Leadership and Error

"From the throne," Paul said, "I could make a paradise of Arrakis with the wave of a hand. This is the coin I offer for your support."

Kynes stiffened. "My loyalty's not for sale, Sire."

Paul stared across the desk at him, meeting the cold stare of those blue-within-blue eyes, studying the bearded face, the commanding appearance. A harsh smile touched Paul's lips and he said: "Well spoken. I apologize."

Kynes met Paul's stare and, presently, said, "No Harkonnen ever admitted error. Perhaps you're not like them, Atreides."

"It could be a fault in their education," Paul said. "You say you're not for sale, but I believe I've the coin you'll accept. For your loyalty I offer my loyalty to you...totally."

My son has the Atreides sincerity, Jessica thought. He has that tremendous, almost naive honor - and what a powerful force that truly is.

She saw that Paul's words had shaken Kynes.

"This is nonsense," said Kynes. "You're just a boy and-"

"I'm the Duke," Paul said. "I'm an Atreides. No Atreides has ever broken such a bond."

Kynes swallowed.

"When I say totally," Paul said, "I mean without reservation. I would give my life for you."

"Sire!" Kynes said, and the word was torn from him, but Jessica saw that he was not now speaking to a boy of fifteen, but to a man, to a superior. Now Kynes meant the word.

Dune by Frank Herbert.

Last night I heard this passage on my iPod as I was putzing around getting ready for the Campus Ministry Easter Evening cookout at our house. It's funny how the things you think about come from the most interesting sources.

Things in Rome are not going well. Of course, you can't hold those currently in positions of leadership accountable for the errors of the predecessors. But neither can leaders deny, obfuscate, protect and shelter abuse and sin, especially not within the church. This is a problem for all of us to ponder, frankly, because sin and evil pervade our lives and will come to all of us in time.

In an ideal world (okay, in MY ideal world), church communities would be places of extreme transparency when it comes to leadership making errors. Of course, not every situation need involve a public mea culpa and the attendant hand-wringing - we've had enough "I'm sorry" press conferences in the past few years, to the point that they've become an art form. But that doesn't negate the need for genuine accountability and sincere apologies made to injured parties. In fact, if we had a few more of the latter, maybe we could but just a tiny bit of faith in the former.

Something tells me the church shouldn't mirror the world on this issue, but unfortunately it seems as if that's the road down which we are headed yet again. When church leaders can deny mistakes through cleverly-worded statements which look like apologies but don't actually admit to any wrong-doing, the only people who benefit are those church leaders themselves.

This is not the kingdom of God proclaimed by Jesus. The reign of God will be marked by truth, even when it's ugly. The reign of God will be marked by admission of error and repentance, even when it's inconvenient to the powers that be. The reign of God will be marked by humility and loyalty, because in the end, communities are held together by either extrinsic walls of fear or intrinsic bonds of trust. Guess which bonds prove to be the strongest?

Grace & peace,

Scott

The Easter Sermon of St. John Chrysostom

Is there anyone who is a devout lover of God?

Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival!

Is there anyone who is a grateful servant?

Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord!

Are there any weary with fasting?

Let them now receive their wages!

If any have toiled from the first hour,

let them receive their due reward;

If any have come after the third hour,

let him with gratitude join in the Feast!

And she that arrived after the sixth hour,

let her not doubt; for she too shall sustain no loss.

And if any delayed until the ninth hour,

let him not hesitate; but let him come too.

And she who arrived only at the eleventh hour,

let her not be afraid by reason of her delay.

For the Lord is gracious and receives the last even as the first.

He gives rest to those who come at the eleventh hour,

as well as to those that toiled from the first.

To this one God gives, and upon another God bestows.

God accepts the works as God greets the endeavor.

The deed God honors and the intention God commends.

Let us all enter into the joy of the Lord!

First and last alike receive your reward;

rich and poor, rejoice together!

Sober and slothful, celebrate the day!

You that have kept the fast, and you that have not,

rejoice today for the Table is richly laden!

Feast royally on it, the calf is a fatted one.

Let no one go away hungry. Partake, all, of the cup of faith.

Enjoy all the riches of God’s goodness!

Let no one grieve at his poverty,

for the universal kingdom has been revealed.

Let no one mourn that she has fallen again and again;

for forgiveness has risen from the grave.

Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Savior has set us free.

Christ has destroyed it by enduring it.

Christ destroyed Hades when He descended into it.

Christ put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh.

Isaiah foretold this when he said,

"You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering Him below."

Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with.

It was in an uproar because it is mocked.

It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed.

It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated.

It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.

Hell took a body, and discovered God.

It took earth, and encountered Heaven.

It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.

O death, where is thy sting?

O Hades, where is thy victory?

Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!

Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!

Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!

Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!

Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead;

for Christ having risen from the dead,

is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be Glory and Power forever and ever. Amen!

Turning Away

Sometime around the 1st of July 2002, I drove from Monterey, California to Wakefield, Nebraska in about 36 hours. By myself. I've been thinking about that drive quite often over the last few months.

