SPEAK LOVE!

"My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand." John 10:27-28

When my son or daughter is having a nightmare, I don't have to wake them up to calm them down. I just rest my hand gently on their faces and speak or sing softly for a few seconds, and they relax. They feel safe when they hear my voice because they know me and trust me. Even as their minds navigate unknown, unfamiliar, and sometimes scary emotional territory, my voice reminds them that they are always tethered to where they belong. When they hear my voice, their semi-conscious brains remember the hugs, conversations, meals, laughter, and experiences we have shared. My voice is like an auditory umbilical cord that nourishes their spirit with the reassurance that they are never lost, never abandoned. Even as they sleep, that one voice can carry them out of fear and back into peace, where they may even rewrite the course of their dreams. What was shadowy and ominous may dissolve in the warmth of a new light spilling through a window, or around a corner. What started out as fear may, in the wash of that light, transform into excitement about new possibilities. My voice only has this power for them because it is what they hear when we hug, talk, eat, and laugh. It's what they hear cheering them on from the sidelines and asking about their day in the car lines. My voice only has this power because they know me. They know I will always show up for them. They know that, while I am very far from perfect, I will always do everything it takes to never be far from them. They know that my voice will welcome them, accept all of them, forgive them, apologize to them, encourage them, cry with them, and guide them. They feel safe when they hear my voice because we have put in hours, days, months, and years together hugging, talking, eating, and laughing (and arguing!) our way through this messy and beautiful life. Wherever they go, and wherever I go, we are always a part of each other. No one will be able to take their identity, or their story of love, away from them.

We can complicate faith, getting caught up in arguments about who God is, how God loves, and what God does. We can ask for proof and claim we know who belongs and who doesn't. But at the end of the day the love of God is simple. We will know it by the sound of the voice who won't be silenced by hate. We will know it by the sound of the voice who won't stop calling to us when we feel lost. We will know it by the sound of the voice who won't stop reminding us that, while we are far from perfect, we are never far from God's love. We will recognize the voice of God because, at the sound of it, light will spill through the windows of our soul, make its way around dark corners, dissolving fear, and transforming it into possibility, courage, and hope. We will know God's voice because it is the same voice that has spoken love into our lives from the beginning through people who hug, talk, eat, laugh, and argue their way through this messy and beautiful journey with us. We will know God's voice because it is always the one calling us to the best in ourselves. It is always the one calling us into loving community. It's always the one saying, "I love you. I forgive you. Let's eat." No one can take that identity, or that story of love, away from us. But we must use our voices to speak the kind of love that gives life--that invites all people to navigate the unknown, unfamiliar, and sometimes scary territory of this life together. Speak love so that, as Presiding Bishop Michael Curry says, we can "change the world from the nightmare it often is into the dreams that God intends."

Home By Another Road

In our family, vacation days usually mean board games. We have a tradition of getting a few new board games every Christmas. Most games are competitive, like Monopoly. I don’t know about your family, but my kids are ruthlessly competitive Monopoly players. My son usually becomes an all-powerful real estate mogul in the first half-hour or so. In competitive games like these, it’s a zero-sum situation. There is one winner and the rest lose. It’s every man, woman, and child for him or herself. In most games, you’re motivated to capitalize on others’ bad decisions and misfortune. Most sports are the same way. One side wins and the other loses. These games mirror how life works. They help us learn how to win and lose graciously—we hope ;-) But what if there was another way to play?

A new form of board game has come out in the last few years that turns this everything we know about games upside-down. They’re cooperative board games. In these kinds of games, all the players work together to achieve a common objective. If they succeed, they all win. If they fail, they all lose. We have three of these games at our house, and it’s amazing to watch our kids and their friends play. They give each other help, cheer each other on, and, of course, sometimes put some pressure on each other. These games are built on the idea that everyone’s fate is connected. Everyone matters. It’s harder in many ways, and the stakes are higher. But they require a whole different set of rules that suggest there’s another way to get to the finish line, or to that coveted Home square at the end of the board game’s road. The first time my kids played a game like this, they said, “Whoa. That was cool. I like it when all of us are on the same team.” They had their own little epiphany when they realized that the ruthless, every person for themselves, way was not the only way to get “home”.

