Light in the Darkness

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

John 1:1-5

There was a sweet, young, talented, and faithful young woman, a teenager who was a member of my former church. She and her family drifted in and out of church life, sometimes leaving for stretches of time, sometimes coming back for others. We would let them family know that we were missing them, ask them to let us know if there was anything we could do. During one of those stretches when her family was gone, someone let me know she was struggling, had spent some time in the hospital for depression. I called and asked if we could have lunch, and she seemed delighted at the invitation. She told me that she had been depressed, struggling with her classwork, been turned down for the high school cheerleading team, had been the subject of some pretty vicious rumors that had turned into bullying at her school. Feeling helpless, she had taken some pills, not enough to end her life, but enough to get the attention and garner the help that she so clearly needed. I listened to her, asked her questions, prayed with her. She asked me where I thought God was in all of this, whether God had heard her prayers, whether people at the church would judge her, asked whether God was angry with her for taking the pills. She expressed a lot of doubt; told me she had the impression that people of faith were always happy because they loved Jesus enough, that maybe God was blessing them because of their faith and cursing her because of her doubt.

I told her that, without a doubt, I knew that God loved her because God created her, that God I really believed God was sad, but not angry, when she took the pills. I told her that I truly believed God was walking with her because of Isaiah’s words to us of God walking through the rivers and fires with us. I told her that people at the church, especially a Southern one, might appear happy, might always say that they’re fine when asked, but that every single person in the congregation had struggled at some point. I told her that some of them might be doing well at any certain moment, not feeling like they were in a world of darkness—but that we had all experienced darkness at one point in our lives, if not many points. I told her that, when Southern folks—especially at church--say, “I’m fine, thank you,” when asked how they are, it might be nice, but it’s also a disservice. I told her it’s fine to say, “I’m just alright,” or “I’m making it minute by minute,” or “you know, today is really a hard day.” If the church isn’t a place where you can share the darkness of your pain, after all, where can you?

Folks, that’s the reality of the situation. We live in a world where there is lots of light, in a world where there is lots of darkness. For every child who is well fed and sheltered, there is another child who doesn’t know where their next meal is coming from or where they will lay their head that night. For everyone who is surrounded by loved ones, there is someone who feels like there is no one there to love them. For every couple who seems so happy together, there is another couple whose differences simply cannot be overcome. For every person who has more than they could ever need, there is someone else who wonders if they will ever earn another paycheck. For every Christian who seems happy and never seems to express a doubt in the world, there is another one who is sad and expresses every doubt there is to express. Lots of light and lots of darkness.

I think that teenager expressed something fascinating to our lives as Christians today—the kind of “theology lite” out there—the belief that if you just love Jesus enough, trust him enough, if you just take him into your heart, that you will never go through pain again, be threatened again, experience brokenness and sin again. I think that kind of theology is pervasive in the South, especially, pervasive in some of the growing churches of our world. If I am just faithful enough, we trick ourselves into believing, then everything will be happy and fine and perfect. Everything will be all light and no darkness.

But that’s not reality. We live in a world that can oftentimes be dark, oftentimes experience the pain of brokenness, a world that always experiences the result of sin. Some of the most faithful people I know, folks who are some of the strongest believers in Christ, are people who are struggling mightily with darkness right now. One of my dear friends lost her mom to Alzheimer’s in February and her niece to an awful accident in June. Another dear friend is dealing with a scary medical situation that no woman should ever have to deal with, especially at her young age. One of my friends is hurting because he fell deeply for someone, allowed himself to think that there might be a future after much loneliness in the past, only to discover that the person he fell in love with is too scared and scarred to open herself up to the possibility of love. Two of my tailgating friends lost three members of their family suddenly last week in a car crash. That is a lot of darkness for these friends of faith, friends who believe wholeheartedly that Jesus Christ has been born for them, faithful folks who proclaim Jesus Christ as their Savior, and, yes, friends who currently have lots of questions about doubt and faith for him. Even to the most faithful among us, the world can oftentimes seem like a very dark place.

But in the midst of that darkness, there is great news to share, to tell, to believe--a child has been born for us. Did you hear that??? A CHILD HAS BEEN BORN FOR ALL OF US. Do you believe it? A savior has been given to us, a baby has been born to bring light to us. And part of that great news is that it was even dark for him—he was born in a smelly, gross barn with no sturdy shelter over his head, threatened by a king who was scared to death of this little baby, born to a mom who was warned by a prophet that a sword would pierce her soul. But, even in the midst of that darkness, that little baby was born to bring light.

And that is why we celebrate this day—Jesus has come into the world for every single one of us, for those of who are happy and those who are sad, for those who don’t have a care in the world and those who struggle with the world every minute. Jesus is born to bring light into the darkness of the world. I love how Ann Weems puts it:

Not celebrate? Your burden is too great to bear? Your loneliness is intensified during this Christmas season? Not celebrate? You should lead the celebration . . . For it is you above all others who know the joy of Advent. It is unto you that a Savior is born this day, one who comes to lift the burden from your shoulders, one who comes to wipe the tears from your eyes. You are not alone, for he is born this day to you.

Jesus Christ is born into our world once again, born to bring light to those who struggle in darkness. Isaiah foretells the story for us: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness, on the light has shined…for a child has been born unto us, a Savior given to us…and he shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

It is indeed time for us to celebrate the Christ child who has been born for us, for those who are living in darkness, for those of us who are living in light. It is time for us to celebrate, and how can we not? A Savior is born, born to lift our burdens, born to wipe away the tears from our eyes, born to bear our dark sorrows, born to forgive and save. A Savior is born, born to bring light, as John reminds us: “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being, in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it; the darkness has not and will not overcome it. Our Savior has come into our world to shed light, to overcome the darkness, to bring peace. Thanks be to God.

