Fifth Sunday after Pentecost Proper 8 Yr B June 27 2021

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost Proper 8 Yr B June 27 2021

2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27, Psalm 130, 2 Corinthians 8:7-15, Mark 5:21-43

 

What would it be like to not be well for twelve years? Some of you have some experience with this, some of you know those who have chronic illness and have good days and bad days. Some of you are there yourselves. What would it be like to be a woman in Jesus’ time and bleed for twelve years, without relief? She’d spent any money she had on physicians, and she continued to grow worse. I imagine a body exhausted, listless, unable to really get up and do much of anything; and certainly unable to go far from home. What would that be like when you are a woman who must take care of a household, as well as caring for children and most likely for your parents. Would everyone leave you? What would they do with you?

 

And added to the misery of exhaustion and the inability to really do anything, she is unclean. To preserve the holiness of God’s people, Jews in Palestine avoided contact with lepers, menstruating women, corpses, and Gentiles, among others. Such contact defiled a person for a period lasting from one to seven days, until purification, ritual washing, and enduring a waiting period. So on top of her exhaustion, she was prohibited from participation in festivals, certain meals, and Temple functions.

 

What was she doing there? She should not have been there. At the end of her hope, she must have sensed something about this man Jesus. Jesus had just crossed back again over the sea, having healed the man who was Legion. And again, a crowd of people had gathered around him. One of the leaders of the synagogue came to him and asked him to come and see his daughter who was near death. So Jesus went with him. This crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Those kinds of crowds are a little less familiar to us these days, so we have to reach back to remember being in a crowd like that. Hot sticky people, craning their necks, looking for the rock star or the sports star, trying to get a glimpse of the hero. But she had nothing left to lose. All she had was a flicker, a glimmer, of hope. She was at the end of her rope, at the end of her life, at the end of his cloak. She touched it.

 

You know when your car battery is dead, and you jump it from another car, and it roars back into life? Or when your favorite song comes up on your playlist and you just gotta get up and dance? Or when you can’t get out of bed because you’ve got the worst sinus infection of your life, and you finally get the antibiotics you need and you feel like you can finally jump out of bed? She felt his power surge through her giving her new life. Jesus felt it too. It was as if they were the only two people alive in that crowd. Connected by an umbilical cord of life and power. 

 

Jesus moved on to Jairus’ house and pronounced life for the little girl. “Little girl, get up!”

 

Jesus’ life and power is connected to us too, is that a jolt of faith?

 

Sometimes, when I am reading the newspaper, listening to the news, even talking with people, I hear hopelessness, faithlessness, despair, in our community, our country. I hear people wondering what is next. Where or what is the next way people are disrespected, mistreated, and distrusted? What is the next means of exclusion, violence, hatred? Why are we having so much trouble making space in our communities, our lives, our country, for people who are unlike us?

 

I think it may be because of the blood. This woman’s blood flowed out of her, through no fault of her own, making her unacceptable in the neighborhood in which she lived, and, they believed, unacceptable to God, yes, to God. These rules were to keep God’s people holy, and to keep God holy as well.

 

We continue today with boundaries and barriers that keep us apart, outward appearances that are no fault of our own, inward realities that are no fault of our own, to some exclude us from God’s love.

 

But Jesus changed those rules. Jesus said, the commandments now are, love God, love your neighbor, period, no exceptions. And yet we keep doing it. We keep people away, we put distance between us, we inflict animosity, because they are not like us. It is as if we need to keep ourselves unaffected, clean even, and it is as if we need to keep God in our box of holiness.

 

But we needn’t worry about God; God can take care of Godself, much better than we can. God is found in all sorts of objectionable places, places where hungry people live, places where homeless people live, places where boundaries are erected and walls are built. And yet, we see God in those places, in the faces of all of God’s beloveds. We see God in those places, in the faces of the helpers, those who go running toward trouble, those who go running toward violence and sadness. We see God in the faces of those whose color, language, and culture is unlike our own.

 

You see, we are the Jesus movement. In Jesus’ life, and in Jesus’ journey to the cross, and in Jesus’ love on the cross, Jesus crossed boundaries. Jesus heals any who need healing, regardless of their status, regardless of who they are, regardless of who they even believe in. And on that cross, Jesus healed the one who hung next to him, who uttered the words, “remember me, when you come into your kingdom”, and who does the same for us, regardless of our status.