I'd been in Monterey to make a last attempt to save my first marriage. That attempt had involved me cutting my seminary internship short, moving from Titusville, Florida to Nebraska for a few weeks, then off to California for what was supposed to be a year's break from seminary while FW completed her time at the Defense Language Institute.

It had been a hellish year. A separation in September. Anger, denial, bargaining, and depression. Lots and lots and lots of depression. So many cigarettes my fingers turned yellow. Loss of sleep. Loss of appetite. Loss of weight that came on so quickly people thought I had cancer or tapeworms or something. Rotating which friends I could call so I wasn't calling the same people night after night, trying to figure out what to do. Running the same four mile course in Titusville over and over, chanting "I'm stronger than this - I'm stronger than this - I'm stronger than this" until the sprint came at the end and I couldn't do anything but run and gasp. Then, reconciliation. Trying to figure out how to put all the pain behind and start over. Trying to convince others it was possible, that it could work. Crash courses in marriage counseling, long phone calls to California, and hope. I was living on hope and baling wire, my Grandpa would have said if he were still alive.

As I remember, it took about three weeks to utterly fall apart.

In the end, the late night talks came down to just one thing: she didn't want "us" anymore. Irresistible force, meet immovable object. I drove to L.A. to stay with my best friend from high school while FW cleaned her things out of my life for the last time. Then I came home, threw what I could carry in a UHaul trailer, grabbed the cats and took off, fast as I could. When you finally get to acceptance, you want to get that coffin in the ground as quick as lightning.

I had loaded up the cooler with soda and fig newtons. I had all my CDs in the passenger seat. Drove over to Salinas, 101 north to San Jose, then the I80 bypasses until I grabbed I80 near Sacramento. Tahoe, then into Nevada. Same damn road I'd driven from Nebraska a month before. Mile after mile of mountains and valleys. I stopped somewhere west of Reno to take out my contacts by the light of the streetlights just outside a chemical toilet in the middle of nowhere. I caught three hours of sleep at the rest stop on the Great Salt Lake, then I grabbed some fast-food breakfast and pushed on.

Somewhere in the middle of Wyoming the reality of what was happening finally touched down. It was over. No going back. No more "trying to make it work." All the anger, the promises, the reassurances, the tears, the prayers: none of it had mattered one damn bit in the end. If you need to pull off the road and sob your fucking heart out anywhere, the shitscrabble countryside of Wyoming is as good a place as you'll get, because there's nothing to distract you from your catharsis. I know it's tempting to say western Nebraska, but there's all that prairie rolling away from you, rich with moisture and life. In the part of Wyoming where I unloaded nine months of abject failure into a succession of fast-food napkins and, in the end, my shirtsleeve, there was nothing but tumbleweeds and gravel to share my sorrow. Tumbleweeds and gravel don't like to give up their moisture for anything.

You get to a point where you have to turn away from what's dead and tend to living. It appears that I hold on to what everyone else can see is dead. I don't know why, but that's who I am, I guess. I've always believed that when you make a promise, you honor it with everything you've got. If you have to flex yourself a bit to keep the promise, well, you flex. I saw it in every important relationship in my life, from the earliest moments I can remember: in my family, we keep our promises. There's just one problem: when all you've known is honored promises, how can you possibly know what to do when promises are broken? You can try to keep your promises even harder, louder, more forcefully; but the end result is the same. You're keeping promises to what is dead, binding yourself to what will soon be a corpse, reeking of death and failure and decay, and if you're not careful, that corpse will drag part of your soul down into Sheol with itself.

Beloved and I were talking about the Unbloggableness tonight. I said, "this has felt, all along, like the divorce." She said, "Yes, and you're reacting the same way. You're trying to keep fighting for something that's already dead." She's right.

At least this time, when we get to Wyoming, we'll cry together.

EDITED TO ADD: It might sound like I'm trying to hammer FW here. I'm not. Pain heals in time, and while it wasn't great when it happened, FW and I have forgiven each other for that past and wish each other joy in the present and future. This is a lament about the present, not the past.

"Walking Away From Everything" by vampire-zombie

Good Friday

"Good Friday and Easter - the days of God's overpowering acts in history, acts in which God's judgment and grace were revealed to all the world...It was not human beings who accomplished anything here; no, God alone did it. God came to human beings in infinite love. God judged what is human. And God granted grace beyond any merit."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Ecce Homo" ("Behold the Man!") by Antonio Ciseri

Maundy Thursday

“The Church does not need brilliant personalities but faithful servants of Jesus and the brethren. Not in the former but in the latter is the lack. The Church will place its confidence only in the simple servant of the Word of Jesus Christ because it knows that then it will be guided, not according to human wisdom and human conceit, but by the Word of the Good Shepherd.”

–Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (New York: Harper & Row, 1954), 109.

Sick Day

Okay, thankfully I'm long past this kind of sick day. Still, a guy does need a day off every now and then.

