Evolution: A poem by Andrea Gibson
The world is hurting.
The world is hurting.
The world is hurting more than it ever has before,
And you wanna know why?
Because of the guy on the corner holding a sign saying “God Hates Fags.”
Because of the soccer mom waving her American Flag.
Because of the frat boy driving his SUV.
Because of the brainwashed millions watching TV.
Because of the….
Wait..
What if the world is hurting because of me?
And what if the world is hurting because of us?
See: Things are really messed up, but we spend so much time putting the fault over there, and over there, and over there, not realizing the vaults of change we could open just by looking inside here.
Year after year we condemn the media fed fear and hate that separates nations from nations and us from them and us from them. We condemn those walls every day.
And yet every day we erect walls on our own streets and treat our neighbors like strangers and don’t even care to know their names and we claim we are working for Peace. We’re all singing songs of “No War”, but what about the wars we fight with those we love behind our own front doors.
And those bumper stickers that say, “No blood for oil” slapped to the backs of our gas guzzling cars. It would make a little more sense if we had them stuck across our hearts.
We’ve got to look at our part, before we point the blame elsewhere.
Aim a little back here and we could light the world so bright.
See. I could spend my whole life pointing at the poison of the conservative, republican, Christian right. Or I could look at myself and see the most homophobic person I’ve ever known was me at 19 years old.
I could write books about the way I have sold my soul.
Fill whole libraries with just my crimes. So I’m not gonna waste anymore time playing judge and jury over everyone else when I’ve never found myself completely guilty. In fact compared to many, my hands are probably filthy.
So we can make devils of each other, or we can take that energy and make gods of ourselves.
And I’d rather live my life on a mission of building a heaven than working demolition in hell. Build big the beauty. Big build the love.
And I swear; the hate, the fear, will one day disappear and it all starts right here.
Because the holiest water ever poured on me was a water that reflected everything inside me that I didn’t’ want to see.
See, we can march a thousand picket lines in the streets. We can tear up the concrete a thousand times with our teeth then plant the soil with a thousand fertile seeds for the revolution that’s marching deep within our private souls.
That’s the rain that will make the flowers grow.
So before you point the blame, make a list of everything on this earth that you want to change and at the top, print your own beautiful name and start from there.
Build revolutions inside here, inside your own pounding heart and that alone could start the evolution of the entire human race.
In a world of judgment, so much depends on the kindness of one friendly face.
So build your compassion, build your grace. Your next big breath could become the next big bang, the single saving spark that lights the fire.
There will be no higher power any higher than you when you first save the sister, father, brother, mother Earth that lives inside you. So build yourself as beautiful as you want your world to be.
Wrap yourself in light then give yourself away with your heart, your brush, your march, your art, your poetry, your play. And for every day you paint the war, take a week and paint the beauty.
The color, the shape of the landscape your marching towards.
Everyone knows what you’re against; show them what you’re for!
Then become the door that opens that keeps the people hopin’.
And don’t just point the way. Become the path that leads them there, with everything you do. Because if you’re gonna change the world, you got to start with you. Evolution: Andrea Gibson
Why I love our United Methodist Seminaries!
I woke up this morning ticked off. I usually don’t wake up in such a state of mind. In fact, I usually wake up singing whatever song it was that I last heard before I went to bed. Interestingly enough, the last song I heard last night was a gospel version of “As the Deer” by the Mississippi State black voices. However, this morning when I woke up, I was not singing, “As the deer panteth for the water, so my soul longeth after thee.” All I could think about was how our United Methodist seminaries are under attack. Why was that on my mind? Yesterday a few articles were sent to me about how our seminaries are failing our students. One of them was written by a D.S. in another conference (http://www.umportal.org/article.asp?id=8003)
It was really disappointing to say the least, but I wasn’t mad yesterday. Usually, if I have a reaction to something, it is very intense in that moment, not a few hours later. However, this morning, I was mad.
How dare people talk about our United Methodist seminaries and how they are either too liberal or too inadequate in training clergy. How dare us think we are the standard bearers of our UM seminaries when we are not.
At annual conferences all over the UMC this summer, there were various resolutions attacking the University Senate and Claremont School of Theology. At first, I really thought it was an attack on Claremont specifically, but as the discussion progressed in my own annual conference, many of us realized that it was an attack on all of our UM seminaries. There is anti-intellectual movement that scares me. There is a movement that is Islamophobic in the church and that scares me, and this has played out in the discourse of theological education. There are also movements within the church that would love a homogenous, rigidly orthodox, one-way of thinking, brand of theology. But this is not what theology is, or should be. There is not one United Methodist Seminary that I would not support. As far as my alma mater of Duke Divinity, I am very glad that I went there.
For many people reading this, you may be gasping, as you have heard me berate Duke because of certain areas in which I think Duke is lacking. However, I would still pretty much tell anyone that they can find their niche at Duke. At Duke, you will find professors, faculty, and staff who are on the board of the Confessing movement within the UMC. At Duke, you will find professors, faculty, and staff who are card carrying Reconciling United Methodists. The theology in the halls of Duke is perhaps the most beautiful thing about Duke. No matter where a person falls on any theological spectrum, they will encounter faculty and students who will stretch them and cause them to think outside of their own boxes. At least, that is what Duke did for me. I had friends who went to Duke who were very theologically rigid and then became very theologically open. I also had friends who came into Duke who were very theologically progressive and ended up becoming very orthodox, and what some would consider very theologically conservative.
Our theological institutions are not supposed to be homogenous. Our theological institutions are to be places where we can think for ourselves within the framework of Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience. I believe all 13 UM seminaries do that. I believe that all the seminaries that are affiliated with the UMC do that.
