Pestering Jesus, The 2017 Ziegler Award Sermon

On June 17, 2017, I received the Wilbur C. Ziegler Award for Excellence in Preaching from the New England Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church.  The opportunity to preach to one's colleagues and siblings in the faith is the blessing conferred on the fortunate one chosen. The theme of the 2017 Conference was "Vital Conversations:  Racism".   

Text:  Matthew 15:21-28

Date:  June 17, 2017 (Ziegler Award Sermon)

New England Annual Conference, Manchester, NH

© Thomas L. Blackstone, Ph.D., Preacher

Matthew 15:21 Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” 23 But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” 24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” 26 He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” 27 She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” 28 Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

Pestering Jesus

First of all, I want to thank my amazing congregation Pleasant St. UMC for nominating me for this honor, particularly Grenda Banton, Kerri Oliver, Carol Crothers and their confederates who helped make this happen.  I also want to acknowledge the members of my church, including the choir, who left Waterville at 4:30 this morning to get here, because evidently, they had nothing better to do on a Saturday in June.  Actually, I think it had more to do with meeting Mark Miller, given that we have been singing his words all the way through Lent.

I’m also grateful for my family being here, my oldest Alex who works as a counselor with troubled teens in the Maine woods to help turn their lives around, my son Patrick who is departing for the University of Indiana in a couple of weeks to enter a Ph.D. program in theoretical physics, probing the mysteries of the universe, and my daughter Laura who studies math, computer science, and geology at Brown University about a mile from Rev. Ziegler’s former church in Providence.  And, of course, Lynn my wife of 31 years who enriches the lives of kids with autism and other challenges as a speech pathologist in Augusta.  She also keeps our family on track, and how all five of us got here today on time, with matching socks, I have no idea, but she (I suspect) does.

I also want to thank the saints in my life who have inspired me as a Christian, as a preacher, and as a member of the New England Annual Conference, this body which has shown such courage in standing for change and for justice in troubled times.  These folks are too many to name individually, but let me call attention to three people who are close to my heart today:  Vicki Woods is heroically typical of the incredible District Superintendents that I have served under for the last 26 years.  She has been a voice for justice from my first days in ministry, and she helped my congregation figure out how to nominate me for this award, so if you don’t like what you hear, blame Vicki.  I’m also thankful for the life of the late H. Everett Wiswell, who was my pastor in Caribou, ME in 1978, when as a High School Junior I screwed up my courage and shared with him (after a week at Mechuwana) that I felt called to ministry.  Had he chuckled or rolled his eyes or told me to go grow up a little, I might have never said another word, but instead he honored that holy moment in my life with Christ-like compassion and love, for which I am grateful.  Finally, I’m remembering my doctoral advisor, the late Dr. Fred Craddock who helped me figure out how to be a student of the Bible and a pastor at the same time.  In the great circle of scholars at Emory University, Fred was the one who found me in my confusion about where I was headed, and helped me find my way through the Ph.D. program and back to the church, all the while being an inspiration in every sense of the word. 

[And I should add that of the three people I just mentioned, Vicki Woods is the TALL one!  So, it’s a good day for the short people!]

And it is essential to remember, as well, the Rev. Wilbur C. Ziegler, who so inspired his congregation in Providence with his “compassion, optimism, ability, courage, and sensitivity” that they created this award in his honor.  I never met him personally, but I have blessed by his legacy and inspired by his character and faith.

You have to know that I have been listening to the Wilbur C. Ziegler sermon every year at annual conference for nearly 25 years.  And every year that I’ve heard it, I’ve shared one thought with every United Methodist Pastor who was listening with me.  “Thank God that isn’t me!”  My second thought, of course, has been to realize how God has used my amazing colleagues and siblings in the faith to break open some fresh perspective on God’s word, and God willing that will happen again today. 

Will you pray with me?  Holy and Gracious Lord, who quiets the fear in every trembling heart, use these moments as you desire: to bless, to heal, to challenge, or to mend, and may your holy wisdom reveal herself to our hearts, either because of or in spite of your servant.  Amen. 

A Canaanite woman stood in the road… A Canaanite woman stood in the road…not the Syrophoenician woman we read about in Mark’s gospel, no, a Canaanite woman, torn from the very pages of the ancient Torah, 1000 years or more out of time.  If some of you Whovians are wondering if she just stepped out of a blue police call box, you’d be justified.  Matthew has conjured up a time traveler, an ancient enemy, a mother from one of seven tribes driven out to make room in the Promised Land for the children of Israel.  You remember the Canaanites from Deuteronomy 7:1 don’t you, that passage you assign to your lay leader when she’s being difficult?  How Moses predicted military defeat over the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, “seven nations larger and stronger than you,” he said.  “And how should we treat these scoundrels, Moses, when we come into the land?” the people inquired. 

And Moses, speaking for God, responded with words that still trouble us:  “You must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, … show them no mercy.  Do not intermarry with them. …Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, …. burn their idols in the fire.”  …Show / them / no / mercy.  It’s as though Moses said, “They are incompatible with the love of God.”

So, when a Canaanite woman appears in the road standing before Jesus…wow.  Now we get to see what happens when the incarnate Son of God crosses paths with the sworn enemy of the Ancient Hebrews.  And when Jesus’ friends saw her, did those devastating words from the Great Lawgiver echo in their minds, “Show them no mercy.” 

Well, then the Canaanite woman makes a ruckus.  Not content simply to be in Jesus’ presence, she not only speaks her truth, she shouts her truth, and the first words out of her mouth?  “Have mercy.”  “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.”  “Have mercy on me, Lord.”  So here she is, the very embodiment of the outsider, the rejected one, whose exclusion from mercy came from the very lips of Moses himself, speaking for God, and she asks for the very thing that the Bible says she can’t have:  Mercy.  Not because she’s unworthy, not because she’s a bad mother, not because she has an evil reputation, but simply because…she was born that way:  born on the wrong side of the racial, ethnic, tribal line that had stood for centuries.  By cursing her people, Moses had cursed all of their descendants, including her demon-possessed daughter.  Mercy indeed.  “Go study your Bible, woman,” the disciples might have said with justification.  “There is no mercy for you.” 