I'm home today. Frankly, I am well enough that I could have gone in to the office and done some work, but I was diagnosed with bronchitis yesterday, and the coughing, fever and sore throat last night were pretty harsh. It seemed the more prudent course of action to stay home, stay in the recliner and take it easy, given that starting tomorrow I've got the five busiest church days of the year staring me in the face. Thankfully, most everything is lined up and ready to go - musicians in place, worship services in order, and just about everything else needs minor tweaking at the most.* So staying at home today is not such a big deal.

It has been rather nice, actually. I got to watch two more episodes of Rome, season 2, caught up on some emails, read The Lutheran from cover to cover and generally bored Jack the dog to tears. Poor guy gets one of us home all day, and it's no different than the days he's here alone. Worse, actually - I didn't give him a bone to chew.

It seems as if we've had every possible bug imaginable these last six months. Ainsley is due to have her tonsils and adenoids removed on April 12th, which will hopefully clear up her sinuses and help her breathe, eat, sleep and grow better. Alanna, of course, is catching every bug at day care, and then Kristin and I catch whatever makes its way up the ladder. Thank goodness we can get out of the house a bit more often now - the fresh air will definitely do us some good.

Now it's off to the shower and off to Pre-School to pick up the girls. The deep breath before the storm tomorrow. Blessed be the One who comes in the name of the Lord.

Grace & peace,
Scott

*says the guy who was nicknamed "DONI" over Spring Break: "Detail Orientation Needs Improvement." You might want to start praying for our community right about...NOW.

Midday Worship Message from Holden Village: "Nothing Special"

I'm slowly working my way back to more regular blogging. I've been sick this week, and very busy preparing for a retreat this weekend and Holy Week next week, but here is a post of the message I gave at Holden Village a week ago today.

Martin Luther tended to define the world through dialectics: two opposing arguments that are both true. Some examples you should know are: we are simultaneously sinners and saints, or “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none, and a Christian is a perfectly bound servant of all, subject to all.” Well, in fine Lutheran tradition, I’d like to start today by offering a dialectical proposition

1. Nothing special has happened here this week.

2. Everything that has happened here this week has been special.

The discourse follows.

I was talking with Kristi and Karen earlier this week about anxiety. We see it in the churches we serve and the communities in which we live. We are a people running scared. Jobs are scarce. The illusion of control is gone. So me and five of our Campus Ministry students decided that the best way to escape that anxious world was to ride 31 hours on a train, 30 minutes on a bus, two hours on a boat, and 45 minutes on the loudest bus in America to join you all and do chores. Really. I can wash dishes at home. I can bake bread at home. I can hang sheetrock at home. As a matter of fact, my wife WANTS me to hand sheetrock at home. A mouse crawled into the wall of our basement bedroom, had a litter of baby mice, and they all died there. They were spread through four gaps in the framing, so I had to cut four chunks of drywall out of the wall to clean up the mess. It’s been there for over six months – and here I am, leaving my wife and two daughters to go hang sheetrock in Lodge 3. So that’s what I mean when I say “nothing special has happened here this week.”

And at the same time, everything that has happened here this week has been special. Maybe you all don’t see it because you’re here longer than we are, but it’s true. The atmosphere here is filled with the holiness of everyday life. What we’ve seen here are people who understand what the psalmist means in Psalm 90: “…teach us to number our days that we may gain a wise heart…Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and prosper for us the work of our hands – O prosper the work of our hands!” Kate and I were talking on our way down the hill from the hydro plant yesterday about the true sense of vocation we see here. Everyone here, from the most over-educated manual laborers to the most under-qualified utilities worker, has a part in God’s mission for Holden Village. So, everything that has happened here has been and continues to be special, because it all matters to God and to this community.

I’ve been wrestling with these things in my own faith life for some time now. I’ve been wondering what it really means to live as a follower of Jesus Christ in the world. I’m trying to be a realist about faith and life and how they transform each other, because I think it’s the most important work in front of the church in this present age. I think the world is tired. I think the world is tired of the shrill, anxious nature of life in this present age, and the last thing a tired world needs is another Christian handing out promises God will never keep. So I try to be a realist about who we are and what we can expect as followers of Jesus. No matter how wonderful the Sunday morning worship service is, someone always has to clean up the communion chalices and wash out the coffee pot. No matter how good the Bible study is, someone always has to print the copies, set up the chairs and clean it all up in the end. As the psalmist says, the path of life always goes through the valley of the shadow of death.

Jesus says in Matthew 11: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Did you notice that last verse? For every follower of Jesus, there is still a yoke. There are still burdens to bear. There are still chores to be done – dishes to be washed, sheetrock to hang, lumber to move, diapers to change. The question is, can we see those ordinary things as the special work to which God has called us today?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor and theologian who wrestled with these questions, too. In July 1944 he wrote the following sentences in a letter to a friend:

“I’m still discovering right up to this moment, that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith…By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world – watching with Christ in Gethsemane…that is how one becomes [human] and a Christian. How can success make us arrogant, or failure lead us astray, when we share in God’s sufferings through a life of this kind? May God in mercy lead us through these times, but above all, may [God] lead us to [God]self.

