11.22.20 Reign of ChristA: I Have Heard of Your Faith

Near the start of the pandemic, I purchased this original painting by Hannah Garrity, I find its colors and textures beautiful, and its theological significance profound. The painting has hung for the last year in the front of the church office so that everyone who enters might see our common call. The painting is called “Unbound” and it represents the linens left behind from a body that has risen from the grave and been unbound. Strips of cloth that once bound hands and feet and wrapped the head of the dead. I see in this painting, grief and hope. I see God’s glorious power and love glimmering among its folds reminding us of the new life that awaits for the unbound. 

Death has a way of reminding us of our humanity, and when not bound, also the meaningfulness of life.

Today is All Saints’ Sunday. It is a day that we remember and celebrate the saints of God: those who had died in the faith, and those who died whose faith is known to God alone. And the hallow-ness of all the saints and all the souls invites us to be introspective about to our own relationship with God, and with death ever before us, also meaningfulness of our life.

Why are we here? What is the meaning behind what we do and how we gather as the saints of God? How and why are we to participate in God’s way of love?

Amongst the grief and the hope, our Gospel has some insights for us. The power of God in Christ Jesus resuscitated Lazarus after he have been dead for four days— a wondrous miracle and testimony to the power of our loving, liberating, and life-giving God. And much art of these story depicts the resuscitated Lazarus as a wrapped up mummy. If God can resuscitate Lazarus— for that matter if God can create the very cosmos and raise the dead to life—then God can also unbind him from his grave clothes. It is not a question of God’s power. And, it is not a question of God’s loving nature. The Jewish people present at the event seeing Jesus’s grief, testified saying “See how he loved him!” In the words of Marvel’s Vision: “What is grief, if not love persevering?” So why then is it the community gathered who asked to roll away the stone? Why then does the all-powerful, all-loving God incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ tell those present to unbind Lazarus and let him go? What morsel of meaning might be broken open for us here?

After delving the depths, wrestling with some gremlins, and studying this passage with several of you, we came to a realization. Liberation requires us to be intimate with death and it is a group project. God invites us to be active participants in God’s liberation. We are made in the image and likeness of a liberating God and we too are co-liberators.

Here’s the thing, liberation is not clean easy work. It is hard as Hell. There are reasons that ancient Jewish purity laws had boundaries around people handling the dead. There are reasons we put fake grass carpets over the dirt at a graveside committal service. There are reasons we use euphemisms like “passed away” or “repose” instead of death and died. The denial of death is a popular coping strategy as we attempt to wrestle meaning from life.

Y’all— as a culture we have gone so far as to rename the main gathering place of a house the “living room.” In the United States, these main gathering places in the home used to be called a “parlor,” which was derived from a French word meaning to speak for it was the place that people gathered to sit and speak with one another. And for most of 1800s until World War I, the parlor of the home was also the place where the dead would lie in state wrapped in their burial clothes for people to come and pay their final respects. And we would speak around them and over them and about them often offering good words, eulogies. 

Now we have more distance and institutionalized regulations between us, and we go to a funeral parlor. And in our homes we have living rooms. It is as if we are banishing death from our midst and filling the void with staring mindlessly at death on screens for hours as we wonder if we are using our precious lives in any meaningful way. 

Often we try to keep our distance from real death, especially at this stage in a pandemic. We don’t want it in our living room. We don’t want to talk about in a grief group. We don’t want it ever before our faces. We just want to keep living as if it does not come for us all and so we fill our lives, often with self-hyponotic practices.

… Lazarus looks a lot like death. He has been dead, for four days. And Martha is clear that he smells a lot like death too. There is stench. The King James Version is more poetic: “he stinketh.” And, Jesus said to those gathered, “Unbind him, and let him go.” Honestly? There is a very real part of me that would say aloud— or at least in my head— You want me to do what? 

And, Jesus [says] to those gathered, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Death is real and present and in order to participate in the work of liberation, we do not get the luxury of denying it. We do not get to cast it out of our living rooms. Jesus is asking us to get up close and personal with death. We are wrap our arms around what was a dead body so that we might unwrap Lazarus. “Unbind him and let him go.”

The first instruction is liberation.

Do you remember learning —or trying to learn— to speak a new language? I learned Spanish in middle school. They started us off with the verbs to be (estar/ser), to have (tener), to go (ir), and to be able (poder). When one is learning English verb conjugation for the first time, they use similar verbs like eat, sleep, think, take, speak. When one is learning ancient Koine Greek, the language of the New Testament, verb conjugation is taught using the verb λύω. I λύω. You λῡ́εις. She λῡ́ει. We λῡ́ομεν. Ya’ll λῡ́ετε. They λῡ́ουσῐ(ν). And then for nine inflections and compounds and derivatives. You get the gist there is a lot of λύω going on in your mind. You eat λύω. You speak λύω. You dream λύω. You start to see the whole of the New Testament through the lens of λύω… λύω means to loose, to free, to break open, to unbind. It is the action of liberation. The first instruction is liberation. A lens through which we read the Gospel is liberation. Our liberating God invites us into being co-liberators. 

“Unbind him, and let him go.” The word here — unbind— is the aorist active imperative λύσατε — in other words it is Jesus’ command to a group that means y’all unbind him. And what is important here is that Jesus doesn’t say you— and only you—unbind him. This is not work to be done alone. Along those lines Jesus does not call out only Mary and Martha to do this work…And Jesus doesn’t say they will unbind him. This work is not done by someone else. We do not just get to be the spectator cheering them on. No, Jesus says y’all unbind him. And as we like to say here, y’all means all. Liberation — as much as we might cringe—  is a group project. 

Writer Kate Bowler, a seminary professor, young mother, and person living with stage-VI colon cancer, articulates in her book the simple and profound truth that “there is no cure for being human” (188). Rather than choosing denial, knowing that we will indeed die, the question then becomes, “How do we live now?” (193). 

For many of us, the instinct is to respond to this question in an individual personal way. And that response is, of course, important. So too is how do we respond communally, as a church, as Trinity. Unbinding is a group project. Liberation is not something done by God and an individual or a priest or a staff or even small group of dedicated leaders while the rest of us come and see and receive and leave. Y’all means all. 