That's How It Ought to Be

For I am about to create a new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another ear; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord—and their descendants as well. Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent—its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.

Isaiah 65:17-25

Over the past several months, our UKirk students and I have been studying different images of God found in the Bible—the beautiful images of God as our Creator and sustainer, God our shepherd and salvation, God who is our rock. When we talked about the image of God as rock, we talked about the different ways upon which God is our cornerstone, the one in whom we build our faith on, the one who holds us up and never lets us crumble. We discussed how we build with rocks and stones, how God is a fortress around our lives, how God builds us up. But we also spent some time discussing what else we can do with stones—about how a woman was almost stoned to death in the Bible, about how we can use stones to tear down, about how we are so apt and quick to throw stones at each other. We discussed how, especially now in this social media world, it is so easy to throw rocks at each other, to call someone stupid or make fun of their lives or to tell them that they are less than nothing, so easy to tear someone down using their social or political or religious beliefs as the stones that bruise and harm so easily—so easy to do that across internet lines because we never have to look into the eyes of the person we are tearing down.

We live in broken and fearful world, a world where brokenness and sin often pervade our lives and always threaten to tear us down. I was appalled to listen to an interview this week, the story of the woman who first appeared on the front page of the website for the Affordable Care Act. She is a beautiful woman with gorgeous light brown skin, a permanent resident from Colombia whose husband is a US citizen, whose son was born here, who is applying for US citizenship. She simply posed for a stock photo, not knowing where and when the photo would be used. It just so happened that her photo was used on the front page of the website, and because of all of the problems with it, her face has been scrutinized by the press and the public, she has been called “glitch girl,” even described as having “the most despised face on the planet.” No one ever stopped long enough to think about her, about the fact that she had absolutely nothing to do with this website or the ACA—but even if she had everything to do with it—she still shouldn’t have been torn down. No one stopped to think that she is a person just like the rest of us, created and worth. An example of our broken and sinful world.

All we have to do is stop and look to see the brokenness around us. We see the brokenness of people who do not have enough food to eat, of food banks who don’t have enough food on their shelves to help. We see the brokenness of our priorities when we hear about who might possibly run for president 3 years from now before we see pictures of typhoon destruction in the Philippines, before we stopped to pray for the lives lost. We see the brokenness of our government representatives of all parties, representatives who would rather retreat to their own corners and throw rocks at each other than sit down, compromise, and come to sensible solutions together. We see the brokenness that comes with addiction when we see a Canadian mayor who lashes out instead of seeking help. We see the brokenness of the world as we are approaching the one year anniversary of a school massacre—and we are too crippled and scared and polarized to either do anything about an ill person who has nothing to lose or the weapons that enabled him to so easily take the lives of 20 babies with him. Every day we see the brokenness of families and friendships, of relationships and lives. And so often it seems like there is nothing we can do. A broken and fearful world, indeed.

But when we feel we are most lost, most helpless, Isaiah gives us a new vision, tells us what God is going to do in the Kingdom of heaven:

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress…The wolf and the lamb shall feed together…they shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.

Isaiah gives a new vision of a new heavens and a new earth, not a vision of brokenness and sin, but a vision of newness, of wholeness, of holiness. Isaiah gives us a vision of transformation where everything is made new, a new creation where the most vicious animals will hang out with the least, where there will be joy instead of sorrow, where distress will turn into delight.

It is indeed a beautiful vision of a new heaven and a new earth. And how tempting it is for us to believe that this is solely a vision of the future, of the time when we will leave what we know of this earth and draw nearer to God in the death that leads to new life. It is so tempting for us to leave it there—that this is what life will be like when I get to heaven, that it will never be like this here on earth. But, as Presbyterians, we believe differently. As Presbyterians, we believe that the church exists to do these 6 great things: to proclaim the gospel for the salvation of humankind; to provide shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God; to maintain divine worship;to preserve the truth; to promote social righteousness; and to exhibit the Kingdom of Heaven to the world.

Did you catch that last one? As Presbyterians, as Christians, as people of faith, we are called to exhibit the kingdom of heaven to the world. We are called to exhibit a kingdom where the crying and sorrow will come to an end as joyfulness and rejoicing lead the way; where people will not die young, but live full lives; where no one will go without shelter but instead live with roofs over their heads; where there will enough food and labor for everyone; where families are blessed instead of cursed, where animals and creatures of all kinds will no longer recognize their differences and exert power over each other, but instead lie down and coexist peacefully with each other.

David LaMotte, our keynoter at least year’s college conference, is a singer/songwriter, but most importantly, a Rotary Peace Fellow who constantly works to help us find peace in a broken world—or better put, he works to inspire us and help us find ways to usher in the kingdom. He talked to our students about call and service in January. Listen to his words:

What we do is about how we engage with the world. We care about the kingdom coming here and now. It’s our job to figure out how to invite the kingdom into our world. Change is always happening. You are invited by God into the process of creating the world. You are part of the partnership with God. God wants to move in you and God is moving in you. And we think, “I run into the things that trouble me. I want to have an impact, and I want to be engaged but say instead, ‘Who am I to do this? I’m busy. I don’t have the gifts required to help in this situation.’” But God has other plans.

