Compassionate Conflict (Sermon)

“Compassionate Conflict”

Mark 5:1-20

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

7/5/15

         All I know about multiple-personality disorder I infer from the name of the condition itself. And if I spell schizophrenia correctly, credit my computer’s autocorrect. Only two things can teach much about complex mental illnesses, and they are extensive training in psychology, or walking faithfully with a loved one who suffers from such a condition. Because of that, when wading into the biblical story of the Gerasene demoniac, we have to lay aside any curiosities regarding the man’s diagnosis. Those are rabbit trails.

We also have to resist the urge to focus on the man’s instant healing. Even well-intentioned proclamations that such recoveries can happen, because ‘with God, all things are possible,’ usually become excuses, ways to distance ourselves from suffering. Excuses cause us to deny, or even to lose our purely Christ-imaged capacity for compassion – which means, of course, to suffer with. And even if our compassion does not actually heal the mental illness, or the leprosy, or the paralysis, or the cancer, it does offer a renewing wholeness. To enter the suffering of another says to them, I still see the indescribable beauty of your full humanity. I will not leave you alone.

         Entering another person’s suffering is difficult because it almost always leads us deeper into our own suffering. It may also reveal how we have caused suffering in others. So for us, the man living among the tombs represents that all-too-real place of chaotic un-reality which lies between the conflicting pulls of conscious and unconscious powers. Inside him, lives a legion of deliberate disorder crying, “We are reality! Do this!” And outside him, other legions, the Gerasene community and everyone else, shout, “No! We are reality. Do that!” Unable to manage these irreconcilable mandates, the man often finds himself shackled and chained.

         Terror can be a source of superhuman strength. It can be a powerful anesthetic, too. So when bound, the man goes berserk. When the psychotic mist thins just enough, he discovers that his chains have been broken, but his battered body aches. His throat hurts. Perhaps he experiences a brief calm. Soon enough, though, it starts all over: Do this! No! Do that!

         Our world is full of folks like this man. Who lives among the tombs. On the other side of the lake. We may often find ourselves helplessly bound to one legion or another. When caught in this unsustainable dualism, we demand that life be all this or all that, all right or all wrong, all us or all them. To bind ourselves to a single legion, whether interior or exterior, is to become terrified, terrifying, howling, destructive creatures. We lose, at least temporarily, our sanctifying capacity for compassion. We become, at least temporarily, incapable of grace and peace.

         In his book Owning Your Own Shadow, Robert Johnson uses the word “fanaticism” to refer to this common form of possession. “Fanaticism,” writes Johnson, “is always a sign that one has adopted one pair of opposites at the expense of the other. The high energy of fanaticism is a frantic effort to keep one half of the truth at bay while the other half takes control. This always yields a brittle and unrelatable personality.”¹

         While fanaticism can be as devastating as mental illness, the two are not the same. Fanaticism, says Johnson, “depends on ‘being right.’ We may want to hear what the other is saying, but [we become] afraid when the balance of power starts to shift. The old equation is collapsing and [we] are sure that [we] will lose [ourselves] if [we] ‘give in.’ And how the ego works to keep the status quo!”²

         Of course, fanatics can be agents of change as well as champions of convention. Johnson acknowledges this with a wonderfully descriptive image. “When the unstoppable bullet hits the impenetrable wall,” he says, “we find the religious experience.”³

Remember, our word “religion” derives from the Latin word ligare, which means “to connect.” We get our word “ligament” from the same source. The fundamental nature and purpose of re-ligare, of the “religious experience is,” says Johnson, ‘to bond, repair, draw together, to make whole, to find out that which is anterior to the split condition. Our future lies in this religious vision.”⁴

         True religion recognizes that “the split condition,” what we are used to calling sin, is not our fundamental reality. To think that our true nature is sin, and that we are all going to hell unless we say the right things with the right words, is to be as detached from reality as the Gerasene demoniac. True religion seeks to reunite us with the wholeness, the Holy Love, which still lies at the deepest heart of our being. This is the healing our story illustrates. This is our religious vision – not to “accept Christ into our hearts” as if he were not there until we gave him permission. That would be a pretty impotent savior. We accept that he is, has always been and will always be our original and eternal reality.

While Christ may be our primordial and perfected reality, unstoppable bullets are slamming into impenetrable walls all around us, aren’t they? When they hit, both bullet and wall are destroyed. And this devastating “religious experience” always leads to something new.

That is where we come in.

         As the Church, we cannot provide a foothold for fanaticism. We are called to be a place where legions, where unstoppable bullets and impenetrable walls may safely collide. We are called to be an impact zone for religious experiences through which human beings re-connect to the health and wholeness that lies before our “split condition.”