God brings the dead to life. Together, the work we have to do is to loose bonds so that we might be free to live meaningfully as God’s saints in this place here at Trinity.

Why are we here? Why do our gatherings matter? What is the reason and the meaning behind how we gather as Trinity? The new year will bring a new vision cast by all of us. We are not what we once were. And there is grief in this for there is love persevering. And, there is a meaningfulness to our life together as Trinity. My hope and my prayer is that we come together, all of us together— and tenderly wrap our arms around what once was in order to unwrap what will now be. New life…

Every year at this time, we are invited to be introspective about our communal responsibility as the saints of the church. Toward this, soon we will be invited to renew our baptismal covenant.

Beforehand, I invite you into a call and response grounded in the questions that we typically ask to baptismal candidates and our own part in God’s liberating work of meaning making: 

Your response to these first three questions, I hope, will be “I renounce them.”

Do you renounce the meaningless suffering and pain which is not of God which plagues our world?

I renounce them

Do you renounce the ways in which the powers of this world corrupt death and render meaningless the lives of God’s saints?

I renounce them

Do you renounce the desire within yourself to deny your own death and the meaningfulness of your life?

I renounce them

Your response to these next three questions, I hope, will be “I do”:

Do you look to Jesus Christ as your liberator?

I do.

Do you put your trust in his power and love?

I do.

Do you promise to do your best to join him in the work of liberation? 

I do. 

The service for All Saints’ Sunday continues with the Renewal of Baptismal Vows.

Wisdom. I wonder… if we would even recognize her were she to pop up on our screens as we surf, or flash on the billboard by the bridge, or alert our phones of an emergency…. 

There is a story— a tragedy— in Greek Mythology about Cassandra. Cassandra was a Trojan princess and connected to Apollo, the Greek god of sun and truth and prophecy and healing diseases. And the story — the myth— the tragedy—  goes that she would always speak truth, she would utter wisdom, and she would never be believed. She could recognize the sheep in wolves clothing, the Trojan horse with its bowels full of lying swords, but no one would listen— they were too busy wagging their tongues and babbling on about their own names and prowess and powers— and so the Trojan city would fall, the Greek ships would sink, the princes of the world were slaughtered, and even the lady and her wisdom were pillaged and buried. Hers was an epic tale of tragedy and woe.

There’s more to the story— there always is— and I wonder… what if Cassandra were to speak today? What if Lady Wisdom were to offer us a proverb? What if St. James were to pen the utterances of his tongue not only to the very first Christian community in Jerusalem, but to our Christian community in Texas… what word might they have for us? And might we pause long enough to hear the power of that word, recognize it within ourselves and rumble with the depth of what it might mean. 

And so I offer for you— out of holy imagination — today’s appointed proverb of wisdom from the book of James translated in a way that is incarnated—embodied— in the here and now. I invite you to get curious and listen. 

My siblings, not many of us should become influencers.  What happens to the 🐐? The Greatest Of All Time either falls off their vaulted position or is mocked when they withdraw from competition. We are very much works in progress — and it says so right on the front of our website, and in the pages of our journal, and in the chambers of our heart. We are not whole. We do not keep our whole body in check. 

Our fingers are our new tongues. Want a heavy appliance moved? Just one finger. 👉 Hungry for a meal delivered to your doorstep without painful toil in the field? Just a few clicks. 🛒 Curse another driver on the road? Also takes just one finger. 🤬 Eviscerate the humanity of your neighbor or contribute to the destruction of society through disinformation? Just takes a few movements 🐍.  

Bless the congregation? Sign the cross. ✝️ Send a widely distributed call to prayer? 🙏Type away. Praise our God? Raise your hands. 🙌 

We speak 🗣️ with our tongues and increasingly with our bodies and in one moment we bless and praise and love 🤟 and in the next we rain down the evils of Hell upon one another.💥 We are fractured and fracturing and left on own, we are AF (absolutely fracked). 😳 😬 😩 ☠️ 

pause…

Get curious with me. Do you recognize the story as our story too— how the God’s Word is living and active today? 

I can see how lady wisdom prophesying about the healing of diseases through injections is rejected in the social square (typing). We’re too busy wagging our tongues and babbling on that we believe influencers and welcome the gift horse they erect. We are wrecked. Communally we are divided. Individually, we are fractured. 

What is the story as you see it?

My sibling once was a navigator for a deep water Destroyer. In navigation, before you turn your rudder and chart a course for the future, you begin with reckoning, as in dead reckoning, and you calculate where you are. 

Or as is said in the opening words of Abraham Lincoln’s famous speech about a house divided: “If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.”

Where are you in all of this? Where are you standing? What is fractured in you? Why is your house divided? What are you saying? How are feeling? 

Exasperated with a jaw clenched so tight anything you say projects onto others? Anxious with a roiling gut that keeps your mouth closed lest it spew? Disillusioned with in ache in your temple that jumbles your clarity? Dismayed with a heaviness in your breath that turns the poison inward? 

pause…

Beloveds, truth? This is our story. Can we own it and rumble with it? What is honest about the stories we are making up and what ain’t? 

Do you know the idiom, the saying: “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me?” That’s a flat out lie. That is a false fracturing between our bodies and mind, and we are whole embodied beings. Words do hurt me. Words do hurt you. Words are killing people. In our ICUs, and emergency rooms, and because there is no longer access to timely care. 

As St. James reminds us: “With [our tongue] we bless [God], and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God.” Truth? Words have power. No matter if we say them with our tongues or with our hands, words have immense power. Power to influence. Power to destroy. And, power to create. 

How much power? Creation — creation — was spoken into being. God said, ‘“Let there be light”; and there was light.” “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” Words have power. Power to create and re-create, if we let them.