Yes, the great news is that God has plans for us, plans that we could never, ever begin to imagine or dream on our own. God, through Isaiah, gives us a new vision of a new heavens and a new earth, a new earth that is possible in the here and now if we simply get out of God’s way and stop being stubborn and hopeless, if we let God work through us. It is so easy for us to stop and look at all the pain around us and think, “There’s no way I can help everyone, stop all of the pain, heal all of the brokenness around me. I can’t do it. I don’t have the time. I don’t have the energy. I don’t have the gifts. And I can’t do it all, so why even try?”

I think about our time in Haiti, about how many times I looked around and saw a woman my age in a bed dying from AIDS, looked to the next to see a teenager suffering from yellow fever, simply to look at another and find an older woman covered in boils with a stinch so bad I almost vomited. It was so much to take in, and I walked out of the room, sat on a bench, and started to cry: “Why try to help any of this if I can’t solve it all?” That kind of fear is paralyzing. It is so easy to wallow and squander our lives away, to get lost in those things that simply make us stop in our tracks and think that we can’t go on, but we can’t. We can’t shut down because we have been forgiven, and in that forgiveness have been given a glimpse of the new heavens and the new earth. And because we have been given that grace, we have to do something with it. We have to do what we can, one step at a time, one moment at a time, in response to God’s gifts of creation and life, God’s gifts of forgiveness and grace. In the Feasting on the Word commentary, Mary Eleanor Johns beautifully describes how we are called to usher in the kingdom one moment at a time:

The text describes radical transformation of living conditions in the new Jerusalem, including low infant mortality, housing and food for all, and sustainable employment. Such details push us to focus on the manner in which Christ’s church participates in his messianic rule…We are able to give one drink of cold water at a time. We are able to bring comfort to the poor and the wretched, one act of mercy or change at a time. One book given, one friendship claimed, one covenant of love, one can of beans, one moment of commendation, one confession of God’s presence but for the asking, one moment in which another person is humanized rather that objectified, one challenge to the set order that maintains injustice, one declaration of the evil that is hiding in plain sight, one declaration that every person is a child of God: these acts accumulate within God’s grace.

Because of the grace given to us, we are called to respond with grace, to see the pain and suffering and brokenness around us and do what we can—one drink of water at a time, one declaration at a time, one thing given at a time, one challenge at a time. We are called to celebrate God’s kingdom in heaven and called to usher that kingdom in on God’s earth, to create peace wherever we can.

Our children just sang in the best:

You be the lion, fierce and wild.

I’ll be the lamb, so meek and mild.

We live together happily,

That’s how it ought to be.

You be the lion brave and bold,

I’ll be the lamb with heart of gold.

We get along in harmony,

That’s how it ought to be.

Peace, good will to all the earth

Sang the choirs at Jesus’ birth,

But this world needs us today.

Pointing out the way.

So you be the lion filled with pride.

I’ll be the lamb and walk beside.

We’ll make the dream reality,

That’s how it ought to be.

We will follow God’s command,

Spread the word through all the land,

Scatter love on every hand,

Cause that’s how it ought to be! See!

Out of the mouths of babes. We live together happily, we get along in harmony. We’ll make the dream a reality. Scatter love on every hand, because that’s how it ought to be. See!? Thanks be to God.

Meditation for Hymnal Dedication

Exodus 15:1-13

Psalm 98

Luke 1:39-55

Colossians 3:12-17

Anne Lamott is a best-selling author, a beautiful story teller and theologian. In her book Traveling Mercies, she tells the stories of her life. At age 30, she found herself living in a tiny apartment, pregnant, addicted to cocaine, a wanderer who was lost, hurt, and broken. I love this story of how she was found, of how she came to faith in Christ through the beauty of music. She writes:

On the weekends, the gigantic lot where the Greyhound bus depot used to be was transformed into one of the country’s largest flea markets…every square foot was taken up with booths and trucks and beach umbrellas and tables and blankets…This is where I liked to be when I was hungover or coming down off a cocaine binge, here in the dust with all things for sale to cheer me up. If I happened to be there between eleven and one of Sundays, I could hear gospel music coming from a church across the street. It was called St. Andrew Presbyterian, and it looked homely and impoverished, a ramshackle building with a cross on top. But the music wafting out was so pretty that I would stop and listen.

Finally, I began stopping in at St. Andrew from time to time, standing in the doorway to listen to the songs. I couldn’t believe how run down it was, but it had a choir of five black women and one rather Amish-looking white man making all that glorious noise, and a congregation of 30 people or so, radiating kindness and warmth. Scripture was read, and the minister would preach, and it would be all about social injustice—and Jesus, which would be enough to send me running back to the sanctuary of the flea market.

I went back to St. Andrew once a month. No one tried to con me into sitting down or staying. I always left before the sermon. I loved singing, even about Jesus, but I just didn’t want to be preached to about him. To me, Jesus made about as much sense as Scientology. But the church smelled wonderful. There were always children running around or being embraced, and a gorgeous stick-thin deaf black girl singing to her mother, hearing the songs and the Scriptures through her mother’s flashing fingers. But it was the singing that pulled me in and split me wide open. I could sing better here than I ever had before. As part of these people, even though I stayed in the doorway, I did not recognize my own voice or know where it was coming from, but sometimes I felt like I could sing forever. 

Eventually, a few months after I started coming, I took a seat in one of the folding chairs. Then the singing enveloped me. It was furry and resonant, coming from everyone’s heart. There was no sense of performance or judgment, only that the music was breath and food. Something inside me that was stiff and rotting would feel soft and tender. Somehow the singing wore down all the boundaries and distinctions that kept me so isolated. Sitting there, standing with them to sing, sometimes so shaky and sick that I felt like I might tip over, I felt bigger than myself, like I was being taken care of, trickled into coming back to life.