There’s nothing special happening here. But it’s all special. You are special. The work you do is special, and I hope you realize it today. Wash those dishes, move that lumber, hang that sheetrock and bake your bread in the name of the Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer of life, and with thanksgiving in your heart, for in your work you are throwing yourselves into the loving arms of God. Amen.

Home from Holden Village... *sigh*

No, this isn't my photo.

Yes, this was the view from just outside my 'porch' over the last week.

No, I'm not entirely ready to be back from Holden Village just yet.

Yes, it was a wonderful trip, and yes, the best moment of the last two days were the hugs from Beloved and the Sisters at the end of the journey home.

Thank you to all our friends at Holden for a wonderful week. More details to come once the creaking, smoking machinery formerly known as "film development" wheezes my photos back to me from teh interweb photosite.

Grace & peace,

Scott

Small Catechism, Lord's Prayer, 4th Petition: A Reminder...

Give us today our daily bread.

What does this mean?

In fact, God gives daily bread without our prayer, even to all evil people, but we ask in this prayer that God cause us to recognize what our daily bread is and to receive it with thanksgiving.

What, then, does 'daily bread' mean?

Everything included in the necessities and nourishments for our bodies, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, farm, fields, livestock, money, property, an upright spouse, upright children, upright servants and members of the household, upright and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, decency, honor, good friends, faithful neighbors and the like.

Martin Luther's Small Catechism, trans. by Timothy Wengert

God provides...

• We have cupboards filled with enough food and drink to last a good long while, even if the money dried up tomorrow.
• I have several coats and enough clothes that picking out what to wear each day is sometimes time-consuming.
• I have not one but two pairs of Dr. Marten's boots which have long since repaid the value of the high price I paid for them. I have running shoes. I even have biking shoes now.
• There is a roof over our heads, and the reasonable assumption that, if need be, friends and family would provide a roof if we lose this one.
• Not only is there a roof, but I have a yard in which I love to work when the weather is nice, and even when the weather is not-so-nice. I am the caretaker of things that grow here, and I take that job very seriously and derive a tremendous amount of joy from it.
• I have no fields or cattle, but I remember when I did, and what a good life it can be. And, let's be frank, I like eating cattle. After butchering and cooking, of course, but still...
• I am paid well for doing what I love to do. Not exceptionally well, mind you, but enough that we live comfortably.
• We have what we need, and a little extra.
• My Beloved is a wonderful woman. She is a loving wife, a devoted mother, a gifted youth minister and a caring friend. I need to remind her of these things more often.
• I have two wonderful daughters who fill my life with joy. I can't imagine my life without them, and yet I still have to stop and pinch myself that, yes, they really are my daughters. I have kids. This never ceases to amaze me.
• Servants? Not so much. But I do have a good office manager at work who is not only a good co-worker, but also a friend. Tonight, more than ever, I'm thankful for that trusting work relationship.
• There are some good people working on our behalf in local, state and federal government. I wish there were more of the good ones, and less of the not so good ones, but there are good folks trying their best, and for that I'm thankful.
• The snow is melting. Not too fast as of yet. Spring is finally coming.
• I have never seen a violent crime in person. I have no reason to expect being the victim or a witness to such a crime. This town where we live is largely a safe community. The fact that I don't think about this more often probably says a lot about how insulated we are as a society, and how we take far too much for granted.
• I'm not as fat as I once was, even if I'm not as "in shape" as I'd like to be. I exercise, and most nights I sleep well. Mild depression and being 20 lbs overweight is not anything about which I should complain.
• People keep me accountable in my family, my work, and other areas of my life. Most of them do it appropriately. Most of the people with whom I associate value kindness, respect, integrity and honesty, and again, now more than ever, I am grateful.
• I do my best to take everyone at their word, without judgment, and I think most of the folks I see regularly do the same.
• I could list my good friends here and it would take up several paragraphs. I am richly blessed in the friends department.
• H lets me borrow her snowblower when the weather's bad. A always says hello when she's out walking her dog. P's kids brought gifts when Alanna was born. B clears off our sidewalks if it snows while we're out of town. D pets the dog over the fence and always waves when she comes home. Maybe we're not as close to our neighbors as we'd like to be, but we know who they are all the same.

Why all of this? Because in the midst of trying times we do well to remind ourselves that God provides far more good than the world provides evil. Even though the hard road continues for us, we also have much for which we are thankful. God is good, all the time - even when God's people are sometimes not.

Grace & peace,

Scott

The picture above is our girls playing together last summer. The yard in which they are playing is ironically connected to the Unbloggableness, but it remains one of the most beautiful pictures we have of them.

Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent - "God's Peace To Us We Pray"

There’s an old joke about two campers out in the woods who startle a bear and wind up on the run with the bear in hot pursuit. One camper screams to the other one, “Do you think you really think you can run faster than a bear?” The other camper screams back, “No! – I just have to run faster than you!”