            In 40 b.c. the Roman senate declared Herod “King of the Jews.” He was named governor of Galilee at the age of 25, and was chief administrator of the entire northern section of the country. He had incredible power and material wealth, but he lived with a constant fear that his status was in jeopardy. His fear made him paranoid. He saw anyone with any popularity or following as a grave threat. This fear led him to execute one of his ten wives, drown his brother-in-law and mother, and take the lives of three of his fourteen children. He believed that, to rule over a kingdom of people, he had to be ruthless, have absolute power, and be willing to eliminate anyone who got in the way of his plans. He saw people as pawns on a chess board in a game he had to win at all costs. He had forgotten that, long ago, the prophet Samuel proclaimed God’s dreams about a different kind of King—“a ruler who is to shepherd my people.” Not a ruthless dictator, but a shepherd.

So when a star stopped over a spot in Bethlehem, far from Rome, far from the seat of power, and shined over a baby born to nobodies from nowhere, Herod was afraid. Why would men from the east risk such a long and dangerous pilgrimage to find a shepherd-king? Why would anyone roam across dangerous and unpredictable territory to find a king born in such questionable circumstances? Why would foreign men pay attention to a prophecy about a king who would risk his own life to go back for even one lost person? It’s easy to understand why Herod didn’t pay much attention to this prophecy. It would have seemed silly and unrealistic. A shepherd-ruler or servant-king makes no sense. That’s not the way the world works. A kingdom that expands can’t be bogged down in worrying about the restoration and well-being of every single person. A kingdom that is respected can’t tolerate outsiders whose culture and ideas challenge it’s power. A kingdom with true authority can’t abide people from outside the kingdom telling them how things should be changed. And yet, a star stopped over the place where the child was, illuminating  just this kind of servant-king. And yet, a star guided men from outside Herod’s kingdom to the place where power was swaddled in vulnerability. And yet, a star stopped over the place where God gave those faithful foreign men new dreams of a different way home; dreams of a new kind of kingdom where the King was the servant of all, and God’s promise was available to anyone who had eyes to see and a heart to follow; This King was interested in expanding the reach of God’s love, not his own territory or power. The rule of life in his kingdom was only that everyone would have their lives restored and know that they mattered. In this kingdom, wisdom comes wrapped in humility. This King will stop at nothing to find anyone who is lost and bring them back into the fold. It’s no wonder that wise men from all over the map followed that star. In a world where walls keep people separated, and laws are manipulated to protect some while forsaking others, this star stopped over the most unfortified place off all to welcome  new way and a new rule. The star stopped over the place where the rules of the game would be changed forever. These wise men hadn’t come sure of what they would find. They were sent by a cruel king under false pretenses to aid his destructive plans. And yet, the star stopped over this new king whose great ambition was to serve, heal, restore, welcome, and bless all people. The star stopped over the birthplace of a “whole new beloved community rising in the East”—a community that would live a new rule of life in which differences are met with curiosity, rather than suspicion; a community where ambition becomes compassion; a community where cruelty is exceeded by kindnesses, and where belief in what is possible overwhelms fear about what is terrible.

            This kind of game-changing rule of life is not naïve or unrealistic, but it is hard. That is why, when we are baptized, we agree to uphold those vows with God’s help. God led faithful people from all lands, cultures, and races to the place where the star stopped, not to give them a cozy, easy place to set up a tent and stay. God led them, and all of us, to the place where the star stopped to show us a game-changing new way of life. What the star illuminated was not a new political philosophy, socio-economic strategy, or a trendy new movement. The star stopped to show us that the every-person-for-themselves way of the world is not the only way. It’s not God’s way. When the magi arrived at the place where the star stopped, and saw Christ, they were overwhelmed with joy because in Christ God proclaimed that we’re all on the same team. We’re all connected. We all matter to each other and to God. This is terrifying news to those who want to divide, conquer, and use people to pursue their own self-aggrandizement. But to the rest of us, it is the epiphany worth going well off the beaten path to find.