That means, of course, we must enter the deep human suffering on both sides of clashes over care of creation, healthcare, human sexuality, and how to appropriate the various symbols of our varied histories. Even if hogs drown the process (Even if it costs us idols as beloved as bacon!), the church must be a place where substantive conflict is welcomed, but where God’s Spirit of Love and grace shapes that conflict. There will be no peace for any of us if we ignore the “split condition” around us and within us. There will be only more howling, chain-rattling, bone-crushing agony.

Good Friday is our most memorable and transforming metaphor for the unstoppable bullet meeting the impenetrable wall. And the result of the devastation is always healing experience of Easter.

Easter’s table is set before us. It is set with a foretaste of the kingdom, a glimpse our already-happening future. Our future is our re-connection – our re-ligare – to the Loving, gracious, and compassionate wholeness from which we have come.

At this table, may you see anew the Christ within you.

May you see Christ anew in others.

And may we all discover, once again, that the compassion and Love between us, is, in truth, Christ’s eternal, Eastering presence in, with, and for, all creation.

Charge to Congregation:

When the man,

restored to his God-imaged wholeness,

asks to follow Jesus,

Jesus refuses.

Stay here, he says.

Tell your story here,

         among your family and friends.

Having been fed at the table of holy impact,

we, too, are being restored

to our original wholeness.

We, too, are called to witness right here,

         among family and friends,

to the healing compassion of God’s eternal Christ.

¹Robert A. Johnson, Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche. Harper One, New York, NY, 1991, p. 90.

²Ibid., p. 90.

³Ibid., p. 92.

⁴Ibid., p. 90.

Living Parables (Sermon)

“Living Parables”

Mark 4:26-34

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

6/28/15

         The fourth chapter of Mark is all about parables. To me, working with parables is like walking along a beach at sunrise. At daybreak, light and dark balance in the firmament. Night and day kiss. In Luke 8 Jesus says, “Nothing is hidden that will not be disclosed nor is anything secret that will not…come to light.” Parables hide holy truth in the long shadows of plain sight, and at dawn, truth comes to light.

Jesus spends much time on the shores of seas, lakes, and rivers, doesn’t he? As a place where land and water meet, the seashore is a metaphor for the numinous seam where the unconscious, the deep Mystery within creation, reaches up to caress and to give shape to the conscious world. Where all is illuminated and tangible, we discover wonderful things we never knew. As shorelines between the dunes, forests, meadows, and crags of our conscious lives and the churning depths of our unconscious, parables become thresholds of discovery, places where we learn a bewildering truth: There are wonderful things within us that we didn’t know we knew.

         Using wave after wave of earthy images, Jesus teaches in parables. He compares the kingdom of God to someone who scatters seeds on the ground. He leaves them in the care of earth, sun, and rain. Then he goes home. When he returns, the seeds have sprouted! No human intelligence or creativity can make that happen. Mystery has taken over.

         The kingdom of God is also like a mustard seed. It is the tiniest of seeds, but again, earth, sun, and rain transform it into a magnificent shrub. When the shrub is grown, bird nests appear in its branches. That which was once too small even to make a meal for a bird, has become a home for many birds. And the Mystery grows.

These stories tease us into the surf. They invite us to recognize the presence of God’s kingdom in the ordinary experiences of life so that we look back and say to ourselves, “You know, that really didn’t seem like much at the time. It was just an evening on the porch listening to cicadas and watching fireflies, or a chance conversation at the farmers’ market. But while we were there, were not our hearts burning within us?

         Every-day experiences can become portals into the fathomless, sometimes chaotic mystery of God. The key to discovering their holiness lies in contemplation. When we reflect on our own mustard-seed lives, they often become living parables.

         Some years ago I served on a presbytery committee charged with helping a small, rural congregation through a very painful experience. One Sunday afternoon, the committee and a few members of the church gathered in the fellowship hall for a particularly trying meeting. During the conversation, some of the lingering hurt, bitterness, and distrust stormed in from offshore. It battered the room with rising voices and gale-force emotions. As soon as the meeting adjourned, I left.

         Someone had told me that the dirt road beside the church would lead back to the main highway that would take me back home. Since I really do like the crunch and bump of such byways, I turned down that old dirt road, hoping to find not only my way home, but a few minutes of healing peace on a secluded path.