 

Jesus’ life and power is connected to us too, what about that jolt of faith? We are the Jesus movement. We are connected to love, we are connected to healing, we are connected to dignity by that same umbilical cord of life and power. We follow the one who makes people free, the one who unbinds, the one who heals. We follow Jesus who crosses boundaries, who goes to the margins, who overcomes obstacles in the service of the kingdom of God. We are the Jesus movement, and we are followers who cross boundaries to proclaim the good news to the ends of the earth, and the mission is urgent, because the end of history, according to Mark, will come soon. I’m not so sure that Mark is wrong in his timing.

 

The good news is right here. Jesus crossed boundaries in his life to bring new life, to heal people, to make people whole. Jesus continues to cross boundaries to bring new life, to heal, to empower, through you, and me.

 

Just like that woman of so long ago, Jesus’ life and power is connected to us too, what about that jolt of faith? The good news is right here. Do you feel it? Can you feel it? “Little girl, get up!” Jesus says the same thing to us. Get up, be a part of the Jesus Movement. Stand up, be counted as one who is connected to Jesus; whose blood courses through our veins, whose body is broken for us. Stand up, be counted as one who is connected to Jesus. Stand up, be counted as one who loves God, loves others, and shows it. 

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost Proper 7 Yr B June 20 2021

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost Proper 7 Yr B June 20 2021

1 Samuel 17:57-18:5, 10-16, Psalm 133, 2 Corinthians 6:1-13, Mark 4:35-41

 

Have you ever watched a storm come right at you? I was life guarding at a lake in Minneapolis. It was one of those hot as you know what late afternoons when you can just feel the storm brewing. There were tons of kids swimming, until we saw lightening. With that, we pulled the kids out of the water, and most of them went home. There were a few who stuck around, because they always do. We were sitting on the sand, watching the sky, and all of a sudden I saw across the lake a wall cloud coming at us. I could see some of the stuff it had picked up in its path. I grabbed the kids who were with me and hightailed it into the ditch on the other side of the road that rings the lake. I laid the kids down, and laid on top of them. We watched that wall cloud pass over us and heard the crashing of cars being picked up and thrown into the ditch. We heard the sound of the trees crashing around us, and the sound of that wind roaring over us. And then, silence, calm. Dead silence. Dead calm. Eventually we got up out of the ditch to look around us and see the destruction everywhere. It was only then that I felt fear. 

 

The tornado sirens went off after the storm had passed. I actually don’t know that I would have done anything differently had I heard them earlier. 

 

The disciples were experiencing a storm of some magnitude, their siren, Jesus, was asleep at the switch. Who could blame him? Teaching, healing, calling the disciples, eating, and all those people! He must have been exhausted; it seems the only explanation for sleeping through that storm. And it wasn’t even the storm that woke him up, the disciples had to shake him awake. But after the storm was silenced, there was dead calm. And Jesus’ question to the disciples is, why are you afraid? Not why were you afraid, suggesting that they didn’t trust Jesus to do anything about the storm. But why are you afraid? Amid the dead calm, what are the disciples afraid of, what could be making the disciples so afraid?

 

To answer that question, let’s remember what has happened and where we are. Mark gets his gospel off to a quick start. At the very beginning, and we’re only four chapters into it at this point, Mark introduces his purpose for writing, this is the Good News of Jesus Christ, the son of God. And by the 16^th verse, Jesus is calling the disciples. It feels like with the disciples we’re on the run. No wonder the disciples seemed a bit confused, no wonder they seem to not quite understand. That’s a lot of learning in a short period of time. Mark begins and ends this chapter 4 by the sea. Crowds are gathering to listen to Jesus teach. And leaving the crowd behind, Jesus takes them in a boat to the other side of the sea.

 

In the dead calm of that sea, what makes the disciples afraid? Here they are, really at the very beginning of a journey with a man whom they are just beginning to get to know, this leader whom they really don’t understand, telling them stories they really don’t understand, and he is taking them across the sea to a place they may well have never been. That dead calm may very well be a portent to the discomfort, the challenge, the difficulty they have in moving into an unknown land.

 

On the other side, they will encounter people who are as different from themselves as they could be. These are aliens, foreigners. These are people who live among the tombs, people who have unclean spirits, people who are not Jewish. Why are you afraid Jesus asks them? Wouldn’t you be afraid? Going to a place you’ve never been, with a man who the wind and sea obey. You better believe they’re afraid. And Jesus goes to this foreign land to heal, and sometimes when Jesus heals, he touches. He touches people who have been deemed unclean by the powers that be. He gets up close, he makes what was broken, whole.

