Sunday, February 23, 2014

The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, 23 February 2014

“Balancing”
The Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany
23 February 2014



Saint Francis Lutheran Church
San Francisco, California


Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18
Psalm 119:33-40
I Corinthians 3:10-11,16-23
St. Matthew 5:38-48

INI

Hatred given for hatred

I presided at a wedding last evening – a marvelous affair at which I represented the Christian tradition and a Cantor represented the Jewish tradition.  Afterwards seated at the sit down dinner, I was speaking with an Episcopal Deacon seated next to me.  “Have you been watching the Olympics?” she asked, opening a break from what we had been talking about.  (And here I had sort of an Out-of-the-Body experience as I watched and listened to my words behaviors in a somewhat surprised mode)  “No!” I exclaimed.  “No, I don’t watch the Olympics.”  (There was a pause, and I went on to explain with no small bit of passion.) “I moved here in 1981, right around the time of the first gay Olympics, and I saw what the U.S. Olympic Committee did to the men and women who had organized the games, specifically the suit that involved Dr. Tom Waddell, who lost his house, and I think his life as a result.”  As a lesbian she understood and the topic was dropped.  I, for one, was stunned at my on-going emotions about this.

So, I won’t be going to Arizona any time soon, unless the governor of that state sees the light.  I won’t eat at Chik-fil-a, nor order a Domino’s Pizza.  I won’t shop at Lowe’s, or was it Home Depot, nor at Target (what did they do again)?  I do this with the same fervor with which I refused Shell gasoline over apartheid, and Denny’s over racism.  I once convinced a national board that I chaired not to have a major convention in Virginia, and I’d do it again.  I wonder if my anger has turned into madness?  Into the heart of my anger and my frustration about the world in which we live – into that heart God speaks:

“You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.”

My kin?  My neighbor?  My people?  It is quite explicit isn’t it – my kin, my neighbor, my people.  Where is the “they” that I like to rail against so much.  For Leviticus (how ironic) there is no “they”, no “them”, only kin, neighbor, and people.  In an ancient world of blood vengeance and feuds, we still live with the results of these ancient insults and responses and an unending hatred.

At the root of things

In the Gospel for today, Jesus is a true radical.  He wants to get at the root, the radix, of things.  He tells old stories of hatred and reprisal.  “You have heard it said,” he reports and then goes on to completely radicalize the Law upon which ancient hatreds were based.  This was a world of the lex talionis, of an “eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.”  And we need to understand that even in this harsh environment there was an attempt at balance.  It was an eye, only an eye for an eye, not a death, or a life of slavery.  It was a world of enemies and friends, and you hated the enemy.  But Jesus says something different.  “Love your enemies.”  Again, ironically, Leviticus weighs in again noting how we are to actually treat those that are different from us.  They are not to be driven outside of our communities, but rather invited in.  They, the poor, the alien, the “not one of us”, the people different from us, the outside – these are invited to the same field from which draw our sustenance and invited to share the gleanings, the parts left over, for them.

And here, based on these biblical examples, my angry heart wants to deliver a blistering attack about the bankruptcy of our national policy on immigration, or how the poor are treated, or how I ignore the homeless, oh, the list goes on.  However, it is I who need to hear Jesus’ words.  “Love your enemies.” 

Recall the rhetoric, which we often used to describe those who were against us as we fought discrimination in the Church.  They were benighted, they were not fully involved with what the Gospel required, they were missing the point, they were wrong. 

In Jesus’ demand, “turn the other cheek”, he does not ask us to walk away from the fray and to assume a disinterested stance.  No, he would have us meet the situation with love, unreserved love.  Nor is it a love that cannot speak, not only its name but its objections as well.  Jesus calls us to reprove those who do our society a great wrong, “with justice you shall judge your neighbor.”

It calls for a balancing, doesn’t it?  It calls for some wisdom, some understanding.  It calls for something outside of our selves.

Holiness

In the third century, Tertullian observed something that pagans were saying about Christians.  “See how they love one another,” he reported.  On Maundy Thursday, at the Last Supper, Jesus models a different kind of rabbinic behavior when he teaches by getting on his knees and washing the feet of his students, and then he says something about what he has just modeled,

I give you a new commandment:  love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

If there is a behavior that describes the Christian it is this behavior of loving the other.  It is a love that is not limited by the belief or the behavior of the other.  It is love given as once given first to us, and it is given to any and all.  So then the question becomes, how do I balance my reproof of my neighbor when he or she is doing wrong, with my love of them?  Hard, isn’t it?  Perhaps Leviticus has another answer for us.