The reason I get so mad and worked up about this is that I have peers and leaders telling me that my theological education was inadequate and that I spent three years at a seminary wasting my time and MEF’s money. But let me say this:
I spent three years at Duke, my United Methodist Seminary, learning how Jesus is, was, and will be the saving grace, the light and love of God, and the winner over evil. In a United Methodist Seminary, I learned how in community, we can disagree but still love each other with a love that turns our disagreements into a beautiful tapestry of diversity. In a United Methodist Seminary, I learned that educating our clergy matters because our forbearers put into place a high demand on education. In a United Methodist Seminary, I learned what it means to sit with children and teenagers in prison and in the hospital, and how God’s light is ever present – even when it seems that the darkness of the prison cells and hospital walls have won. In a United Methodist seminary, I learned the importance of holiness, righteousness, and justice, and how if we lose site of any of these things, we fail to be the church. In a United Methodist Seminary, I found Jesus in the most expected and unexpected ways. And these things are not just applicable to Duke Divinity School, but to all United Methodist Seminaries.
So my being ticked off is because I take offense when someone disses my family, especially when many of the anti-UM seminary voices are from those persons who chose not to go to UM Seminaries. I think it is important that we offer Methodist tracks at non-UM seminaries and I celebrate it when a colleague, former youth, church member goes to such a seminary. However, please don’t throw sticks and stones at the seminaries in which you’ve invested no time and money in, because no matter where any of us go to seminary, we need to put more trust in the God who has called us and formed us, and in the Christ who has saved us, than in the actual institutions. At the end of the day, institutions are not divine, but they can point us to the divine and allow us to discover the streams of living water that we pant after.
Please Come: Nichole Nordeman
This is Nichole Nordeman’s “Please Come”
It has always been one of my favorite songs for many reasons, and in the United Methodist Church, we need to remember these words as we enter into what I hope is Holy Conferencing for all. The line in this song that really speaks to me the most is this,
“Oh the times that I have failed to recognize
How many chairs are gathered there around the feast.
To break the bread and break these boundaries
That have kept us from our only common ground,
The invitation to sit down
If we will come.
There is room enough for all of us, please come.
And the arms are open wide enough, please come.
And our parts are never greater than the sum
This is the heart of the One
Who stands before an open door and bids us come.”
Listen to this song! I hope and pray that there is room enough for all of us. The invitation is for us to come. We can even bring our disagreements over authority of scripture, who God does or doesn’t call to ministry, who we will allow to become members in our churches, whether or not people of other faiths should or should not be trained in our seminaries, whether we will stand up for LGBTQ rights, or not, etc.
We bring all sorts of thoughts, ethics, interpretations of scriptures with us, and that is okay, as long as we will come together, and sit at the table that has no boundaries. When we break bread together, we break the boundaries that we’ve erected to keep us apart. I hope and pray that even in our differences and disagreements, we remember the broken body of the one who does bid us to sit at the table and feast together.
Shepherd’s Sunday Sermon
John 10:1-10 10
“Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. 2The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.”6Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. 7So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. 9I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
Today is the fourth Sunday of Easter, it is Good Shepherd Sunday, and it is also Memorial Sunday here at Vernon UMC. It is great to see all of you today. It is great that we are here in this house of worship that has provided a place for people to know that they are God’s beloved children. This place has so much history, and so many people have passed through this sanctuary and the sanctuaries that have stood on this land. In a bit, we will do what we often do best, and that is go and eat a fantastic feast with each other! All of us, children of this land, family, friends, and as sheep. Sheep you say? Like smelly sheep? We aren’t sheep? And yet, today, in our Gospel passage, Jesus claims that he is the Shepherd, he is the gate in which the Shepherd watches over, and we are his sheep.
There is so much imagery of Jesus and God as shepherd. I’d be willing to bet that many of us in here have heard of the 23rd Psalm. The Psalm that starts, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” My favorite version that I have heard of Psalm 23 goes like this,
I am a child of God; I have everything I need. This beautiful earth feeds my body. You feed my soul. You guide me in the ways of Life, for You are Life. And though I will walk through dark places, and eventually to death, I need never be afraid. For You are with me always. In You I can find comfort. With Your help, I can face whatever comes. My joy overflows. Your goodness and blessing will be with me every day of my life — and forever.
So God promises us, that we are God’s people. God is everything we need. In life, we should always remember that our journey is this: We came from God, and it is to God that we shall return. Yes. God gave us our lives, and in the end, we go back to God. But this is the God who loves us. The God, who we can say, “Yes, I am a child of God. You gave me life, you guide me through life, you are my source. You are with me always, and your goodness and blessings are with me always!” But then there is the problem of not only being children of God, but being SHEEP!
If God is our Shepherd, then we are sheep. And the shepherd is guiding us, and we are following. I must be honest, the gospel lesson this week, of Jesus being the Shepherd who guards the gate, and also, the Gate itself, makes me nervous. The gospel lesson goes on to say, those who would try to enter the other side of the fence by sneaking in, or by going over the fence, instead of through the gate, makes me nervous. The fact that the Gospel writer says, whoever sneaks in, or goes over is a thief, and a bandit. As someone who has many friends who practice other faiths, I am uncomfortable with this sentiment because it seems to invalidate their faith in the Creator.
But in our scriptures, Jesus says, I am the gate, and I am the shepherd. I am the way into the other side. And as much as this makes me nervous, it gives me relief. It gives me joy. Why? Because it is not up for me to decide who gets to go to the other side. It is not up to you, to decide who has been saved by God and who has not been saved by God. If it were, Hell would end up being full of all of our enemies. We are not the gatekeepers of heaven, and we sure are not the gatekeepers of God’s Kin-dom.