 

God intends that those who are different, in this case those who are unclean and those who are Gentiles, become full participants in God’s expansive coming reign. Jesus was a Jew, those who followed him in the very beginning were Jewish, but the mission is changing, expanding, growing. The fear comes when Jesus answers the storm with his actions by crossing over into Gentile lands. This boundary breaking reality is where the calm carries them. Jesus’ actions tear down the wall of separation offering God’s love and grace to everyone. 

 

The truth here is that like the disciples, we are afraid of that which we do not know, and people who are different from ourselves. At the very same time we hear over and over again, do not be afraid. How do we do this? How do we set aside our fears and co-conspire with Jesus in breaking boundaries and erasing margins? 

 

First of all, step back from that question I just asked and look at where you stand. You and I stand in the center, don’t we? You and I stand in the place of power and privilege. This is where we begin, by acknowledging that for more than 2000 years, God’s dream of a world in which all creation is included in God’s kingdom has been thwarted by people like us. We must cross boundaries and reach out our hands and our hearts so that God’s dream of inclusion may grow and grow. 

 

Yesterday marked the first time in history that as a nation we acknowledged the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19th that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. And yet, this was two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation – which had become official January 1, 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation had little impact on the Texans initially.

 

I wonder if the calm after the storm is a gift, and out of this calm we may give of ourselves that very basic truth that we believe, every person is created in God’s image. And that we will never look into the face of someone God does not love. 

 

I think this is what Jesus means with the question he asks, why are you afraid? Not that they don’t have faith in him, but that they don’t yet know the full extent of the amazing and abundant love that is available to every person God loves. It’s a question filled with hope. 

 

Be not afraid. Invite people into your life that don’t look like you or act like you. You might find they challenge your assumptions and make you grow. And remember, God loves you, God loves those who don’t look, or act, or love like you. Go into the world and change it, and we will come closer to God’s dream.

Third Sunday after Pentecost Yr B Proper 6 June 13 2021

Third Sunday after Pentecost Yr B Proper 6 June 13 2021

1 Samuel 15:34-16:13, Psalm 20, 2 Corinthians 5:6-10,[11-13],14-17, Mark 4:26-34

 

Why do we love the stories of the underdog so much? Well at least I do. Rick and I watched the movie Rudy so many times we could recite the lines, and I cry every time Rudy gets put into the game. Mighty Ducks, the first one, is another favorite, I sit on the edge of my seat until the end of the game, even though I’ve seen them win a bazillion times. The Rookie, Star Wars, Chariots of Fire, Remember the Titans, Field of Dreams, and the list goes on. Which comes first, our passion for rooting for the little guy, the underdog, or this story of David and Goliath?

 

I remember my very first New Testament professor telling us that all history is written from the perspective of the winners. History published in history books is written from the perspective of the winners. The losers don’t write history, and their story is rarely told in history books. Western civilization loves its winners and winners often claim God is on their side.

 

During the time in which the story in 1 Samuel first was told, Israel is constantly at war with the Philistines. Ancient warfare was highly ritualized. Each side would send out its great champion who would fight on behalf of his people. Often the battle would end there, because whichever champion won the other side would be so demoralized it would retreat. At this time, the Philistines have a champion who is described as well, huge, Goliath. And the problem is that the Jewish forces have no champion at all. Goliath is marching out in front of the Philistine lines, shouting curses at the Jews and challenging someone to come and fight him. Choose yourself a man and let him come down to me, shouts Goliath. If he can fight me and kill me, we will be slaves to you; if I defeat him and kill him, you will be slaves to us. The mortified Israelite army has to listen to this, because no one is willing to take on Goliath. One day, David, who is a shepherd and not a soldier, shows up on the battlefield bringing food for his brothers and he’s shocked by what he sees. Outraged at Goliath’s blasphemous insulting of the God of Israel, David volunteers to fight Goliath, convincing King Saul with his steadfast faith in God.

 

And so we have before us this story of David in which the underdog becomes the champion. And we have this story of Jesus, in which those who are low are raised up, those who are on the margins are brought to the center, those who have no power are empowered, and lowly fisher folk become disciples.