Leviticus calls us to live in holiness.  The author unequivocally states, “God is holy – therefore you must be holy as well.”  Holiness talk always sets Lutherans on edge.  It smacks of the semi-Pelagian attitude that allows that we might participate in our own salvation.  Holiness is a gift of God, not something that we might obtain on our own, yet.  Here the Bible clearly calls us to holiness. 

And what is God’s holiness?  Recall with me the young lawyer who wonders, “What must I do to be saved?”  Jesus quickly responds with the Great Shema of Israel:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your strength and might, and you shall love your neighbor, as you love yourself.

There’s that pesky neighbor again, requiring our attention and our prayer.  And there is that pesky “self” as well, requiring an equal amount of love and respect.  Ah, people of the reformation, understand the forgiveness that you once released to the world, and understand the forgiveness that is (as Saint Paul calls it in the second reading) a foundation in Christ.

Will I travel to Arizona?  Maybe.  Will I eat a Chick-fil-a?  Probably not.  I am reminded of a story that keeps coming into my mind.  I was walking down the street in Berkeley, when I noticed that the ACLU was doing some street work, asking people to donate money for work on LGBTQ issues.  I had my collar on, and as I caught the eye of one of the woman polling the street, she quickly looked away.  I walked on, but quickly realized that I had to go back.  “You don’t want to talk to me, do you?”  I asked her.  “No,” she said, “I’ve had enough hatred for one day.”  And then she related how another clergyman had derided her for the work she was doing that day and consigning her to hell.  So I talked with her, shared my story, and asked her to give any other people who might give her trouble a second chance - a chance to tell her story.  I had to turn around and go back.  I couldn’t avoid.  I had to speak to the situation.

Some questions:  Can you accept the forgiveness that allows you to appear in holiness before the God who loves you?  Can you accept the holiness and forgiveness that is given by God to those who don’t agree with you?  Hard, isn’t it?  Let us forgive ourselves, as Christ has forgiven us, and let us keep up the words that make for Good News telling.  Those words may not always be heard, but someday they will.  Those words of grace are the cheek that we turn, our response to an ungracious world.  Remember, my kin, my neighbor, my people.


SDG

Sunday, February 2, 2014

The Presentation of Our Lord (Candlemass), 2 February 2014

“The Story Beneath”
The Presentation of Our Lord
(Candlemass)
2 February 2014



Saint Francis Lutheran Church
San Francisco, California


Malachi 3:1-4
Psalm 84, Psalm 24:7-10
Hebrews 2:14-18
St. Luke 2:22-40

INI

The Story Beneath

You will have to forgive me as I have recently returned from my doctoral studies at Bexley Hall – Seabury Western Seminary in Chicago.  There, for a week, we studied Murray Bowen’s Family Systems Theory, and it has influenced heavily my reading of the Gospel text for this morning.  Bowen understands, unlike Freud who did most of his psychiatric inquiry with the individual, that such a study is really found in the story and context of families, and of generations.  It is that generation’s part, and the story part, that leads me to the character of Simeon, and indeed Anna, this morning.  Simeon represents a story that goes back for generations in the biblical text, and yet in Luke, it is a story that is told in the presence with anticipations of the future.  This, Dr. Bowen says, is how we begin to know ourselves.

Robert Bellah, in his outstanding book called Religion and Human Evolution, makes this poignant comment, “The self is a telling.”  Right in line with Bowen theory, this sociologist understands that the history of humankind is a narrative a story – a story that needs to be told, spoken, and shared.  The Church is a telling.  As we move through the events of the liturgical year, we struggle to understand both the story and teaching beneath the actions, and deeds.  Thus it is a good time to ask ourselves whether or not we have forgotten the story?  Certainly our time has.  Go outside onto the street and ask anyone who Jesus was and you will hear some pretty amazing stuff.  Have you forgotten the story as well?

Nunc Dimittis

Just moments ago we sang the story.  It is possible that we have sung this story so long and on so many occasions that we may have forgotten its truth and meaning.  Here it is:

"Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel."

Simeon, like Zechariah, the Angels, and Mary in Luke’s Birth Narrative, sings the story.  That is what ancient story tellers did – Homer, Australian Aborigines, Scheherazade, Vyassa, and the Chanticleers.  That is what Pete Seeger did.  Simeon remembers the ancient promises and hopes and weaves them into a communication for Joseph and Mary.  Simeon not only knows the prophets, but also indeed is a prophet, speaking God’s word for the here and the now.  Simeon’s reality and his story is one of waiting and hoping.  It is a story and destiny that has been assigned to us by the one who promised to come again, and asked to live in an Advent of hope.