The God, who in Psalm 23, watches over all of the beloved, is the one who is the gate-watcher, and the shepherd. Jesus, who in the gospels, broke religious boundaries, broke social boundaries, broke cultural boundaries, did things he was not supposed to do, he is the gate, and the gatekeeper. And this gatekeeper, this shepherd was one who loved all people, and brought all people together. The only people who seemed to be turned off by Jesus, and who seemed to not want to trust in him, were the people in power. They were the ones who had power to lose. Jesus’ way, the way in which he wanted his followers to follow was that of peace. The way of the Shepherd, and thus the way of the sheep was to be about Peace.
Jesus did not come into this world saying things like,
“Kill them all and let God sort them out.” Or,
“An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is my command.” Or,
“Vengeance is mine sayeth the family of the victim.” Or,
“Do unto others before they do unto you”. Or,
“Never forgive your enemy”. Or,
“Hate is great”. Or,
“Turn the other cheek and when they aren’t looking blow them away”. Or,
“Judge ye others and when you have condemned them in your mind, bomb their country and every human soul therein”.
Or, “Be sure to cast the first stone”. Or,
“Nuke ‘em”.
No, Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” MATTHEW 5:7
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” MATTHEW 5:9 “
You have heard it said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. MATTHEW 5:38-39
“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the same measure you use, it will be measured back to you.” MATTHEW 7:1-2
“Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” MATTHEW 7:12
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself”. MATTHEW 22:39
“Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword”. MATTHEW 26:52
That is why the people in power were nervous. They didn’t want to abide by Peace. They didn’t want to turn the other cheek, or listen to this crazy prophet who had given up everything to live a life of love and peace. But this is the crazy Jesus, the radical Jesus, that is the gatekeeper. This Jesus who defeated the power of evil in this world. He is the Shepherd. And this is the Jesus, this is the God, who revealed Godself in love, that we MUST follow.
Maybe getting to the other side of the fence is about living into God’s Kindom in the here and now. What if being sheep, and following after the shepherd means that if we live lives of justice, of mercy, of peace, like the shepherd, then we will see heaven manifest itself on earth. What if Jesus is liberating us from our sheepiness, and saying follow me, because my way of love and of peace, will liberate you from your fear of others, and the fear of yourself, and maybe even hell.
Maybe Jesus is saying, “My way of peace and love is not only good for you, but it is good for all of society.” Maybe Jesus is saying, “live love. Live Peace. And then you will truly know what the other side of the fence, what heaven looks like.” So today, as we celebrate each other, and as we celebrate and remember those who have built this church, let us remember that we are to follow after Jesus, the shepherd, and the gatekeeper. Remember that it is love, and peace that we seek and follow. And remember that we are not the gatekeepers of heaven and hell, we are just called to live as though Heaven is here on earth. So live the love of the shepherd. Live the peace of the Gatekeeper. Amen.
Good Friday: Crucify Him!
Scripture Lesson: John 18:1-19:42
First of all, let me thank everyone for allowing me the opportunity to stand in this pulpit tonight. When asked which service I wanted to preach, I immediately volunteered for Good Friday at Wesley. To stand in this pulpit is humbling, and if I must be honest, quite daunting. While I am being honest, I must say that I am not sure why I signed up for Good Friday, because the Cross of Christ is not something that is easily understood. The Cross of Christ, the suffering of Christ, the bleakness of this night, is something that is not warm and fuzzy. It is not pretty. There is nothing glorious about Jesus being executed on a cross, while thronggggggggggggggs of people, in a sadistic cry, shout “Crucify Him!”
The Roman cross was a tool of execution. On Golgotha, Jesus was lynched. Why? Because he was everything that he was not supposed to be. Even during the week that Jesus was in Jerusalem leading up to his crucifixion, he said many things that really caused many people to become irate.
My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.
Crucify him!
Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.
Crucify him!
I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom, to a people who are the least of these in your midst.
Crucify him!
The king said to his slaves, “The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy.”
Crucify him!
Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.
Crucify him!
You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.
Crucify him!
But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them.
Crucify him!
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!
Crucify him!
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.
Crucify him!
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth.
CRUCIFY HIM!
You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets, sages, and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town.
CRUCIFY HIM!
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!
CRUCIFY HIM![1]
And they put him on a cross to die. They put him to shame and gawked at him, and made fun of him. There are many terrifying things about the crucifixion of Jesus and one of them is the way in which many mocked him. The same people who said they loved him, and shouted Hosanna just a week before, stripped him of his clothes. They made fun of him. “Hey you, King of the Jews. You aren’t such a great King anymore. Why don’t you come down off that cross. Yeah, you.”
It seems that in the history of Christianity some of us have used Jesus to mock others. The one who was mocked on Calvary. People with dark skin were put on auction blocks as white slave owners mocked them and sold them into a life of slavery, splitting up families, and uprooting whole cultures. This was even done in the name of Jesus, the one who was mocked on Calvary. Lord Have Mercy.
Many missionaries came into the new world carrying diseases, raping whole cultures, uprooting child from parent, and families from land, all so that they could have religious freedom in the new world. And they did this in the name of Jesus, the one who was mocked on Calvary. Lord Have Mercy.