The sounds coming from the sanctuary drew her in, eventually drawing her back into life. It wasn’t the words found in the prayers of confession and thanksgiving, the thoughts of proclamation, or the rituals of sacrament that helped her pick up the pieces of her life, but the sounds and the singing and the songs. The music was breath, food, life to her, sentiments that drew her back into life, drew her to Christ. And she did eventually start staying for the sermon, stayed so much that she has even dared to teach the stories of Jesus to children in Sunday school!

There are so many times in our lives when we simply can’t find the spoken words to express our thanksgiving or our sorrow, our fears or our joys, our absolute brokenness, so many times when spoken words simply aren’t adequate. That is when we turn to the songs that fill our hearts and our lives.

I think about the effect that music has in my own life: about how I get weepy when we sing the last verse to Love Divine, All Loves Excelling: “Finish then, thy new creation; pure and spotless let us be. Let us see thy new creation perfectly restored in thee.” I get weepy since we sang this affirmation of resurrection in Christ at my grandmother and aunt’s funerals. I think about how I have turned to the lyrics and melodies of the Indigo Girls and Adele this week as I have experienced the brokenness that sometimes come with relationship; think about the beautiful moments of music, some of the most spiritual moments of my life, as I have listened to 1,000 youth and college students lift their voices in Anderson Auditorium at Montreat. Music puts breath into my life.

Music fills all of our lives, so I don’t think it’s an accident that music rings throughout our Scripture, from the very beginning of our faith story. Moses and the Israelites sang a song of salvation when they were brought out of their slavery after so long: “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the Lord is my strength and my might, and he has become my salvation.” The psalmist sang a song of thanksgiving as he urged us to “sing to the Lord a new song, for God has done marvelous things. Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break into joyous song and sing praises.” Mary, a scared, unmarried, pregnant teenager, sang of song of acceptance and praise to the Lord: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” And I love that Paul tells us to join together in song to celebrate that we are God’s chosen ones: “Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another…forgive each other. Clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony…let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly…and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.”

From the Israelites who sing praise after their salvation, to Mary who sings praise in her ultimate thanksgiving to God, songs resound throughout our Scripture—songs of lament, songs of praise, songs of anguish, songs of thanksgiving, songs of community. There is something about music that breathes breath into the broken pieces of our lives, something that leads us to stand in the doorways of the sanctuary and breaks us open until we feel welcomed and ready and open enough to hear the story of Christ. And then, when we are opened up by the life found in the community of Christ, opened up and made new by the message of Christ’s love, we are called to come together, to live. Called to come and celebrate and be community together, to clothe ourselves with the love of Christ and bind ourselves together with psalms and hymn and spiritual songs. All to God. All for God. Thanks be to God.

The Topsy Turvy Table

When [Jesus] noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when the host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invited your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Luke 14:7-14

If you ask any preacher, they will more than likely tell you that there are many Scripture passages so rich, so full of imagery, so full of story and challenge, so full of different and rich ways to share the message, that oftentimes it is difficult to focus on one way to tell the story, one way to share the message, one way to get the meaning across in one simple sermon. This just happens to be the case with today’s passage from Luke’s gospel—this passage about Jesus and the guests at a wedding banquet, a passage in which Jesus uses a parable to challenge us and share good news with us in so many deep and profound ways. When I went to bed Tuesday night, I was pretty convinced I had found my angle for today’s passage, hopeful that I would be able to preach it many other times and share many other messages.

But then I woke up Wednesday. As I turned on the tv to watch the

daily news, I was reminded that our nation was celebrating the 50th anniversary

of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, a speech that transformed

our nation in the midst of a crucial time of change and challenge. As I do on every Wednesday during the school year, I walked to the campus student center to have lunch with our students. We began to talk about this historic day in reference to the new movie "The Butler," a movie that chronicles the journey of an African-American man who served with honor, grace, and dignity as the White House butler for Presidents Truman through Reagan. The story tells the tale of this time in our country 50 years ago as it shows the images of Freedom Riders being burned out of their bus, young college students being cussed out and spat upon as they tried to integrate lunch counters all over the south, of young children soaked by fire hoses and snarled at by awful police dogs in Birmingham. The young women who were talking about the movie, both of whom grew up in Alabama, talked about how hard it was to see these awful images of our state, how hard it was to grow up seeing the beauty and goodness of our state while also learning to forgive our awful and racist past. It was a fascinating conversation, and I was thinking about all of it as I walked back to my office after lunch, thinking about King's speech in relation to our Gospel story.

As I got back to the church and walked into the door by my office, I heard the tv blaring from the room down the hall, heard MLK's unmistakable and distinguished voice booming from the speakers. I figured that one of our students had stopped by to hang out or eat lunch in between classes, so I popped my head in to say hello. But as I walked into the room, I noticed that it was someone else--not one of our students, but an older, dirty, disheveled, obviously poor African-American man named Wendell, a man who had stopped by my office many times before to ask for money, a man who I actually found in my closed office one day this summer when I came back to the church. From my experiences with him, I think he also might be suffering from some mental illness. When he saw me, he said, "Hi, Rachel. I stopped by to see if I could borrow some money, but you weren't here, so I sat down to watch this for a few minutes." Still feeling weird after finding him in my office this summer, and not really knowing what else to do, I simply sat down in the room with him to watch the beautiful and challenging speech once again.

"Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children." As Wendell and I sat there and watched, Dr. King's words rang out in a new way for me:

We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their adulthood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and the Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream.