Not everyone will want the game changed. The world is full of Herod’s who sit defiantly on their thrones, telling us that it is a zero-sum game; that we have to give up on some people for the good of the many; that we are only as valuable as our wealth, status, and influence. The world is full of Herod’s who want us to believe that competition and ambition are only way to get ourselves to that winning HOME place at the end of the road in this game of life. But the wise ones—the prophets, shepherds, and servants of the world—see a star leading down another way. They follow the light of God that breaks into the world mysteriously and graciously, defying the rules that the world’s kingdoms insist upon. The epiphany this new light offers is not always easy to see, and it’s sometimes even more difficult to share because it asks that we blaze a new path and take another, often longer, way home. But when we live into our baptismal vows and take those challenging, faithful steps toward a rule of life marked by compassion, generosity, service, and welcome, we will hear the whispers of God in our dreams, in our friendships, in our family life, and in our community, reminding us that the place where the star stopped over Bethlehem was not the destination. It was only the beginning of the journey. The true epiphany happens when we allow ourselves to carry the light of that star out into the broken and hurting world, living God’s dream into reality. In God’s reality, we don’t capitalize on others’ bad decisions; we stand by them even when they fail. In God’s reality, we don’t take advantage of another’s misfortune; we invite them to the Christ’s table where they learn that they are beloved of God, regardless of their fortune. Each time we exercise power through humility, lift up the beauty in diversity, and rely on the strength of compassion, we become God’s light, shining right where we are, on whatever path we are on, showing the others that they can go home by another road. 

In Potter's Hands

Potters know that not only does each kind of clay respond differently to shaping, but each individual pot responds differently. A potter's hands have to pay attention to the feel of the clay and adjust the kind of pressure they're applying accordingly. The act of shaping a pot is as much an act of listening and attending to the clay as it is coaxing it into a pre-visioned shape. The best potter is a master of improvisation. She has to be ready to revision the shape of the piece, and pull back some of the pressure if the walls begin to get too thin in places. If she tries to force a shape that the clay won't support, the whole piece just flops and it's back to the kneading board. Patience and openness to change are as vital to beautiful art as the technical skill required.

Envisioning our vocational life is much the same process. The pressures of life can bear down on us and shape us often without our even realizing it. The further we move into adulthood the more we are asked to choose, not between a simple good vs. bad, but rather between multiple goods. We want to provide good things for our family; we want to support the dreams of our spouses; we want our parents to be proud of us; and we want to belong to a good community. Parker Palmer claims that our efforts to respond to such pressures can lead to a "divided life, He says, "The instinct to protect ourselves by living divided lives emerges when we are young, as we start to see the gaps between life's bright promise and its shadowy realities...As the outer world becomes more demanding--and today it presses in on children at an obscenely early age--we stop going to our rooms, shutting the door, walking into the wardrobe, and entering the world of the soul. And the closer we get to adulthood, the more we stifle the imagination that journey requires...Because imagining other possibilities for our lives would remind us of the painful gap between who we most truly are and the role we play in the so-called real world."(A Hidden Wholness, pp. 14,15)

I find myself at just the juncture to which Palmer refers--between the realities of the world, which make greater demands on both our time and finances, and the vision I imagine for myself when I let myself really dream aloud. It's exciting to offer my own particular gifts. But it isn't always easy to use those gifts and be present for my family in the way that they need me. So now I have a choice. I can flop, or I can improvise. The proverbial walls may seem a bit thin, but life is like clay after all; It is malleable and yearning to find a shape, if I'm open, patient, and creative enough to listen; if I can attend to the emerging shape of things; if I am willing to improvise.
Sometimes the hidden gift of dead ends is that they force us to turn around, to change direction, and to look for other access roads. The hidden gift of the "thin places" is that we are forced to mine our own creative resources in new ways. As potter and theologian Marjory Zoet Bankson notes, "As the wall gets thinner, my options narrow because certain moves cannot be reversed without collapsing the entire form. Each decision, each direction, makes a difference. As my hands keep the clay in tension, the body of the clay takes on an individual shape. My vision of the finished pot is especially important...even though the pot is far from finished. While there is still room for change, my intention comes strongly into play, giving the pot identity and purpose." (This Is My Body, p 96)