In a time, not that long ago, men and women wearing white sheets would mock people who were threatening the “southern way of things” and those who had dark skin. They would fire bomb houses, burn crosses in people’s yards, burn down churches, bomb churches, and lynch people, kill people, all in the name of Jesus, the one who was mocked on Calvary. Lord Have Mercy
In Germany, during the Holocaust, a group of people hated Jews so much that they annihilated 6 million of them. They mocked them, and drew pictures of them as rats. They put them in gas chambers. Separated whole families. Killed off a whole generation of people, and some did this all in the name of Jesus, the one who was mocked on Calvary. Lord Have Mercy.
In our day, there is a church in Westboro, Kansas that mocks soldiers who have died. They hold up signs that say, “God Hates Fags”, “God Hates the Jews”, “God Hates Immigrants.” Basically they mock everyone who is outside of their supposed church. And they do this all in the name of Jesus, the one who was mocked on Calvary. Lord Have Mercy.
Even in our political climate of the day in the United States, it seems that we cannot carry on civil conversations with each other. Even last week, someone in California mocked the President of the United States by putting his picture on an Ape, with two other Apes. The inscription under the pictures said this, “this is why we can’t find his birth certificate.”
And it just isn’t a one sided thing. On both sides of any given issue, we are all guilty of pointing fingers back and forth, of yelling, of not talking to each other, of Mocking each other, and sometimes, dare I say, sometimes. We do this in the name of Jesus, the one who was mocked on Calvary. Lord Have Mercy on us all.
JESUS was not mocked on the cross, and Jesus did not die on the Cross so that we could mock each other. Jesus suffered and died because HE was God’s Love made flesh. He loved those he was not supposed to love. He reached out and touched women, he touched Samaritans, and he touched people who had leprosy. He carried on conversations with the outcasts. He healed people on the Sabbath. He ate with prostitutes, with tax collectors. He even touched DEAD people. All of these things were culturally and religiously unnaceptable. Jesus was executed because he was everything in this world that he was NOT supposed to be.
Jesus suffered a terrible death, at the hands of others who were threatened by his love, instead of being freed by his love. And why did Jesus love? Because Jesus was God’s love made flesh for human kind. As one theologian says,
“What if we see on this cross not a transaction with an offended god, but a revelation at a moment of time of the love which is eternally in the heart of God, lived out in the life of Jesus? What if we smile at our failed and compromised images of paid penalties, sacrificial blood, ransoms, and punishments, all of which reflected some truth but also distorted it, and see in this moment a climax of lived love meeting lived hate. Of a meeting of the gods of religion with the God of compassion; of a meeting of political suppression of change against the unwillingness to recant or care? If this is the case, then Jesus died for us, against us, within us, before us – in a moment frozen in time for all time.”[2]
Jesus died, and because of this, the love of Jesus, and the suffering of Jesus, the death of Jesus matters. Because Jesus and God are one
Jesus
God
knows our suffering. When we are the mocked ones, Jesus knows our suffering. When we are crushed down, almost destroyed, Jesus knows our suffering. When we are so far down in our spirits that we cry out, “MY GOD, MY GOD, Why have you forsaken me.” Jesus utters those very words with us, because Jesus, God’s love, knows our suffering.
“Jesus is not a third party inserted between God and humanity to take care of human sin. Jesus is the God who was wronged . . . God placed human sin upon God.”[3] And because God knows human sin, God knows our suffering. God knows our sin. And God loves us anyway.
But this knowing of our sin, this love of Jesus, this suffering that Christ suffered was not done in vain. It is our call to be like Christ. It is our call to love those who we do not want to love. It is our call to reach out and touch the untouchable. The work of Christ on the cross frees us to love as Christ loved, even if that means we end up on a cross of our own.
The reality is, every time we mock someone who is different than us, we might as well be shouting, “CRUCIFY HIM.”
Every time we insult someone because we disagree with her, or anytime we degrade her, we might as well be shouting, “CRUCIFY HER.”
Every time we cease to love someone because of his sexuality, her race, his ethnicity, her economic status, his nationality, her ability, his religion, their gender identity, we might as well be saying, “CRUCIFY THEM.”
God, in the WHOLE life of Jesus, opens us up to Love.
God, who was Jesus, knows our suffering when we love. And the good news is this; LOVE always wins! Jesus, the God who suffers with us, the God who loves unconditionally, always wins!
But tonight, we have yet to see that Victory. Tonight, we are left standing at the foot of the cross, shouting Crucify Him! Crucify Him! Crucify Him! as we look up at Jesus, the God made flesh, who is love.
Amen.
[1] Taken from Brad Corban. A litany for Passion Week.
[2] “God of the Mountain: A Reflection on the Cross” by William Loader. http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/mountain.htm
[3] Miroslav Volf
The Dry Bones and Lazarus! What they can teach the Church
Ezekiel 37:1-14
37 The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” 4Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.” 7So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. 9Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” 10I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. 11Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’12Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act,” says the Lord.
John 11:1-45
11 Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. 3So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” 4But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” 5Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, 6after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. 7Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” 8The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” 9Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. 10But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” 11After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” 12The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.”13Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. 14Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. 15For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” 16Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
17When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, 19and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. 20When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. 21Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.22But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.”23Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”25Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, 26and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” 28When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” 29And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. 30Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there.32When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
33When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 34He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.”35Jesus began to weep. 36So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”37But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” 38Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” 40Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” 41So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” 43When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”45Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.
Both today’s Old Testament Lesson and New Testament Lesson are loaded with beautiful imagery and powerful stories of God’s transformation. Both narratives hold so much prophetic word for the church universal. Both narratives confront us, the church, Christians, people of God, to action. But what is our call to action? Our call to action is to breathe life into the lifeless, and to unbind those who need unbinding. Our call to action is to be a community of God that acts with justice, with mercy, with grace, and most of all, with love.