Beloved, we are made in the image and likeness of a God who speaks creation into being and our words have power too. Here’s where it gets real for us— if we desire to lead wholehearted lives in congruence with the God in whose image we are made— what needs to change? 

pause…

My hope and my prayer for us is that we might wholeheartedly speak a creative word of love in our lives. Beloved we have a God who speaks creation into being. We have a God who binds up the broken hearted and liberates the captives. I believe it is the desire of God to restore to wholeness what is fractured in us. Imagine with me then a new ending to the story. Imagine with me a life transformed by wholeheartedness. Imagine with me what it would be like to heed the proverbial wisdom about the power of our words.

pause…

I imagine that such a wholehearted life would look like:

… curbing this sailor tongue of mine, especially when it lashes inward

… pausing before posting online or communicating to another driver

… minding what words and news and media I let in knowing they have power 

… showing-up with my whole self and speaking love and life and truth and bringing the power of God’s good words to the deep dark depraved places of our world for silence is complicity.

… examining what I’ve said with my words and deeds every night and confessing what needs to be confessed, repenting of what needs to be repented, making a plan to repair what needs to be repaired, and forgiving (myself and others)

How might wisdom be inviting you into a wholehearted life? 

Beloved— especially in such times as of this— my hope and my prayers is that as the writer to the Ephesians says we might “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of [God’s] power.” In a world doubled over in pain and suffering… in a world swirling with disinformation needlessly costing people lives… in a world reeling from the costs to our children of imposing ‘normal’ onto that which is not— in our world I pray that we might “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of [God’s] power” and declare the gospel boldly. 

From where I stand our world is in desperate need of the love and grace of Jesus Christ. Our world — we— are invited to do as best as we can to declare that love and grace in what we say, and what we do, and how we are— in our words, our actions, and our posture. This is what I hear in our passage today from Ephesians an invitation to go about our life with a posture of the love of God. 

St. Paul in his letter to the church in Ephesus writes about this strength in God’s power as putting on the whole armor of God. That when we go out into the world declaring the Gospel we will encounter things and powers that are not of God. I don’t think that this is news to anyone, as it is splashed across our news. There is a reason in our post communion prayer we pray for strength and courage. When we get up from the altar, we are sent out into a world where there is brokenness and sin and we need strength and courage. And thus, St. Paul writes about putting on the armor of God. 

Now there are three aspects of the strength and power of the armor of God I want to highlight today. 

1) The first insight comes from John Bunyan in Pilgrims Progress — yes the theological fiction from 1678— Bunyan points out that there is no armor for the back — no armor for the back. To put this is terms for us here in Texas—this is not the armor of an armadillo. When the going gets tough we don’t get to curl up into a ball with back armor that ricochet off what might cause pain. No. The purpose of the armor of God is not to protect us when we are hunkered down, it is to enable us to together stand firm and hold the line. Stand firm the writer of Ephesians says—- stand firm. 

And when you have no armor for the back, it means that it is designed for you to be in community. Someone else has to have your six. You six o’lock position, your back. We are not created to be alone but in community. And when one steps away, the rest are exposed. To stand against the powers and principalities of this world requires community. The armor of God is for those standing and in community-- there is no armor for the back. 

2) The second insight I want to offer is that this is very different kind of armor. Our world today is highly militarized and especially in what has transpired recently, I know that for some this metaphor can be hard to hear. And so I think it is important to remember that this was not written to those with worldly power and might but it was written to a minority community who were being oppressed with extreme violence. And in his metaphor St. Paul takes the everyday armor that they are used to seeing and turns it on its head: 

A belt of truth, a breastplate of righteousness, as for shoes for your feet, put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace, a shield of faith, a helmet of salvation and only offensive item is the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.  To be clear, I do not believe he is referring to using scripture as a weapon, but rather allowing the Spirit and the Word of God and the presence of Christ to do the work. Let God do God’s work and not try to do it for God. Imagine with me, how beautiful would it be to wake up in the morning and tie on a belt of truth, put on a breastplate of righteousness. Choose the shoes that will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. Some in my household usually don’t think I need more shoes, but those shoes-- imagine what our world would be like if Christians put on whatever will make us ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. Beloved, this is very different kind of armor.

3). The third insight I want to offer today is about posture. You see, when we are wearing armor, you have to stand differently. Have you ever put on armor before? Your whole body stance changes when you wear it. It can be a bit… cumbersome. — let’s just name that truth, righteousness, peace, faith and salvation can be cumbersome when you are moving out and about in the world. When you are wearing armor, you need to think differently about how you are going to move in it. Your posture, your stride, your stance-- everything changes a bit. And this transformation is a good thing. Changing our posture makes us strong and powerful and that is the point in the first place: “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power” 

Are you familiar with the research of Amy Cuddy? Now I’ll admit, it is a bit controversial, but makes me curious. Cuddy was an Associate Professor at Harvard Business School and a social psychologist known for her research on power and nonverbal behavior. She is perhaps best known for her TEDtalk from 2012 that has viewed more than 62 million times. For those who don’t know, a TED talk is a short (around 20 minutes) live talk at a conference about an idea worth spreading by a leader in that field that is then uploaded as a video for free online. Cuddy’s argument is that your body language shapes who you are and her research suggests that by simply changing your posture you can become more powerful. Or in the least our posture has a statistically significant affect on our propensity to take risk and the level of the stress hormone cortisol in our system. Now we’ve talked about some of this before— that our bodies can impact the chemistry of our brains and the mind can impact the body. That we are embodied, in-fleshed, incarnate whole beings. And in a sense she is saying that our bodies and their posture in the world matters.  Pay attention with me for a moment to our bodies. At times do we make ourselves smaller by hunching, crossing our legs, holding onto our arms? At times do we make ourselves big by spreading out, stretching, raising our hands with gusto. Cuddy talks about these as power poses. 

In a manner of speaking, the writer of Ephesians is suggesting the same thing for when you are wearing the armor of God, you have to stand differently-- you can’t close up like an armadillo— you stand firm. Standing in the armor of God makes you powerful. To “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of [God’s] power” we put on the armor of God— armor that requires us to stand firm in the posture of  truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation. How we stand in our bodies impacts our minds and our hearts. God is inviting us to transformation  we live and move can transform our being.