Improvising when much is at stake is never fun or easy, at least at first. It's nerve-racking and unsettling. But sometimes we need to be unsettled and disoriented in order to pay attention to our lives, to hear the whispers of our souls, and to discover the source of real strength. Real strength is not the bill of goods the world has sold us. Real strength isn't about coming up with a plan and stubbornly clinging to it, despite the collateral damage. Real strength emerges when we not only embrace our gifts and aptitudes, but our limitations as well. Real strength emerges when we know how to ask for help and can accept help as a gift, without worrying about how we will repay it. Real strength emerges when we hear a host of voices in our head telling us why we aren't enough, but we can listen to the One voice that reminds us we are more than enough, just as we are. Real strength is not a big concrete, steel-reinforced wall, but a handmade pot that has been fired, survived, and was made stronger. It's not indestructible, but it is open. Its identity is not grounded in what it keeps out, but rather in what it holds. It's not perfect, and it very likely isn't the shape its potter originally intended, but the bread it can hold is no less than life itself. The water it can contain is no less than Living Water. In its simplicity it calls us to partake; to eat and to drink, and to become just what we were intended to be. 

Claiming, Not Shaming (Reflection on Mark 12:38-44)

Every single one of us, at one time or another, has had that classic anxiety nightmare. You know the one. You’re standing in front of a crowd of hundreds, expected to make a speech, and you realize you forgot all of your notes. Or you’re the new kid in a new school, and you look in the mirror at the end of the day and realize you were wearing your shirt backwards and inside out all day. Or you walk up to receive a prestigious award, totally unaware that you have toilet paper trailing from the heel of your shoe. All of these nightmares have something powerful in common. They are all about our universal human fear of shame. Dr. Brene Brown, an author and research professor who teaches in the graduate department of Social Work at the University of Houston, wrote a book called Daring Greatly. This book grew out of her extensive research on the subject of shame. In it she explains that “shame is the fear of disconnection.” Since “connection, love, and belonging give meaning and purpose to our lives, shame is deeply painful because when we are ashamed we fear that something we have done or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection. It’s that inner voice that says, ‘I’m unlovable. I don’t belong.’ Shame makes us believe that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.’” If we want to avoid shame, we only have two real options, right? Never fail at anything; or—the more realistic option—hold your cards close to your chest and avoid making yourself vulnerable. Have enough dignity to keep your flaws hidden and private. Growing up we all learned that, while it would be nice if the world we lived in were more understanding and compassionate, people can be cruel. So our best strategy is to protect ourselves. If we don’t put all of ourselves out there, we won’t get hurt, right?

            In the Fall of 1994 my husband attended a service at Oakhurst Baptist church in Decatur, Georgia. Something happened that day that flew in the face of our conventional response to shame. One Sunday, during the time for shared prayers of concern and thanksgivings, a man stood up in front of the whole congregation and shared that he had been diagnosed with AIDs. He spoke through tears while looking down at the ground, so he couldn’t see what people were doing. When he finished, he began making his way back to his seat, his eyes still downcast. He only made it a few feet before he realized people were coming toward him. He looked up and saw hundreds of people in the congregation lined up in the aisle waiting to hug him. The service ran long that day because they would not let him sit down until they hugged him. When he finally took his seat he was weeping, not out of shame, but in response to shame’s opposite—belonging. His diagnosis had taken his health, his future, and his independence. But when he shared this painful and personal news with the church he risked losing everything else: his dignity; his reputation; his relationships; and his community. He put everything on the line, and gave everything he had, making himself completely vulnerable, and they did not shame him. They claimed him. What started out as a walk of shame became a pilgrimage of grace. His congregation taught him that, if he wanted to avoid shame, there were more than two options. He was no longer forced to choose between being perfect or being guarded. They showed him that it is possible to risk everything and be loved, just as he was. I have no idea what music they played in the service that day, but as I read this story I thought of the old Baptist hymn “Just As I Am.” In the church my husband grew up in it was played during the altar call. It was the “come to Jesus” song. I grew up in the Presbyterian Church, so I never quite understood altar calls. But this man’s experience with his church family makes me hear this altar call hymn in a completely new way. I hear it as he must have heard it:  “Just as I am, though tossed about with many a conflict, many a doubt, fightings and fears within, without, O Lamb of God, I come, I come. He felt claimed. He felt welcomed. He belonged.