Well I wish I could say that Jesus moved quickly to lift this ancient curse, but it’s to Matthew’s credit that he doesn’t give us the inspired story we want, but the inspired story we need.  Jesus, for whatever reason, does what the body of Christ still does when confronted with the one who doesn’t quite fit our definition of acceptable.  Jesus, says…nothing.  Dead silence.  “But he did not answer her at all,” Matthew says.  Given the harsh words of Deuteronomy, maybe Jesus considered that silence was a merciful response, but this woman began to disturb the bureaucracy with her shouting, her protest, her misbehavior, and soon the disciples are whispering in Jesus’ ear that he must dismiss her because… she is driving them crazy.

          So Jesus, seeing that silence isn’t working so well, speaks, not words of liberation, but (I’m sorry to say) words of “policy.”

“I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  (whew!)

Understand that Jesus doesn’t say these words to the Canaanite woman, the victim of his silence.  He speaks this policy to his brothers, his inner circle, his council of advisors, his general conference if you will.  And within that tightly knit circle of like-minded individuals, this resolves the situation:  A Canaanite woman has asked for help, ignoring her was ineffective, but now we have issued a policy statement that covers her situation.  Her daughter doesn’t meet our eligibility requirements for assistance.  “Sorry, Canaanite woman, you’ll have to get help someplace else.”  And we have to assume that one of the disciples carried this news to her, or even worse that she had to endure listening to her eligibility for mercy being debated by a group of people that had given her no greeting, offered her no right to speak, and did not even bother to learn her name.  Because, you see in that moment she wasn’t a person, a mother, a fellow human being in the eyes of the infant church.  She was an “issue,” a problem, an agenda item, a complication to be dealt with. 

What happens next is perhaps best summarized by the words of the unlikely prophet Sen. McConnell.  “She had appeared to violate the rule. She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”  [US Senate, 2.7.17]

Yes, those Canaanite women are everywhere. 

But she came and knelt before Jesus, saying, “Lord, help me.”

I have to imagine that that was not an easy thing to do.  And I mean literally that I have to imagine it because I have never been in her situation.  Because white, middle-class, over-educated, straight men in our culture… don’t have the experience that this woman just had, we aren’t spoken of in the third person by those in power, we are not categorized in ways that subsume our sacred personhood under a label.  We have the privilege of being spoken to, not spoken about.  So, before those of us who carry such privilege in our backpack, assume that we would not intrude upon Jesus’s personal space with such audacity and boldness, or that we would not humble ourselves before a group that had just so disrespected us, let’s you and I walk a mile or two in her shoes, her Canaanite shoes. 

The conversation that Jesus and woman proceed to have is unworthy of our Jesus, and Matthew knows that.  But Matthew, inspired by the Holy Spirit, needs us to hear it because the church still, to this day, confuses justice and charity.  Jesus said to this woman, weary from night after night of rubbing her daughter’s back, bathing her forehead, listening to her cries, holding her trembling body, to her Jesus said, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” And summoning every ounce of self-control that she can, the woman answers, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” 

When I hear her say those words, it breaks my heart.  Because it says that she has been so beaten down, and so consumed by worry for her child, that she will sacrifice her own dignity for the sake of another.  In this moment she is Messianic, she is self-sacrificing, she is embodying the love of God. 

I see this woman’s face, every day, in fact:   in the women who walk into the Food Bank in my Church, and I hear her voice in the words that are spoken as they register and check in.  I am grateful that these women are treated with respect and dignity by our volunteers, but I know they’ve heard the comments hurled at them by our society:  “freeloaders, welfare queens, lazy, good for nothing.”  When we give to the poor out of our abundance, are we distributing crumbs to the dogs under the Master’s table (along with a helping of shame and humiliation)?  Or are we, conscious of our unclean hands, partnering with God to try to undo the economic injustice of our society, that has made a handful of people fabulously wealthy, while leaving scraps for public education, health care, nutrition, housing, college tuition, and job training? 

Does it still have to be said in 21^st century America that it is not a sin to be poor, that it is not a sin to be sick, illiterate, marginalized, mentally ill, addicted, bankrupt, persecuted, a refugee from tyrants, a teenager who is bullied?  Being weak or in-need shouldn’t put someone under the table with the dogs.  In God’s kingdom it is the hungry person who is seated first, and are not the ones in need of forgiveness, those who would deny them a chair? 

Well, just when I am ready to give up on Jesus in this story, he responds with words that give me back my hope and restore my faith.  Because with this woman kneeling before him, Jesus doesn’t say, “your obedience is impressive, your submission is acceptable, your shame makes me pity you sufficiently.”  Instead Jesus looks at her, looks at his disciples, and looks at the crowd, and whether he has just come to this conclusion or not—the Bible doesn’t tell us—Jesus gets it.  There may be a passage in scripture that condemns this woman, there may be a standing policy that denies her mercy and justice and inclusion, but Jesus looks at her self-sacrificial posture, her willingness to be humiliated for her daughter, her God-like compassion and tells her to stand up, and with one phrase Jesus restores her dignity: “woman, great is your faith!  Let it be done for you as you wish.” And it was.

Did you hear that first part?  He praises…her faith.  And in that moment, we know that Jesus sees her, includes her, is in fellowship with her, and (dare we say it) has learned from her.  The word faith is used 17 times in Matthew’s gospel, and always it is the mark of genuine discipleship, either because one has it or because one lacks it.  Those who need to hear the Sermon on the Mount are called “those of little faith,” the Centurion in chapter 8 (another outsider) has his servant healed because of the Centurion’s faith, the disciples in the boat during the storm are afraid because they lack faith, the paralyzed man is healed because of the faith of his friends, faith the size of a mustard seed will be capable of accomplishing anything, and what do the Pharisees, scribes, and hypocrites lack?  Justice, mercy, and faith. 

By praising the greatness of this Canaanite woman’s faith, by raising her up from the dust, by speaking to her rather than about her, by recognizing the image of God already in her soul, Jesus has set aside scripture, ignored policy, and has shown the church how to be the Church of Jesus Christ when there’s a Canaanite, an outsider, an incompatible, a suffering brother or sister standing right there in front of us, asking for mercy.  It’s not about charity, it’s about justice!

Those of you who are close to me know that the last six years of my life have been consumed with accompanying my mother through the hell of dementia.  By all possible measurements we are only part way down this path that will direct the rest of her life.  It became apparent after my father’s death that, even in the midst of pancreatic cancer, he had been compensating for her growing confusion.  She lived with us for two years after that, then moved to assisted living, and now resides in a memory unit that keeps her physically safe but mentally tormented by her continuing self-awareness of her failing memory.  In time that will pass we are told, but when ignorance has become bliss, she will no longer remember us, and so we journey together and try to treasure every moment, even if it is painful for her and for us. 