         Around the first bend in the road, I came to a fork. I remembered being told about the fork, but I did not remember which way to go. Having a decent sense of direction, I knew that in all likelihood the right fork was the correct choice. I also knew that the spacious beauty of countryside is a balm for almost any weariness. So, I opened my window to the fresh air and turned left. It was the better choice.

As I drove this evening back road in western North Carolina, daybreak seashore was all around me. Pines and hardwoods lined the tops of high ditches. Fire pink, Queen Anne’s Lace, and daisies decorated the roadsides and meadows. Even where it sat next to the road, the butterfly weed glowed brilliant orange, testifying to the twin blessings of abundant rain and scarce traffic.

I lost count of the rabbits who would sit in the road until, at the last moment, they bounced their little cottontails out of the way.

The lane snaked through shady hollows, then climbed up to ridge tops, some swaddled in thick stands of timber, others opened up by hayfields.

I do not know which came first, gratitude or awe, but together they began to lift the misty pall of sadness and futility.

         My side trip paused at a STOP sign. A blacktop road headed up a hill to my right, and behind the hill, beyond the dark green Appalachian foothills, the sunset burned as bright as the butterfly weed. To my left, the road wound downward past pine trees, hayfields, and waist-high corn planted in neat rows. I sat there for a moment – watching, listening, feeling the creation and my place in it. That’s when I heard it.

Bob-white!

         Some would have heard just another bird call, but to me, on that evening, of the first day of the week, it was pure grace. The storied call of a Bob White quail returns me to long-gone voices and forever-changed places. Call it schmaltzy if you like, but those voices and places re-orient me. They give me peace.

The Bob White called, again. Renewed and satisfied, I turned my car around, ready to experience the road from the opposite perspective. That’s when I saw it. A female quail bolted across the road and into a dense thicket. I laughed out loud. Very few quail are left, but if given enough room, they will thrive.

         As I drove back down the road, I realized something that I didn’t know that I knew: While the place I had just seen for the first time was not my address, it is my home. I live there.

To you, that back road might have been the tiniest of mustard seeds. But to me it was a great and glorious shrub, a place where wild quail still nested and sang. It was the kind of place the Cherokee Indians would have called a “thin” place – a coastline between time and eternity.

         The Spirit calls the church – and this church – to be such a place. A parable. A kind of crease in time and space where Kingdom and creation meet. The Spirit calls and equips us to be a place where parables are a way of life, where they connect us more deeply and intimately to our own lives and to each other. Even here and now, in a world reeling with poverty, violence, and snowballing changes, seeds are taking root and new growth is happening beyond our power to make it happen. Even now, Mystery is at work redeeming and renewing.

Through the grace of that holy Mystery, we begin to write our own parables. One of mine begins, ‘The Kingdom of God is like an evening drive down an old dirt road…’

So They Went Out (Sermon)

“So They Went Out”

Mark 6:1-13

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

6/14/15

         Ten years ago today, I was freshly returned from a mission trip to Malawi. I got to make two such trips, and I will never forget the experience of visiting people who live in the tensions of faith, hope, Love, and impoverished despair in ways that most First World inhabitants really cannot appreciate. Nor will I forget the experiences of childlike wonder and laughter, experiences of trusting God to see us through long, post-9/11 flights, frightening rides in a old van held together by prayer and loctite, military check points, malarial mosquitoes, and bouts of profound intestinal distress.

         In fairness, both trips combined equaled less than a month. We took with us, for food and gifts, more money than the average Malawian earns in three or four years. We had seasoned missionaries to handle our logistics, to translate the language, and to interpret the culture for us. They kept us safe. We had American doctors with us. We got to visit game parks on both trips.

My point is that our visits to Malawi were carefully managed. While we did some meaningful and important work, we were, for the most part, religious tourists. We did not experience life as Malawians. Nor could we. Still, whether it is traveling to Africa or climbing a ladder onto a tin roof for the first time, any experience in which we must trust God more deeply, breathes new life into our faith. And we often find, embedded in newly-enlivened faith, new understandings and wisdom, and a more enduring joy. Such experiences and their gifts open us to the surprising spiritual depths and potentials within us. They can surprise others, as well.

“Where did this man get all this?” ask the townsfolk who are so sure that they know Jesus because they remember him as a boy. But Jesus has grown. He has traveled throughout Galilee and Judea. He has placed himself in situations of vulnerability that have granted him a new authority, and situations of weakness that have given him new strength.

Day after day, Jesus is losing his life and finding it, again. And he seems to want his disciples to discover these same things, things that he can tell them about, but which they will only learn when they, too, go out and serve in humble compassion. So he gathers them together and commissions them for their own ministries of proclamation, service, and care.