Beloved, God is inviting us into transformation by putting on the armor of God, by living our lives with a posture of the love of God. I pray that we may “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of [God’s] power”

“And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

Jesus speaks these words as part of the bread of life discourse in John 6 that we have been following in our gospel readings for weeks. At this point, he is speaking about more than the ordinary daily physical bread that gives life for a day, he is speaking about himself as the bread of life and his own flesh as the means that gives eternal life. “And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

Many of us come from cultures rooted in the Greek philosophical traditions do not have as high regard for the flesh or world. Aristotle and Plato - ancient Greek philosophical thinkers whose work is considered by many to be the bedrock of Western civilized thought— both of them were clear that our rational thinking thoughts were superiors to our body’s senses. Plato would go so far as argue that the whole purpose of the soul was the escape the body. Ya’ll, many of us have bought that lie— the lie that in the end bodies do not matter. 

This worldview has even seeped into interpretations of New Testament epistle writings. From Hebrews 8:5 —the tabernacle the sanctuary is merely “a copy and shadow of what is in heaven.” From 2 Corinthians 5:1 — even “if the earthy tent we live in is destroyed, we have building from God, an eternal house in the heaven.” And while this is all good and true, often we then descend down that very slippery slope into falsely believing that this earthly tent doesn’t matter. It’s all just earthly stuff and we’re waiting to be snatched away from earth to heaven and leave this all behind. (I’ll fly away… Don’t get me wrong, the hymn is catchy and I kinda like it) and that kinda of theology is very dangerous and unfortunately very common in some churches. It is dangerous and unwise because it leads many to believe the lie that matter doesn’t matter. 

Experientially, we know that it is really easy to discount and misuse and abuse something we do not think matters in the long run. This is the philosophical ground of those who simply do not care about how their actions impact rental cars or the earth. Seas are rising? meh. Hurricanes are stronger, meh. The West is burning, meh. The new method of extracting oil in West Texas is one unregulated disaster away from poisoning our aquifer and most of the water for our state, meh. When we buy the lie that creation is something to escape from then rarely does it matter what we do to it.  

This worldview that matter doesn’t matter— that the earth and her humus— her human bodies do not matter — honest it has even seeped into the New Testament epistle writings and their interpretations. Paul and his communities have especially inculturated this into their writings. Somehow they bought into the Greek worldview of their time that bodies = bad. Over and over again flesh is equated with sin. Romans 8:6-8 - “to set the mind on flesh is death, but the set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace…the mind set on the flesh is hostile to God, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” Or Galatians 5:16 “you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” and then precedes to equate flesh with all manner of sin. Colossians 3: “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth… put to death therefore what is earthly in you.” Even Jesus later in John 6 says “it is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless.” And it goes on… It is right there in our scriptures and it is absolutely voice that we must take seriously. The difficulty for listener’s today is not if we are to take it seriously but that all too often we conflate the biblical metaphor till flesh and world become synonymous with sin and evil. That kinda of theology is also very dangerous and unfortunately very common in some churches. It is dangerous and unwise because it leads many to believe the lie that this earthy, fleshy matter is evil.

Experientially, we know that it really easy to discount and demonize and abuse someone whose body we think is sin. This is the philosophical ground of those who historically used to tell women they must cover their heads or could not were trousers or they did not have the bodily equipment necessary to vote or handle finances or have consent or preach. This is the philosophical ground of those who equated melanated bodies with metaphorical darkness and legalized ways to diminish their personhood through enslavement and discrimination. This is the philosophical ground of some schools dress codes. Dress codes that refuse mandate masks that could save lives during a peak of a pandemic when there are no ICU beds left in Houston for children and yet at the same time double down about the style of a young man’s hair or the lack of sleeves on a young woman’s shirt. When we buy the lie that a human body is inherently sinful or lesser than our capacity to rationalize sin is exponential.

Let me be abundantly clear. Matter matters to God. Bodies— my body, your body— matters. This earth matters. Creation is not some earthy tent to escape from that does not matter, Genesis tells us we are to till and keep her for God has called this earth good. As to our human bodies — God has called very good as we are made in the image and likeness of God. As our Psalmist reminds us today “God’s work is full of majesty and splendor.” Sometimes, as the meme suggests, we need the Holy Spirit to march on over to sorry selves us to remind us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. 

Beloved, matter matters so much to God that God became incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ. In-carnate. in-carne —in-fleshsed. Christ is not simply spirit, but is embodied. Christ’s enfleshed presence among us in Jesus sanctifies— makes holy — our bodiliness. God ’s gift of grace “for the life of the world is [God’s] flesh.” The cross matters. And bodies matter so much to God that Jesus was resurrected and we are promised resurrection. So to the legion of Platos and Aristotles of this world, as far as I have read and know and imagine there is no reason to think that suddenly God would change God’s nature and not care about the body or resurrection. 

Bodies are not inherently sinful or evil. God has a body. God has flesh. Again from our Gospel for today: ”the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”  Bread is not some sort of intellectual thought or idea. Bread is experienced through our bodies’s senses. We taste and see that the Lord is good. Through our embodiment we experience the nourishment and grace of God. Our bodies are remarkable and bear witness to the miraculous nature of God. My hope and my prayer is that we will see this earth and our bodies are a gift and a grace of God. And then that we will wisely, and the prayer goes, “follow daily in the blessed steps of God’s most holy life.” 

Imagine with me then a life lived out of incarnational theology— a life that recognizes the matter matters and bodies are a gift and grace of God. What changes? How does that impact how we care for creation? Or impact we care for our own bodies and the bodies of our neighbors? Do we find ourselves moving from shaming other’s bodies to celebrating other’s bodies? How might grace call us to repent of the words codified in our hearts and policies?  Does knowing and experiencing God incarnate in Jesus Christ transform our life and how we spend our time or energies or finances? Beloved, taste and see in the whole of your body the goodness of the Lord. 

The individual right to decide for oneself. 

