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My heart beats for love. I want to be different. I want to be who I am called to be. WORTHY and LOVED!

Sunday, September 27, 2015

“Stories of the Faith: Wrestling with Angels” Gen 32: 22-30

To date, the Bible is the most often republished and best selling book in the world. I think its because we have the greatest story to tell - the story of redemption and grace, yet many Christians have a hard time defining what they believe. They have a hard time telling how the story of God, as present in the Bible, intersects with their faith story. So for the next several months we are going to study some of the stories of the faith that meet our own personal faith journeys. In fact, despite what you may have been told the best tool you have for evangelism isn’t a picture, or knowing the four steps to salvation, but your own story. Because stories matter. 
Today we have gathered together to explore the story of Jacob - the patriarch of Israel. But before we can speak about his experience of wrestling with God, we need to know some of his back story. Just like our stories, which can be told as single moments in time, they become so much richer when woven into the tapestry of our history, both personal and communal. 
Jacob was one of the twins who were born to Rebekah and Isaac. We aren’t told much about Isaac after he was taken to be sacrificed by his father Abraham. All we know is that Isaac returned with his half brother Ishmael to Abraham’s grave upon his death. We also know that Isaac committed some of the same faux-pauxs as his father, trying to give his wife Rebekah away at one point when in a foreign land just to save his own skin. Beyond that Isaac is not spoken of much until the birth of his sons, Esau, or hairy one, and Jacob. 
Esau was well loved by his father. A strong hunter, he would often bring game back to be cooked and served to his father who could no longer hunt on his own. In contract, his twin, Jacob, like to cook and stay behind in camp with the women. While Esau was certainly Isaacs favorite, Jacob had a special place in Rebekah’s heart. And while Esau excelled at hunting in his early days, Jacob seemed to specialize in trickery. He tricked his twin out of both his birthright and his blessing, leading for Jacob to be chased out of his homeland to his Uncle Laban’s. 
If anyone was a match for Jacob in terms of trickery it was his uncle. Laban intentionally gave him the wrong daughter in marriage. In return, Jacob ran a scheme with his Uncle’s sheep.  Then his Uncle chased after him when he was leaving town with his 11 sons at this point, 4 wives, and daughter, in order to relocate his home, thinking that Jacob stole his family idol. 
Enter the story xfwhere we find ourselves this morning. Jacob is moving his tribe. He was troubled because he was returning to his home land but it isn’t really home anymore. His mother, the one who loved him best, is long deceased. His relationship with his brother is strained at best, murderous at worse. So he send the women and children ahead of him, and he stayed behind as they forged across the river. During the night a man, whom we often identify as an angel, comes and wrestles with Jacob until daybreak. Back and forth they went, but Jacob would not let go, even as dawn was breaking, until the man blessed him. 
Years ago, Bill Moyers did a series of interviews with religious scholars and leaders based on the book of Genesis. I love how Moyers panel describes the book of Genesis, “The stories of Genesis are about a life in the making”. This was certainly true of Jacob. The story of Genesis is the story of his life in the making, as he sheds his ways of trickery, and claimed life for an entire nation. 
Yet, having a life in the making is hard work. At this point in the story Jacob has received word that Esau wants to make peace, wants to set aside all of the ill feelings between them in order to start anew, and Jacob just can’t believe him. So he sends his clan on to face the brother he feared while he stayed behind in the darkness of night.
Remember that night time was a time of vulnerability in this culture. You wanted to have your people and animals around to protect you from other animals and robbers. You wanted the safety of numbers, yet it is exactly during this vulnerable moment that Jacob wrestled with an angel. 
What about you? Have you ever wrestled with God? I doubt that you have physically have wrestled with God, but you probably have emotionally and spiritually wrestled with the Creator.
A good friend once described this passage of scripture to me by asking if I would wrestle with a Sumo – Wrestler. He took my laughter to be the obvious response. Here I am a petite girl, there is no possible way that I am going to beat a skilled Sumo-wrestler, much larger then me. So why would Jacob wrestle God, knowing that it would be worse than a Sumo-Wrestler taking on little Michelle. And an even better question is why did God let Jacob win? This is not a fairly matched fight, folks, God had the power to crush Jacob, but chose not to.  Instead, this episode of wrestling went on until daybreak. Until that season and sense of vulnerability lifted, and Jacob demanded a blessing before he would let go. Before he would give up. And the blessing he received? A change in name. 
Now we don’t exactly know what Jacob was expecting or asking for when it came to a blessing. But I doubt that he was looking for a whole new identity. For a name signifies not only who we are, but our past. Our baggage. And it points us towards the future. Jacob may have been looking for a blessing that bought into the myth that blessing means everything is perfect, but instead he was given the gift of a new start. Not a perfect new start. But a new beginning. A new future, if he so wishes. 
Could Jacob have received a better blessing? For as Christian author once wrote, “In the ancient Near East your name was more than just words. Name was identity. Your name was reflective of your character, your substance, the very fiber that made you, you. Your name told who you are.”. And he isn’t the only one who God blesses by changing their name. Abram became Abraham and Sari became Sarah and Saul became Paul, just to name a few. God took the identity of who they were, how the world defined them, and banished it. It is like God whipped the slate clean by saying “No, you think this is who you are, but really THIS is who I created you to be.” Do you see the beauty in that? God wants us to see ourselves through his eyes, the only eyes that really matter for anything in the end. 
Our name and our purpose are unique. We are not called to do what Israel, Abraham, or Paul did. We are called to do what we were made to do. Somewhere along the way the church has confused this message and we get the idea that God wants us all to be the same. To look the same, act the same, but at that point we might as well be the same person with the same name. And that is NOT how we are identified by God. I think this idea probably came from a misreading of what Paul meant when he tells us to lose our identity in Christ. We have tried to make that into a strict set of dos and don’ts in order to become Christ like. For example: read your Bible x number of hours a day. And it’s not that reading the Bible is a bad thing, but through our relationship with Christ, God defines who we were created to be. God wants to work with the personality God gave us to save the world. He wants you to fully live out who you were created to be in order to serve God. 

