Some artist’s successes
are almost as interesting
as their exquisite failures.
These failures are like wax melting
in a sun’s increasing heat
that frees carefully placed feathers.
A once soaring Icarus
tumbles awkward, grotesquely
to the earth’s unforgiving crust.
It is in the pathology
of the thud, the violent
cracking of bones
that we know both
the infinite reach for perfection
and gravity’s constant pull
Lord we pray for the bankers and creditors,
That steals from the poor,
They use unfair usury rates to wring out a yearly profit.
These illicit purveyors of unrealistic credit are predators
And feast off the vulnerable and weak.
We pray for the wealthy nations who
Grant loans to military dictators
Spreading the money amongst their junta
While imprisoning and starving their citizens.
They are the betrayers of the weak.
They scream the battle cry of personal responsibility
While participating in cronyism.
You will surely not forget their wrongs
On the Day of Judgment.
We pray for those who torture humans.
We know that more than victims are dehumanized.
Break their rods and overturn raw power.
Be present in isolation cells
Hold the hands of those chained to floors,
Forced to squat,
Listening to the blare of music.
May we find peace amongst graves
That our consumption creates
And may we find reconciliation
With the Christ who though forsaken
Utters words of forgiveness.
Hosea 5:15-6:6
A few weeks back the powerful federal arts commission had some negative evaluations of a statue that is to be erected in memorial to Martin Luther King Jr. in the tidal basin. As a congregation we have given money toward this monument to one of the greatest American ministers and civil rights leaders this country has ever produced. It wasn’t the first time this monument to King had elicited controversy. When all the submissions from sculptures had been sifted through the project was awarded to an artist named Lei Yixin from communist China. Many thought the project should be awarded to an African American artist, but that it should at least be an American who made such an important piece.
Yet, the nationality of the artist was only a small part of the arts commission’s beef with this large work. Because of its scale it was seen as too similar to social realist statues of leaders like Mao Zedong. Yet, the one word that stuck in the minds of many was that the members of the arts commission believed that statue must be softened because in its present incarnation it was much too “confrontational.”
As the final authority on what is acceptable in a public space the artist began his work at making the image of King have less furrowed eyebrows and the appearance of a much more open person. The director of the memorial confusingly reminded the Washington Post that the image that the sculpture itself was taken from was an actual photograph of King himself standing with his arms crossed in front of his desk.
It seems that our public persona of this great man is one of kindness, acceptance and one in which we talk about the dream of racial harmony. These are all wonderful messages, but miss the point of the prophetic image of Martin Luther King Jr. He was a man who defied the laws of this land on numerous occasions, supported striking union workers, believed strongly in the redistribution of wealth and opposed the Vietnam war long before it was popular. He took great professional and personal risks for the moral stands that symbolized his career and ultimately lost his life for those beliefs. Even though we seem to have neutered this man from his beliefs and made him a Disney creation we sometimes use the description of this man as a prophetic preacher.
It is a phrase that I hear a lot amongst my colleagues. I am constantly being reminded that I must not cede my role as a prophet in the pulpit. This is in addition to being a marketer, spiritual guide, strategist, counselor, community organizer and social commentator. Yet, one thing that gets the most fervent talk is the pastor’s prophetic role. Then the talk inevitably turns to this bungled war, torture, the environment, materialism, poverty, homelessness and many other social/political issues that our society faces. Yet, I have come to question whether when these progressive ministers talk about such issues in front of friendly crowds is prophetic at all.
It is only when I read prophets like Hosea that I see that when I preach to people who agree with my position about injustice that it is not prophetic. To be a prophet involves risks. It may get your house firebombed in the middle of the night. Or as with the Hebrew prophets make you eat scrolls that taste like honey, words that burn like hot coals on your lips, play in excrement, confront kings and religious leaders. In the case of Jesus he ended up on a cross for his prophetic vision of ministry to the poor, captive and outsider. It is dangerous to be a prophet.
The reality of Hosea is that one of the most radically prophetic word that a person can utter is that we need to come back to our creator. Whether it is through numerous idols that we have created that block us from our covenant with the divine. Hosea is just another example of why no one really wants to be a prophet. God tells Hosea that he must marry the prostitute Gomer whose name means representing the whole group to show the people of Israel that they have been unfaithful to him by following idolatry. God proclaims through Hosea, “The people in this land have acted like prostitutes and abandoned the Lord.”
Each child that they have becomes prophetically named to tell Israel of their wrongs and the consequences. The first’s name is Jezreel that means God Scatters. Then a daughter is named Lo-ruhamah that means not pitied. Finally, a third child, a son, is named Lo-ammi that means not my people. These are tough words to hear. Isn’t this a God of love? Even so many years later these words do not come easier to our ears. They are offensive; they are not part of the non-confrontational image of the prophet that we would like to memorialize in granite. They are the sounds of the thundering voice of an angry person that is trying to convey the emotions of the divine. It is a divinity that is hurt like a spouse cheated on in the most dramatic way. They are the cruel words of someone in the midst of divorce in the midst of the wreckage of a severely broken relationship.