There is an element of this mentality in the questions Jesus was asked in Luke 13. “Jesus, wouldn’t you say that the awful way those Galileans died was proof of their great sinfulness?” You can almost hear the scales balancing in the heads of the people asking the questions: “They must have been awful sinners; we just need to be holier than that to get in!” The thing is, you can’t out-holify your neighbor any more than you can outrun a bear. A bear’s stomach will get full eventually, but our appetite for self-righteousness can be all-consuming.

Let us pray: Merciful God, your patience is enduring and your love is steadfast. But we know that you desire repentance. We know that we have not met your intention for our lives, and we know we cannot meet that intention without your Spirit within us. We endlessly compare ourselves with our neighbors rather than filling our lives with your word and your promises. Raise in us the desire to turn away from that which kills us in our sins, and turn us toward your life-giving mercy and your promises of redemption and peace. All this we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

In this life we are surrounded by danger. Earthquakes kill thousands in the briefest moments. Stock markets crash. Politicians posture and protect their chances of re-election, while the homeless freeze and starve on our streets and thousands of American children live without adequate medical insurance. But in the midst of all of this, we can take heart: at least we’re not as bad as Tiger Woods, right? We aren’t as ignorant as President Bush or as corrupt as the Clintons, and thank heavens we’re not socialists like our non-citizen President Obama. So long as we’re staying ahead of the game, we’ll be all right. Don’t drink, don’t smoke and always wear your seatbelt: you’ll be fine.

Are we afraid? Yes, sometimes we are very much afraid, and when we are afraid, we surround ourselves with the right kind of people: folks who have it all together, who know that if you do right, you’ll be right. And so we protect ourselves by ostracizing the wrong sorts of people and the unlucky and the sinners until we’ve created our own little kingdom where goodness thrives because we eliminate anyone or anything that shows the slightest bit of bad luck, trouble or sin. And we make our peace with this by telling ourselves that it was our neighbors’ sins that put them out of the group. We confess that our neighbors are captive to sin and cannot free themselves – but that’s not our problem.

When Jesus encountered this mentality in the gospel of Luke, he didn’t hesitate to blow it right out of the water, because it was poisoning the minds and hearts of his followers. When confronted with the dangerous confessions of a neighbor’s sin, Jesus reminded his listeners that they would indeed “get what’s coming to them,” but the only thing that was coming was death. Jesus told his listeners that there was no safety in hiding behind the terrible misfortunes of others; confessing a neighbor’s sin to mask your own sin was, and is, a terribly dangerous thing to do. Jesus wanted nothing to do with it.

One of the oldest questions we theologians have to face is the question of the “benevolent savage.” Keep in mind that in saying “we theologians,” I mean everyone in this room and everyone reading this online: if you learn and speak of God, you are indeed a theologian. So, theologians, imagine a native tribal family somewhere in the depths of darkest Africa. They’ve lived in a small village all their lives and they care for each other in the best way they are able to do. Father and mother honor and cherish their children, and the children dutifully care for their parents and grandparents when they are no longer able to care for themselves. In all their deeds they follow the law: they do not steal, they do not slander their neighbors, they remain true to their spouses, they do not kill, and so on. But they have never heard of Jesus. No one has ever come to them with the good news of Christ. And so the question is: what happens to these wonderful people when they die? No one ever gave them the gospel: is that their fault?

This is just another version of the dangerous confession of a neighbor’s sin, and it’s one of the oldest. When it came up in my Lutheran confessions class with Gerhard Forde and Jim Nestingen, they shot back with this confrontational answer: “Who are you thinking of, and what are you waiting for?” Genuine faith is not an abstract, intellectual exercise. Genuine faith is a deeply personal experience that rises out of a mingling of human interaction and divine intervention. The benevolent savage of our story doesn’t exist: what does exist is a neighbor who needs the gospel – period.

Jesus didn’t come to offer hypothetical faith. God did not become incarnate in order to confirm our prejudices about our neighbors’ problems. The Holy Spirit will not reveal the reasons behind our neighbor’s misfortune. So it’s time to stop the dangerous practice of confessing our neighbor’s sin. Jesus couldn’t have been more clear: what happens to others happens to others, but your sins will find you out. Our reading from Isaiah this morning describes the consequences of confessing our neighbor’s sin:

“Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?”

The dangerous confession of the sins of others is the spiritual equivalent of cotton candy laced with asbestos: sweet to the taste, but completely unfulfilling, and poisonous to boot. There is no way to climb to heaven on the shoulders of the sinners around you – Jesus won’t have it that way.

You almost have to pity those people who listened to Jesus teach that day on the road to Jerusalem. They wanted Jesus to say, “Nah, you guys are doing just fine – nothing like that is going to happen to you.” They came to Jesus afraid of the world around them, and they hoped proving that sinners get their just desserts would also prove that they would be protected by their own high virtue. But that’s not the way it works. Barbara Brown Taylor, a religion professor from Piedmont College and an Episcopal priest, put it this way:

“While Jesus does not honor their illusion that they can protect themselves in this way, he does seem to honor the vulnerability that their fright has opened up in them. It is not a bad thing for them to feel the full fragility of their lives. It is not a bad thing for them to count their breaths in the dark -- not if it makes them turn toward the light.”[1]

You will not find life avoiding the dangers around you or hiding behind your neighbor's sins. Jesus says it himself: “repent, or perish.” There is no allegory in this gospel text to save us from the changes and chances of life. Accidents will happen. Planes will crash. Earthquakes will destroy buildings. Floodwaters will rage. Worst of all, people will do things to you that will cause unimaginable pain, and they won’t care how bad you hurt. Not at all. BUT. THEY. WILL. NOT. WIN.