He begins with rather daunting instructions: ^“He ordered them,” says Mark, “to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics.”

That’s it. Jesus wants them to go out in naked trust that God will provide for them.

Just for fun, let’s compare the packing list Jesus gives his disciples to the packing list we used when preparing to go to Malawi. Jesus tells his disciples to take a walking stick, the sandals on their feet, and the clothes on their backs. Our list read, in part:

passport

copy of passport photo page in your action packer

large suitcase and carry-on

Bible

pens

journal

spare glasses or contacts

roll of toilet paper

disposable toilet seat covers

prescription medications (in original containers)

cash for souvenirs (at least $200)

money belt to be worn under clothes

culturally sensitive photos of your family and church

scent-free shampoo

soap and deodorant

toothbrush and toothpaste

aspirin or Tylenol

extra roll of toilet paper

towel

alarm clock

sunscreen

sun hat

sunglasses

bathing suit

“Mountain Suds” (or some similar biodegradable detergent for

washing clothes)

rubber flip flops (for showering)

bug repellent with deet

sense of humor

flexibility

lightweight jacket

poncho

flashlight and spare batteries

insulated water bottle or jug (fill with water)

camera and extra film

Pepto-Bismol or similar anti-you-know-what

modest clothes for work and sleeping

extra pair of sturdy shoes

wet wipes

several bottles of hand sanitizer

inexpensive relational games

candy to share

“comfort food” snacks

an empty carry-on bag to bring gifts home

at least a half dozen plastic, zip-lock bags for storing clothes,

toiletries and etc.

and an extra roll of toilet paper

         Did you notice the subtle differences between the two lists?

         The packing list for our Appalachian Service Project trip this week is a bit shorter than our list for Malawi, but it still emphasizes comfort food and wet wipes far more than Jesus ever did.

         As he continues his instructions, Jesus connects trust in God to the messy business of human relationships. “Wherever you enter a house,” he says, “stay there until you leave the place.”

Wherever you go, he says, be there. Be present with and for the people of that place. Receive with gratitude the food, shelter, and care which they offer you and which you need.

The surest way to “fail” on a mission trip is to think that the interactions are all about what the come-heres do for the live-heres, that they are purely recipients of our sacrificial service. When that is our approach, we might complete some task that does some good, but we have not done Christian mission. We have not grown in wisdom and in truth, because we have not allowed ourselves to be truly vulnerable before the one who calls us and sends us out.

As for the instruction to “shake off the dust as a testimony against them.” I understand that the wording encourages some folks to justify passing judgment on others. I am learning to understand this as an image of forgiveness, though. I have to read this instruction in light of Jesus’ memorable “seventy-seven times” response to Peter’s question about how often to forgive. I have to read it in light of Jesus’ rebuke of his disciples when they want to call down a consuming fire on the Samaritan village that rejects them. Most of all, I have to read it in light of Jesus’ gracious response to humanity’s murderous rejection of him.

Living as Christ-followers, we cannot allow, “Shake the dust from your feet” to grant us right of judgment. To the contrary, it is an image of unburdening ourselves of any sense of entitlement to judge those who do not receive us as we might expect. To shake the dust off our feet unburdens us of any sense of entitlement that might permit us to feel superior to others.

Jesus’ instructions challenge his disciples to turn loose of all selfish motives, all arrogance, all fearful grasping for control, and to make themselves completely available to the presence and power of holy Love.

So they went out…

The experience of Christian service means the most and accomplishes the most when both give and receive in grateful compassion.

Eight of us are going to Harlan County, KY today, but Jesus calls all of us to mission. Every one of us. Every day.

So, let us go out…

Simplicity (Sermon)

“Simplicity”

Matthew 6:25-33

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

6/7/15

         Early in my ministry I had a recurring and disturbing dream. In the dream, I step into a pulpit on Sunday morning. It’s time to preach, but when I stand up, I realize that I have prepared nothing! Nada! I look out at the congregation, and all those eyes press in on me. But I have nothing to say! I begin to sweat. My mouth turns to cotton. My pulse races.

Then, I wake up, and it is 2:30am on Tuesday! I want to shout Hallelujah! I’ve been redeemed!

But I’m Presbyterian. So I just say, “Glad that’s over with,” and I go back to sleep.

         Anxiety can become so much a part of our lives that we do not know how to live without it. So, hearing Jesus say, Don’t worry, is like hearing him say, Don’t breathe. The barns of our lives are laden with concerns. Many of us manufacture our own anxiety, feeling, I suppose, as if worry, like busyness, actually justifies our existence.