In the end, in the midst of terribly troubling words Hosea brings a word from God that I believe boils down the point of most prophecy. It is something so stunningly simple that we may think it irrelevant to our great social movements toward human rights and legal justice. Hosea claims all of our calls for justice, the poor, cries to leave our idols, our care for the widow, the orphan or the longing that swords will be beaten into plowshares is rooted in knowing the divine and steadfast love.
Like a good intervention with someone you dearly love, someone who cannot see the destructive nature of their own actions God must rise up individuals that say things that scandalize our prim and proper minds. In the end it matters little to say the right things, have the right creedal formula, can tell right from wrong, know the Bible better than the rest of us, have great power, amassed enough money to be secure, know the right people if you do not know your creator and have a burning love for that same God. In the end, to the prophet, that is all that matters.
My mind’s a swirl
like looking from the center
of a tornado.
In each bit turning
round and round
I hope that I glimpse
something familiar.
Hold my hand and reassure me,
let me know that everything
is going to be all right.
I am waiting for one good word
To string together with the others.
I have accumulated over time
So that I will have
The perfect comeback for death.
The Lord be with you
And Also with you.
Lift up your hearts
We lift them up to the lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God
It is right to give thanks and praise.
We are but a small sliver of creation
That gives thanks and praise
To your everlasting goodness.
In the depth of Sheol
We know that you are there
Even though we may not percieve you.
We see through a glass darkly
So we return to the times when we
Felt the presence of your blessings.
It is through the one who called you Abba
That we know a life
That makes dusty texts living words,
That turn our mumbled creeds
Into action and faithfulness,
And that bring our stories together
Through the knitting of bones, sinew and flesh
Into a living community that can be called Christ’s.
Through tough teaching this man displayed
The audacity to touch the untouchable,
To bless the damned,
To liberate the incurable,
To listen to the banished
And to challenge power.
It is at this table that we are transformed
As a community into the body and blood
Of the one who taught us true humanity.
We are being transformed by our repentance,
We are transformed through undeserved grace,
But most of all we are transformed
By accepting a mercy that forces us
To recognize our dignity before our creator.
Knowing death he knows us
And has participated
In humanities ultimate experience.
We pray that we might know
More than the reason for death,
But might understand resurrection.
Christ promised us his spirit
Before he ascended.
We pray for the abundance
Of that Spirit in our lives.
Turn us from being people
Who think that spirituality
Is our own private personal well
Into a congregation of friends.
It is in our trust of the Spirit’s prodding
That we are comforted by an active faith.
The spirit which turns us
From our own selfish wishes
To the work of reconciliation
In all of our associations.
Your spirit turns us from anger to unity
And from dissention to love.
Come Holy Spirit Come!
In expectation of your coming
We pray the prayer taught to us by Christ:
Our Father who art in heaven
Hallowed by thy name
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day
Our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
Lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil
For thine is the kingdom
And the power
And the glory
Forever.
Amen.
I want to thank you for letting me be a part of your celebration. 77 years of being a beacon to this community is no small thing. As The Palisades Community Church celebrates its 85th birthday this year we know that we share with Park Road a common commitment to unity, a commitment to our neighbor, a belief in history’s arc toward justice and telling the truth about what it truly means to be followers of Christ in our life. Our churches have been vital participants together in this movement that we call the community church and regional partners in supporting the life of our local congregations that are daily witnessing to the love of neighbor and self. I also celebrate with you the ministry of your pastor Rev. Burton and his time here as your minister. He brings unique gifts to this church and is someone that I deeply respect as a minister.
What a dangerous Biblical topic “Now is the time” can be for a congregation. It certainly is challenging for us as individuals. Anytime that you are forcing your attention from the past or future into the current second you are participating in eye opening, reality shaking acts of transformation. We are reminded that in reaction to some of Jesus’ most challenging teaching about family a large portion of his followers shook their heads and said, “These are tough teachings, who can follow them?” as they walked away from the savior. So, to allow your gaze to adjust to the bright light of the present moment is an act of faith. It is a faith that our God can help us through the most troubling truths that we have lied and denied to ourselves over time. So, are you ready, because I come to this present moment with a great amount of fear and trembling?
I want to talk about steamboats this evening. Steamboats were an essential part of transportation and hauling freight during a good portion of the 19th century. They were a cross between our airlines and the semi trailers that criss-cross this country today. Steamboats ferried provisions up major rivers from cities that were popping up during the Westward expansion of this country during that century. Moving with their two smoke stacks and paddle wheel up and down the mighty Mississippi river and the Missouri they connected cities like New Orleans, Natchez, St. Louis, Omaha and Bozeman. These boats became essential in bringing provisions from North to South and from the Gulf of Mexico to all points North.