As I sat there with Wendell, I thought about him, about what he must have been thinking, about how degrading it must be for him to come and ask this younger, white, privileged woman for money so often. I thought about how desperate that must feel, about what his life must be like. His body is heavy with the fatigue of begging, and I wondered if he has the shelter of a home, much less a hotel or motel. I wondered if he has the necessary documents to procure an ID so he can simply vote, wondered about his mobility and how he gets from place to place, wondered about his life, if he can indeed feel satisfied with the justice and mercy for which Dr. King fought and yearned. I felt very convicted, wondering why I had never stopped to ask Wendell his story, never stopped to ask about how he got to this place. I felt convicted that I had offered him money for food when I had it, but had never offered to take him to a restaurant downtown and set a banquet meal for him.

And before I knew it, as Dr. King was finishing his speech, I began to feel my eyes welling up and tears rolling down my cheeks. I’m not gonna lie—it kind of turned into an ugly cry, actually—so ugly that I think it scared Wendell since he left as soon as we had finished watching the speech. I sat in my office chair for a few minutes after he left, thinking that I clearly have more work to do to help achieve this dream. I hesitate to speak for Dr. King, and I certainly wouldn’t dare to put words into his mouth, but I hope, imagine, that our passage from Luke today had a huge effect on his ministry, on his preaching, on his mission to provide an equal table for everyone. Throughout his ministry, Dr. King fought for equality for everyone, regardless of skin color, regardless of place, regardless of circumstance. And even though his fight for racial equality is the most highlighted piece of his mission, he also fought for economic and social justice, and as his life was drawing to an awful close, for an end to the violence of a war that he thought was unjust. You know, a lot of me wonders what his response would have been to our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, what he would be thinking today as we contemplate what to do about Syria.

I have to believe that Dr. King was heavily influenced by this story of the wedding banquet, as most ministers are. Seating at banquets during Biblical time was weighted heavily on place in society, on money, on privilege and power. The most powerful guests got the best seats, the seats of honor. It was presumed that less powerful guests would have to move a seat lower down as the rich and more powerful guests filtered in, late probably, expecting a show as folks moved to worse seats so the more powerful could take the seats of honor.

But Jesus turns these presumptions on their heads. He has a different vision of what the wedding banquet should be like, a different vision of what should happen in the wedding banquet between us and the church: “When you are invited,” Jesus says, “go and sit down at the lowest place…when you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors…invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for your will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Go out and invite the least of these, Jesus says, the ones who are too left out and diminished to ever be invited to a fancy wedding feast; the ones who are so quickly judged by their circumstance in life; the ones who are deemed too unclean to even enter the temple for worship. Jesus calls for the banquet table to be set—but not set as usual with people of power and privilege. Jesus calls for a table to which everyone—everyone—is invited, a table open to everyone. Jesus calls for a topsy-turvy table, a table set upside down, a table of equality where every seat is equal and every person invited, fed, clothed, and cleansed as the child of God that they are. We don’t get to make the choice of who is invited, of who has to move to worse seats—because everyone is invited and no one has to move. It is a table of equality, of grace, of love.

That is the messianic banquet, the messianic vision. Jesus sets this vision for us and calls us to live it out. But let’s be honest. All we have to do is look around and realize that there is still more work to do. When some of our cities rule that churches can’t give food to homeless people because of trash left behind—without even bothering to wonder if the homeless have more worries on their mind than trash—we have lots of work to do. When families in our very own community have to come to our Presbyterian Community Ministry because they have a choice to either buy food for their children or pay their power bill, we have lots more work to do. When our prisons are busting at the seams, we have more work to do. When people are discriminated against, especially in the church where they are told that the table is set for everyone else but them, for any reason—because of their race, gender, sexuality, religion, or status in society, we have more work to do. When our nation debates violence as a solution to violence in another country, we clearly have more work to do. So much more work to do.

I was blessed to celebrate at an actual wedding feast last weekend as I served communion at the wedding of a dear friend of mine. The communion table at the church, Black Mountain Presbyterian in Montreat, really struck me. While most of our communion tables say, “Do this in remembrance of me,” this one was a bit different. The front of the table read, “Has everyone been fed?” What a beautiful question to ask. What a necessary one to ask. As Christians, maybe those are the kinds of questions we need to be asking as we set Christ’s banquet for each other:

Has everyone been treated equally?

Has everyone been welcomed?

Has everyone heard the good news?

Has everyone been invited ?

HAS EVERYONE BEEN FED AT CHRIST'S TOPSY-TURVY TABLE?

 Have they? Thanks be to God. Amen.

What Keeps Us From Christ

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him a soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves. But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

Luke 12:32-40

“What Keeps Us From Christ”

My niece and nephew love to watch movies, and they always ask me to watch one when I’m in town. Inevitably, being the 16-year-old teenager that he is, Blake usually asks me to watch something that is scary, something with lots of blood and a murderer running around town, something that will make me jump out of my seat as something or someone jumps out on the screen. And my response is always the same: “Blake, I hate scary movies. There is enough in the real world to make me afraid that I don’t need to be fake scared.”

And it’s true. Isn’t there enough in the real world to scare the dickens out of us, to make us afraid, to make us fear the world and everything and everyone around us? All we have to do is turn on the TV to any major news channel to read the constant ticker at the bottom, read our local paper online or at our breakfast table, or listen to the news on the radio to know that there is a lot to fear out there in our broken world. I happened to look at cnn.com one day this week as I was thinking about what makes us afraid. No lie—these were the top breaking stories: --Flooding in 12 states. --A heart stent for our past president. --One dad who says that a kidnapping suspect was like family; another dad who feared that a body found was that of his missing son. --A terror threat for Americans across the world. --7 drone strikes in 2 weeks. --A bitter fight at the Fort Hood murder trial. --A house of terror in which 3 women were brutalized for 10 years finally being torn down.