Many of us might call this freedom. And it can be that. We— or our loved ones — have fought — and some have even died — for the sake of liberty. Remember the story from last week’s sermon about Liberation Day in Guam? Or perhaps you recognize the famous and very political cries from one Patrick Henry proclaimed from within St. John’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia in March of 1777: “Give me liberty or give me death.” For many, this— the individual right to decide for oneself— is the why behind those warriors deaths and injuries that for many offers meaning. 

And sometimes our liberty — the individual right to decide for oneself— comes at the cost of another’s death. 

Let me share with you story this morning, you may recognize some of it… 

“The Lord sent [the prophet] Nathan to [king] David.” And “[Nathan] came to [David], and said to him,” in a manner of speaking:

“There were two men in a certain city…” both fought for liberty and the individual right to decide for oneself. One was powerful, and the other vulnerable. The status quo was not designed for both.

One man had nothing and was considered to be nothing by those in power; just an acceptable loss. But this man knew that God was his light, YHWH was his flame and he had love. He had one little ewe lamb, which was known, and grew by his side, and ate from alongside him, and lay has his bosom and down by his feet. Together they were sheep. 

Now the prince of a man had very many flocks and herds on his ledger — he’d slaughter the fatted calf on a Tuesday, just because (definitely not for a prodigal). He’d put on a pedestal of entertainment the Greatest of All Time, the G.O.A.T., and when she choose her life over performing for his pleasure he mocked her patriotism. He had billions to burn on a pleasure ride to space, but his storehouses of treasure would not contribute to the care of those more vulnerable. 

No, they would not. He was loathe to take even one of his own herd for the sake of a stranger. He exercised his individual right to decide for himself, and he did what was right for his own eyes. He saw that Mary had a little lamb and he took the lamb of God and prepared that those who had come for him. 

Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against this prince of a man. He said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, because he did this thing, and he had no compassion” no love for his neighbor, only deciding for himself and his own self-indulgent appetites. And Nathan said to David, “You are the man!” 

Now you probably haven’t heard that version— it’s a bit of midrash, it’s called incarnational translation. It’s kinda like what Nathan was doing for David— he was taking a story that he could see and helping him see himself in that story. 

Let me be as clear as I was last week— the thing — “that David had done was evil in the eyes of the Lord.” It is not of God, that the privileged powerful of this world care more for their own comfort than our siblings lives. Rarely is the liberty of the vulnerable privileged over the liberty of the powerful. All too often the liberty of those with power — to right to individually decide becomes a decision for oneself,  one’s own sake and benefit and desires as is best in our own eyes, often it renders others else in the ledgers of our heart as an acceptable loss. The Uriah the Hittites and Bathshebas of the world become for the Davids of the world the sacrificial lamb.

And once again, the truth of this story often threads through our stories in a legion of sometimes sssublter ways. Can we recognize it? Ways we are complicit in systemic and structure sin? Ways that we bow to the powers and principalities of this world? Ways that when we exercise our individual rights to decide we prioritize our own comfort over the lives over the vulnerable? Ways we too are King David?

Can we hear Nathan saying to us: “You are the man.” “ We are the man.” 

What is it like to be David in this story from 2 Samuel? 

What is it like to face with the depths of our unworthiness, wretchedness and complicity in wickedness? Many of us do not want to take responsibility or be accountable for our actions for we like to avoid discomfort. And so we instead disengage, deny, defend or deflect. We disengage and move away and avoid. We put blinders on the truth so we cannot see, we stop up the ears of our heart so we don’t have to hear. Till like Pilate washing his hands of his part of Jesus death, we disengage. Or maybe we deny. We craft such elaborate stories of misinformation and put it on a loop till we believe the conspiracies and fill in the gaps with confabulations and we craft a story that we believe but is not true. Till like the soldiers at the crucifixion, we simply know not what we are doing. 

Or maybe we defend and move against. We double down and armor up and make ourselves so invulnerable that we harden our own heart. Till like the high council, in our attempt to protect what we have constructed we actively seek to crucify Christ. Or maybe we deflect and bounce the blame to another. We seek out a scape goat saying I’m not the man— it was the woman who gave me the fruit— it was at the serpent who tricked me. We know that story that is as old as time. Till like the church through the centuries who in their antisemitism pinned the death of Jesus on “the Jews,” we think we have the power to absolve ourselves. When we are faced with the truth of Nathan’s words that “[I] am the man,” how often out of our discomfort do we disengage, deny, defend, and deflect and sacrifice the lamb?…

Here’s the thing, for all the awful done by David— and there is a lot — I mean A LOT — David in our story does not have a hardened heart: he does not disengage, or deny or defend or deflect, he takes responsibility and confesses: “I have sinned against the Lord.” God loves a repentant sinner. The fatted calf is for the prodigal. There is joy in heaven over the sinner who repents. God so loved the world that God gave Jesus not for condemnation but for salvation. The lamb— Mary’s little lamb, the lamb of God, takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. … Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, grant us peace. 

My hope and my prayer is that we use our freedom, our individual right to decide not for ourselves but for one another. I pray that we freely decide to repent of our own self-indulgent appetites and ways, and like Jesus privilege the vulnerable. I pray through all of this, we live in the continual mercy and loving-kindness and grace of our God in Jesus Christ, the lamb of God. In the words of our Psalmist that we pray every Ash Wednesday,: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

Acceptable loss. 

This is one of those euphemisms, those feel-good terms, that creates distance, and spins the meaning till there is nearly nothing left. 

An acceptable loss in the business world is also called waste.

An acceptable loss in the military is also called acceptable casualties. BUT there is nothing casual about injury and death. If we were to besiege a city and send our warriors into the line of fire how many deaths would be an acceptable loss? For those of us more apt to justify some war I imagine that the reason, the meaning, behind such a campaign would make all the difference. For instance, my sibling lives in Guam and July 21st is the annual festival of Liberation Day when CHamoru people of Guam celebrate their liberation 77 years ago from atrocities under Axis occupation in WWII and they remember our 6,000 injured and 1,700 soldiers who died fighting. 

Their names are written and known on a memorial. There is a compelling why behind those warriors death’s and injuries that for many offers meaning.