            The widow in today’s reading from Mark’s gospel knows the shame the man with AIDs must have felt. As a widow in 1st century Palestine there was nowhere she could go that shame didn’t follow her. Without a husband she was financially destitute. She had no social status, no protection, and no power. She faithfully went to Temple to worship God but, unlike the man at Oakhurst Baptist Church in Decatur, Georgia, she received no grace. The gospel reading tells us that Jesus sat down in the Temple with his disciples and watched her. Just before this incident he had been teaching his disciples about religious hypocrisy. Now let me be clear, Jesus wasn’t saying the whole Temple was corrupt. But he did criticize the nature of giving within the religious legal system of the time. Jesus wasn’t concerned that religious law required people to give. He criticized a system that was using God’s law in a way that glorified some people while shaming others. So he took his disciples into the Temple for an object lesson. It’s a bit like an episode of Undercover Boss, where CEOs disguise themselves as trainees in their own company to get a true sense of how the managers run things. The Temple offering wasn’t taken up the way we take up our offering. The collection box at the treasury was a copper funnel shaped container which resounded according to how much was put into it. So when the wealthy gave, everyone gathered could hear the loud rush of coins echoing around. So when the widow put her two small coins in, the barely audible little pings resounded, not with sound, but with shame—the shame of poverty. The shame of belonging to no one.                            

 What Jesus points out to his disciples, in this painfully embarrassing moment, is not how ashamed the widow must be, but rather how ashamed the scribes and judicial religious experts ought to be. As he witnesses the widow’s giving, he shows the disciples that she is a hero—a shining example of faith. But she’s not a hero of the faith because she gives everything she has financially. This text is not meant to be a holier-than-thou stewardship plea romanticizing poverty. What makes her a hero of the faith in Jesus’ eyes is that she gives everything she has spiritually. She is not afraid to make herself vulnerable. People as poor as she was weren’t required to give. She could have avoided the public shame that rung out in the puny pings of her coins. But she didn’t avoid it. Faced with a worldview that offered her only two options—don’t fail, or have the decency to hide your failure—she showed the scribes, the judicial religious experts, and everyone in the Temple, that there was a third option—God’s abundant love. 

What was clear as a bell to Jesus, as she made her way back to her seat after making her paltry contribution, after those around her cast shaming glances her way, was that this widow understood God’s kingdom. All that Jesus had been trying to teach through his feedings, healings, and sermons, had just been embodied by this status-less, powerless, penniless, vulnerable woman: God’s love, the love that took on our human body, walked among us, ate with sinners, gave sight to the blind, mended the brokenhearted, and loved us enough to give His life, wants nothing to do with shame. The voice that uses God’s law to tell people they are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging does not reflect the voice of God. A church that is built on shame, ridicule, elitism, and exclusion, is not God’s church. God’s church is built by hands willing to get dirty, calloused, and worn; open, giving hands. God’s temple is built by ordinary flawed people who know what it is to fail. God’s dream is that churches are filled with people who walk to up to the altar week after week, not because they need to show everyone how holy and together they are, but because they know how fragile and vulnerable they really are; how aware they are of their need for God’s abundant and sustaining love.

The great good news of the gospel today is that God calls every one of us to be his church in the world. You are called, and I am called, to become a community of ordinary saints who are courageous enough to extend God’s extraordinary love and belonging to everyone we meet. In Christ, God has equipped us with every good thing that we need to be His temple of love in the world. When people show us their weaknesses—in their work, in their parenting, in their spiritual lives, in their friendships, or in their family’s life—we are called, not to shame them or turn away. We are called to claim them. As temples of God in the world, we are invited to run down the aisle to meet them; to look them in the eye, and to open our arms to them. Christ invites us to be the community the widow never had. He calls us to make the altar a place, not of shame, but of belonging. So when you come to the altar today, may you hear the invitation to come, just as you are, “though tossed about with many a conflict, many a doubt, fightings and fears within, without,” the Lamb of God says come, just come. Be claimed by Christ’s abundant love for you, then go and carry it out into the world. Amen.