Luckily, all of these breaking news stories were followed by the “breaking news” of Beyonce’s new haircut, but still. Those top stories tell us all that we need to know—that we are living in a world where natural disasters tear lives apart, where illness like heart disease can change our lives in an instant, where children and women are subject to brutality and murder, where people wake up simply to wonder where their next meal is coming from, where un or underemployment colors what we do every day, where issues of violence and terror sometimes seem to reign in our lives. It is a world that is scary and broken and sinful, a world that causes so much distress and fear.

“Do not be afraid, little flock,” Jesus says, “for it is God’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Do not be afraid, our Savior reminds us. It is easy to hear Jesus’ words to us, but so very hard to take them to heart, to believe them, to live them. There is so much brokenness and sinfulness in the world that keeps us afraid, brokenness that keeps us from the world, that keeps us from each other, so much that keeps us from our Christ.

Think about some of the things we face each day:

--We live in fear of losing what we have, the stuff we have attained, the busyness of our everyday lives. We spend so much time each day flipping from channel to channel, driving from appointment to appointment, eating our meals in the car, on the run, filling up our calendars with meetings. So many of us, myself included, have so much when there are others with so little in the world. I look at my house, a home designed for a family of 4, a home that is filled (and I do mean filled) with the stuff of 1 person instead. Enough. So much stuff.  There is so much noise in our lives. And all of that keeps us from being with God. We are so scared to give up what we have, afraid to give up what we see as our stake in the world, afraid that, if we really spend our time talking to God, that God will prompt us to something new, something scary and unexpected. Jesus says to us, “Do not be afraid, little flock…Sell your possessions, and give alms. . . for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

--We live in a country that is so wonderful and rich and diverse in so many ways, but we are so often afraid to celebrate that diversity. Instead, we focus on what divides us, our deep political divisions, our divisions among class that are growing wider each day, our divisions among race and religion and sexuality. Instead of celebrating the incredibly diverse culture we have, celebrating those around us and what we can learn from each other, we each retreat to our own corners. Instead of talking to each other and learning from our differences, we demonize each other, refusing to take the risk of opening ourselves up to challenge, or—God forbid—the possibility that we might be wrong. Instead of sharing stories with each other, we throw rocks at each other, proclaiming that we are better or more perfect or more faithful. Simply put, instead of celebrating each person as a child of God, we live in fear of the “other,” lest they challenge our beliefs or presumptions or standing in the world, lest they challenge us to give up our need for power. The fear of losing our lives and our livelihoods keeps us from being in relationship with one another. I love that Luke tells us that, when Jesus comes back, the tables of presumption and power will be overturned: “Do not be afraid, little flock…Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them.” Jesus will come and tell us to put aside our fears. Jesus the King will come and invited the slaves to dine at table.

--We live in fear of opening up our lives and hearts because of our experiences with other people in the past—when we have been hurt by the selfishness of others, we shut ourselves down, afraid to be hurt again. When we have been deeply hurt in relationships—friendships, in our family lives, in our romantic relationships, we become too afraid to open ourselves up to love again. When we have been lonely and are desperate for love, it is sometimes easier to live in fear and stay alone rather than open our hearts and lives up to the pain that sometimes accompanies the riskiness of love. It is easier to live in fear, to be afraid, than to risk vulnerability and openness and the pain that sometimes comes with them. We are too afraid to truly experience relationship and all that comes with it. In so many ways, it is easier to turn our lights, our lives off, rather than shine brightly with the light of new possibility. But our Lord reassures us once again, “Do not be afraid, little flock. . . have your lamps lit.”

“Do not be afraid,” Jesus says, but there is so much that keeps us afraid, keeps us fearful in our world. Our fear, our risk of losing what we have earned and bought, of losing what we have kept, of losing our power and place in the world, keeps us from living in the world and seeing the great need that is all around us. Our fear of opening ourselves up to those who are different keeps us from seeing the diversity all around us, protects us from challenging the way we live our lives, protects us from challenge from our long-held beliefs. Our fear keeps us from changing, and that ultimately keeps us from growing and becoming more whole as we learn from our brothers and sisters around us. And our fear keeps us from being in relationship with each other. Each and every one of us has been hurt by our love for someone else, and we are so afraid of experiencing that kind of pain again—and that comes with the great risk of losing possibility, losing love, losing hope.

All of that fear, all of that being afraid, is what keeps us from relationship with each other, and a result, from Christ. When we have so much in our lives that blocks us from opening up, so much that holds us back from sharing what we have, so much that keeps us from loving each other, we are keeping ourselves from relationship with Christ. Christ constantly calls us to give what we have to each other, to share our lives together, to make sure everyone, no matter what their circumstance, is taken care of—fed, clothed, cleaned, cleansed, sheltered, loved. Christ tells us not to be afraid and then calls us to open our lives up to the possibility that something amazing might just happen when we put our fears aside. I don’t think it’s an accident that the imperative rings out throughout our Gospel: to Zechariah as he fervently prays for a son; to Mary as she finds out she is having a child; to the shepherds in the field as they hear news about a child who has been born; to Simon Peter and the others as they are called to discipleship; to Jairus as he begs for Jesus to bring his daughter back to life; to the disciples as they begin to realize the reality and cost of following him. Do not fear. Do not be afraid. Open the treasure of your wallets to make sure others have what they need to live. Open the treasure of your hearts to the new possibility and power of love. Open the treasure of your lives to the hope and richness that comes from loving with your brothers and sisters. Open your lives to Christ.