This parable is not about your neighbor. This parable is not about avoiding accidents or how to have good luck. This parable is about you. You are the tree being prepared to bear fruit. I cannot live a life of repentance for you. You cannot live a life of repentance hiding behind the sins of others. You, and only you, can bear the burden of genuine repentance, which means real self-examination and the excruciating pain of knowing exactly who you are and what kinds of sins God will forgive.

Did you catch that last word? Forgive. That’s the hope in all this misfortune. That’s the victory that comes after this crushing defeat. You are a forgiven child of God, and no accident, no earthquake, no sin of your own or of someone else can ever take that away from you. The signs of Christian life are repentance and forgiveness, like the sides of a coin. Sometimes you will be fortunate, and sometimes you will not. Sometimes you’ll get along well with your neighbor, and sometimes you will not. But in all times, we repent, and God forgives, and life is bestowed upon us. Jesus doesn’t offer safety to his followers: he offers life, with all its uncertainties, but life filled with the joy of knowing that no matter what may happen, we can never be separated from the love of God.

When the earthquakes hit Haiti on January 12^th, ELCA seminarians Ben and Renee Larson and their cousin Jon were working in a new Lutheran school, which collapsed. Renee and Jon escaped, but Ben did not. Renee and Jon

“went back to the place where they had crawled out and called again for Ben. Renee said she heard Ben's voice. He was singing, not unusual for Ben who loved music. "I told him I loved him, and that Jon and I were okay, and to keep singing," Renee said. But the singing stopped after he sang the words "God's peace to us we pray," she said. "If he was alive, he would have been calling for help desperately," Renee said. "Ben spent his last breath singing."[2]

Do we weep for Renee Larson and her pain? Yes, in the love of God we weep for her and wish these things were not as they are. But the earthquakes were just that: earthquakes. They were not a sign. They were not a punishment. They simply came, and killed the righteous and unrighteous alike.

Earthquakes will come.

God’s peace to us we pray.

Dreams will be shattered.

God’s peace to us we pray.

We will not have all the answers.

God’s peace to us we pray.

But we have this answer: here, today, we are the ones who are forgiven, called to bear fruit in this time, in this place.

God’s peace to us we pray.

Love the Lord your God with all your soul, heart, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.

God’s peace to us we pray. Amen.

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[1] http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=641

[2] https://archive.elca.org/news/releases.asp?a=4403

Troubled

"Terrible things happen, and you are not always to blame. But don’t let that stop you from doing what you are doing. That torn place your fear has opened up inside of you is a holy place. Look around while you are there. Pay attention to what you feel. It may hurt you to stay there and it may hurt you to see, but it is not the kind of hurt that leads to death. It is the kind that leads to life."

Barbara Brown Taylor

It has been a remarkably hard day. I may not be blogging again for a while. Please know that Beloved, the girls and I are all healthy and well, and my work continues to give me great joy, but we could use your prayers for some Unbloggableness.

Grace & peace,

Scott

Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent: Living Between Trust and Anxiety

These are your words, Lord. Your word is truth. Lead us into the truth. Amen.

Question 1: share with your neighbor about a time in your life when you were absolutely certain about something and you were wrong. What was it like?

Question 2: share with another neighbor about a time in your life when you had to trust that something was going to be okay, even though you were really anxious about it. How did things turn out? Did you survive that experience, or is it still haunting you?

The story of Abram and Sarai is a story of a family that learned to trust God in the midst of great anxiety about what God was doing. In Genesis 12, God spoke to Abram and asked him to leave his father’s land and family in the land of Ur and move to the land of Canaan. This move is most easily described today as a move from Baghdad to Jerusalem – a 400 mile journey, on foot, following the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers to the northwest, then coming down the land of Palestine with flocks and servants and their own families. It is the story of a move away from safety and the certainty of Abram’s inheritance to an unknown land where Abram would be a sojourner, surrounded by strangers and constantly dealing with different tribes, kings and other nomads. The story of the move by itself is astounding – the fact that Abram’s family worshiped the territorial gods of the Ancient Near East until God revealed himself to Abram is even more astonishing.

And Abram’s story of trust and anxiety doesn’t end in Genesis 12. In our reading today from Genesis 15, Abram confronted God with this fact: Abram had no heir to his flocks and possessions, and the great blessings God had promised Abram would go to a slave if Abram were to die at that moment. In Abram’s time, your legacy after your death came through your children; with no children, Abram and Sarai’s legacy would be poor at best. But God confirmed the earlier promises to Abram. When God instructed Abram to sacrifice the animals in the way Genesis describes, God was making a covenant with Abram. God was saying, in essence, “if I do not keep my promises, may I become like these animals, dead and torn to pieces.” It was common for both parties to pass between the animals as a sign of their covenant, but in this story God was the only one bound by the covenant: Abram was only asked to trust that the promises would be fulfilled.