Now imagine with me a scenario that is — I hope— very different. The question before us is still: ‘If we were to besiege a city and send our warriors into the line of fire, how many deaths would be acceptable’? This time though the reason— the meaning— behind the campaign is different. This time our sibling lives in the glory days of ancient Israel (and Judah). This time our sibling and we are told all of Israel— except the ruler—are sent out back across the Jordan, far beyond the land even they understood to be theirs (all the way to Rabbah or modern day Amman, Jordan) to lay siege to a city they are not liberating but attempting to ravage. This is the story we heard read from 2 Samuel. And yes this time our sibling and others with him also die. Why? 

Because of the king who did not deserve their pledge of allegiance. Because to the self-important one who ruled with power over to see and take to as he desires, their deaths served his own self-indulgent appetite. The privileged powerful of this world care more for their own comfort than our siblings lives. Uriah the Hittite and those who died by his side and by his sword were deemed by some an acceptable loss.

That’s evil. 

We read in 2 Samuel 11:27(b) that “the thing that [the ruler] had done displeased the Lord.” Displeased? Aw Hell no. That is euphemism designed to make us feel a bit better about the good ole golden boy, create some distance and spin the meaning. The word is raw-ah like the sound of the roaring lion sin that lurked at the door for Cain before he murdered his sibling Abel in Genesis. The thing— seeing and taking and raping Bathsheba who was married to Uriah, ordering Uriah eat, drink, and be merry w/his spouse in order to cover up that sin and when that did not work, sending Uriah with the message to be murdered by military proxy which is then covered up by a massacre— that thing is an attempt to break apart God’s creation and render it good for nothing. That’s evil. 

While this story has its share of drama making its rounds in film and will make its round again in next week’s sermon. Stay tuned. And yet, the truth of this story often threads through our stories in a legion of sssubtler ways. The privileged powerful of this world often care more for their own comfort than our siblings lives. Than perhaps our lives. 

What is then like to be Uriah the Hittite? To make our way as faithfully as we can with a home and a lovely spouse and a decent enough job within a relatively thriving nation. Sticking it to the man now and then, but to us it is all mostly status quo.”

And yet the status quo is not designed for a Hittite. In a manner of speaking, some of us will always be a Hittite — one who is not really included or celebrated— maybe it’s how we are abled, or the color of your skin, or the way we present ourselves with integrity, or something else that is a part of who we are that we cannot change and on our better days would not change. And ultimately the structure and systems of the  status quo is not designed to be good for us. No, they are designed for the use and to the reliant to the abuse of those with more privilege and power.  So we are cast out or aside. We are discarded as if we are waste. As if we have no value or worth. Or as if our death would free up resources for the rich and their whims. The powers and principalities of this present whiteness would have us believe that we are nothing of consequence — just an acceptable loss on a business ledger.

That too has a name: evil. My siblings : the sssbutle ssslithery sssomethings attempting to get us believe that we are nothing…those ssstormy ssstories ssspinning in the chaos attempting to break apart what has been called very good. That ain’t of God. 

Be liberated from those lies. We matter. Our lives are precious. 

For those of us who are Uriah the Hittite. Are we victims of evil? Absolutely. And victimhood is not our only identity. Be liberated from that lie too. 

To deep dark formless void, speak a word. To the powers and principalities of this world, speak a word. To the lies slithering in our selves, speak a word. Say his name. Uriah. YH- riah. The meaning is YHWH is my flame/ God my light. And this too is who we are. With YHWH as our flame— no matter the hell— nothing can destroy our spark. Evil can destroy our body, our mind, and maybe even our spirit, but it cannot destroy who we are. In the end, the kind of ravaging power evil may have cannot prevail against liberating power of our crucified creator. The war is won with love and the captive victims are free. Even in the valley of the shadow of death, God is our light. Remember who we are Uriah, we are named “God is my light,” and from the very first day we are invited to participate in re-creation. We are co-creators. We need not conform to the structures and systems that privilege the powerful and their whims. The reign of God coming into being is not the current status-quo. To one who reigns seated on the throne— to our God in Jesus Christ— not a one of us— not a one of us— is an acceptable loss.

Our world— at least one of us —needs to hear and see this truth. Spread the spark into the world and may it burn like a refiner’s fire. Speak a word. Live it out in your life. In my holy imagination this is the epitaph of Uriah “God is my flame” the Hittite: “No one is an acceptable loss.” 

Fatigue. Fatigue is a very real thing. Now perhaps you do not feel exhausted at this precise moment, but I imagine you know exhaustion. Physically, emotionally, spiritually, socially, compassionately you know name— most of us know fatigue, exhaustion, and burnout. 

Often, we humans hold this fatigue in our bodies — muscles ache, inflammation swells, our gut gets cranky — or as Dr. van der Kolk, a psychiatrist specializing in trauma says, our bodies keep the score. The experience of my own embodiment bears witness to this keeping score. My background in neuroscience reminds me that it makes a lot of sense. Emotions are more than thoughts and feelings they also exist in our bodies. In a resource we’ll discuss in our Wednesday study soon, the twin Drs.  Nagoski write in their book called Burnout about how “Just about every system in your body responds to the chemical and electrical cascade activated by emotion.” Our emotions and stress are not confined to some disembodied mind. We too are incarnated; we are in the flesh; we are embodied. Exhaustion and fatigue are embodied experiences.

We know what it is like, as the gospel says, to “[have] no leisure even to eat.” We get breakfast on the go, work through lunch, and have dinner dash to our door. Generally, we humans have a limit to what we do and give and take in without rest and rejuvenation. I do not have to work the muscle of my imagination very hard to think of why Jesus invites the apostles to “come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” That sounds like the good news of the gospel to me. I don’t know about you, but for this introvert going away on a boat to a deserted place that happens to be beautiful with Jesus sounds like heaven. 

And arriving at there… and discovering that what I was going away from has hurried there on foot arriving ahead me and is now great crowd in need of compassion sounds like not heaven. Truth? That sounds exhausting. 