This passage tells us so much about how to live our lives, and it ultimately tells us so much about our God as revealed in Jesus Christ. The passage tells us about an intimate God, a God who cares about us, craves relationship with us. It tells us about a God who will come at an unexpected time not to punish, but to abundantly bless. I love how Audrey West says it in her theological perspective. She reminds us that this passage, this imperative to not be afraid, is a reminder of God’s sovereignty and gracious protection, a certain antidote to the human problems of misplaced confidence, complacency, and fear. She says, “This is not a God who, after creating the universe, sits back and dispassionately watches it all unfold. This is a God who attends to the sparrows, ravens, and lilies, a God whose concern for humankind extends to the very hairs of our heads, a God whose desire is to give the treasure of heaven.” Our fear of the world, our fear of opening our lives up, our fear of loving, is indeed what keeps us from each other, what keeps us from Christ. But Christ tells us to stop living in fear, to stop being afraid, to start living and to start loving. And with such great grace, such overwhelming forgiveness, such incredible love, Christ shows us how to live. Thanks be to God.

Mary and Martha

Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

Luke 10:38-42

Have you ever had one of those moments, a moment when a stranger surprised you by asking a random question out of the blue, one where a friend or acquaintance confronted you about something that you totally weren’t expecting, one where you were surprised and taken aback, one where you wished you had said and done everything differently when you actually had time to sit down and think about what in the world had just happened? Although I’m pretty sure that I have these moments weekly in my life, one of them in particular always sticks out.

My former church, my first call out of seminary, was a small, lovely, welcoming congregation, and they reached out to me with open arms. I was the first associate they had ever had, and certainly the first woman to preach from their pulpit. I had been there for about 4 years, and the head of staff had just left for another call. Much like I have been doing for the past several months here, I assumed both jobs, preaching, visiting, planning liturgy, attending lots of committee meetings, helping to dream for the future. The interim pastor nominating committee had just completed its work, offering a call to an interim, a call approved and extended by the session. Although I had nothing to do with the process, I was so excited about the committee’s choice—a qualified, loving, thoughtful, and active pastor, actually a childhood friend of mine married to another pastor in town. And, like me, she was a girl.

I’ll never forget the Sunday—I had just finished preaching and leading our first worship service, and I was heading back to my office to decompress for a bit. The church offices were right outside of the sanctuary, and I was walking through our secretary’s office to get to mine when I was, simply put, accosted by a male church member. He started yelling at me, ranting and raving: “Rachel, I’m angry about this (words edited for church consumption). What was the committee doing? What were they thinking? How could you let this happen?” This is when I made the first bad decision of this encounter—even engaging this man in the first place. I should’ve asked him to leave and come back when he could speak rationally. But I didn’t. There was a senior high sitting there and I didn’t want him to see this bad behavior, so I made the second bad decision of this encounter, asking the church member to come to my office with me. My office was small, no window and only one door, so I quickly realized that he basically had me cornered. And let me just pause to thank whatever genius designed my office here—two doors! One to open and one to back out of if needed! But I digress. I asked him why he was so upset with the committee’s choice, tried to explain our polity to him and that I had nothing to do with it. And then it came out: “Because it’s a woman! We can’t have two women ministers here. That’s disgraceful. ALL WOMEN ARE JUST ALIKE.”

Until this point, I had been surprised and scared by all of this, but that’s when I got angry myself. I felt attacked. Shocked. Angry that he would attack like that. Angry that he assumed that we were just alike. Angry that he made stereotypes—about her, about me-angry that he was taking it all out on me. And then came my third bad choice when I said, angrily, shaking: “Um, there are other churches in this presbytery with all male ministers. Would you dare say the same about them.” Yes, it made him more angry and he yelled more. Luckily, one of our elders finally heard all of it and came in to demand that he leave.

I started thinking later about everything I did wrong and about how I would address something like this if it ever happened again. I think that, after asking to come back and talk when he had calmed down, I would have whipped my Bible out and shared our story from today with him—the story of Mary and Martha and Jesus at their home. I think that it’s such a wonderful, rich story about two sisters, two women with very different demeanors and outlooks and actions, a story about the importance of women in Christ’s story, a story about their relationship with their friend and Lord. These two women are nuanced and complex, exciting for me, for all of, really, to think about.

As long-winded as the gospel of Luke can be at times, the story of Mary and Martha as told in Luke is a short one—a short one, but an interesting and very telling one. Jesus and the others have made their way to a village, and we hear that Martha is the one who welcomes them, invites Jesus into her home. This suggests that Martha already has some familiarity with Jesus, a sign on the friendship between Jesus and Martha and her family that we hear about a few times in the gospels. Luke immediately places Mary, Martha’s sister, at Jesus’ feet, quietly listening to him. Martha has other plans, busily working away—it is generally assumed that she is preparing a meal for him, but the story doesn’t give much detail. Perhaps she is cooking, perhaps preparing a bowl of warm water to clean his dirty feet, perhaps cleaning a bit because of the surprise visit, perhaps all of them since the text tells us that she is distracted by many tasks. And, like many of us would if we were doing all of this and found our sister simply sitting, Martha gets a bit agitated: “’Seriously, Lord, don’t you care that Mary is just sitting here doing nothing? Please tell her to get off her rear and come help.’” “’Martha,’” he replies, “Mary has chosen the better part, made the better choice. I can’t take this away from her.” Although we don’t know the tone that Jesus uses with Martha, I think it’s pretty safe to assume that it is a gentle one, a pastoral one, one that is not as harsh as elsewhere in the gospels.