The author Mark Twain, who was himself a Steamboat pilot, gives a good description of what actually happened when a steamboat pulled into a new town in his work Life on the Mississippi:
‘S-t-e-a-m-boat a-comin’!’ . . . Drays, carts, men, boys, all go hurrying from many quarters to a common center, the wharf. Assembled there, the people fasten their eyes upon the coming boat as upon a wonder they are seeing for the first time. And the boat IS rather a handsome sight, too. She is long and sharp and trim and pretty; she has two tall, fancy-topped chimneys, with a gilded device of some kind swung between them; a fanciful pilot-house, a glass and ‘gingerbread’, perched on top of the ‘texas’ deck behind them; the paddle-boxes are gorgeous with a picture or with gilded rays above the boat’s name; the boiler deck, the hurricane deck, and the texas deck are fenced and ornamented with clean white railings; there is a flag gallantly flying from the jack-staff; the furnace doors are open and the fires glaring bravely; the upper decks are black with passengers; the captain stands by the big bell, calm, imposing, the envy of all; great volumes of the blackest smoke are rolling and tumbling out of the chimneys. . . the crew are grouped on the forecastle; the broad stage is run far out over the port bow, and an envied deckhand stands picturesquely on the end of it with a coil of rope in his hand; the pent steam is screaming through the gauge-cocks, the captain lifts his hand, a bell rings, the wheels stop; then they turn back, churning the water to foam, and the steamer is at rest. Then such a scramble as there is to get aboard, and to get ashore, and to take in freight and to discharge freight, all at one and the same time; and such a yelling and cursing as the mates facilitate it all with! Ten minutes later the steamer is under way again. . .
Moving passengers and freight up a river carried a set of dangers too. Rivers can have fast flowing currents, hidden logs, ever changing depths with the possibility of swelled banks with an abundance of rain or shallow, muddy flows in times of drought. Being the steamboat pilot in one of these ships could be quite treacherous. It would only take one snag of a fallen tree to rip a hole in the boat’s wooden hull and carrying its cargo and passengers into a swiftly moving current.
Such a snag was hit on April 1, 1865 as the Steamboat Bertand moved from the newly found goldfields in Montana down the Missouri river between Nebraska and Iowa. Somewhere between 250 and 450 tons of cargo slowly rested in the mud of that river bottom. It was a twist in the river that would become a lake when the river changed its route. So, one hundred years later that boat still sat, nestled in the mud at the bottom of a lake. In 1968 it was decided that it would be excavated. There was a hope that it still contained gold. Yet when the water was drained and the mud was removed gold was not present. What was found was a treasure trove of immaculately preserved items that dated from the last few weeks of the civil war. Over 200,000 items to be exact that are now on display in a special heat monitored, preservation glass room at Desoto National Wildlife Refuge where the steamboat was found.
Going through these rooms today is bit eerie. It is like time has stopped. Shelves and shelves are filled with bottles and jars with their liquid and food still in them. There are racks of cloths that look like they were made yesterday, but are of fashions very foreign. Tools, guns and gold refining equipment appears as they did the day that the Bertrand sank 30 feet under the mud of the Missouri River. It is now a treasure trove for archeologists who want to know the consumption habits of that period in this country’s history. It is a time capsule of a day gone by. It is disorienting to a 21st century person because it exhibits things that are so strange and different to us in post-modernity.
If we look around at any church that has a long history behind it the same feeling of disorientation might strike us. As I said we are getting ready to celebrate 85 years so I know of what I talk. I can assure you that our artifacts will disorient any newcomer. We surround ourselves with well-preserved photos and articles of a time that we are convinced were our halcyon days. Our stories sound to others as hard to understand as the history of the steamboat is for us. Some of our churches have become museums with well-preserved artifacts from yesterday.
So what do they see? We pine away because we remember when the pews were overflowing into the streets, our ministries served large swaths of our neighbors, children ran around everywhere, the conversation during fellowship was sweeter and excitement filled the air. We carry around with us the musty smell of an unread history book, the brittle sadness of a fading photo and the endless sounds of sighs longing for a glorious past.
There are three groups upset in the text that I read for you this evening. First, there are the Israelites who complain. They selectively remember the food that was served to them in the midst of their slavery and bondage in Egypt. Yet, the whip and yoke have diminished, the liberation and salvation are forgotten for the memory of fish.
Second, Moses is unhappy. What leader enjoys being in the midst of constant complaints, especially one who has continually begged for mercy from God to spare the ingratitude of God’s people?