Because of Mom’s illness, one of the words that I’ve had to learn this year is “paramnesia.”  Paramnesia occurs when a mentally compromised person tries to make sense of the world while suffering a partial lack of memory.  And in order to speak coherently about an event, the patient will confabulate, include details in a story that didn’t actually happen, will fabricate a reality that makes sense for the moment but is in fact, false. 

Part of me wants to ask in my confusion, whether Jesus was suffering from theological paramnesia when this episode with the Canaanite woman occurred (and yes, I know there are multiple explanations of why he might have acted the way he did), but I’ve come to believe that Matthew wasn’t in fact telling a story about Jesus; I think Matthew was telling a story about the church.  Because as Matthew’s congregation watched Imperial Rome crush Jerusalem like a walnut, and as they saw the smoke of destruction and persecution rise over the Holy City, Matthew’s community knew that things were going to have to change, that the Church in order to survive and to be the authentic expression of God’s love in the world, that the church was going to have to remember a few things it had forgotten.  It was going to have to remember that Jesus sought out strangers, that Jesus praised the faith of Gentiles, that foreigners showed up at his birth, that ethnic, racial, tribal differences mattered nothing to him, that economic injustice and racial privilege is incompatible with Christian teaching, and most of all the church had to remember this:  Canaanite lives matter…incompatibles lives matter, persecuted minorities matter, LGBTQ lives matter, victims of violence matter, and (today of all days) black lives matter.

You and I are here at the 2017 New England Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church.  And on my dark and cynical days, I find myself wondering how many more of these there will be.  But even as we wither away, Canaanites—some of them our own children—are standing at the door of the church, longing to come in.  They are standing there, cautiously, because (despite our faults) they sense God in us, someplace beneath all that silence, mis-interpreted scripture, and prejudicial legislation.  They can hear the authentic Jesus in our heritage and in our passion for mission, despite the racism and white privilege that gets in the way of our discipleship, and they can hear the rush of the wind of the Spirit that we keep trying to squeeze into containers of fear so that it won’t change us. 

It’s time to let that Spirit loose!  It’s time to let that Spirit loose!  It’s time to let that Spirit loose! It’s time to emulate the Jesus who tells persecuted strangers to stand up with dignity.  It’s time to rediscover the image of God in the people who scare us because they seem different.  It’s time to confess our sins, and seek to undo the harm we have done because of our lack of justice, mercy, and faith.  The Holy Cities of 20^th century Christendom are burning, there is no going back.  The church I was trained to serve in seminary no longer exists, if it ever did.  But Jesus?  Yeah, Jesus has never left. As he promised, he is with us to the end of the age!  And if we are willing to let Jesus heal our memory, to let Jesus strip away the false narratives of the church that we’ve told ourselves, who’s in and who’s out, to let Jesus put us square in the middle of town where Canaanite mothers can pester us and teach us with their requests for justice, then brothers and sisters, I have hope for this church.  And if this church can find that Jesus and let him break our sinful selves open yet one more time, and put us back together with a lot less judgement and a lot more justice, mercy, and faith, then maybe some of those Canaanites will do us the honor of crossing the threshold, standing by our side, and reminding us that God wants them here because of the greatness of their faith:  And as they walk in the door (hear this now!), it’s time for folks like me, who are invested in and benefit from the status quo, it’s time for folks like me to stop talking…and listen…and change.  It’s our only hope.

Our choir sings a song, Great, Great Morning.  And folks love it; it’s a medley, a mash up of several gospel songs that are all looking towards “that day,” that ultimate day when Jesus calls us home, or comes to check on what we’ve been up to [maybe you’ve seen the bumper sticker:  “Jesus is Coming; Look busy!”].  I love singing that song; it just makes me feel good.  But I also know that the day we’re singing about is Judgment Day, that day when Jesus comes to rebalance the scales of justice.  If you’ve read the prophets or the Book of Revelation, you’ve got to know that it doesn’t turn out well for those who neglect the poor, oppress the Saints, or ignore the world’s suffering. 

One of the things that is said about Rev. Ziegler is that he was really good at “afflicting the comfortable.”  In that spirit we’re going to sing that song, and I want you to enjoy it, but not too much, because we still have work to do, don’t we?  Amen?  

God's Vineyard

Text:   Isaiah 5:1-7; 11:1-5

Date:  November 22, 2015

Pleasant Street UMC, Waterville, ME

Thomas L. Blackstone, Ph.D., Preacher

God's Vineyard

5:1 Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. 2 He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; he expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. 3 And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. 4 What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? 5 And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. 6 I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. 7 For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!

11:1 A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. 2 The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. 3 His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; 4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. 5 Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins.

 

Gain and loss, growing and pruning, nurturing and cutting back, innovation and evaluation.  These are the ebb and flow of gardening, farming, organizational life, and the history  of the church.  But before any of that, such is the language of love. 

So it is appropriate that today's text begins with a love song.  You know love songs, of course.  They're 90% of what we hear on the radio unless you're a public radio junky, but even then Saturday afternoon opera will bring it all back:  the joys and ultimate heartbreak of unrequited love and betrayal.  Back in 1580, the song was "Greensleeves,"  a plea from a man to his bored mistress. He is still enraptured by her but she appears not to love him anymore.  Frankie Valli sang, "My Eyes Adored You":  You couldn't see how I adored you.  So close, so close and yet so far…."  Elvis Presley:  "She wrote upon it, Return to Sender, No such number, no such zone."  Meatloaf!  (the singer not the entrée):  " She kept on telling me / I want you, I need you / But there ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you / Now don't be sad / 'Cause two out of three ain't bad."  (Yes, that is probably the first and last time you'll hear Meatloaf quoted in a sermon).  Taylor Swift:  "Can't you see that I'm the one who understands you / Been here all along so why can't you see / You belong with me."  Lady Antebellum:   " Yeah, it's gonna take forever to get over you / Oh, and I don't think this pain's gonna go away / Oh, (the) scars left, when it's said and done, remain."  And Finally Gary Stewart, "She's Acting Single; I'm drinking double." 