In Ezekiel, we hear of the prophet, who has found himself in a Valley of Dry Bones. There is no life. There is nothing but skeletons all around him and the hand of the Creator that led him to this Valley. Can you imagine the scene? Can you imagine how the prophet felt as he stared around at a Valley of Death?
The Creator turns to Ezekiel and asks, “Can these bones live?” and Ezekiel says, “Yes Lord, with you they can.” And then the Creator tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones. God says, “tell them to stand up and put flesh on, and they will live. Do you believe that they will live?” Ezekiel says yes, and prophesies to the bones, and sure enough, they stand up on their feet, flesh envelopes them, and they live again. They are bodies, except, they have no breath. They have no life without breath. And the Creator tells Ezekiel to prophesy to them, and to breathe life into them. So Ezekiel does, and the life of the Creator, the Spirit of God, is breathed into the lifeless, yet somewhat living bodies, and then they have breath. They have full life, and yet, the bones say that they are still cut off from the community. They have been dead, lifeless, and they have been cast out into this valley, and they let Ezekiel know this. Then the Creator looks at Ezekiel and says, “Prophesy to them and tell them I will open up their graves, I will get them out of this Valley and I will restore them back to the community, to Israel.” And so Ezekiel prophesies to them, and they are restored back into their community. The Creator God, has raised them from lifeless bodies, to full participants in the Creator’s community. And yet God has not done this on God’s own. God used the prophet Ezekiel to do this on God’s behalf.
It is a beautiful picture of God using God’s people to restore the lifeless, the dead, the forgotten, the shunned, the living dead, back into living community of Mercy, Grace, and Love.
Last year, a friend of mine, Elizabeth Clift, preached a sermon on “Can these bones live?” It was beautiful and it was about women who had been battered and abused and who were nothing but skeletons walking around in this world. They needed the life and breath of God to be breathed into them, but it took people in community to do this breathing of life. It took the church, the people of God, to act as God’s agent of mercy, life, and love. And it got me to thinking. Who are those walking dead in our society that we have forgotten about and thrown in the valley of death? Who are the people in our midst who are dead, and need the life of God to be breathed into them? Who are those that we have forgotten, that we have shunned, that we have claimed to have no life?
A group of people that I have recently become more aware of and have become friends with are those persons that are HIV positive. It seems that more and more, I am meeting people with HIV and AIDS. Last year when I was a chaplain intern at Duke Medical Center, I was involved in pastoral care initiatives that sought to better care for individuals who were infected by HIV. At the church I attended in Durham, NC., we supported ministries that would help out with persons with HIV. Even in the Divinity School, we put on a Broadway Revue, and the proceeds from that show when to Aids Alliance of NC. This past year since I’ve been back in Mississippi, I have come to know more and more people in our State who are living with and affected by HIV. These persons are no longer people who have a disease in my eyes, they have become my friends.
In talking to many of them about what it means to live with HIV, specifically in Mississippi, many of them do not talk about the disease itself, but how they have become social outcasts in this state. They feel as if they are defined by their disease, and not defined as Children of God. This broke my heart, and still breaks my heart. One of my friends who is a respected person in his profession is leaving Mississippi because of the way he has been treated by not only people who find out he is HIV positive, but because of the lack of care, the lack of churches involvement in the community, and the absolute horrendous way that certain health agencies treat him. He has been living with HIV for 18 years, he is healthier now then he has ever been, but every time he goes to the doctor for a check-up, and every time they test his viral load, the doctor has to send it in to the Health Department. The health department then shows up at his house and quarantines him for a time and treats him as a second class citizen. It is sinful, and it is wrong. It has driven him to another job in another state. But, I don’t blame him.
Just like the dry bones in the valley that Ezekiel finds himself in, we find ourselves in a valley surrounded by people living and affected by HIV. You may think that you do not know anyone who is infected or affected, but I’m hear to tell you, that you probably do. Even here in rural Winston County.
People who are HIV positive are not social outcasts. We should not treat them as such. I believe much of the problem has to do with the way that HIV and AIDS has been portrayed in certain circles as punishment for certain lifestyles, but this is not true. God did not send HIV as punishment.
The church cannot continue to turn her head away from those affected by HIV. We, like Ezekiel, are called to speak prophetic words of love and grace to people who are infected. We are called to bring life to people, but just like in the passage, what good is a body, if there is no breath. We can see people, but are we really breathing life into them? We are called to breathe the life of God into people who are oppressed and who are outcast because they are HIV positive. We are called to call out to them and to restore them into the community that is the Kin-dom of God. God is a God who loves outcasts, who wants God’s people to be loved, to be cherished, and we, as people of God, are called to cherish persons, no matter who they are, what they are, or where they are in their lives. We are called to breathe life into their midst. We are called to breathe the life of Justice into their midst, and demand that people living with HIV/AIDS are not second class citizens, nor should they be treated as such. We are called to be like Ezekiel! But not only are we called to breathe life into people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS, we are called to unbind them.
In our Gospel lesson today, we see where Jesus has been told of the death of his beloved Lazarus. He had waited around and had not come to Bethany as soon as he had heard of Lazarus’ illness, and it seems that he waited around too late. He gets the word that Lazarus has died and he goes to Bethany. We read the whole story earlier, and it is full of drama, and movement, but I want to focus on is the fact that Jesus cries over his beloved being dead. He weeps. Jesus cries for each life that is lost to HIV. Jesus cries and weeps over his sons and daughters who are infected. And even though Jesus knows he has the power to raise Lazarus, he still weeps over the death of his beloved. He prays to the Creator and then calls out to Lazarus saying, “COME OUT!” the stone was rolled away, and out comes Lazarus. He has been dead for four days, and I am sure the smell was a wretched and dead flesh, and yet, there is Lazarus, resurrected, by the power of Christ. And what does Christ do, he tells everyone to go Unbind Lazarus. He doesn’t tell Lazarus to unbind himself, he tells his community. Go. Unbind him. Loosen him from the cloths that hold him in. He may be Undesirable to you, he may have been dead, but now he is alive. I have spoken life into him. I have spoken the Spirit of God in him. Now, you unbind him! UNBIND HIM!