 

I wonder if it’s just human nature to be on the side of the winner. Is it part of our DNA? The biological story may support that. We know the story of the survival of the strongest. We know that the human drive is to procreate, to survive and to thrive. In the animal kingdom the weakest and the smallest don’t last long. But Jesus shows us that in God’s kingdom in dying we are alive, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich, as having nothing and yet possessing everything. 

 

We add to that scenario the parables in Mark’s gospel, parables that show us what the kingdom of God looks like. With his parables, Jesus invites us to see the kingdom of God in the images and dramas of everyday life. In a woman baking bread, a group of bridesmaids preparing for a wedding, a roadside mugging, a lost sheep, a lost coin, a lost son. While they are rooted in the commonplace, parables are not simple nor straight forward. And there is never just one answer to the question, what is the kingdom of God like? 

 

They are rich and compelling stories, let’s remember a few more. There’s the one about a moneylender who forgave two wildly unequal debts, another about a persistent widow who nagged a judge into granting her justice, and another about a banquet in which all were invited but only the poor and sick and forgotten remembered to come. Parables are surprising and shocking. Parables show there are no boundaries to God’s love. Parable push the walls over, pull the margins apart.

 

We have two little parables before us, that show us a kingdom that is expansive and inclusive. First, this wonderful story about a man who throws seed out onto his field, goes to bed, and forgets about it. Who does that? The farmers I know work long hours preparing soil for seeding, watering and treating the young plants so they grow as big as possible, and hopefully, if all of the conditions are right, the sun, the rain, the wind, no hail to destroy the tender shoots, there could be a harvest. But this man has no idea about how the seeds sprouted and grew, it was as if the earth did it all by itself. 

 

The second parable shows us a mustard seed, every time we’ve heard this story, we remember how tiny that mustard seed really is. After it is sown, it grows into the greatest of all shrubs, and in it the birds of the air make their nests. 

 

These parables give us a vision of an expanse in which all may dwell and find refuge, a place where no one is an outsider, and no secret survives the light of exposure. The vision is huge, abundant, like the growth in the first parable, and in the second, the expanse is a mustard shrub that grows from the tiniest seed and becomes large enough to host all who seek its shelter. 

 

The Good News is that in God’s kingdom barriers are broken, margins are erased, everyone has a place, and even the underdog can win. 

 

So I return to the all time best underdog movie, Rudy. For those of you who don’t know the story, Rudy grew up in a steel mill town where most people ended up working, but Rudy wanted to play football at Notre Dame. There were only a few problems. His grades were too low, his athletic skills were poor, and he was only half the size of the other players. But he had the drive and the spirit of five people and has set his sights upon joining the team. He spent two years at St. Mary’s working on his grades and working his way through school. When he finally got into Notre Dame as a junior, he walked on to the team and served on the ‘scout’ team as pretty much a tackling dummy. By the time he was a senior, he had endeared himself to the really good football players, and they really wanted him to be officially recognized as a member of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, and that would happen only if he participated in at least one play. Rudy’s teammates had already experienced his heart, and his steadfast faith, and insisted to the coach that Rudy suit up. So in the waning moments of the last game of Rudy’s senior year, the team and then the fans chanted Rudy, Rudy, coach put him in and Rudy ran a couple of plays. 

 

What is the kingdom of God like? I leave you to wonder about that.  

Second Sunday after Pentecost Yr B Proper 5 June 6 2021

 

Second Sunday after Pentecost Yr B Proper 5 June 6 2021 

1 Samuel 8:4-11, (12-15), 16-20, (11:14-15), Psalm 138, 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1, Mark 3:20-35 

 

You know those cliche sayings like, “We weren’t sisters by birth, but we knew from the start, fate brought us together to be sisters by heart” – and friends that feel more like family than family sometimes does. Today we might refer to “our tribe” or even more simply, “our people.” That’s who Jesus is referring to when he talks like this, and he talks like this a lot in Mark’s gospel. Mark is saying that the people who populate Jesus’ ancestral lineage are not his true kin. His real family is constituted by behavior, not blood. Those who pay attention to Jesus’ proclamation about the imminent reign of God and govern their lives according to its transformative, countercultural mandates are his real family. No matter how true this is, it’s hard to hear Jesus disavowing his blood family, we are shocked and surprised. And that is the nature of a parable. Parables are shocking and surprising. They show us what the kingdom of God looks like. And they are boundary breaking, margin shifting, uncomfortable. 