Now you are dismissing your servant in peace.

Simeon’s song does not avoid the difficult.  Indeed it is the difficulty of death that serves as an impetus for his song.  Simeon recognizes that he will soon die, and he indicates in aside to the Virgin, that he understands Jesus’ fate as well.  Jesus will be the one who will be upsetting a peoples’ story with his own story and his own actions.  Salvation in Simeon’s song is seen in the context of death.  Death becomes a moment for truly knowing God’s will, and for hoping and trusting in the promises.  It is in the context of promise and peace that Simeon dies, and it is in that same context that all of us will die.  The question is how will we make it a part of our story, of God’s story, of the Church’s story?  Simeon calls to mind the “favored ones” who had a peaceful death before him.  He recalls for us those who died in God’s bosom, who rested in peace.  He participates with them in this peaceful passing.  Simeon realizes that this is a gift for all, but more about that later.

My eyes have seen your salvation

What is your story?  What is your story in the context of the promise of salvation and redemption?  How have you seen salvation?  How has it been an Epiphany (a manifestation) to you?  We have an example in the person of Mary who took all the elements of her on-going story and “pondered them in her heart.”  After the shepherds and the angels, this is what she did – reflected.  After Jesus stays behind in the temple, seemingly disobeying his parents, and noting to them that he “must be about his father’s business”, Mary ponders and reflects.  Simeon, however, goes beyond Mary’s interior practice.  Simeon sings the story of his experience.  His self is in the telling. 

Anna has a similar reaction.  She, a prophet as well, in a long line of women who were prophets, does not keep the story to herself, but rather tells it.  Luke says, “she spoke of the child to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem”.  I wonder what she said?  I wonder what I might say so that I might understand “redemption” in such a way – so that others might know what it is for which I hope.

A light for revelation to the Gentiles.

Who are the gentiles now?  Have we moved beyond the traditional understanding of the gentiles, people outside of the nation of Israel?  Perhaps the gentiles of our own time are people who are outside of our understanding of the family, of the redeemed.  To tell the story leads to self-understanding, but it also leads to a sense of understanding amongst others.  Again, Robert Bellah,

“If personal identity resides in the telling, then so does social identity.  Families, nations, religions, (but also corporations, universities, departments of sociology) know who they are by the stories they tell.” I assume that Christians are included as well.  So as we tell our story, is Simeon’s story there?  Is Jesus’ story included?  The question becomes one of connection and inclusion.  How does my light enlighten your story, and visa versa?

The Theme of Light

We have a simple but beautiful candelabrum in our dining room.  It was made in Sweden with delicate wrought iron.  We don’t use it.  Arthur thinks that it makes a mess – and it does.  As we prepared for the liturgy this morning there was an extended conversation about whether or not you were going to light your candles.  The sacristan was right in warning us about the mess, the risk, and the trouble.  Then there is a fond memory I have of an annual argument that Pr. DeLange and I had each and every Easter Vigil.  “The stair lights need to be on!” he would declaim.  To which I would respond, “Jim, its about darkness, then the light.”  I always won. 

There is an importance to light, because light is the symbol of Jesus’ presence in our lives and in our stories.  We light lights regularly here – do we know their story.  The light at the Jesus’ statue – do you know its story?  The lights that surround the reading desk – what are they?  Why the lights at the altar, and why the ever-burning light in the chancel?

These light are a sign of our common story, and like lights everywhere they can be messy and difficult.  We see the messiness of Simeon’s story in his aside to Mary, “and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”  The reading from Hebrews makes this messiness in the story abundantly clear.  Jesus’ story is intimately linked with our own.  The author comments on Jesus’ story, much like Simeon comments on Mary’s.  Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, he himself was tested by what he suffered.” Messy indeed.  In the light we will see sometimes more, and sometimes less, but we will see, we will understand and wonder, and then we must tell.  Remember, “the self is a telling.”

Take your light home with you, even if we gave it to you.  Take your light home but don’t put it into a drawer or in a box.  “Hide it under a basket no! I’m goin’ to let it shine,” as Pete Seeger would sing.  Take it home and put it by an icon, or stand it by itself – a singular light – your story in Jesus.  You can reflect, and you can ponder.  And when all of that is over, tell the story.


SDG