This is an awesome expression of God’s love. Telling the community, to unbind Lazarus. This was just as much about the community of Lazarus’ friends as it was about Lazarus. For him to be restored back into the community, his friends, his family, they were called to unbind Lazarus, Jesus’ beloved. And I can just imagine the picture. A community that was torn up by grief, now unbinding their beloved brother. But this is not necessarily a clean picture, because he had been dead. He is smelly and undesirable to be sure. There is tension, there is hesitancy, and yet, they unbind him. They restore him back to the community.
That is what we as Christians are called to do. To unbind those who have been perceived dead by the world. We are called to unbind people from the cloths, from the things that hold them in death. Many of those affected by HIV/AIDS are not powerless, and many of them are doing well, but there are so many who feel as if they are wrapped in a grave. They need the church, the people of God, to unbind them. To love them, to restore them back into community. They need Jesus to speak life to them saying, COME OUT! And they need the church to go unbind them. Go love them.
Why are we so hesitant to love people who are different than us? Why are we so ready to judge people because of a disease that they have? Why? What are we afraid of?
In closing, I want to share a story with you about how a church, a community spoke life into someone who had HIV/AIDS.
There was a young man who had just been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in a small church in North Carolina. During prayers and concerns one day, he let the congregation know, that he would not be partaking of Holy Communion because he didn’t want to get anyone else sick. In this church everyone drinks out of the same cup, and so he, for concern of the church wanted everyone to know why he wouldn’t be taking communion. He was HIV positive. This caused many people to start talking and to start discussing a faithful way for him to be able to take communion. So they prayed about it. A lot. They had several meetings and each meeting was based on prayer and that God would show them what they needed to do. Finally, they reached a decision and went to the young man to tell him what they had decided.
The people in the church decided that the man should take communion with all of them. What’s more, they decided to let him take communion first. They decided to let him drink out of the cup first, so that he would not catch any of their germs or other diseases that could kill him. In a gesture that is full of life, full of love, full of Grace, the people decided that they would be like Christ, and humble themselves, and let this beautiful man of God take communion first. It is a story that gives me hope for the church.
We, the church, are called to be like Ezekiel. We are called to breathe life into people who are just dry bones. We are called to proclaim to them that they are part of the community of God. We are called to be like Lazarus’ friends, and community, and we are called to unbind people. We are called to go to the untouchable, the unloveable, even those who we think might make us sick, and we are called to unbind them! We are called to Unbind them and show them the love of Christ.
I used stories of HIV positive persons today, but there are many people who feel like dry bones in this world. They are abused women, gay and lesbian teenagers who have been kicked out of church and home, they are immigrants in this country who are being exploited for cheap labor. They are people who are in the deep depths of depression. There are people in this room who may feel like dry bones, or like Lazarus, dead in the grave, waiting on the breath, the life of the Creator. Waiting on the people in your community to unbind you. So I say, if you are dry bones, know that GOD is breathing life into you because you are made in God’s very own image. If you feel that you are in the grave, come out and live! Come out and experience the depths of God’s love. Come out and be! Jesus, God the Creator, is waiting to hold you, to love you, and to give you new life.
In the Name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Amen.
The Woman at the Well: Reclaiming the Story
John 4:5-42: The Woman at the Well
5So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. 7A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8(His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 13Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” 15The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” 17The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” 19The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” 26Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”
27Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” 28Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29“Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” 30They left the city and were on their way to him. 31Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” 32But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” 34Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. 35Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. 36The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” 39Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” 40So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41And many more believed because of his word. 42They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”
Let us Pray:
Oh Fountain of Life, as we talk about the living waters that flow with your grace and mercy, be with us. May we hear you, see you, and feel your presence. May you illumine for us the presence of Christ, the one who restores us and makes us whole. So may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be good in pleasing in your sight, O God, our Rock and our Redeemer.
The Gospel lesson today is one that might be familiar to many of us. I know it is one I have heard my whole life, and it is one that I have always really liked, but for some reason, have felt uncomfortable by the way many people have preached it. I have always thought that people have come down really hard on the Samaritan woman. I’ve never really known what to do about it, but the way people described her as a woman of loose morals, or a woman who was living in sin because she was not married to the man she was living with, it always bothered me. I’ve always wanted to take the story for face value. Jesus may bring up the fact that she lives with someone to whom she’s not married, but he does not condemn that, nor does he say she needs repentance, he just offers her living water. This week, a fellow minister pointed me to an article that described my hesitancy to condemn the woman. In fact, the article allowed me to see that maybe we’ve had this story wrong.
Here is a snippet from the article.
She is not a prostitute. She doesn’t have a shady past. Yet when millions of Christians listen to her story this coming Sunday in church, they are likely to hear their preachers describe her in just those terms. Her story is told in the fourth chapter of the Gospel According to John. She is a Samaritan woman who Jesus encounters by a well. Jews and Samaritans don’t get along, and women and men in this culture generally keep a safe social distance from each other. So she is doubly surprised when Jesus asks her for a drink. When she makes a remark to that effect, he offers her living water. Confused, but intrigued, she asks about this miraculous water. He eventually invites her to call her husband, and when she replies that she has no husband, he agrees: “You have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband” (4:18).[1]
When I read those word this week, my heart jumped, and I thought, “gosh, so many people have painted this woman out to be a whore and that is not the case.” Sometimes we read so much into the stories, that we put our own prejudices into them.