Love is pain, at least in the lyrics of popular songs, and often in real life as well.  Isaiah's song, which was never on anybody's top 40 list but still made it into the Bible, is sung by a woman about her lover.  The readers of Isaiah, expecting a lyrical ballad, open up their hearts, drop their defenses, and settle back to hear her words.  A Love Song!  She sings of her lover's vineyard, of the care with which he planted a hedge, built a wine press, planted and dressed the vines.  He put up a watch tower so that the workers could spot animals who wanted to sneak in and steal the grapes.  He carved a deep wine vat to hold the sweet, succulent, juice.  If this sounds like it's getting a little sensual, then you're probably on the right track.  Every time I read this I'm reminded of the Steve Miller Band's lyric, "I really love your peaches, want to shake your tree."  Yeah. 

But then, into this garden of seduction, comes the unwelcome.  Wild grapes.  This is a problem agriculturally because wild grapes are sour and tart, lacking the sugar to become wine.  But they also symbolize infidelity.  If there are wild grapes in the vineyard, then someone planted them there, and it wasn't the vineyard owner.  To quote the Blues classic, "She's got a smile on her face and I didn't put it there." 

Well, the vineyard owner isn't going to tolerate wild grapes in his patch of earth, and in anger it's all going to be torn down.  The hedges, the watchtower, the wall.  The hard work of cultivation will stop, and the vineyard owner will even keep the rain from falling, which is our first clue that this is not an ordinary love song, given that the jilted lover can control the weather. 

I think you can see where this is going.  The hedge, and the watchtower, and the wall are all symbolic of God's protection over the people, and Isaiah--much like his contemporary Hosea from whom we heard last week--is warning his audience, the Southern Kingdom of Judah, that God has shown them nothing but care and nurture, and they have responded with infidelity.  They have chased after personal wealth and riches, they have neglected the poor, they have become indifferent and lazy about worship, failing to remind themselves that they are a covenant people with responsibilities to others.  They had forgotten God's words to Abraham in Genesis 12, at the very beginning of the Biblical story, " And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing…"   hear that again.  "I will bless you, Abram, so that you may be a blessing."  At the time Isaiah's singer sings her song, the wild grapes of injustice and indifference have taken over the vineyard.  Judah has been happy to be blessed and protected by God, but had forgotten the second word to Abraham, that along with great blessings comes great responsibility. 

And so there's going to be a break-up, and thanks to Neil Sedaka we know, "Breaking up is hard to do."  Isaiah writes these words as the Assyrians are preparing to dismantle the Northern Kingdom, torture its leaders, and dilute the Northern 10 tribes into the solvent of history, never to be heard from again.  And Isaiah's warning to the Southern kingdom is simple:  "Get it together, or you're next." 

I have to admit that my lighthearted introduction to this passage is out of sync with the effect that it has on my heart, during this week in which so many are hurting and feeling fearful of the unknown.  Our times are not unlike Isaiah's in which rumors and reports of our enemies and what they have done to our allies is causing us to want to focus on self-protection rather than self-less courage.  Judah's mistake, Isaiah reminded them, was to assume that their greatest threat was the Assyrians over the far hill someplace.  In fact, their greatest danger was in their refusal to be the people God made them to be, those who would be a blessing to others. 

Like ancient Judah, God has blessed our nation.  We are blessed with democracy, freedom of belief, incredible natural resources, and an innovative spirit, but it is understandably reflexive to feel vulnerable when the acts of madmen, intended to terrify us into inaction, do in fact frighten us.  For the last several months we have witnessed the largest movement of refugees in our lifetimes.  60 million people, according to a UN report last June, are displaced from their homes, that's one out of every 122 people on the planet, if you're doing the math, and half of those 60 million // half // are children.  Because, as every parent knows, when violence comes to our door, our first instinct is not to stand and fight, but to grab our children and run, lest we fall in the struggle and leave them unprotected. 

The debate the country seems to be having is whether our wealthy, powerful nation will welcome some of those victims of religious fanaticism (again, half of them children) or close up our borders like a tortoise in a shell, hoping that the storm will pass us by. 

We've been here before, of course.  Some of you are old enough to remember the journey of the MS St. Louis and the so-called Voyage of the Damned in 1939.  The ship carried 908 Jewish refugees out of Germany who came seeking asylum from the horrors of the Nazis.  After being refused entry in Cuba, the US, and Canada, the ship returned to Europe where at least a quarter of the passengers died in concentration camps.  "But there might be German spies on the boat," it was argued at the time, "they're not of our religion," said others, "they're filthy Jews," said some, "the dregs of Europe."  And so we turned our backs, and the weak and the vulnerable continued to suffer at the hands of evil.  It is a sin for which we cannot atone.

You know that I'm not a political person, and for me this is not a political issue, it's a question of human rights and responsibility.  But when I hear our Governor insist that Mainers would not welcome these men, women, and children into our communities, I know that he's wrong.  I know that he's wrong.  We are not a wealthy state, we are not a bottomless pit of resources, but there's not a person here who would not jump into the water to save the life of one of those precious kids clinging to one of those overturned boats in the Aegean Sea.  And having saved her from death we would instinctively wrap her in our warmest blanket, feed her the most nutritious thing in our house, even if it meant we would go hungry, and sleep on the couch until we could find her a bed.  I know we would.  

I know that because we're Christians, and because the person at the center of our faith is a child of refugees, who crossed a border in search of safety from a paranoid King.  It was about such a child, that Isaiah continued to sing in his writings, about a child who even in a hopeless situation would grow up like a shoot out of the stump of Jesse, Jesse being the father of King David, the ancestor of Jesus, and the grandson of Ruth, Ruth a widowed refugee from Moab who crossed a border in search of safety, and found it among God's people, who welcomed her, and took her in.

Yes, we've been here before, and what we've learned is that if our enemies make us forget who we are, then our enemies win, and the wild grapes of fear and insecurity and self-interest will be all that's left of our beautiful vineyard.  But there is still time, time to turn to God, embrace our identity, and advocate for those who are fleeing for their lives with their children in their arms.  Amen.

Text:  Psalm 18:1-13, 46-50

Date:  June 28, 2015

Pleasant Street UMC, Waterville, ME

(c) Thomas L. Blackstone, Ph.D., Preacher

Movies of Maine:  Charlotte's Web

Psalm 18

To the leader. A Psalm of David the servant of the Lord, who addressed the words of this song to the Lord on the day when the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul. He said:
I love you, O Lord, my strength.
The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer,
   my God, my rock in whom I take refuge,
   my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised;
   so I shall be saved from my enemies. 