                                               Faith: Portraits of Reconciliation

Photographer Pieter Hugo went to Southern Rwanda recently, almost 20 years after the genocide that took nearly 1 million lives. What he captured in his tableaus, which he entitled “Portraits of Reconciliation,” goes so far beyond what most of us can imagine when we think about forgiveness. In one photo a woman’s hand rests on the shoulder of the man who killed her father and brothers. Karenzi and Nyiramana offer this testimony about the reality behind the photos: Karenzi, the perpetrator, said, “My conscience was not quiet, and when I would see her I was very ashamed. After being trained about unity and reconciliation, I went to her house and asked for forgiveness. Then I shook her hand. So far, we are on good terms.” Nyiramana, Karenzi’s victim, shares her remarkable response saying, “He killed my father and three brothers. He did these killings with other people, but he came alone to me and asked for pardon. He and a group of other offenders who had been in prison helped me build a house with a covered roof. I was afraid of him — now I have granted him pardon, things have become normal, and in my mind I feel clear.” As you can see, these photos don’t capture warmth between the reconciled, but simply that they are together. Each photo captures a Hutu perpetrator who was granted pardon by the Tutsi survivor.

            The non-profit organization, AMI, knew that these people can’t go anywhere else. They must live together. So they created a formal reconciliation training program to cultivate a measure of peace in the midst of an otherwise hopeless environment. “Hutus and Tutsis are counseled over many months, culminating in the perpetrator’s formal request for forgiveness. If forgiveness is granted by the survivor, the perpetrator and his family and friends typically bring a basket of offerings, usually food and sorghum or banana beer. The accord is sealed with song and dance,” the New York Times Magazine article reports. The forgiveness that is cultivated arises out of survival instinct, not benevolence. But this practical need for reconciliation doesn’t take away from the emotional strength it takes for them to live into it. Even more powerful is their willingness to be photographed together. This was a completely voluntary decision.

            John’s gospel for today (John 13:21-32) makes it clear that Judas’ betrayal of Jesus was something Jesus predicted, and something God would use for His glory. But the part of the story that we don’t hear today, but that we know is coming, is Judas’ overwhelming shame and grief once he realized the implications of what he had done. He hangs himself. When I saw Pieter Hugo’s tableaus of reconciliation, I immediately thought of Judas. In the time between when he betrayed Jesus and when he hanged himself, what could have been done? Beyond the common interpretations of this text lies a much deeper commandment to us. The clues to this commandment lie is one very crucial piece of the story. While Judas is Jesus’ betrayer, and Jesus knows this, Jesus still welcomes him at the table. Jesus feeds him. They are together. As we follow Christ this Holy Week on his heartbreaking road to the cross, we must wonder how things could have been different for Judas if he had been offered the opportunity for pardon and reconciliation.

We traditionally tend to focus on the betrayal here, and the ways in which we too have betrayed Christ by what we have done or left undone. And we must go there. We must recognize ourselves in the person of Judas if we are honest about our brokenness and serious about the gravity of what Christ has done for us—in spite of our brokenness. But I think we must go further down the road with Judas to find out what God asks of us in the midst of our brokenness. As the Body of Christ we are called to offer reconciliation, and to receive forgiveness. We are called to follow the Judases of our lives into reconciliation—for that is where Christ goes all the time. This is painful, uncomfortable, heartwrenching, and feels unfair sometimes. But it is what Easter day is all about. Let us meditate for a moment on these portraits of reconciliation. What are the portraits of reconciliation in your own lives? What are the portraits that have yet to be taken, but need to be taken? Nyiramana’s testimony could easily be Jesus’ mother Mary’s testimony, spoken about Judas, had he lived for such an encounter. “He killed my only son. He did these killings with the help of other people, but he came alone to me and asked for pardon. He and a group of other offenders helped me build a house with a covered roof. I was afraid of him — now I have granted him pardon, things have become normal, and in my mind I feel clear.” Every day we have the chance to build houses of reconciliation with sturdy roofs of grace. Here we can make a home for the Kingdom of God—a Kingdom in which hopelessness and destruction is transformed into new life. When we can do this, I believe that God seals it with a song and a dance.” Amen.