And in situations like that, most of we humans experience what is called by psychologist’s compassion fatigue. Compassion fatigues is very real. We see it in our news and media cycles. We are moved with compassion for those who are vulnerable and getting sick with breakthrough covid. We moved with compassion for those who died in the condo collaspe in Florida, for the people of Haiti, and Cuba, and South Africa, and Germany and Belgium, for the victims of  extreme heat in the Northwest and gun violence. And, so much more. The news and media move on rather quickly. We— unless it hits home for us— also move on. For us, compassion fatigue is very real. Generally, we humans have a limit to what we do and give and take in. 

And what is the good news of the gospel is that God does not. The compassion of Jesus Christ does not fatigue. When in our gospel Jesus is arrives not to a desert place but to a great crowd in need “he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” Those whose bodies have kept the score, are met with the healing. The unwavering compassion of God in Jesus Christ is for all. God’s compassion is not some disembodied thought. God is incarnated; in the flesh; and embodied in Jesus Christ. Compassion — for us and especially for God— is an embodied experience. 

Our English word for compassion has Latin origins of patri meaning suffer, and cum, meaning with: “suffers with”. And so, to say that Jesus has compassion is to say that he experiences the depths of the agony and suffering of the human condition. Compassion requires emotionally embodied labor. (no wonder it can be fatiguing for us).  

Now, in the Greek, the verb for compassion comes from the root spalangchna which is the very guts of the body. So when the gospeller speaks about Jesus’ compassion, he is describing this gut wrenching, bowl yearning, deep emotional response that Jesus has for the people. Have you ever had that feeling in your gut, in your body? Like when your stomach churns a little bit, or you feel that pit. Compassion. 

Now, in the Hebrew, the word for compassion is rachamim and it refers to the womb of YHWH. Yes, you heard me correctly... the womb of YHWH. Yes, much to the dismay of many male translators who are quite vested in a patriarchal view of God, God is both inclusive of and beyond all genders. And compassion,  rachamim, refers to the womb of YHWH. Is there still profound pain and suffering in compassion as one is kicking about in the womb and being born, oh yes. And there is more to compassion than just suffering with. When we understand that compassion is the movement of the womb, then we recognize compassion as an utterly powerful, deep, intimate, life-creating and sustaining connection. So when Jesus sees the people and has compassion for them-- he will surround them, and nourish them, and sustain them, and his body and his blood will bring about their body and their blood, and he will give them life. The compassion of God is more than the suffering on the cross on Good Friday, it is also the womb-like creation of life from depths of the tomb on Holy Saturday. Compassion is suffering with. Compassion is gut wrenching. Compassion is movement of the womb and it is ultimately life giving. 

In Luke’s Gospel (6:36) we are reminded for “be compassionate, as your Father is compassionate.” And it is worth the work the muscle of our holy imagination to also say “be compassionate, as your Mother is compassionate.” And the good news is that we are not God, and so my siblings, may we rest when we need our rest so that we do not get the compassion fatigue that is so contagious in our world today. For we are created in the image and likeness of a God is who compassionate and we too are sent out into the world to be compassionate.

Planting and replanting: Imagine with me: we are at the garden center to get what we want we plant a garden. What do you get? 

Do you go for the seed packets hanging on one end cap of an aisle within the football field size store? Most don’t, which is probably why that section takes up less than 2% of the area. 

Do you go for the trays with 12 or 8 seedlings to a section? You know the ones where one if you are not careful you’ll take home a tray with at last one missing seedling or a few that have seen rougher days. 

Do you step it up a bit and go for the four-to a pack seedlings that tend to look like they come with a bit less risk and a bit more promise? 

Or, do you plant with plants? It’s one plant to one pot and that plant is the best of the lot with the most green growth that seems to be thriving in the competition amongst its peers. You get the pot because you want a garden and why take on the risk and the mystery if you don’t have to. You know what you want, you know what you think is going to look good, so that’s what you are going to get. 

Or, do you take it one step further still… do you plant with the biggest and the best plants available at the garden center. Perhaps in your budget you can choose to throw however much money at the problem as it takes. Why go for the small pot, where there is a bigger plant with more growth and even some good-looking blooms right there and all you have to do is transplant it and viola instant garden that looks exactly as you would have it look with very little risk. 

How do you plant and replant? 

Left to my own unexamined human devices, if given the choice and the budget I tend to plant with the biggest and the best. And given the sales floor of the garden center, I know I am not alone. Why? It reduces the risk and the mystery of it all. It tends to allow me more control to make it all look good to my eyes faster.

I’m one of those ones with the beautiful pots of a certain size on our front porch that are just waiting to accept a beautiful and big and ready to go blooming plant each season. Pansies in the cold. Vincas in the summer. Mums in the fall. Poinsettias around Christmas. These plants are not even planted, they are just plopped into the place I have determined them to go and when they are not longer looking how I would want them to look or it is no longer their season, then they are plucked out and if they are lucky they head to my father’s green house to be live out their life in a place I do not see. 

With what can we compare the kingdom of man, or what parable should we use for it? It is like plopping plants into pots. The biggest and the best are on display for all the world to see on our front porches. And, when they grow less grand, or the planed period passes, or their form begins to reflect their wild hearts, they get displaced or discarded. 

Jesus said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

And though God’s planting method may not be popular at our human garden centers, God is the Master Gardener. God plants with mustard seeds. And here is the thing about mustard seeds. Not only are they small seeds, they also turn into mustard plants. In our eyes, mustard is a weed — a veracious unwanted bush that takes over fields and causes trouble. Not only are its seeds small, but it grows with wild abandon and in ways often with no help from the sower and often to the sower’s displeasure. Mustard will not be contained — not to porch pots— not to any place we might try to control. Mustard is tenacious. What’s more it is a home for the birds of the air-- the very undesirables the sower often wants to keep out of his or her fields. Mustard invites and nourishes and becomes a home for the very ones we humans would want to keep out. Mustard seeds become mustard plants…Beloved, this is the parable of the kingdom of God. Do you understand it? Can you imagine it?