 

This boundary breaking, margin shifting talk of Jesus is so outside the box, it makes his blood kin say he is crazy, possessed, out of his mind. Jesus has just been traveling, and people have been flocking to see him and hear him speak. People have been coming from Judea and Jerusalem. These would be Jews, coming to hear what this upstart preacher has to say. And people have been coming from Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and the region around Tyre and Sidon. Why all these details? Because these place names tell us that not just Jews are coming to hear Jesus, but foreigners as well. Jesus’ people come increasingly from beyond the boundaries of Jewish places and spaces, they flock to him not because of who he is, but because of their faith in what he can do. Movement is happening here, movement toward those who are unclean, unholy, impure. And this movement is in the direction God desires because even the demons recognize its instigator as God’s son and therefore the representation of God’s earthly intent. Jesus says, if you don’t recognize that, it is like slandering the Holy Spirit. 

 

The tide has changed, the shift is happening, the boundaries are breaking, the margins disappearing, the box no longer divides inside from outside but becomes a place and a space where anyone is welcome in the faith family. Gathering people from everywhere now has the opportunity to become part of the new thing that God is doing. 

 

Twelve people have been enlisted to follow Jesus, representing the twelve tribes of Israel, and now are reconfigured into this new community constituted on love, and sent out for more boundary breaking behavior - preaching, healing, teaching. 

 

And now, Jesus’ family is composed of those who choose to be with him, around him, following his lead. Jesus’ family, and then of course God’s family, is not limited to those with traditional ties and blood lines, but those who want to follow his lead, those who want to love like he loves, serve like he serves, transforming places and spaces into communities of the beloved.

 

More than 2000 years ago Jesus was welcoming people of every tribe, nation, ethnicity, gender in the new community that was being created, the new thing that God was doing, and we continue to struggle today to figure out how break down the barriers that keep people from God’s love. Why is that? Why do we erect a wall around ourselves that is so tall and impenetrable? Why? Fear. 

 

Jesus calls us to not be afraid. Jesus calls us to dismantle that barrier of fear, brick by brick. Jesus calls us to go to the margins and listen to the stories of those who think, love, vote, differently than us. 

 

There are two recent stories in our collective lives that show me we are far from the kingdom Mark imagines for us, far from Jesus’ proclamation about the imminent reign of God and us governing our lives according to its transformative, countercultural mandates.

 

The first story is the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, when mobs of White residents, many of them deputized and given weapons by city officials, attacked Black residents and destroyed homes and businesses of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Following World War I, Tulsa was recognized nationally for its affluent African American community known as the Greenwood District. This thriving business district and surrounding residential area was referred to as “Black Wall Street.” In June 1921, a series of events nearly destroyed the entire Greenwood area. In the early morning hours of June 1, Greenwood was looted and burned by white rioters. The Governor declared martial law, and National Guard troops arrived in Tulsa. Guardsmen assisted firemen in putting out fires, took African Americans out of the hands of vigilantes and imprisoned all black Tulsans not already interned. Over 6,000 people were held at the Convention Hall and the Fairgrounds, some for as long as eight days. Twenty-four hours after the violence erupted, it ceased. In the wake of the violence, 35 city blocks lay in charred ruins, more than 800 people were treated for injuries. Historians now believe as many as 300 people may have died. In order to understand the Tulsa Race Massacre it is important to understand the complexities of the times. Dick Rowland, Sarah Page and an unknown gunman were the sparks that ignited a long smoldering fire. Jim Crow, jealousy, white supremacy, and land lust, all played roles in leading up to the destruction and loss of life on May 31 and June 1, 1921. And we are just learning all of this now, 100 years after it happened.

 

Secondly, we just heard about the recent discovery of the remains of 215 indigenous children in British Columbia, at the site of a former residential school. The most recent discovery in a long list of abuse of indigenous children at the hands of white men and women in Canada and in the United States. 

 

When will we ever learn, when will we ever learn? 

 

You and I live in this wonderful little town, and claim that we are not racist, it is not our fault, we are not responsible, and there is nothing we can do about it. And yet we live on land taken from the Kickapoo, Peoria, Sauk and Meskwaki, Ho-chunk, Myaamia, and Ochethi Sakowin nations. 

 

We must learn to do differently. The only way I know how to do differently, is to do differently. What must we do differently so that we may come close to God’s dream of love? We must listen deeply to the stories of those not like us, we must never assume that we know best. We must respect the dignity of every human being. 

 

Today I leave you with words written by Wendell Berry, “We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it.”

 

Let us listen deeply to what the world needs. Amen.