         Into our angst Jesus says, ‘Stop. First of all, seek God’s kingdom, and God’s righteousness. Don’t worry,’ he says. ‘Trust me.’

That is more easily said than done in the early 21^st century when anxiety has become a kind of religion unto itself. Airwaves and cyberspace are crammed with the evangelists of anxiety who urge us toward the violent saviors of competitive fear and greed. Then again, these evangelists get a lot of attention because the questions are real. Will my job last? If it does, will I even be able to afford retirement? What kind of life will there be for kids growing up in a world racked by so much turmoil? Where is God in all this? Is there a God in all this?

When those questions begin to own us, we become ravenous, frenzied beasts – gnawing at everything, tasting nothing.

“Seek first the kingdom of God,” says Jesus. Then you and the things that matter will find your way to each other.

Jesus calls us to rearrange our out-of-whack, anxiety-driven priorities so that we begin to understand what is both truly needful and genuinely possible in life. He invites us to practice the spiritual discipline of simplicity. Christ-like simplicity connects the spiritual and the physical so intimately that we begin to discern God’s presence and purpose even in the most mundane experiences, while anxiety complicates us into spiritual numbness.

         When I have dreams like the one I shared with you, the fear that wakes me is not some noble humility gone awry. The fear that wakes me is the fear of rejection and failure. The stark truth is that I often give more attention to what I think you think of me than what the life of Jesus reveals about what God thinks of us. When I focus on what I get, I no longer seek God’s kingdom or righteousness. Then those simple but challenging words – Love, trust, serve, and rejoice – get tangled in my efforts to dress them up in clothing fit for Solomon, clothing intended to draw attention to me rather than to direct our attention to God’s kingdom which is at work within and around us.

         I imagine that most of us play this game one way or another. Do you ever dress up some part of your life, some God-given gift, some hobby, or relationship, or possession? Do you shine it and display it? To use the old cliché, is it something that you own, or something that owns you?

         There are many ways to get at this, but I think that there are two conflicting postures that distinguish a simple approach to living from the complicated habits of anxiety. And they are pride and gratitude.

         When rooted in fear, pride manifests as the antithesis of Love. So we can turn Paul’s description of Love around and say that pride tends to be impatient, unkind, “envious…boastful…arrogant…rude…insist[ent] on its own way…irritable [and] resentful…” Pride tends to play fast and loose with the truth and to be fundamentally hopeless. Pride will even brag on its own humility.

Pride creates material kingdoms, kingdoms of excess and violence that siphon our time, abilities, and resources away from the search for God’s kingdom. Material kingdoms have their allure, but they feed our egos rather than our spirits. And while we need healthy egos, overfed egos only get hungrier. They are never satisfied, and the more they demand, the busier, the shallower, the more complicated, and anxious our lives become. Living in material kingdoms is, to borrow Frederick Buechner’s memorable image, like the craving of salt of a person who is dying of thirst. When overcome with material hunger and thirst, we get stingy with our energies and resources because we’re spending everything on ourselves. But hey, says Loreal, We’re worth it. Besides, says Canon, Image is everything. And most importantly, it does not matter how much we get; we’ll never have more than we need, just more than we were used to.

I don’t remember what product that last slogan was trying to sell. And it doesn’t matter. For the evangelists of greed, selling a product is always secondary to selling the anxiety that without the right stuff and the right appearance, we are nothing.

I don’t think that we can seek, much less find, the kingdom without living more simply. And the process of simplifying begins with the humble act of gratitude.

Living gratefully means more than politely thanking everyone who does something kind for us. Living gratefully means resisting the temptation to believe the imprisoning lie that getting more is a sign of God’s favor. Indeed, to live a grateful, kingdom-seeking life usually requires us to let go of stuff, because we recognize and enter the kingdom not by getting, but by giving. So Jesus, the holy gadfly, goads us: “Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?” “Those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” (Mt. 16:25)

During this lifelong search, we become more aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit and of the workings of God’s kingdom. As our ability to trust increases, anxiety may not end, but it does dilute within a new shalom. As anxiety ebbs, and we discover belonging in God’s kingdom, God’s righteousness supplants our own righteous indignation. Sharing becomes less threatening. And when we focus on sharing rather than getting, we experience the true God-shaped need within humankind. And what we need, I think, is to see, hear, and touch the fundamental holiness, the “original blessing”¹ in the creation.

We call it a meal, but The Lord’s Supper is just a tiny pinch of bread and a thimble-full of grape juice. It is enough, though. It is enough to see, to taste, and to touch. Enough to remind us of our deepest hunger and thirst. Enough to remind us that a meal need not be an elaborate affair, but a simple experience of gratitude and hope.