Feeding Abundance

 A Reflection on The Feeding of the Four Thousand

A friend of mine is the chef at a non-profit organization here in Kansas City called Safe Home. Their mission is to serve as a safe place for adults and children who are victims of domestic violence. They help them to break the cycle through shelter, counseling, education, and prevention. My friend shared with me that it usually takes about 6 cycles of 90 days at Safe Home before someone is finally able to completely cut ties from their abusive environment. These are incredible odds to overcome. It is an uphill battle. For my friend, the uphill battle is providing 3 meals a day, every day, for 27 people with a grocery budget of just $366 per week. Every week he makes his grocery list and meal plan knowing that his budget will not be enough. Some weeks he needs 10 more boxes of cereal than he has. Some weeks he needs 10 more pounds of meat than he has. Every week he worries about how to stretch things in order to feed these families. But he puts one foot in front of the other, makes the best plan he can, and begins working with what he has. When I asked him how his job was going, he began to tear up as he shared that what he has experienced has been nothing short of a miracle. He shared that, every week, just as he is scrambling to figure out how to make these meals stretch, what he needs always seems to show up. One day he walked into his kitchen and 20 pounds of meat had been donated and left there for him. Another week he walked in to find 20 boxes of cereal. He loves his job because every stressful day is a miraculous intersection between overwhelming odds and miraculous abundance.

This is no coincidence. At Safe Home,  in the desert with Jesus and the hungry thousands, and in the desert places of our own lives, we are faced with a choice about how to respond to overwhelming odds. The disciples raised very realistic concerns—there isn’t enough. “We can’t waste the little we have and end up with not enough later. We just can’t take this on right now.” Jesus responds to them, not with numbers and a bottom line, but with a call to compassion. He reminds the disciples of the pain and struggle the thousands are facing. He reminds them of how the people’s physical exhaustion is fast becoming spiritual exhaustion. Jesus understands that these people need a miracle, but that miracle is much bigger than a the number of loaves matching the number of bodies. Jesus understands that his people need to know that He cares for them, that the disciples care for them, and, most importantly, that God cares for them. Compassion is different than sympathy. When Jesus has compassion for them, he is not simply feeling bad for them. He is feeling hunger, pain, sorry, and helplessness with them. He has walked with them, talked with them, laughed with them, heard the stories of their children’s tummy aches and hurting feet. He has overheard them whispering to each other that “maybe God doesn’t care for us after all.”

So when Jesus rallies the disciples to gather everything they have and start to distribute it, God miraculously intervenes with the real miracle—the miracle of God’s compassion poured out through the hands, feet, words, arms, and eyes of all those who shared what they had that day. The real miracle is that the famine of both body and soul was met with compassion, love, service and thanksgiving. The disciples said, “there’s not enough.” We worry that there is not enough. Jesus proclaims that there is always enough when we open ourselves and feel with those in need. Christ calls us to participate in the miracle of God’s abundance. He calls us to surrender our fear and our focus on what we don’t have. He calls us to stop dwelling on what we can’t do. He calls us to set out in faith, preparing a feast with what we do have, fully expecting that God will meet us there and provide for us—not only for our physical needs, but for our spiritual needs as well.

The Good News is that when we look in the face of overwhelming odds and say, “how can I help?”, “What can I share?”, “What can I give?” it’s contagious. Compassion in action is catching. It transforms hunger into nourishment, fear into hope, and scarcity into abundance. So as we leave this place, let us go out and participate in the miracles of abundance all around us. Let us not ask ourselves, “Is there enough?” but rather “What can I give?” Let us step out in compassion, taking the risk of feeling others’ pain with them, and walking the desert places beside them. For it is not just the physical care we all need, but the soul care. We all need to know that people care for us, that the church cares for us, and that God cares for us. Go from wherever you are and be the hands, feet, arms, and eyes of God’s care, fully expecting God’s abundance to help you build a safe home for his Kingdom of love there. Amen.