I hope and I pray — for God’s sake, and for our own sake’s too— that we plant and replant the ministries and mission of our and our lives with mustard seeds. 

I hope and I pray that we let go of our nature to control the outcome with what looks good to our own eyes and invite God to be God. God sees the hidden, inner potential. God sees the seeds of our hearts and our ministries— no matter how minuscule they may be, with God, they are mustard seeds.

I hope and I pray that when these mustard seeds grow you will not see the growth as a weed to be plucked out but welcome the wildness of the kingdom of God and celebrate even the birds of the air as God’s beloveds.

I hope and I pray that as you look around, that you can release the disappointment that there are not plants to plop into pots, and come to recognize that spiritually speaking there are mustard seeds. I hope and pray that you not so distracted by the kingdom of man that you miss the kingdom of God here and now present before our very eyes. 

How do we plant and replant? Imagine with me: we are at the garden center to get what we want we plant a garden. What do get?

Do we go for mustard seeds? 

Have you ever longed to catch your breath? 

Perhaps you are physically exercising and in your run it is mile 7 (or mile 1 or perhaps you’ve only made it the two blocks to park) and you long to catch your breath. Everything starts to hurt. There is not enough breath circulating to get that life-giving oxygen to your muscles and the lactic acid starts to build up and you ache everywhere till you get to the point that you simply have to stop and catch your breath for your body— your life— is crying out— breathe. For without that breath you simply cannot persevere in finishing the race that is set before you. 

Perhaps your lungs or heart or body is damaged or hurt and it does not take running, perhaps not even walking, for you long to catch your breath. And yet, when you do breathe… it hurts. Now perhaps the shallow breaths— those you can do— and if you keep doing those you can avoid the pain— some— and yet within you know that life is to be more abundant. And so you do the breathing treatments, the exercises, the therapy, and you discipline yourself to breathe more deeply. 

You choose to breath deep even when it is easier to stay shallow. Even when it hurts —for you know that the way through the valley is through it. You know as the prophet Ezekiel did that in order for we mortals to “[live], and [stand] on our feet” our dry bones need Breath. 

Perhaps you have kept it together and kept it together and kept others together and you’ve done it for longer than you thought possible or probable and, and…  you long to catch your breath. You are languishing or running ragged. You are like the Navy spouse who has single handedly parented three small children on a remote Pacific Island while your sailor has been deployed these past nine months during a pandemic and there have been no playdates or relief sitters. Or you are like the mourner who lost their beloved, and so you have busied yourself with paperwork and boxes and cards and helping others, and work, and nearly anything and everything to keep yourself up here, for the moment you catch your breath… and breathe deep… those depths hurt. 

Mortals, we both long to catch our breath and breathe deep, and we choose the shallows because with the deep comes pain and fear and change. 

Mortals… Beloveds… I hope that we breathe deep. As Jesus said to Simon the fisherman before his life changed and he became his disciple Peter: “put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” As those who long for their lives to sing out with power to the glory of God, don’t sing shallow, delve to the bowels of your body, fill yourself with breath, for only then sing out with exaltation.

Spiritually speaking, shallow breathing—shallow being— means that we are restricting the Spirit. Perhaps we let the Spirit in, but only so far or only so much… and in doing so we attempt to prevent Her from filling us fully with the life-giving breath that we need to flourish. The Holy Spirit, the pneuma in Greek, the Ruah in Hebrew, the very same wind that blew over the waters in creation and breathed into humus of the earth making us human and wildly rushed into house of the disciples on the day of Pentecost filling them full of the Holy Sprit and empowering the church to proclaim the Gospel— is the Breath of God. Even though there may be pain or fear and change— don’t restrict the breath of God by staying shallow. Catch. Your. Breath. Breathe deeply. 

I long for us to catch our breath not only persevere through the valleys and pain, but to live full abundant enthusiastic lives. Lives with nets full of fish. Lives that sing out with exaltation. Lives with enthusiasm. (as the word’s (Greek) origins remind us)… lives that are en-theos… in-God… inspired and filled with God. 

Beloved, God has poured out the gift of the Holy Spirit upon us. Catch the Breath of God. Breathe Deep. Life will be changed for God is changing lives. 

... I cannot help but me mindful of the liturgical moment in which we find ourselves. We are in that 7th Sunday of Easter, in the time between the Ascension of our Lord into heaven and the descending of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, upon the ministers, making the church the church and saying ‘it is time.” And so liturgically and actually we find ourselves in that liminal time of transition. We all know that life has changed, and what it has changed into being has not yet unfurled.

We hear in that first chapter of Acts, in the time between Ascension and Pentecost that this the time that the disciples are looking around at each other to see, okay, if it is now on us, who are going to be the ministers, who will step up and be the leaders? Who is going to take charge, for it is going to take a team, and it’s got to be a whole team. We cannot be one person down on this.  Will it be Joseph called Barsabbas or Mathias? Will it be ______ or _____. (to be clear we are not casting lots for ministry leadership, though we are having a ministry discernment retreat in June). 

... Life has changed, not ended. It is time to unfurl. This summer is a time to shake it out and prune what needs pruning and plant what needs planting and figure out what it will look like to be church. Jesus has ascended and God has given us this ministry, this church...

And so it being between Ascension and Pentecost, I want to share with you about one of my favorite stained glass windows... what I love most about the window is that it looks like Jesus is standing on a sack of potatoes. Now, I’m fairly confident that they are supposed to be clouds, but they were brown and they looked like potatoes. And so I title that window the Ascension of Jesus and the holy potatoes. 

Now, if you think about, is that not what is happens in the Ascension. Jesus is going up.. and he is leaving behind a bunch of holy potatoes and passing them off and saying “hot potato.” It is now you. This is now yours. And you’ve got to move in mission. Keep it going. It is your turn. You are holding it. … the ascension of Jesus and holy potatoes. 

Friends, I offer you this image for that is where we are today in this liminal moment. I have missed you. And there are some potatoes here for you. There is some ministry here for you. And God in Jesus Christ has given you ministry. You are the church. Lord, it is time. Life has changed and we’re about to change some lives.