The table is set with grace, with the tidbits of God’s mysterious Enough. Come to the table, and prepare to be made hungry and thirsty for the search – the search for the satisfying generosity of the kingdom of God.

¹Matthew Fox uses this term to speak of the basic nature of human beings. At our core is God’s “original blessing” rather that our own original sin. I came across the term in one of Richard Rohr’s meditations: http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Richard-Rohr-s-Meditation--Incarnation-Is-Already-Redemption.html?soid=1103098668616&aid=UAkzlHSN7BE

A Prayer on Memorial Day

Heartbroken God,

Today, many of us will break from routine

and its responsibilities.

We’ll fire up barbeques and lawn mowers.

We’ll hike the cool woods

or swing lazily in hammocks.

We’ll splash about in swimming pools

or lakes,

or rivers,

or oceans.

We will not intend it,

but by effect, much of our play

on Memorial Day

will be

to forget.

Help us to remember, O God.

And help us to remember

with the heart and mind of your Christ,

the Prince of Peace.

Help us to remember

that you did not create human beings

to perform or behold

the brutalities of war.

Yet, for countless years,

across the globe,

our proud denials have reduced

your holy names to battle cries,

your cross to flagpoles,

your church to Caesars’ outposts,

and your beloved children to

(Dear God, forgive us)

         renewable,

         expendable,

resources.

Help us to remember

those who have,

by requirement or resolve,

been thrown into

realities unimaginable

to the rest of us.

Help us to remember all of

the husbands,

the fathers,

the wives,

the mothers,

the daughters,

the sons,

the sisters,

the brothers,

the grandparents,

the grandchildren,

the aunts,

the uncles,

the friends,

the enemies…

All

who have perished

physically

spiritually

emotionally

         (and all of the above)

in war,

the near-perfect affront

to Perfect Love.

Help all humankind to remember

those who’ve died

and killed,

so that in remembering we begin to die

to our despair and fears,

such staunch veracities,

even here,

                           in the midst of your Creation

your magnificent Self-Disclosure.

Help us to remember,

and to heal those come home broken.

Help us to remember,

and to comfort those whose apple’s eyes

do not come home at all.

Help us, God.

Help us to remember

         with lives of fearless peace.

Lord, in your mercy,

hear our prayer.

Amen.

Overflowing Absence (Sermon)

“Overflowing Absence”

John 15:26-27 – 16:4b-15

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

5/24/15

         Before diving into John 15, let’s remember a couple more ancient memories.

         In the closing verses of the book of Exodus, Moses completes the original tabernacle, and the Shekinah, the glory of the Lord, settles upon the tabernacle as cloud and fire. In the very last verse of Exodus we read that “³⁸…the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night.” (Ex. 40:38)

         Remember, the tabernacle is a moveable feast. God’s dwelling is made to get packed up and hauled from place to place like a family’s tent. This radical theological evolution declares that Yahweh is no idol. The Holy One of Israel is not bound to one place. Indeed, there is no place where Yahweh is not.

         Many generations later, King David wants to build a permanent home for Yahweh. But God says, Not now. I’m still working to establish your house.

Several years after David dies, his son Solomon orders the building of the first Jerusalem temple. Upon its completion, the priests enter the sanctuary to consecrate themselves. When they come out, the shekinah exhales upon the new temple, and “…the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.” (1 Kings 8:11)

         In time, things fall apart, as they always do. In 587BC, the Babylonians seize Jerusalem and destroy the temple. Imagine the spiritual turmoil. Yahweh who? laugh Israel’s enemies. ‘Deliverer? King of the Universe? Not any more.

         Eventually, the exile ends, as well. And when it does, Ezra, Nehemiah, and others build a second temple in Jerusalem. The dedication is a happy enough affair, but Anglican theologian N.T. Wright calls attention to the fact that the expected and coveted Shekinah is conspicuously absent from this dedication service.¹ Wright suggests that the absence of this critical presence may have helped give rise to Pharisaism.

By Jesus’ day, Pharisaism controls Jewish faith and life. It has become a system of rigorous and ruthless piety, but it is just a cover for the self-serving lust for a new demonstration of God’s glory. True religion for the Pharisees means trying, by whatever means necessary, to trigger the Shekinah of God to shine.² Such faithlessness, however, only results in widespread amnesia of the shema – God’s foundational command which renders all other laws redundant by pointing the way to genuine holiness.