The cords of death encompassed me;
   the torrents of perdition assailed me;
the cords of Sheol entangled me;
   the snares of death confronted me. 

In my distress I called upon the Lord;
   to my God I cried for help.
From his temple he heard my voice,
   and my cry to him reached his ears. 

Then the earth reeled and rocked;
   the foundations also of the mountains trembled
   and quaked, because he was angry.
Smoke went up from his nostrils,
   and devouring fire from his mouth;
   glowing coals flamed forth from him.
He bowed the heavens, and came down;
   thick darkness was under his feet.
He rode on a cherub, and flew;
   he came swiftly upon the wings of the wind.
He made darkness his covering around him,
   his canopy thick clouds dark with water.
Out of the brightness before him
   there broke through his clouds
   hailstones and coals of fire.
The Lord also thundered in the heavens,
   and the Most High uttered his voice.
The Lord lives! Blessed be my rock,
   and exalted be the God of my salvation,
the God who gave me vengeance
   and subdued peoples under me;
who delivered me from my enemies;
   indeed, you exalted me above my adversaries;
   you delivered me from the violent. 

For this I will extol you, O Lord, among the nations,
   and sing praises to your name.
Great triumphs he gives to his king,
   and shows steadfast love to his anointed,
   to David and his descendants for ever.

So there I was, sitting with the Worship Team a month or so ago, describing this great idea for a summer preaching series.  You know, summer, when nothing happens in the secular world, and so the church is free to reflect on the peaceful, relaxed side of Christianity, in which we all go fishing with Jesus, hang out at the Pot Luck supper with Peter, and sit at the Lord's feet with Mary.  So why not take a look back at a few of the many movies that are set here in our home state, in search of some meaningful religious lessons close to home.  Don't worry, I said.  The tourists will love it, and the local folks too. 

Well, the last couple of weeks have not been the summer I predicted. 

·                    It began with the horrors of the shooting rampage through our sister church in Charleston, and the resulting calls for the banning of the Confederate Battle Flag,

·                    It continued with the reaffirmation that thousands of Mainers, and millions of Americans will continue to be able to afford their health insurance,

·                    And finally there was the predicted affirmation Friday by the US Supreme Court that the Same Sex marriages of our members, friends, family, and neighbors are now legal, not just here in Maine and like-minded states, but throughout the United States of America, wherever our beloved Constitution holds sway. 

And so with all this going on, both good and tragic, you can imagine that I began to cringe in fear a little when I tried to remember what sophisticated film I had chosen for this first Sunday of our series:  Charlotte's Web.  But I have realized before that when I reach out in faith and tell you what I'm actually going to preach about on a given Sunday, God--more often than not--doesn't let me down, even or especially if it has not been an ordinary week. 

So Charlotte's Web, set in Somerset County, Maine, written by E.B. White, but filmed, sadly, in Australia to accommodate a winter filming schedule when Maine looks a little too much like Maine.  If you look closely, you can see that the trees around the barn have been painted orange to stand in for a New England Autumn.  That is a lot of effort to go to in my opinion, to recreate the Pine Tree State, but so be it. 

Our hero is Wilbur, the runt of a very large litter of pigs, saved by young Fern from a quick & merciful death by her promise that she will raise him, and he will be the best pig ever.  To do away with him just because he is small, she argues, is "unfair, and unjust."  Her plan is difficult to put into motion, and her father tries to release her from her promise, but she curtly replies, "I didn't make my promise to you; I made it to Wilbur."  Eventually, a deal is worked out with the neighboring farmer, Homer.  As Wilbur is dropped into his new home, the narrator reflects that sometimes bringing two very ordinary things together like a pig and a barn results in an extraordinary miracle. 

Well, Wilbur is going to need a miracle, because as you know Spring pigs have only one purpose, to ensure the winter supply of ham, bacon, and chops.  When apprised of that reality, Wilbur responds incredulously, but humans love pigs!  No, his animal friends assure him, Humans love pork; there's a difference.  Just about then a familiar "fear not" is heard from the rafters.  It is the voice of Charlotte, an exceptional spider with an exceptional gift.  You will not be sacrificed for food, Wilbur, I promise, she says.  And like Fern, Charolotte NEVER breaks her promises. 

To me, this is the turning point of the film, that an apparently small and helpless creature undertakes with boldness to change the world in which she lives.  If in fact the slaughter is unfair and unjust, Charlotte will have none of it.  She has heard the cry of the innocent, and she will use her gifts to deliver him. 

Is it a complete and total surprise that Charlotte's actions echo the spirit of our lesson from the Psalms this morning?  Remember those words…

In my distress I called upon the Lord;
   to my God I cried for help.
From his temple he heard my voice,
   and my cry to him reached his ears. 

No, not a surprise, because Charlotte's Web, like every good book or movie, has a messianic figure at its heart, an agent of change to use the language of family system's theory.  And when a change agent is on the loose, anything can happen.  Like any good Messiah, Charlotte is there to provide deliverance from evil, or at least the smokehouse, but how?  Even she doesn't know.  That night, however, as she goes about her business of web weaving, the answer comes to her.  The web itself will bear her message and express her belief in Wilbur's inherent worth.  Diverting from her usual web, Charlotte prepares the words above Wilbur's head, "Some pig."  Now, when the web is noticed, no one wants to talk about the spider, they all want to talk about the pig.  That's also a good strategy for Messiah's, by the way, keep the spotlight where it belongs, not on oneself.  Remember all those mornings when Jesus slipped quietly away?  Yeah, that's his Charlotte moment.  Let them talk about the miracle rather than the miracle worker. 

Well, in the morning, there are the words, "Some pig," up above Wilbur's head.  And people begin to notice that he IS in fact, some pig.  You see, that's Charlotte's gift, to only use her web to tell the truth about Wilbur.  Well, the farmer's family does what anyone would do when they hear of a miracle.  They call their pastor, who by all appearances is a United Methodist.  And the Pastor, in good pastoral fashion, chooses to say nothing, but rather refers people to his upcoming sermon on the topic in a week or two.  Ironically, it's the town doctor, a man of science, who understands the problem with all this, that the web was a miracle long before Charlotte started using it to send messages.  It's a thing of beauty and symmetry, he says.  How did you not see it before?

