Monday, October 22, 2012

Superpowers

I asked the children a few Sundays ago to name what superpower they all possess. I could see the wheels turning in their minds about what an ‘appropriate’ superpower answer would be at church. “Friendship?” a little one guessed. “Love?” That’s always a good guess for the priest to hear.

But ‘words’ is what I was looking for. Words – we all use them, often so casually that we underestimate the power they hold. Yet, in my work listening to others as they journey spiritually, I can testify that for many, a casual remark from long ago can remain a source of hurt or shame years later.

Our words have such power to help, hurt or heal. One of our five spiritual disciplines – those basic values we espouse as those that define our covenant community – is truth-telling. In our common life together, I see the value of telling the truth to one another. So often in our world, we don’t speak honestly and from the heart. We don’t want to alienate anyone. We don’t want to risk being disliked or excluded. We don’t want to cause trouble.

But the reality is that we can only grow spiritually if we can be real with each other, and open. And that means sharing what is on our minds, even the hard stuff, even the stuff that is risky to say. Truth-telling requires that the speaker have the courage to be honest, and also that the hearers have the courage to listen with love. Our covenant community requires us to stay in relationship with the speaker even though the message may be difficult to hear.

These are the gifts of covenant community: That we trust one another enough to risk being open with our deepest selves. That we respect and truly listen and try to understand each other even when we disagree with or hurt each other; and that we stay in relationship with one another, loving each other with the unconditional love with which Jesus loves us.

That said, truth-telling does not give us carte blanche to speak our minds without regard to the needs and feelings of others. God does not honor honesty without compassion, truth without empathy or words said with the intention to wound or devastate.

So often, I find the nugget of wisdom in the readings for the day when I ponder how to distill the message into a form that the children will grasp. Thinking about words, and the careful balance between telling the truth and using words to hurt, I came across this simple, sound advice.

Count to three before you speak. Consider the words you have chosen, and ask yourself:
Are these words true?
Are these words necessary?
Are these words kind?

If your words do not meet all three criteria, keep silent. Keep praying. Keep reworking those powerful words until they meet this standard. Our superpowers are most effective when tempered with love.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Paradox

I’m fascinated with paradox. I love wrestling with words, grappling with two statements that seem to contradict each other. So often the most profound truth is found in holding both statements side by side. A paradox is the ultimate both/and. “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” “Discipline is freedom.” “In giving, we receive.” “In order to truly live, we have to die.”

Let me amend my first statement. I love paradox in the abstract. An intellectual challenge can be fun. But living in the tension of both/and: that’s another story entirely.

Jesus often taught using paradox – turning our common understanding of the way the world works upside down, bending our minds around a new perception of truth. The first shall be last. The most reviled will be the most exalted. Strength is made perfect in weakness. And in the gospel a few weeks ago, Mark 8: “Whoever would be greatest must be last of all, and the servant of all.”

This goes against my A+ loving grain. How can Jesus ask us not to want to be greatest? Isn’t that what we spend our lives trying to do? Aiming to get all A’s? Applying to all the best colleges and taking the SAT’s five times? Strategizing career moves in order to get ahead the fastest, get the best gig for the most money and the most perks? We upsize houses, cars, offices and vacations. Is this bad? Didn’t God give us the ability and drive to use our intellect and other gifts to their fullest?

Well, yes and no. (Gotta love that paradox) Yes, God gifts us with abilities and talents and expects us to use them to their fullest. Yes, God wants us to take joy in using our gifts. But no, we are not commissioned to gather as much as we can, as fast as we can, regardless of the consequences to others. Is wealth inherently bad? No. But are we meant to focus our lives on accumulating wealth? No. So - what? How are we to live?

I think that Jesus is concerned not with our possessions but our intentions. Jesus is inviting us into a way of life – a life of humility. Humility comes from the Latin root: humus, earth, soil. Jesus is not telling us that we are unworthy worms. Jesus is not advocating for poor self-esteem. Jesus does not ask us to demean ourselves but to live in right relationship with God. Or, as I’m fond of saying, remembering that God is God, and we are not.