The story of Abram & Sarai went through many more twists and turns before they died. They changed their names: “Abram,” meaning “he is exalted,” became “Abraham,” meaning “Father of a multitude.” Sarai also changed her name to Sarah, bearing evidence that God’s covenant will indeed change the both of them. They tried to take the matter of an heir into their own hands; Sarah made her slave, Hagar, sleep with Abraham, and that son, Ishmael, is commonly known as the father of the Arabic peoples of the world. But God insisted: they were promised a legitimate heir, and they would have a legitimate heir. Sarah laughed at the thought of becoming pregnant at age 90, so when Sarah bore Abraham a son, God instructed them to name the child “Isaac,” meaning “She laughs.” Abraham & Sarah lived long lives and only began to see the beginnings of the blessings God promised to them. Their whole story is marked by anxiety and trust: anxiety because they didn’t understand the situations in which they often found themselves, and trust that somehow God would accomplish God’s goals, even when Abraham and Sarah got in the way by attempting to protect God and themselves by their own deeds.

Come forward in time, then, around 2,000 years. Jesus was preaching and teaching throughout Galilee on his way to Jerusalem. He was beginning to develop a great following: people came to be healed by his touch, to learn from his wisdom and to be his disciples. Even some of the Pharisees were amazed and intrigued by this roaming teacher from Nazareth. So when those Pharisees heard that Herod was seeking to kill Jesus, they grew anxious. “Jesus, get out of here,” they said. “Protect yourself,” they said. “Take the safe road,” they said. These Pharisees knew that Jesus was some kind of great blessing from God, but they weren’t confident that God would protect their blessing. So they warned Jesus to try and protect him – even though Jesus knew that protection and safety wasn’t where he was going.

It’s not an easy thing, to trust when you’re anxious. In fact, we’re not very good at it. The thing is, neither was Abraham, or any of the Old Testament heroes, for that matter. Abraham’s greatest mistakes were made when he didn’t have faith in God’s promises and tried to guarantee his own safety and security by himself. When King Saul was focused on God’s word, he was a good king, but when Saul tried to improve on God’s promises through his own work, he lost God’s favor. King David, Solomon, Moses – all of them are lifted up to us in our childhood as heroes of faith. But in reality these heroes struggled with trust and anxiety as much as anyone else in the Bible. The same goes for Peter, James, John, Matthew, Andrew, Judas and all the other apostles and disciples in the New Testament. They knew that in Jesus they’d found something incredible, and they wanted, naturally, to protect this great blessing. But Jesus wasn’t born to be protected; he was born to reveal the kingdom of God, and if I might paraphrase C.S. Lewis here, the kingdom of God “isn’t safe, but it is good.”

In our gospel reading today, Jesus took the role of a prophet to God’s people. When he cried out, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem…how often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings,” Jesus was remembering the long history of Jerusalem’s pursuit of safety through other means. Israel was supposed to be God’s people, but even in the days after God rescued the people of Israel from Egypt, the people’s anxiety kept them from trusting God first for their well-being. The world around them was an uncertain place, but rather than trusting in the certainty of God’s protection, Israel pursued money, political power and other idols to ensure their safety and protection. They did it so often that God was forced to walk out on them altogether to remind them that only God can provide what they need. Ezekiel 10-11 tells the story of God leaving the temple as the Babylonian armies gather outside the walls of Jerusalem. God will not be just another good-luck charm in our spiritual charm-bracelets: it is all or nothing with our passionate, recklessly-loving God.

Jesus himself, in today’s gospel reading, became an idol to be protected instead of a teacher to be followed, much less a Messiah to be worshiped. Imagine that: a people dedicated to God protecting that God too much! But just like Abraham, just like King David, just like the disciples and just like us today, the people who wanted to protect Jesus didn’t understand that God is not concerned with protection: God is concerned with faith; God is concerned with truth; God is concerned with life. There is no faith without fear, there is no truth without consequences, and there is no life without risk, vulnerability, and trust in anxious times. As “Some Kid” in the novel IT by Stephen King says, “You can’t be careful on a skateboard, man.”

A few years ago there was a show on the Discovery Channel that claimed archaeologists had found the tomb of Jesus’ family, that the bones of Jesus himself have been found and the resurrection is a hoax. I remember this only because it’s in my notes from the last time we all read this text in our lectionary: the show itself seems to have passed into the void, while Jesus and the church are still here. But you and I know that every once in a while, a movie or show or speaker comes around that gets the church worked up because it feels like God is “under attack.” To my mind, there are two problems with the way we go about handling these things. First, God doesn’t need our protection. Second, it’s good for the church to be challenged and reminded where our faith and trust should ultimately land: on God and God alone. Usually, when the church appears anxious about God, the church is really anxious about the church. We are not called to defend the church against every threat, real or imagined. As a pastor I know put it, “I’m far too concerned with what Christ means to me today to worry about the distant past or the distant future.” Our business is trusting in God in today’s circumstances, living between that trust and the anxiety that surrounds us and can drive us away from our trust in God.