Scholars have suggested many different interpretations of this scene: some suggesting that each character is one-dimensional and polarized by her deeds; others suggesting that the characters represent the abstract types of active (Martha) vs. contemplative (Mary) lifestyles. Some scholars suggests that, when Jesus tells Martha that Mary is doing the better part, Jesus is telling women to sit down and be quiet and stay silent, certain justification for women staying silent in church. On the complete opposite side, other scholars suggest that this story is a manifesto for the importance of educating women as Mary sits at his feet to learn. Still others suggest that this story helps us wrestle with the theological question of justification of works (Martha) vs. justification by faith (Mary).

I think that all of these are very interesting interpretations and suggestions, but I also resist the temptation to polarize Mary and Martha. I think it sells these two women short. I think these two faithful, active, nuanced women of faith tell us a lot about what it takes to be a Christian, a true follower of Christ, that to be followers, we have to be both listeners and actors, people who sit at Jesus feet to hear the gospel and then get on our own feet to share it.

In our worship and Sunday school time together, at our conferences and camps, and in our fellowship and mission time together, we talk about how vital it is to go and spread the story of Christ, share the love of Christ to all of those around us. We talk about how important it is to be hospitable and welcoming, to feed and reach out to those in need, to love as Christ loves. And I think that is what Martha is doing in our story—cleaning and cooking, preparing and making a space ready for Christ to come in, trying to show her love for him. But as we watch Martha’s frustration grow that Mary is simply sitting at Jesus’ feet, Jesus rightly reminds her that we can’t get on our feet to share the story until we have sat at Jesus’ own feet, until we have closed out the world around us to listen to what God is doing in our midst, to be reminded of the reason we are called to go out into the world. If we don’t know the gospel story before we rise to our feet to go out and share it, then what is the point?

You know, when people ask me why I love Montreat so much, I think of this story, of Mary in this story, of how she sits and listens and learns at the feet of Christ. It was so lovely last week to watch our senior highs, teenagers who are normally so busy with honors classes and dance, with band and show choir, with work and hanging out with friends, simply sit and play and wonder and pray explore and listen at Christ’s feet. They took a week out of their busy, crazy worlds, their worlds that move so fast, to simply be still and be renewed, to hear the story of Christ in a new and fresh way. And as incredible as it was for them, it was for the adults who were with them. One of us was walking through the grief of losing a friend, another in the midst of transition from college to a graduate intern program in nutrition. And one of us had spent the last few months working two jobs and running around like a crazy woman. All of us needed to get away from Martha’s distractions of the world and simply stop and sit like Mary did, to listen and pray and worship and be renewed in the story of Christ. Montreat allowed all of us to stop in the midst of our crazy worlds, in the midst of our distractions, for a while to sit at Jesus’ feet, to be like Mary, to listen and be refreshed and hear the story. We all wanted to stay in that place, but as much as we all would’ve liked to, we had to leave that lovely and beautiful part of God’s creation. We had to embrace the good of what we had just learned as Mary before we could go out into the world like Martha to act and prepare and love—because, as we were reminded on our final day, being a Christian is a thing of nuance, of being both a listener and an actor, of being someone who is called to sit at Jesus’ feet and then go out and be his feet in the world.

One theologian suggests that the word for “better” in this story is best translated as “good,” that Mary has “chosen the ‘good’ part, meaning she has chosen the connection to God who is good. That this story should be seen

…not as reinforcing a Martha-Mary dichotomy but calling for a recognition that God is both inside and outside, sustaining us while summoning us to work and, through our service, to bring about a world of justice, mercy, and peace. It is not an either/or message but a both/and message (Feasting on the Word).

Indeed, it is that—a recognition that God moves in and through us, inside and out, in amazing ways; that we are called to the good part to learn about a good God who inspires us to do many things in the world through service.

As you can probably tell, I love this story, these women, their love for their friend and Lord.  And I really love that Luke gives us an incomplete picture of Mary and Martha. It is so tempting for us to stop reading here, stop learning about these nuanced and complicated and different women at verse 42, where Luke stops. But there’s more. John sheds a new light on these women in his gospel. In the 11^th chapter, we find Martha and Mary grieving over their dear brother, Lazarus, who has passed away. This story sheds new light on Martha and Mary, as sisters, as prophets who both find a new way to proclaim the gospel.

After hoping for a miracle and then mourning terribly, Martha approaches Jesus, and in her pain says to him, “’Lord, if you had been here, he wouldn’t have died.’” Martha makes a Christological statement as she foreshadows the coming death and resurrection of Christ: “’I know that [Lazarus] will rise again in the resurrection on the last day…[and] Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” And after Jesus performs a miracle by bringing their brother back from the dead, Mary makes a Christological statement of her own, in her very own way. As Martha makes the dinner for Christ that she didn’t make so long ago, Mary takes a pound of perfumed ointment, takes Jesus’ feet in her hands, anoints them, and wipes them with her beautiful hair.

Mary and Martha, Martha and Mary, are fascinating, nuanced, smart, and savvy women. They are certainly very different in the way that they approach and live their lives, but alike in this: that Christ is their friend, their brother, their Lord. Through their encounters with Christ, they help us remember that it is so easy to get distracted by the things of the world, and help us to know that we must sit at Christ’s feet to hear the story of love, the story of grace, the story of resurrection. And Mary and Martha help us know and celebrate that we are called to share that story of Christ in the world. Thanks be to God. Amen.