So may you be reminded who you are, by your creator, God almighty. May you come to wrestle with God and be blessed through him bestowing your new identity on you. And may you live out that identity fully, letting your unique story be written as a reflection of your name. Amen. 

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Hospitality

    What is hospitality? That is the question that has been bouncing around my mind the last few days. I have some pretty odd and pronounced food allergies - chiefly an allergy to meat products due to a lack of digestive enzymes. Generally, folks have been very accommodating around my issues, and over the years I've been able to clearly articulate my needs.
   This past week I received an email from a group putting on a mandatory meeting I had to go to that they could not meet my needs, or the special needs of others, and keep the food under their budget. It didn't sit very well with me. When I was talking to some friends about it they remarked that I was reacting to the lack of hospitality. Yet other colleagues thought it was very hospitable to tell me, at least, that they could not accommodate me.
    Hospitality has become a buzz word in churches the last few years  -but the problem is that very few churches actually do it well. For hospitality goes beyond having a table or greeters - its going out of your way to meet the needs of others. Hospitality is an act of sacrifice, not convince. And it comes at a cost. What would the world look like if we extended hospitality not as a profunctorary sign, but ratter as a mark of respect? And for Christians, what if we treated each other with the hospitality that we would extend to our Risen Lord?

The Danger of Comparison

   It seems that we live in a day and age when we are always comparing ourselves to others. Or if we live long enough, comparing how it was to how it is.
   Today I was blessed to be at two meetings with colleagues. As a colleague was thanking for organizing one of the meetings for young clergy, I started to share with him my vision for the annual conference, that we would be a place where our young clergy seize opportunities to be the best leaders we can be. That we be a place where we can admit that we don't have all the answers and seek to find them from the best and brightest. And that very much is my vision, along with creating a place (and here is the comparison) like other annual conferences, where the first appointment is seen as being crucial, where we create opportunities for advanced continuing education (fully funded) for young clergy who often have different financial constraints, where we create long term mentoring relationships beyond what is required by BOOM, where we think about how to help pastors fund DMins, and we resource one another. I am the first to admit that it is a huge dream.
    But when you look at that dream, my biggest fear is not that it won't be meant, but instead that it will convey the incorrect message that our annual conference isn't doing anything, which is far from true. We learned today that we are one of two annual conferences with a deeply spiritual way of approaching appointments -which takes longer, but is continually bathed in prayer. That's amazing!
   The danger in comparing is that we often don't know everything good about ourselves that is being compared to in other areas. We don't know the behind the scenes workings-  which often leads us to be pessimistic or jaded.
   At Spring Awakening this past weekend, there were some pretty opinionated people sitting behind me. At first when the cast came out onto stage 10 minutes before curtain they were really excited, thinking it was a pre-show. But instead, they got dressed in their costumes right on stage (they already had the bottom layer of clothing on so they could just slip on the top layer) from a rack full of clothing located on stage. They stretched and warmed up on stage. And the folks behind me weren't happy, saying it took the mystery out of the show when they do that.
   Which is true. But maybe the mystery needs to be gone, not only in that particular instances but in life. Maybe we need to start sharing again and again the things we assume that everyone knows, which need to be celebrated. Maybe we need an accurate view of ourselves before we go comparing ourselves to others.