Well, even the miracle web is not enough to hold people's attention, and Charlotte's work continues every few weeks.  Soon the web reveals new words:  Terrific, Radiant, and finally, Humble.  With such words above his head, Wilbur captures the imagination of his world, and is allowed to live to see Christmas, and many Christmases after that.  As all this winds to a close, and Charlotte's many babies fly away on the winds, the narrator reminds us that because Charlotte showed the specialness of this pig, the community itself felt special, and because of that they treated one another with more kindness and affection, and because they did that, an ordinary miracle had come to town.  Yeah, Charlotte! 

And so there is that inevitable question, So what?  So what, that a loveable children's book has been brought to life in our midst?  And yet, I can't help think that there is a lesson in all this, even on this week when so much has happened.  There's was an editorial cartoon that captured my imagination this week, in which a Confederate flag on a flag pole is being slowly lowered out of site, and then rising to take its place is a rainbow flag.  No words, no slogans, just a comment left by a user, "There it is." 

You see, banners matter, symbols have meaning, and words can in fact (to quote Charlotte), change the world.  Charlotte was Wilbur's savior, his redeemer, his deliverer.  And he was saved by her choice to place above him words that reflected his true nature:  Some Pig, Terrific, Radiant, Humble.  Society puts banners above all of us, of course.  Not all of them are so kind.  Imagine some other words that would convey other messages, "outsider", "dirty", "lazy", "scum", freeloader, less than human.  Those who raised the Confederate Flag over South Carolina reinforced the message that black citizens are less worthy than others, that they are a danger, that they need to be controlled if not exterminated.  It wasn't intended as harm to others, perhaps, but it gave permission to a young man steeped in hate, that perhaps even the most heinous of crimes would be  forgiven, if it asserted the God given rights of a supreme white race.  But imagine if the shooter that day had grown up seeing other words in the webs above his brothers and sisters?  Imagine if he saw words like devout, kindhearted, forgiving, generous.  Perhaps then he would have spared the lives in the church that night, and allowed his own experience to rule his heart, rather than the narrow opinions and bigotry of his elders. 

Charlotte delivers Wilbur by changing how others see him, as his true self rather than his society-given reputation as a beast to be slaughtered.  I know it's just a children's story, but its importance is clear.  Words matter.  It matters that so-called "gay marriage" can just be "marriage" now.  That those who live with the stigma of poverty will have some options when it comes to caring for their bodies.  It matters when words like worthless, imperfect, and less-than, infect even our Christian vocabulary as we sit in judgment over others, a role that God never intended for us.  Rather, we are to build one another up in love, to perceive and name the blessings of our fellow human beings to deliver them from the spiritual  smokehouses of death all around us. 

However this week's news has affected you, let us be reminded that we have incredible power to be Charlotte to one another, to make promises that we mean to keep, and then do everything in our power to keep them, even if it is a matter of life and death, and sometimes it will be.  May you be amazed at the ordinary miracles in your life, and may you be the miracle that another of God's children is praying for, longing for some word of approval, praise, or acknowledgement, even from one of the least of these God's creatures.  Amen.

We Are One...

While on vacation last month, my two younger kids talked us into something that they had dreamed of doing for several years, to climb Cadillac Mountain by the light of the moon, arriving at the summit in time to watch the sunrise.  It seemed an appropriate rite of passage, as my daughter was headed off to her Senior year of High School, and our younger son to his second year of college.  Because they would be together, and are collectively skilled in the ways of the woods, we agreed.  They left our camp at 1 in the morning after a few short hours of sleep, arriving at the trail head at 2 AM.  At 3:30 they called us as agreed to give an update on their progress, and had already reached the summit.  Lynn and I, less hardy adventurers, hopped in the car and drove to meet them.  Since the federal government paid to put a perfectly good road to the top of the mountain, I felt like it was my civic obligation to drive on it. 

The morning was everything one could hope.  Jupiter and Mars were dancing together in the Eastern sky.  The porcupine islands were dark shapes in the moonlit bay.  The distant lights of Bar Harbor were slowly going out as morning approached.  As our kids wrapped up in the blankets we brought, and we all found a place out of the chilly morning breeze, God put on an amazing show.  The earth that we call home, in its constant rotation, carried a mountain peak full of travelers at breakneck speeds towards the sun that gives us light, and life, and food, and warmth.  Gradually unfolding itself from chilly Atlantic waters, the sun rose up from behind the Schoodic peninsula.  Sending ahead of it a rainbow of colors:  deep blue, turquoise, mint green, pink and then the barest slice of orange, the sun transformed the landscape that stretched out below us, creating a golden path that united land and sea.  It was a truly miraculous moment. 

I don’t know what it was, but as the sun began to shed its light down on the cold and huddled group of people who looked for its arrival, something made me want to turn around and look at the dozens of people who were behind me, many of them perched on the paved walkway at the very top of the mountain.  Most had arrived after us, and I was surprised at how many folks were there, having gathered in the hushed predawn darkness.  The sun, touching human faces for the first time that day in our nation, transformed a hundred individuals into one kindred people.  They were Asian, African, Scandinavian, Hispanic, drawn from many different lands and places to this miraculous moment and place of transformation as the darkness of night was swallowed by the rosy light of day.  They were children and adults, the old and the lame, some in wheel chairs and using walkers.  Some had arrived in $ 30,000 vehicles with polished chrome grills.  Others had ridden well-worn shoe leather to the top, all of their earthly possessions in their packs and their hands.  But in the presence of that sunrise, there was no rich or poor, no conflicts or difference, no excess and no lack.  In that moment, in that place, each and every one had everything we needed to know we were alive, and loved, and cherished by the one who had created us.  We were one, huddled under the golden cloak of our creator who had claimed us as kinfolk, baptizing us in the light of God’s own creation. 

Yes, of course, the moment passed, as every moment does.  The orange light turned to yellow, the day brightened, the mountain pilgrims applauded and toasted the artist of the sunrise with thermoses of dwindling coffee.  The unity between us, glimpsed only for a moment, slipped away as quickly as it had come.  We got in our vehicles or hit the trail, moving back to the familiar and the sensible, laughing at our foolishness and longing to go back to bed.  But we carried with us // that moment, knowing it would be a part of us for the rest of our lives, a glimpse behind the curtain of reality that clouds our kinship, our unity, our common humanity.  The radio as we descended the twisting mountain highway sought to disentangle that cord of connection we had just experienced.  Brutality in the Middle East, racial tension in Missouri, homophobic violence in Uganda, hunger and homelessness on the rise in dozens of American cities.  We stopped for coffee and tea and blueberry muffins down in the town, and then hit the road for home.  The bad news on the radio had been turned into folk music, blessedly, and the poetry of one who had seen the truth we had experienced that morning washed over us like bathing in baptismal waters.  I remembered the artist and looked up the lyrics when I got home.  There is hunger, and violence, and tension, and prejudice in the world, but as a child of an inclusive God, I am grateful for these words by Pat Humphries, of Emma’s Revolution.