We find the shema in Deuteronomy 6:4-9. It begins with: “⁴Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. ⁵You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” Adding Love of neighbor to this command, Jesus declares that Love God and Love Neighbor are the hooks on which “hang all the law and the prophets.” (Mt. 23:40)³

We begin to understand what the Shekinah of God is about, don’t we?

         The fourth Gospel is written no earlier than seventy years after Jesus’ ministry. John writes for followers of Jesus who have begun to feel like that second temple – an empty, God-forgotten shell, a community of faith with nothing in which to have faith. Addressing the community’s anxiety head-on, John presents a Jesus who says very bluntly: “I’m leaving now. You see me today, but tomorrow you won’t. If you had listened to me, you’d have some idea of where I’m going. But you haven’t really paid close attention. So you’re just sad and empty. And if all you feel is empty, get used to living like a pack of Pharisees, living just to make each other miserable.”

         Betrayal. Denial. Fear. And above all, self-righteousness. These are symptoms of emptiness. Friday and Saturday are about emptiness. In John, however, Thursday and Sunday bear witness to the advantage of Jesus’ absence. On Thursday, Jesus tickles his disciples’ imaginations with that absence and the promise of a new kind of presence. On Sunday it happens. On Sunday, the Shekinah returns, and the shema is restored.

In John, Pentecost does not happen forty days after Easter. In John, Pentecost happens on Easter. In John 20 we read: “¹⁹When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you...’²²When he had said this, he breathed on them and said…, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’”

         By the power of the Advocate, the mystery that is the Risen Christ transforms terrified, locked-room emptiness into overflowing absence – that deep and wide space breathing with holiness and promise.

         I love and appreciate our house in Jonesborough; but it often feels like excess for just Marianne and me. When bothered by that, I remember that our home reflects the overflowing absence in Marianne’s heart. “I want room for the kids to come home,” she says, “and to bring families when they have them.” Our children’s absence does create in us a kind of bittersweet joy, and we nurture both the memoried absence and the hopeful joy.

Overflowing absence serves as a testament to both remembered and expected presence. It is a promised presence, and it drives us joyfully onward in faith, hope, and Love.

         Two of our young people are formally joining the church today. Elliott and Avery, I want you to be aware that you are committing yourselves to a spiritual life in which absence, doubt, and frustration remain as common as fullness, assurance, and gladness.

When absence gathers itself around you or in you, remember that the early church struggled with exactly the same feelings. Remember that absence often becomes the realm of the richest experiences of faith. Into the maw of apparent emptiness, Jesus breathes his peace, his promise. He breathes his Love for you and for all creation. And in such overflowing absences we tend to rely most completely on God.

         Pentecost declares that Spirit-mystery is always at work. We will never get our minds around this mystery. The best we will ever get is our hearts open to it. As Paul says over and over to the Easter/Pentecost community of the early church, We are the new temple. The Shekinah of God shines in the Love of God, and Resurrection is even now breathing this glorious Love through us deep into the world’s emptiness.

When we seek awareness of Mystery in ourselves, we begin to see it in others, and in all of creation. The presence of Pentecost Mystery holds the power to transform every absence into a temple overflowing with the glory of God.

¹http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?ca=7ff2eee8-2a69-48a2-841e-91640c14c09e&c=c98d6b50-eefa-11e3-853a-d4ae52754b78&ch=ca496850-eefa-11e3-8596-d4ae52754b78

²Ibid.

³See also Mark 12:31, Luke 10:25ff., and John 31:34-35

The Gift of Ministry (Sermon)

“The Gift of Ministry”

John 17:6-19

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

5/17/15

         In the Gospel of John, there is no Last Supper scene, at least no final Passover. At the beginning of chapter 13, Jesus and the twelve do eat together for the last time before Friday, but it is just Thursday night supper. In John the memorable ritual is foot washing. Afterward, Jesus launches into 4½ more chapters of discourse and prayer for his disciples.

         The prayer in today’s reading from John 17 reminds me of last week’s text from 1 John 5. It seems to go around and around, saying the same things. Then again, what I hear Jesus trying to tell the disciples is something that cannot be laid out all neat and tidy. John is painting a picture of Jesus handing off his ministry to his followers.¹ And this handoff entails far more than passing along a notebook of minutes and a set of keys. Jesus is handing off responsibility for proclaiming, revealing, and consciously inhabiting and enjoying the kingdom of God in and for the world. And he is bequeathing this job to eleven guys who seem to want to intend to appear to understand and trust, but whose responses expose their sad sack confusion and half-hearted courage.

         And therein lies the dramatic grace of Jesus.