In a society that is dominated by powerful men, it is no wonder that many of them would want to paint a terrible picture of the Samaritan woman. Why? Because it was scandalous for Jesus to be talking to her. Even as we read the story now, Jesus is shaking down the status quo. The status quo is controlled by powerful white men and when they get shaken, they feel threatened and know their power is shifting and being taken away.
What we do know about the woman is that she was a Samaritan. She was ethnically, culturally, and religiously mixed. Samaria was that part of the country that Jews did not go to. In fact, for the Samaritan woman, she was not Jewish enough for those who were Jewish, and she was too Jewish for those who were gentile. Not to mention, she had been married five times.
One thing that we need to remember about this is that back then, women were treated as property. For her to have had five husbands, it would mean that her husbands had either died, or grown tired of her and divorced her. As for the man she was living with, we don’t know much about the situation. He could have been the brother of one of her husbands who had divorced her or died. Or, he could have just simply been the man she was living with. Either way, it didn’t seem to bother Jesus, and he never asked her to repent. He just talked to her and offered her living water.
The point is this: Jesus TALKED to her. Jesus offered her WATER. A woman. He was being taboo and that would make plenty of goody two shows mad. She was a Samaritan. That was also culturally unacceptable, and there should have been no reason for him to talk to her. He should have steered clear. Ignoring her would have been the “proper” thing for Jesus to do, being that he was a Jewish man. But the good news is, Jesus never paid attention to proper things, so he goes to her, and offers her water. He tells her that he knows her. He knows her story. He knows her past, where’s she’s been, where’s she’s going, who she lives with, who she’s lived with and he did not do this out of condemnation. He did this because he loved this woman. He saw her not as a Samaritan woman, but as a child of God, whom needed love. He needed her love.
After Jesus asks for water, after he offers her living water, after he looks at her, and describes her past, she says, “wow, you are a prophet. Where should one worship?” This is her confession of faith. It is not merely a question, but the moment that she understands who this man is. In this moment, this woman knows that Jesus is a prophet, the son of God. Why? Because Jesus has seen her.
Jesus has SEEN her.
She was a woman who many people looked over. She was a woman who had to go to the well in the middle of the day because the others would have nothing to do with her. She was invisible to all, but to Jesus, she was of Sacred Worth.
The living water that Jesus offered her was the water of wholeness, of healing, of restoration. Jesus was not offering her salvation from her depravity, but from her brokenness that had been put on her by others.
The water that he offers, the living water, is her healing, her restoration back into community. It is the restoration within herself to know that she is a child of God. She was a woman who was loosed from cultural expectations. She was a woman who was loosed from cultural prejudices. Jesus loosed her from a society that would tell her she was a piece of trash. Even the disciples couldn’t believe that Jesus was talking to her, but none of them questioned Jesus.
When the conversation with Jesus had ended, the Samaritan woman put down her water jugs, and ran into town, proclaiming to everyone that she had seen, and met the Messiah. She ran into town proclaiming that the Messiah had SEEN and known her! She became an evangelist! The Samaritan woman, who has been hijacked by those who want to deem her as a slut or a whore, was not that. She was a child of God, and she was a proclaimer of the Good news that Jesus, the Messiah offers the living waters of restoration, of grace, of love, of seeing, and knowing . This woman is not at all a scandalous, depraved woman, she is, and should be a beautiful example to all of us of what it means to be washed by the living waters of Jesus Christ.
Today, Jesus Christ offers us the living waters. I am going to do something different and say this is not about sin, or about morality. Maybe this is about knowing and being known by the living God. This is about being washed by the living waters that flow from the heart of God. This is about being loosed from the cultural expectations. It is about being loosed from religious expectations and prejudices. It is about being seen and known by the living God.
What is it that makes you doubt that you are a child of God?
What are the judgments that people put on you, that make you doubt that God loves you?
What do you need to be loosed from?
What in your life needs to be invaded by the living waters of the living God?
The good news is that Jesus, the living and loving God offers to each and everyone of us, the living waters that restore our souls. Jesus is not concerned with social, religious, cultural, or even biblical norms or rules. Jesus is concerned with us, as people of God. Jesus wants us to know that he knows EXACTLY who were are. Jesus knows us by name, Jesus knows our stories, and the good news is, Jesus loves us, not in spite of who were are, but BECAUSE of who we are.
So allow the living water to fall afresh on you today. Allow Jesus to meet you where you are, and allow Jesus to wash over you with the living waters of life.
Let us pray. Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on us. Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on your creation. Spirit of the Living God, let your waters of life surround us with your grace, with your love, and with your presence. Amen.
[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-lose/misogyny-moralism-and-the_b_836753.html?ref=fb&src=sp
Psalm 121 – A reflection on Getting Stuck and calling out to God.
Psalm 121
I lift up my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil, he will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
God is our help, our refuge. We look to the hills to find God and to hear of God’s love. Has there ever been a time when you needed the refuge of God? When you needed to know that God was a God of love? Have you ever felt despair, or have you ever been so afraid that you just completely shut down because you were incapacitated with that fear? We all have fears! What are you afraid of???