 We Are One

Smiling face, outstretched hand,

Through disputes small and grand

We will lay down our guns

We are one.

In the rage through the war

We have shared pain before

In our grief when it’s done

[we are one]

Where the earth touches sky

We are born, we all die

Where the clear waters run

[we are one]

When the light touches land

Over sea, over sand

When each day has begun

We are one

As the rock wears away

And the tide rolls and sways

By the moon, by the sun

[We are one]

In the birth of a child

Through the fierce and the mild

In our daughters and sons

[we are one]

…In our daughters and sons, we are one. 

We are one

We are one.

"Create In Me a Clean Heart, O God" A Sermon After a Fire In Our Parsonage

Text:  1 Samuel 16:1-13; Psalm 51:10-14

Date:  October 20, 2013

Green Strett UMC, Augusta, ME 

© Thomas L. Blackstone, Ph.D., Preacher

1 Samuel 16:1-13

 ¹³Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward. 

Psalm 51:10-14

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
   and put a new and right spirit within me. 
¹¹ Do not cast me away from your presence,
   and do not take your holy spirit from me. 
¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
   and sustain in me a willing spirit. 

Create in me a clean heart, O God.  And put a new and right spirit within me. 

They are the words of David, the same David who was anointed as a young child by the crusty old Prophet Samuel:  David, who received on his forehead the drops of oil that marked him as chosen by God, chosen to lead his people.  Like Samuel himself, David says yes to God as a young man, little knowing what that might mean or where that willingness to serve might take him.  Like Samuel himself, David utters those words “Here Am I”, and is lifted up from a simple and humble life as a shepherd to the royal courts of King Saul, who has proved a disappointment both to God and his people. 

I find it interesting that the Narrative Lectionary brings together the anointing of David with words from David’s Psalm 51, written by an older and wiser King, a King who has committed both adultery and murder.  His lust, combined with his unlimited power, has resulted in the rape of the wife of a military commander, and then the soldier’s murder when he refuses to return to his home to provide cover for a pregnancy which will soon be obvious to everyone. 

These things are not only crimes; they are sins, and David is confronted with the loss of his innocence through the seduction of power.  And when confronted with his sin, David’s heart breaks, and like so many sinners, before and since, David pours out a plea for God’s mercy from the depths of a broken heart. 

Create in me a clean heart, O God.  And put a new and right spirit within me.  It is a plea from the creature to the creator to be fixed, to be stripped down to the core and be built up again.  It is a plea that that which is soiled and ruined be made fresh, and new, and sweet.  I expect that most of us have been there, when it becomes painfully obvious that by our actions, or our failure to act, we have caused harm to our neighbors, our loved ones, or our world.  Having done so, our first reaction might be to make excuses, or to blame someone else, or to hide the evidence.  But Psalm 51 isn’t for those days, it’s for the day when those strategies stop working.  It is for the day when we realize how we have injured others, and how much in need of grace and forgiveness we truly are.  Psalm 51 is prayer we pray when we hit the bottom, when we are ensnared in our own filth, when we cannot help but own the wrong that we have done.  Then, and only then, can we know the true misery of David, who cries out from his own personal hell, Create in me a clean heart, O God.  And put a new and right spirit within me. 

And the heartbreak is that even as David prays his prayer, he fears that it is prayed in vain.  Sitting where he sits, knowing what he knows, he cannot imagine that his life can ever be fixed.  David’s language is that of basic sanitation and cleanliness:  create in me a clean heart, because the heart that I have is polluted, corrupted, filled with the worst kind of stuff, stuff that can never be returned to the way that it was before, to the way that you want it to be, God.

David’s contrast between dirty and clean is particularly poignant to me this week, as I have dealt with the aftermath of the fire in our home Tuesday night.  As I shared over the prayer chain, a dishwasher that had worked flawlessly for 10 years suddenly burst into flames on Tuesday after supper while my wife just happened to be standing in the kitchen, talking to her mom on the phone.  Though she stopped the dishwasher and used the fire extinguisher, the melted plastic spread to the floor, ignited the vinyl flooring, and the house began to fill with smoke.  Within minutes, my mom and wife and our pets were in the driveway, thank God, and the filth and corruption of smoke and soot had begun to spread throughout our home. 

We are so grateful for the Augusta Fire Department who arrived in time to save the home, and for the compassion of our neighbors who kept watch with us as our lives changed in front of our eyes.  Arriving home from the Finance Committee meeting, I was greeted by the sight of fire trucks surrounding the parsonage, and men with hoses walking in our front door.  It’s a kind of sick feeling in the stomach that I can still feel, even today while talking about it.

Over the next 24 hours, I began to be educated in lessons about fire and its aftermath.  The first is that even a small flame can do great damage.  The fire in our case never left the kitchen, thank God, but the petrochemicals which are the basis of so many of our household furnishings like flooring and fabrics are released by fire and take on a life of their own in a small space.  When we entered the home after 45 minutes or so, the entire ceiling of the downstairs was covered with a fine network of what looked like cob webs to me, but were in fact strings of charged particles of plastic which had floated in the smoke and joined up with one another to form long strings of oily residue.  The good news is that we don't need to decorate for Halloween this year.  We're already there!  The smoke and the soot went everywhere:  into cupboards, electronics, the coils of fluorescent light bulbs, the backs of closets, and the insides of our shoes.  Removing that soot will require days of effort by a team of people that—thankfully—have been down this path before, who have reassured us that they can deal with the worst of it.  In the meantime our home is toxic, from the moment one approaches the front door, one can smell the awful refuse that awaits one inside.  When I asked what we could do until the cleaners arrive, I was told, “nothing.”  “Everything you touch, everything you vacuum or sweep, everything you wipe with a cloth makes the problem worse.”  The best thing you can do is leave, and be patient, and let us do what we need to do. 