Sunday, September 13, 2015

"Old Fashioned"

   Today in church we had a wonderful musical group perform. They certainly have a powerful ministry, but two of the songs gave me pause.
  The first sang about being saved at an "old fashioned" prayer meeting. I almost actually laughed out loud, but contained myself. Oh how quickly that which we now uphold as being right and true because it is "old fashioned" was actual considered incredible radical at the time. I think about the same thing whenever I hear about "old fashioned" family values. Those family values, which we now uphold as timeless, actually didn't emerge until after World War 2, as a response to creating a new normal. I'm not actually so certain that anything is truly "old fashioned"is timeless, for such movements are responses to what is happening in society at a given time, and thus are usually considered quite radical.
   The second song told the story of being in Heaven and having mom and dad round the bend and welcome you to Heaven. That idea made me extremely uncomfortable. Not for myself, I have two wonderful, loving, Christian parents, but I just kept thinking about everyone in my life who doesn't experience that as their norm. I am well aware that I am in the minority having two parents, who still live together. What about the families I love where there are two dads or two moms? Or those where one or another of the parents left, never to be seen again? Or those who are in messy divorces, even years later? Or those, who one or both parents were abusive?
   Sometimes I struggle with songs like this , because they try to take the song writer's experience and extrapolate it into a normative experience, where that just isn't true for so many in this world. And how many times when we use our experiences as normative, do we actually end up hurting other people or turning them off to the faith.
   My denomination  for a period of time had the tag line: "Open hearts, open minds, open doors" - but I wonder if that's really true. Do we open up  our hearts in order to be radical in today's society instead of looking at days gone by? And  do we open up our minds to realize that our experiences, when made to seem normative , actually can hurt other people? And is our door truly open, or only if you are like us in experience, thought, and dress?

Saturday, September 12, 2015

Spring Awakening

  On my phone I have a list of different Broadway plays that I want to see. I think to date I've seen somewhere around 25, but this past weekend I was able to see one that has been on my bucket list for a while, Spring Awakening.
  For those who are not aware, Spring Awakening is actually an American adaptation of a German Play entitled the Awakening of Spring written in 1891. What I find so remarkable about this particular play is that it focuses on all the taboo topics that could not be discussed during that particular time period - sex, abortion, child rape, incest, suicide, homosexuality, etc. And you know what? All those same things we feel uncomfortable talking about in any detail still today, over 100 years later. Wedekind's premise in the play seems to be that by not talking about these topics and others, for fear of them not understanding or being too young, we are actually causing them more harm.
  However, I was unaware that this particular production of Spring Awakening was extra special. While in line, I noticed a woman off to my right video chatting with someone through ASL. When I was seated inside, a special insert in the program explained that this limited 18 week production of Spring Awakening was being done in both spoken English and ASL. And it was phenomenal. Additionally, one of the women performed from a wheelchair.
  The entire production hit home something that I had been struggling with for the last few weeks in Bible Study - the assumption that some Christians present that anyone who is differently-abled needs to be healed. Or should want to be healed. I am firmly not in that camp, so much so that sometimes the discussion around healing can make me uncomfortable, with the underlying assumption that people need to be healed in order to be used by God. Yet, here was an entire production strongly making the point that healing is subjective.
   I'm sure the all spoken/ sung English production of Spring Awakening, which closed in 2009, was good. But this production was amazing. Not only in its discussion of taboo topics, but it made each person attending face their underlying assumptions about sexuality, sex-education, and what it means to be a sexual being.
  For me, I also kept thinking about the quote from ABCFamily's show Switched at Birth a few weeks ago. One of the actors shared with one of the actresses, who was date-raped, that he too had been sexually assaulted as a child by a family friend who assumed because he was deaf he wouldn't tell anyone. We live in a world that seems to unfairly equate being differently-abled with being weak or being someone else's to abuse, or sometimes even begin un-sexual so sexuality does not need to be discussed. But shame on us. Because being differently-abled does not mean being of lesser worth.
   I also, kept thinking about a statistic that was released in the county I was serving back in 2011. The statistic was about an uptick in STIs present in elementary school students. Let that sink in for a moment - elementary school students. Let that sink in for a moment. Either we are holding sex ed off for so long in school that by the time we get around to it, kids are already experimenting without filly knowing what it is, or kids are being assaulted and don't know that its wrong or who to tell. Either way, shame on us for that as well.
   Seminary professor, Kate Ott, wrote a book about how to speak to your children from birth to adolescents about sex and sexuality. While I don't agree with everything in the book, I think the premise is correct. We need to start to figure out a way to talk to our kids about the tough things. So that they are protected - because not talking is certainly not working. There seems to be this misnomer that if we discuss things like healthy sex lives, mental health, and being pro life AND pro choice, that we will cause an epidemic of kids trying new things. I'm more afraid that not talking to kid will cause more experimentation then actually talking in age level appropriate discussions.
   We have some really hard conversations that we need to undertake as a society - some around tough  topics, that aren't going away any time soon, as an adaptation of a play from 1891 teaches us, and what it means and what it doesn't mean to be differently abled or abled bodied which this particular production brought out.

