogs) that are probably not a good model for, say, the Mideast peace process.

The bible isn’t always an instruction manual for living, and perhaps the psalms aren’t always the best model for prayer.

The best way I have to think about the Bible is as an entryway to discover God, a testimony of many author’s perceived experience of God. Sometimes they think God does strange things, many time they think God does wonderful, beautiful things, and few describe a God doing evil things.

The Bible is an entryway because it invites me, or forces me, to think about God in a way that I hadn’t before. Sometimes I’m stumped or resistant—I’m still working on loving my enemies, and I’m somewhere more in the range of praying for them. But other times, the stories set my heart afire, the stories of Jesus’ promised commonwealth.

Each week we pray a psalm, learning and sharing in the prayers of our ancestor. They say things about God that are beautiful, that are longing—a few weeks ago we prayed:

May there be no invasion, no exile, and no cry of distress in our streets

These psalms give us language to speak to God: “My heart is pierced within me”.

And so here we have Psalm 109, a human psalm if ever there was one. These are feelings we probably know, feelings I know. The Psalm invites us to see those feelings in another, to reflect on those feelings theologically, to bring those feelings before God. Maybe we don’t want to end where the author of Psalm 109 ended. And that might be the value of this “dirty” psalm— we see this hate in another, and so we bring our hate before God, and say: here it is, help me, heal me, show me a way forward.

May God grant us wisdom and peace in our prayers. Amen.

Sacred Text for "Perishing"

Matthew 8

23 And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. 24A gale arose on the lake, so great that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. 25And they went and woke him up, saying, ‘Lord, save us! We are perishing!’ 26And he said to them, ‘Why are you afraid, you of little faith?’ Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a dead calm. 27They were amazed, saying, ‘What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?’
-NRSV

Perishing

This past Sunday at church, I spoke a bit about the story we read from the Gospel of Matthew for today, how I could very easily imagine myself in that boat, shaking Jesus—wake up, we’re sinking, we’re perishing.

I’ve always read this story as a story about faith—it sounds a lot like Jesus critiquing the disciples—why are you afraid, you of little faith. And you could read this story that way: don’t panic, have trust in God.

But as I prepared this reflection, a note caught my attention, saying this story was probably intended as a metaphor for following Jesus. And I like that interpretation better—rather than being a judgment on having too little faith, it’s a description of the difficulties we’ll encounter on the Christian journey and a promise that that the storm won’t overwhelm us.

This story comes immediately after Jesus approached by a series of potential followers. To one he says, the birds have nests, the fox have dens, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head. To another who wants Jesus to wait while he buries his family, Jesus says let the dead bury the dead. In other words, the journey isn’t going to be easy, the journey cannot wait… and now this story: we’ll encounter storms, but the one who we are following can overcome those storms. Even the wind and waves obey him.

I’m drawn to the disciples’ exclamation: “Lord, save us! We are perishing!”

It is a cry that is both true, yet incomplete. They were perishing but they had not yet perished. In the story, Jesus rebukes the winds and waves and they do not perish; he rebukes them like he would a demon—further evidence that there are parallels intended to be drawn to the Christian journey.

Jesus asks, “Why are you afraid, you of little faith?”, which makes sense as a metaphor. While actual boats do sink, God does promise to walk with us on our journey. This story can be read as part of that promise: that God will rebuke the demons that assail us; we will be loved, even if our boat sinks.

I want to suggest to you today that we are perishing. Find your favorite reason: is it the destruction of the environment? Economic collapse? Terrorism? Individualism? Corporatism? Racism? We can legitimately cry out, “Lord save us, we are perishing!”

Like it has been for millennia, this world is perishing, and it is perishing while it is also filled with promise.

We shouldn’t deny that we’re in trouble. I think the disciples had it right—they were in trouble. And so they turned to Jesus—Lord, save us. It wouldn’t be such a bad thing if we were to run to Jesus and wake him up, have him calm the storm.
If we do the hard work of calling on God, and following Jesus, reconciling with our neighbor, challenging power—then we can calm the storm of racism, at least enough so our boat doesn’t sink. And if we call on the word of God, and live in the way of Jesus in harmony with creation, then we can calm the rising storm and rising tides of environmental destruction.

And that is the good news: the Word of God, active in our lives, can calm the storm.

Reflections on Communion

What is it that we do here each week, when we share communion—the Lord’s Supper—together?

Communion is a ritual filled with many layers of meaning, with a rich history, and a bit of disagreement, and many different—yet good—interpretations. The sharing of bread and wine is one of our oldest Christian rituals, mentioned in Paul’s letters, the earliest portion of the New Testament, and in the book of Acts, the story of the early church.

Communion is a sign of the coming of the Realm of God, which sounds so heavy, but is so accessible.

Again: Communion is a sign of the coming of the Realm of God, or the kingdom of God

The Realm of God, Jesus said, is like a wedding banquet to which we are all invited. And it’s so important that we all be there, that a shepherd would leave his whole flock to find just one missing sheep.

We see the realm of God in the other meals that Jesus ate in his lifetime—meals with sinners, tax collectors, the outcasts, the poor, the marginalized. Throughout Jesus’ life, this open table was one of his most characteristic and controversial practices. It was carried through in the early Christian church, where the Jews and the Greeks, the rich and the poor, slave and free, male and female broke bread and worshipped together, sharing actual meals, “love feasts,” the ancient coffee hour.

These meals recall that ancient promise of the prophet Isaiah, who said that on the mountain, God will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, of well aged wine, and wipe away the tears from all faces. God invites all to the feast, and we are to turn no one away.

This is what we –not just symbolize—but actually act out, when we share communion: that we are all invited to God’s table—coming from east, and west, north and south— that we are all invited to a common life, together, ordered by justice, love, and peace. In a world marked by war, the church is called to be an outpost of the realm of God on earth, to build it and to share it. And of course, our life and the church’s life is messy. But this ritual, this sacrament is a sign of that hope which we have, that “God’s kingdom will come”, that someday all the earth will be fed, will be at peace, will be whole.

It is appropriate that in our communion, as we act out the practice that makes us followers of Christ, we also remember and give thanks for all that God has done and is doing. And we remember this tangible life of Jesus, a flesh and blood person who lived among us and showed us how we could be, how could live. We remember Jesus, and we remember what it cost Jesus to do this—his life, his body, his blood. Communion memorializes that sacrifice, but also points towards victory.

For death was not the end— afterwards, Jesus appeared to the disciples on the road to Emmaus: they did not recognize Jesus but saw him as a stranger, until later when they invited him to stay for dinner, and then Jesus took the bread, blessed and broke it, and their eyes were opened, and they recognized Jesus for who we was.

I pray that when we share the glorious open feast of communion, that we may draw closer to God, that we may see Jesus in our midst, that we might be encouraged and strengthened to go out into the world and live the life to which we’ve been called.