         Even as he faces death, Jesus lives in a freedom that no bold declaration of liberty and no national constitution can conceive, much less promise. He lives in the realm of holy communion with the creation. His native habitat is a plane of consciousness that sees through all the pretense of vanity, all the numbing layers of worldly loyalties, and all the blinding and asphyxiating smoke of fear.

As Jesus sits at the table with his disciples, worldly power has him in the cross hairs. He feels that sinister eye watching, yet he sees clearly and breathes deeply into the moment. His upcoming ordeal will be excruciatingly real. His disciples have just about accepted that their Messiah will disappoint them militarily, so on the fight-or-flight continuum all but Peter have one foot out the door. And Peter’s lone attempt at a preemptive strike will expose his own lack of resolve. He will slice off an ear, but not from an armed soldier, and not from some religiously significant Pharisee, but from a by-standing slave named Malchus.

This is a rather stomach-turning example of John’s famous irony. When Peter cuts off the slave’s ear, Jesus’ calm response says, in effect, ‘Peter, bless your heart. Why in God’s name did you lop off this man’s ear? It’s you who hasn’t heard a word I’ve said!’

Come what may on Friday and Saturday, Jesus maintains his sacred vision. He still views the creation through the lens of God-revealing mystery. Regardless of events around him, God’s Christ continues to follow and to announce the radical freedom of wide-armed, agape Love. He continues to regard and engage every person he encounters as God-imaged creatures

This is the ministry Jesus is leaving to his sleepy followers.

         Last week I read a description of Love that made me feel as if I had learned a wonderful new word. The author is Canadian Catholic philosopher Jean Vanier. Vanier’s opus is L’Arche, a global alliance of communities for people with disabilities.² I imagine that many folks would say that it takes a “special person” to live and work with the residents of a L’Arche community. I also suspect that Jean Vanier would say that what it takes is Love.

         “Communion,” writes Vanier, “means accepting people just as they are, with all of their limits and inner pain, but also with their gifts and their beauty and their capacity to grow: to see the beauty inside all of the pain. To love someone is not first of all to do things for them, but to reveal to them their beauty and value, to say to them through our attitude: ‘You are beautiful. You are important. I trust you. You can trust yourself.” We all know well,” says Vanier, ‘that we can do things for others and in the process crush them, making them feel that they are incapable of doing things for themselves. To love someone is to reveal to them their capacities for life, the light that is shining in them.”³

         Those words are becoming yeast rising in the dough of my heart. I don’t know where they will lead, but only in the freedom of Love can I embrace and follow the often painful transformations of Love. This is the ministry with which I wish to be associated, and toward which I wish to lead any church that calls me Pastor.

         When praying for his disciples, Jesus says, “I have given them your word...they do not belong to the world.”

         You are free, he is saying to his disciples. You are free to see every human being, every inch of the creation as a place teeming with God light.

         This is difficult for us because the world enslaves us to attitudes so competitive that they become predatory. Humankind seems to have bought the lie that the smartest and most trustworthy opinions belong to those who can criticize their foes with the loudest contempt. In the public square talking heads have given themselves over to scream-fests of insults and disrespect. Liberal and conservative commentators point at each other and shout, ‘Crucify him!’ Then they smile and say, ‘Now, a word from our sponsor.’

In the religious square, theology and piety are littered with phrases like, “all that God does for us” and “all that God gives to us.” When we associate God’s Love of us primarily with things God does for us and gives to us, our faith practice turns into an economic scramble for scarce resources and political grabs for power. So even conversations among the people of God begin to sound like prison riots.

Is there any wonder that fewer and fewer people identify with any spiritual tradition? Focusing on what we get as evidence of God’s Love has distracted us from the most dauntingly gracious gift from God: Our call to give. Our call to do the ministry of Jesus Christ.

We are not celebrating the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper today, but we are having communion. In just a few moments we will gather for lunch in the fellowship hall. As always, I urge you to sit with someone whose story you don’t know as well. Look into each other’s eyes, listen deeply into each other’s words. Allow yourself to be someone through whom God Loves them, someone through whom God reveals to them their own stunning beauty. They, in turn, will be ones through whom God may reveal something bright and new about you.

         Friends, this is ministry. This is sanctification. This is Heaven on earth. This is true freedom.

This is salvation!

¹George W. Ramsey, “Exegetical Perspective” in Feasting on the Word. Westminster John Knox Press, Westminster/John Knox Press, 2008, p. 545.

²http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Vanier

3This quotation appears in Vanier’s book, From Brokenness to Community. I found it online at: http://john13verse34.blogspot.com/2012/09/divisions-in-church-and-need-for.html