Well, I have fears in life. I am afraid of Spiders, which is called arachnophobia. I am afraid of clowns (and yes this is a legitimate fear; it is called coulrophobia), but perhaps my biggest fear is being confined in an enclosed space with no escape. This is called claustrophobia. For me, it could be being stuck in an elevator, or in a space where I am completely confined and cannot move because I am stuck. When this happens, and when I am stuck, when I cannot move, or when I cannot get out of a situation, I completely shut down. I don’t necessarily freak out or scream and yell, I simply just completely shut down and sink into a depression.
Let’s just say that this week I was confronted with my fear of being stuck in a confined place where there seemed to be no way to escape. As many of you know, this past week I had the opportunity to go to Orlando, Florida to lead worship for Galloway Memorial UMC’s youth group. On Tuesday, we went to the Islands of Adventure at Universal Studios, and we rode a ride called the Forbidden Journey, which was a Harry Potter themed ride. This ride, is like a roller coaster, but it is inside, and uses an IMAX screen for much of the ride. It was pretty cool at first. However, during the ride, there was a section where spiders came out at you, and that was scary, but the ride was going so fast and I closed my eyes, so it wasn’t too bad. However, right after we got past the spiders, we came face to face with these big nasty mythical creatures called dementers.
In the Harry Potter books, dementers are actually spirits that suck the happiness out of people who look at them. Dementers reveal to a person their biggest fears and then they make them feel the feelings that come along with those biggest fears. Well, as we approached the dementers, the ride stopped. For about 20 seconds, I was thinking, wow, this is crazy, good job and freaking me out… We were sitting there, just staring at this scary looking creature in a black flowing gown. Well, at this time, the lights in the roller coaster come on and there is a voice that says, “Sorry all you riders, but we are experiencing technical difficulties. The ride has been shut down. We are doing everything we can to fix this problem. In the meantime, sit tight, don’t go anywhere, and please do not freak out.” But as the voice is saying this, all I hear is, “The ride is stuck, and you will be sitting here for a while, maybe even the rest of your life, and what’s more, you are probably going to die staring at this dementer and there is really no way to escape because you are tied into the seat.”
So there we are, in a roller coaster cart, staring face to face with a dementer, and we are stuck. I am stuck. There was nowhere for me to go. We were tied into the ride by powerful constraints. The people in the cart with me, who were all friends of mine, were having some fun, they weren’t stressed, and yet there I was, completely scared out of my mind. I am not sure that I can describe the despair that I felt in that moment. And it wasn’t anything that my friends could pick up on because I wasn’t saying anything, and I wasn’t screaming. I just shut down. And as the minutes went by, and the more and more we sat there, not moving, the despair got deeper. The utter despair that I felt in the moment is indescribable. I just know I closed my eyes and started praying. Looking to God to help me out of this, because I knew if I didn’t pray, if I didn’t ask God for God’s help, then I would probably have a panic attack.
After being stuck for about 20 minutes, which felt like an eternity, the ride started again. It took me a while to get over the gut wrenching feeling of despair that I felt, and I am actually still trying to reflect on all of it, but I do know that God was there and God was present, even in the midst of my fear.
This event for me reminds me about life. We all go through times where we feel utterly alone, afraid, depressed, even if there are people around us. As I said, my biggest fear in life is feeling stuck, feeling constrained, and feeling as if there is no way out. But the good news is, there is always a way out with the Love of God, through Christ. No matter how stuck we get, no matter how constrained we are, God is there, and we are to call out to God. Just like the Psalmist called out to God, we are to call out. We look to God, who is our refuge, who is our help in times of trouble. We look to God to make our feet steady. We look to God because God is our help, our refuge. We look to God, we cry out to God because God will keep us from evil. God will keep us in God’s arms.
We all have those things in our lives that make us afraid. We all have those things in our lives that make us want to cry out to God. One thing I particularly like about this Psalm is that it is written while the Psalmist was on a journey. Just as I was on a ride called, the Forbidden Journey, the Psalmist in Psalm 121 was on a journey.
During lent, we are all on a journey towards the Cross of Jesus and to the eventual Resurrection. However, we do not need to look too far ahead, because if we do, we miss out on the lessons of the journey that we are in the midst of. If we look ahead to the cross and to the resurrection, we miss out on the lessons that God has in store for us in the here and now. The point of Lent is that we know God better, that we go on this journey so that we can better know that God is our Maker, our Creator, our Helper.
During Lent we journey with Jesus as he goes from his baptism to the cross. We are baptized with Christ, we are tempted with Christ, we heal with Christ, we minister with Christ, and eventually, we will suffer with Christ, and be resurrected with Christ. But while all this is going on, we will stumble, we will fall, we will get scared, we will get stuck in places and feel as if we cannot go on in our journey, but the Psalmist gives us hope. When we stumble, when we fall, when we fail, when we break down, when we get stuck, we can know that God is a God whom we can call too.
God, in Christ, who was God’s love made flesh assures us that we too, our God’s children. When you get weary, when you get down, when you get weak, when you get scared, when you are on your journey with Jesus, and you get stuck in a situation that seems to overwhelm you, remember that you can cry out to God. Remember that God is with you every step of the way.
I look up to the mountains; does my strength come from mountains? No, my strength comes from God, who made heaven, and earth, and mountains. My strength comes from the Creator. God won’t let you stumble, your Guardian God won’t fall asleep. Not on your life! Israel’s Guardian will never doze or sleep. God’s your Guardian, right at your side to protect you— Shielding you from sunstroke, sheltering you from moonstroke. God guards you from every evil, God guards your very life. God guards you when you leave and when you return, God guards you now, God guards you always.
No matter where you go, where you get stuck, where you fall, God is your guardian. Even if you get stuck on a roller coaster and feel as if you cannot escape, God is still there.
In the Name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, Amen.