Sometimes our desire for safety and certainty can be opposed to God’s will. When that happens, God’s words to us turn into lament. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem…how often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings!” That isn’t a critique of one group of people or another rejecting Jesus – it’s a lament that rises out of God’s heartbreak over our rejection of God throughout history. The greatest errors of the church have often been made in an attempt to guarantee safety and certainty. The Crusades, the forces working against the Reformation, the split between Roman & Eastern churches in 1100 A.D., slavery, civil rights, the fierce debate over evolution; all these are moments when the church was more concerned with protection and certainty than faith and truth. The Pharisees in today’s gospel reading weren’t the only ones guilty of protecting God too much – it’s happened before, and it will happen again, and we will be the ones guilty of that over-protection.

The point of Christian living is not certainty: it is faith. Certainty requires proof before a relationship of any consequence is granted. The walls of certainty may offer protection, but they also prevent any genuine interaction with the rest of the world. Absolute certainty eliminates all vulnerability, and without vulnerability no relationship is ever genuine and no love is ever authentic. Being vulnerable brings about anxiety, for we leave ourselves unprotected, but being vulnerable also allows us to learn to trust one another as real persons who follow Jesus. The point of Christian living is faith, and faith is what happens when we learn to live between trust and anxiety. “The picture [of] faith painted here is one that denies any surety of belief, other than that which comes from the relationship with the One who stands behind the promise. All ultimately depends on the faithfulness of the Lord. This passage does not portray doubt or anxiety as something foreign to the person of faith. Quite the contrary! We see in Abraham one who lives in the tension between trust and anxiety. Faith, which is reckoned to be righteousness, is precisely that.”[1]

May Christ shelter you under His wings and keep you safe, brothers and sisters, and give you the faith you need – the faith to live between trust and anxiety. Amen.

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[1] Wallace, Howard. http://hwallace.unitingchurch.org.au/WebOTcomments/LentC/Lent2.html

Friday Five: Going for the...Couch?

Another week, another collapse. Yesterday afternoon I slept more than the girls did - took a 90 minute nap during their naptime, then another hour after Beloved got home from work. Apparently I needed a bit more rest than I've been giving myself lately. So, Lenten Devotions went by the wayside for a couple of days. Sorry about that.

But Songbird gave us an AWESOME Friday Five this morning, and I figured I might get back int the swing of things by playing along.

It's been two weeks of snow, or not enough snow, of heartbreak before the action even began, of snowboards and skis and skates, of joy and sorrow. At our house, we've stayed up too late, and we don't even watch sports any other time!

1) Which of the Winter Olympic sports is your favorite to watch?
Alpine skiing, followed closely by speed skating and bobsled/luge/skeleton. Long track, that is - while I think Apollo Anton Ohno is indeed a great athelete, that game is just too random for me to get very interested. I LOVE watching Lindsey Vonn, Julia Mancuso, Bode Miller and all the other ski nuts throw themselves down mountains. To me, the alpine events and the 'timed' events are the essence of the Winter Olympics. As I told someone Wednesday night, if there's a stopwatch I'm all over it, but if it's a "scored" event, I couldn't care less.

2) Some of the uniforms have attracted attention this year, such as the US Snowboarders' pseudo-flannel shirts and the Norwegian Curling team's -- ahem -- pants. Who do you think had the best-looking uniforms?

I really liked the Norwegian unis - I mean, I watch golf when John Daly, Ian Poulter and Duffy Waldorf are playing, so ugly pants are nothing new for me. At least the Norwegians didn't wear a non-matching hat like Duffy's known to do.

3) And Curling. Really? What's up with that?

Haven't a clue. All I know is whenever it's on, everyone stops and watches. Everyone. In the men's locker room at our gym this week, everyone has been spellbound every time curling is on. Which is a marked improvement over whoever keeps turning the damned TV to Fox News, by the way...

4) Define Nordic Combined. Don't look it up. Take a guess if you must. (There will be a prize for the best answer, but be aware, this is a judged sport.)

Best photo spread incorporating Dale sweaters & IKEA furniture. And yes, I do know what the actual event is, but this was kinda fun.

5) If you could be a Winter Olympics Champion just by wishing for it, which sport would you choose for winning your Gold Medal?

Gold Medal: Skeleton gets the nod over the other two because it combines high speed and head-first body position three inches off the surface. If you can find a bigger rush I'd like to see it.

Silver Medal: Alpine Skiing (especially the Super G). Seriously, who's sexier: Bode Miller/Lindsey Vonn or Figure Skating Guy/Figure Skating Girl? Your disagreement is invalid.

Bronze Medal: Bobsled. Because if Steve Holcomb (front left) can wear spandex, so can I. Besides, that hulk of non-fat muscle in the back? Former Cornhusker Curt Tomasevicz. Guy looks like he could still kick some serious ass in shoulder pads.