           

Marked for God’s New Beginning

 

On May 18, 1980 Mt. St. Helens erupted, blowing the top off of the 1,314 foot tall mountain. The avalanche of rocks filled the Toutle (Toot-el) River Valley, creating a 23-square-mile zone of barren land. Another blast flattened the surrounding forest, and a cloud of ash reached to 80,000 feet in 15 minutes, circling the globe in 15 days. The volcano destroyed everything in its path, killing 230 square miles of forests, lakes, meadows and streams. 57 people and countless animals and plants were killed. The Oregonian newspaper reported, “Death is everywhere. The living are not welcome.” But if you travel there today, you will find more than 150 species of wildflowers, shrubs and trees. There are even Western hemlock and Pacific silver fir trees that aren’t even supposed to be there yet. They usually require the kind of soil amended by generations of other plant growth. The newspaper would now have to report that “Life is everywhere. The living are thriving.” Virginia Dale, one of the first ecologists to land at Mt. St. Helens after it erupted, is quoted as saying, “It seems life can take hold even in the most desolate landscape, and in ways no scientist could have foreseen.”

On this holy day which marks the first day of Lent, we prepare to be marked with ashes—the dust of death. To some this ashen mark seems to have nothing to do with faith and hope, and more to do with grief and desolation. For some all this talk of self-examination, confession, repentance, and absolution may seem like a morbid, somber exercise. After all, why focus on the dust of death while life is all around us?  There is  life all around us. But right alongside that life exists the very real, life-smothering forces of injustice, oppression, violence, greed, poverty, and hunger. Alongside the joys of our lives comes the little desolations of anger, broken relationships, bitterness, resentment, and selfishness that can threaten smother our connection to God and one another.

When Jesus teaches his disciples to pray the Lord’s prayer, he knows that the ashes of this life can cover some serious ground. He knows that this world is not an easy place, and that sometimes, for so many in our world, it can seem as though death is everywhere, as though hope is not welcome. So when Jesus teaches them how to pray, He gives his disciples, and us, the tools to be gardeners for hope. He calls us to go beyond the ashes, and to till of the kind of spiritual soil in which life can take hold, survive, and thrive. For Jesus knew something about ashes that we often forget: they are not the end. Like the Western hemlock and Pacific silver fir trees that refused to wait for generations to take root, we are meant to defy hopelessness and root ourselves in God’s merciful love. In receiving we make way for God’s Kingdom of love to blossom here and now.

But we can’t do this alone. The kind of forgiveness and reconciliation required for God’s Kingdom to thrive in this world is not easy. It is not easy for us to be honest about our weaknesses and pain. It is hard to find our way out of the desolation of bitterness and anger that can consume us when we are hurt by others. Giving up our own comfort so that others may have what they need does not always come naturally to us. Speaking out against all kinds of injustice can be uncomfortable and risky. And yet this is what Christ calls us to do as gardeners for hope. When we get down on our knees and offer up our brokenness, we are transformed by the One who knows something about ashes and desolation that we often forget. They are not the end. When we come to the altar to ask for forgiveness, we are invited to leave behind everything that stands in the way of God’s healing love. We are invited to leave behind our bitterness, anger, selfishness, greed, and resentment, and go out into the world as bearers of hope. We are invited to open ourselves to God and to the needs of others, so that we can go out planting the seeds of God’s healing in our communities. When we come to the altar we find our identity. We know we are God’s beloved. When we come, we find our purpose—to bring God’s healing love into this broken world. When we come we find our security, knowing that we don’t need to acquire things or status to thrive, because we have one another. When we come we find community. We belong to one another because we are all God’s children, bound together by one bread and one cup. When we come to the altar we find freedom and peace, knowing that the temptation and suffering in this life is not the end.

So as we come to be marked by ashes on this holy day, may we know that they are a sign, not of the end, but of God’s new beginning. We are marked by our identity as gardeners for hope because we know something about ashes that some may not realize—God can bring life even into the most desolate places. Ashes mark us with the earthly dust that springs forth from what Bruce Epperly calls "God’s multi-billion year holy adventure".  Where the world reports, “Death is everywhere. The living are not welcome,” we may proclaim “Love is everywhere. All are welcome”. So remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return. You are marked for God’s new beginning. Amen.