Humility is giving credit where credit is due. Jesus was always pointing to God – God, the source of everything we have, the source of our life and breath, who gives us all we need. Jesus always pointed to the Father, he tried to do everything in accordance with His Father’s will, and he gave everything – everything – poured himself out to show us how much God loves us.

Here’s the paradox: In God’s eyes, our worth does not depend on what we earn, or what we do, or how our bodies look or function, or how much we are liked. Our worth is solely based on the fact that God made us, loves us, and delights in us. Yes, even you. Even me.

What do we die to, or let go of, in order to live? We die to the illusion that we can earn God’s love. We let go of the illusion that the one with the most money or titles or possessions or achievements wins. We let go of the illusion that we can do it all ourselves.

When we die to these illusions, the game changes. Then we can stop keeping score. Then we can be free from the race to accumulate more and more, free from measuring our worth by the world’s standards.

When we realize our dependence on God, we are free to live, to move through our lives loving God and loving each other. That’s how dependence equals freedom. That’s how the greatest will be last of all. This is a paradox with which I can truly learn to die and live.

Monday, October 08, 2012

Good News

Mark 10:2-16

Read Rev. Mary Kay's Sermon on this Gospel passage.

I have a love/hate relationship with our lectionary. If you’ve ever wondered how the lessons are picked for a Sunday, here’s some information for you. Fr. Johnson, Fr. Norman and I don’t pick the readings at random. We use a cycle of readings called the Revised Common Lectionary. The cycle allows us to cover large portions of scripture from the Old Testament, New Testament, psalms and the Gospels over the course of three years.

There are two distinct advantages to using the RCL. One is that the RCL is shared by Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists and others. What a great unifying message that our Catholic and other Protestant neighbors are most likely hearing the same Bible passages as we are on any given Sunday. And the other advantage is that the RCL prevents preachers from only picking the scriptures they like or are comfortable preaching. We have to wrestle with the texts as they come.

Obviously, yesterday was one of those hard scriptures. I know in our covenant community there are many who are hurting right now because of a past, present or looming divorce. I know people who are still coping with the aftermath of the messy separation of property, custody and emotion that divorce and beginning a new life require.

And I know that for many, their divorce has not been met by compassion and support by their faith communities. Many churches have turned these words of Jesus into an edict that judges and creates black and white rules that exclude and punish. How do we approach this text in a way that is faithful, and that does not add insult to injury?

Jesus clearly intends for human beings to live in relationship, and highly values the marriage relationship. But Jesus never let himself be trapped into the black and white, exclusionary thinking of the Pharisees.

If we look at the bigger picture of the ministry of Jesus, we see that Jesus understood human frailty and our tendency to miss the mark. Jesus calls us into relationship that demands something of us, and he expects that we will give it all we’ve got. Nobody thinks that divorce is always the best and first option. However, when people fell short, Jesus always reached out with compassion and forgiveness. Jesus always drew people into relationship and was faithful in caring for them.

I believe without a doubt that Jesus would never expect someone to stay in an abusive relationship for the sake of keeping a promise. Jesus would not want us to stay in relationships that oppress and attack the human spirit in order to keep a covenant. Jesus was concerned about respect and dignity of all – even women and children. And sometimes, in order to respect the covenant of marriage, a marriage needs to end.

This passage is really about relationship, and the commitment God calls us to. My hope is that St. David’s is a place to which broken people – and we are all broken in one way or another, aren’t we? – can come for healing, solace and strength. St. David’s is a safe place for those who need rest, and a safe place to ask the hard questions about how we live our lives in the context of God’s grace. Here, in our human laboratory we learn how to risk, how to care, how to forgive and how to grow with one another. Here we learn how to be faithful to God and one another. Here we learn to love ourselves and each other as we are loved by God.

I’m really glad the lectionary challenged us to wrestle with this hard text. The church ought to be a place where we grapple with the hard questions, name our unknowing and our discomfort, and work out how to live our faith in the world.

How can we, as a covenant community, better support those of us who are experiencing divorce?

Some churches do a “Service of the Recognition of the End of a Marriage”, a ritual “designed to offer to God the pain of a marriage, to acknowledge its end, and promise forgiveness.” What do you think?
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