Three Part Birthdays

   It was my birthday last Sunday - 29. I've been using the time surrounding my birthday to really think - think about past birthdays, think about where I've been the past year, and dream about where I want to be.
   This past year has been hard. There were struggles at my appointment, almost immediately occurring after July 1, the start of a new year together. I had a lot of health struggles, that took almost six months to diagnosis. In short, 28 was not necessarily a good year. But 28 was also a learning year, really discovering the power of family, especially after taking an appointment closer to home starting in 2015 and also discovering what it truly means to be a friend.
   When I look at 29, I see a lot of possibilities that excite me. Opportunities that are opening up in the community I work in. Meeting new people and dreaming new dreams. I want to carry what I learned from 28, about self-care and self-worth and pacing, into 29.
   This year my birthday celebration, on top of being reflective, has also been pretty standard. There was one part where I was able to celebrate with my family. One part where I traveled to celebrate with a dear friend. And another part that was filled with people who didn't notice, which is okay. In so many ways birthdays are both like every other day and are special as well. What are your favorite birthday traditions and ways to reflect on time?

Sunday, September 6, 2015

“Hope and Redemption: Judgment and Redemption” Micah 4: 1-5:15

 Last week we started our brief discussion together about the Old Testament prophet Micah. If you recall, Micah was a prophet who predicted the fall of Jerusalem over a hundred years before it actually took place. He spoke to a Jewish community entrenched in chaos not only about the destruction of the city that was the epicenter of their identity and religion, but also the redemption and restoration of that city to something more beautiful and whole then the people’s wildest imagination.
Today we step away from the image of chaos from last week’s tale into two more parts - judgment and redemption. Judgment and redemption are tricky. We don’t like to be on the wrong side of them. We don’t like to be judged for what we do or who we are, but we seem to have no problem judging others - telling them how they could be better. We like to be offered grace and forgiveness but sometimes balk when it is offered to others. A story to illustrate the point. 
Max Lucado, Christian author and pastor, tells the story numerous times about a woman who was permanently disfigured in a freak accident. One day she was driving home after a long day and had a large turkey thrown through her wind shield. It made her face unrecognizable. She spent months undergoing surgery after surgery simply to function and returning to her previous figure was simply out of the question. She couldn’t even bring herself to look in the mirror. The person who threw the turkey was arrested and it simply came out that he threw the turkey to see what would happen because he was bored. When it came time for the young man to go to trial and be sentenced the woman was asked if she had anything to say and she told that man that she forgave him and argued for a reduced sentence. She offered him grace, forgiveness, and redemption instead of justice, and the court was aghast. 
How do you feel when you hear that story. Do you think the young man should have been punished more harshly? Do you think the woman let him off too easy with her forgiveness? Do you think the woman was brave to offer redemption? I realize that it’s very hard to say what we would do if faced with the same situation - but try putting yourself in her shoes for just a moment. How would you have reacted?
In our current context the word justice is often used to mean punishment. People getting what they deserve in our eyes. But in the context of the book of Micah and the gospel stories, that isn’t the meaning of justice at all. God’s justice can never be met. We have diluted ourselves into thinking that God’s punishment for sin is like our court system with different fines and incarceration times depending on the level and severity of the crime. But brothers and sisters God is not like that. The sin of the man who threw that turkey is seen the same by God as any of our sins of harsh words, lies, and greed. Sin is sin and all sin is hurtful to God and deserves God’s punishment. And the apostle Paul tells us that the wage for sin is death. It’s not that some sins are worse than others or that we can argue with God that our righteous moments outweigh our sinful ones. 