It’s the lesson of such a time that some dirt, and filth, and ash, and soot is so pervasive and overwhelming that it is beyond our ability to clean it up ourselves.  It takes an expert with the right tools and knowledge to make a difference, and our own efforts can indeed only make things worse.  It is similar to the hopeless situation that David found himself in before taking up his pen to write Psalm 51.  In the words of Dr Suess, “This mess is so big, and so deep, and so tall, we cannot clean it up; there is no way at all.”  All David can do is sit in the ashes of his own destruction and call for help, to plead with God, to beg with God for a clean heart, and a new soul.  He can no longer help himself.  It is beyond that now. 

Have you been there?  Are you there this morning?  Is the sin-sickness of your soul such that all you can do is call out to your maker to put things back together?  If so, then this is the place you want to be.  Ironically, it is only when we have lost the illusion of our own righteousness that we can accept with humility the righteousness that God has for us, a righteousness, based not on our worth, but upon our need; a grace that we don’t deserve, but that God offers anyway:  a grace that is worthy of Jesus, Jesus who came and preached the inclusive love of God so powerfully that he was murdered by a power structure that didn’t want to hear it, who couldn't stand to hear what he had to say, that God does indeed love all of us, even though are hearts be soiled, and our souls be mired in sin.  It is only such a God who can give us a clean heart, only such a God who can put a right spirit within us.

In the meantime, we need to be patient.  My family and I are trying hard to stay out of the house and let the insurance folks and cleaning experts do their thing.  Tuesday, a big truck will come and carry away all of our clothing and curtains to be cleaned.  At some point, when the investigators are done their work, the remnants of the dishwasher will be pulled out and disassembled on the lawn, deprived of its power to do more harm.  At some point the soot, and the grime, and the oily cobwebs will be dissolved into cleaning fluids, and sucked out of crevices, at some point the flooring, and wallpaper, and ceilings will be renewed, rehung, and painted.  And at some point, we will once again be able to call this amazing house you have provided for us, “home.” 

Is it possible that we could also be as patient when it comes to letting God do God’s work in our lives?  A clean heart, and a right spirit will mean changes in our lives that may be unwelcome.  We can’t accept the forgiveness of God, and then persist in the pathways that brought us to destruction in the first place.  Salvation, as Methodists understand it, is the beginning of a process, a lifelong process, by which we become less and less who we have been, and more and more who God wants us to be.  I wish I could say that it was a straight line from here to there, but it’s not.  There will be good days and bad days, times when we’re sweeping the filth out the door, and times when it’s blowing back in.  But with patience and persistence in being open to the remaking power of God, it is the witness of our scriptures and our elders that a clean heart, a new spirit is easily within God’s power to grant. 

Leonard Cohen’s dark song Hallelujah is at least in part about the struggles of David and the loss of his innocence before God.  Recalling the episode with Bathsheba, Cohen writes,

Your faith was strong but you needed proof

You saw her bathing on the roof

Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you

I’ve always found it interesting however, how the song ends, with a kind of restoration of David’s relationship with God.  It’s the verse that most versions of the song eliminate, but to my mind it’s the redemption of the brokenness.  The lyrics conclude,

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

          In the end, all that we bring to God is our broken Hallelujahs, our praises from mortal and corrupted hearts.  But in the end, that’s all that God needs, to clean out the crap, and fix us, body and soul.  You see, even though we’ve never been here before, God has, with countless generations of those who prayed with desperate hearts for a new beginning.  God knows how to get this done, and to help us be different, better, cleaner, and new.  Will we not open the doors this week, and allow the God of mercy to fix us, make us whole, and find the shine beneath the grime?  Will we not call for help, and invite in the expert who can give us the second chance that we long for, and restore our broken Hallelujahs?  Amen.  

To a Land Unknown

A sermon delivered at my alma mater, Albright College, upon my son's graduation in May 2013.

Albright Baccalaureate Sermon 2013

How Young Is Too Young?

     It’s a question I often get asked about Communion, both by parents who want to do the “right thing” relative to their children and the church’s rituals, and by others who grew up in congregations in which there are lots of “rules” about children participating in the Eucharist: they have to be a certain age, be baptized, have spoken in tongues, or mastered one of several catechisms before receiving Communion. Most of these restrictions in Christendom reflect a desire that the child “understand” the sacraments prior to receiving them. If one is raised with these convictions, it can indeed be a little unsettling to land in a United Methodist Church, in which we regard the Sacraments as “Holy Mysteries,” incapable of being understood even by the most astute and credentialed theologian, and therefore available only by the Grace of God to both infants and adults.

     The directive in our Book of Worship says of Communion, “All who intend to lead a Christian life, together with their children, are invited to receive the bread and cup. We have no tradition of refusing any who present themselves desiring to receive” (page 29, emphasis mine). In other words, there is no velvet rope in front of the altar, restricting access to anyone. In United Methodist liturgical practice, barring children from the Lord’s Supper would be the equivalent of denying them a place at the family’s kitchen table at dinner time, a church supper, or a sibling's birthday party. Eastern Orthodox Christians, with whom we share a similar understanding of the Sacraments, put this conviction into practice by “spooning” the wine and bread into the mouths of infants, Clement of Alexandria (one of first Christian theologians) having called the Eucharist “milk from the breast of God.”

     It’s very true that young kids don’t understand what the Lord’s Supper is all about. As they grow, it is the parent(s)’ and Church’s job to explain the sacraments in age appropriate ways, at least to the extent of our own understanding, which is admittedly meager. In the meantime, kids understand intuitively being included and being excluded, and the act of inviting them to the Table in all of their chaotic youthful energy is one way we can reflect the Jesus’ love for them.

     Our Sacramental practice reflects our desire to be a Church of sticky fingers and sloppy kisses, in which no child (of any age) will ever bear the stigma of being unwelcomed or an outsider. That means we will have to staff our nursery and Sunday School faithfully, delight in the fidgety little body next to us, provide copious amounts of crayons and coloring books, and go out of our way to soothe the frazzled parent who could easily have stayed in bed on a Sunday morning, but chose instead to bring that little one to the house of the Lord to the delight of our Savior.

     This Holy Mystery, our most recent statement on Communion, puts it this way: “the grace given through Holy Communion is offered to the entire church, including those who are unable to respond for themselves. Children are members of the covenant community and participants in the Lord’s Supper.” Thanks be to Jesus, our Savior, who invites to his table all who love him.