But that isn’t what justice means in God’s eyes. Justice for God is God’s intention to set the world right. Not through punishment, but through redemption. In today’s reading we find the image of the restored Jerusalem where God will teach us to walk in right paths. His judgement is seen as settling disputes in a way that honors God’s very self. Where there will be no more need for war and people judging people. A place where swords are beat into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. 
Justice to God isn’t the same as justice to us. Remember the things that were happening during the time of Micah - idols were being bought by money that was earned through prostitution. The temple was being financed by dishonest business practices. The citizens didn’t have enough money to feed their families, let alone the orphans and the widows, and poverty was widespread, both in terms of money and in terms of spiritual relationship with God. Prophets weren’t prophesying because they had a message from God, but rather for money in their own pockets. Sin was rampant. Yet God’s justice wasn’t to wipe them out. God’s justice was to point out their error, send them into captivity for a set time, and then restoring them beyond their wildest imagination of what is possible.
Redemption can mean restoration or buying back for a price. As Christians we believe that Christ is our redeemer, buying us back from our sinfulness with the price of his blood, which cleanses us entirely. Redemption in the time of Micah was gathering together those who had been outcasted by society, building them up into a strong people, bear a ruler greater than any they could fathom - a majestic shepherd. 
Brothers and sisters, when are we going to stop acting as the judged and start acting as the redeemed? When are we going to follow the majestic shepherd of Jesus Christ? When are we going to stop complaining about what the world is doing or how awful the world is and start believing that we are here for such a time as this? Redemption isn’t believing that the world is so awful that it is beyond God’s grace, goodness, and hope until the return of Jesus. And redemption isn’t just sitting back until Jesus comes back and not care for anyone in this world except each other. That is actually the sin of dualism tainted by judgment. Redemption isn’t believing that our labors are in vain. Redemption means that we believe that our redeemer lives and that nothing is impossible with our God. Redemption comes when we pray big prayers, God sized-prayers - ones that are only possible with God. Redemption comes when we stand upon the firm, yet highly unpopular truth, that God is doing something bigger than we can perceive to put this world right. 
Its time that we do the hard work of looking into our hearts and asking that God reveal any of our hidden (and public) sin to us so we can confess it and set our relationship back right with God and with each other. Its time we do that hard work instead of slipping into the easy pattern of judging others - either as individuals or collectively. Its time we set aside our language of just waiting until Jesus comes back and instead embrace the hard work of praying that God’s redemption come, even if that means we are a bit aghast, like those in the court story, when we see what true redemption and forgiveness looks like. Its time that we stop praying that everything be fair and even and instead pray that God’s Kingdom come, even if that means our sense of justice needs to be set aside. 
Hope and redemption go hand in hand. Hoping in God’s restoration and renewal. Actively waiting for that time to come. Not forcing people to hope by threatening our terms of justice, but instead of inviting them to hope in our God who is doing a new things. A new thing that needs to be proclaimed and witnessed to, here in this place at this time. Amen. 

Saturday, September 5, 2015

Words and Music

    One of the things I am doing to feed my soul and connect to my new community is serve as assistant director for a children's fall musical in the area. I love it. The kids are great and are working so hard! But it has also made me think of all of the things I missed out on when I was younger because of the voices that told me I wasn't good enough - the church music director who told me I didn't sing well, the public school choir director that told me I look like a frog when I sing, the local theater director who had favorites- of which I was not one. It made me feel like I wasn't good enough to sing or act or be creative, which wasn't true at all. It has also reminded me of the power of our words - we may just say something one time flippantly or sarcastically, but it can profoundly affect another person - for good or for bad. We need to watch our words and speak encouragement, especially to our young people.