Last, and most importantly God is angry. He has provided for the people’s liberation and given them sources of food and water. Yet, the people are bored with the gift that gathers on the ground like dew.
So, God brings quail. I love this imagery. That in the midst of God’s burning rage God chooses to give the people something better, something juicier, something tastier. Yet in that act Israel is still not content. God supplies us with gifts, we grow bored and lethargic and complain, then even though we know that God is blessing us with more than we deserve we are suspicious and horde the grace that is lavished upon us. Park Road community church is God’s gift to this community. It is not your place, but God’s for you.
What can we do to respond to the manna and quail that God is lavishing on you and me? We have the advantage of intergenerational ministry. We are truly one of the last places in society where the young and old congregate. Children who might be isolated from the elderly and grandmothers who might be separated from their grandchildren congregate in our houses of worship. Don’t shush those children, love those children. Give them an extra grandmother or grandfather who loves them unconditionally. God sends us quail!
It is time for new blood in the leadership of the church. This is painful for those who have faithfully filled the leadership posts for 30, 40 or 50 years. There is a great generational shift occurring everywhere. We are seeing it in the voting patterns of the Democratic primaries. Yet, we also know these types of shifts do not happen easily. They will take patient care and the cultivation of those who might do things differently. Paul knew this when he exhorted Timothy that no one should despise his youth. He said this because people would despise Timothy’s youth. God has sent us quail!
Look around the inside of your church with the eyes of a twenty or thirty year old visitor. What would they think? Do you treat the inside of your church as well as you treat the inside of your house? God has sent us quail!
Accept everyone, especially those who make you uncomfortable. I do not have to be a consultant or sociologist to tell you that your neighborhood is rapidly changing. This may bring you a great amount of discomfort or you may see it as a gigantic opportunity. I would exhort you to see it as an opportunity to be a city of refuge for your neighbors. What is the church but as an early church leader said a hospital ward for the sinner? If all people are not welcome here, then it is my suspicion that God is where they are welcome. God has sent quail!
Instead of being right do something, do anything as long as it is in love! It doesn’t matter if you know every Hebrew vowel point, or if you can show every point of a creed if you do not love your neighbor and yourself. Do something! We are reminded that it is obedience is better than right sacrifice. Everyone can do something, no one has an excuse. Look at all the Manna and quail!
Finally, be satisfied with who you are and what you have at this moment. You already have all that you need. God has given you exactly what God wants you to have to worship God. Can you sing, can you clap, can you raise your hands to the sky then you have all you need? It is my most sincere belief that the church is a place of attraction. The Spirit of God attracts people to our midst through the gifts that have been lavished upon us by a good God. What distracts and turns people away is complaining. That’s not attractive. It is what the Israelites did in the desert, and it angers God. When people see a satisfied group who say, “We may be small, we not have the glossiest programs in the world, we may not have the flashiest ads on the sides of buses, but you are welcome here in a place where we truly meet the divine.” When they see this they are attracted to the God who is only present for us in this moment.
We have a choice in responding to the gifts that God is placing all around us. We can gather it together and us it or we can stare longingly at black and white photos complaining about what used to be. We can talk about how great steamboats used to be and horde ancient provisions in our storehouses until their labels fade and no one knows what they were used for. I can guarantee you that if we choose to look backwards the Spirit will leave us and we will never reach the Promised Land.
Matthew 6:24-34
Okay so it is time for me to come clean. I am a person who worries a lot. I can project so absurdly into the future that I make Cassandra look like Betty Crocker. So, more than most texts in the Bible today’s lesson from Jesus is truly troubling to my faith. A short list of the things that I worry about include in no particular order:
-My daughter’s health
-My wife’s health
-Our home equity
-Our debt to income ratio
-Job security
-What would happen to my family in the case of a terrorist attack
-That I do not do enough for my parents
-That people will think poorly of me
-That I am failing
-That I am not leaving the world a better place
-That we are using up the planet and there will be nothing left for my daughter
-That so many of my flaws are hidden from me by denial
-Financial security
-That I will run out of things to say in sermons
-That I will never be able to write again
-That I will forget something important
-That I will somehow be unable to provide for my family
-That I will miss out on something
My mind can find almost anything to worry about. I know that I am not alone. We live in a society where marketers and news agencies have figured out what worries us and sells us on our fears. “No worry retirement,” “Nanotech’s health, environment impacts worry scientists,” “No cash? Do not worry! Buy now pay later,” “The buy and don’t worry portfolio,” and “should we worry about soya in our food?” It seems that everywhere we look there is something that we are told to worry about and something that we can purchase to take away our worries.
So, what is the opposite of worry? In our culture the opposite of worry has become ubiquitous in its Alfred E. Newman pose. It is a red hared, gapped tooth, big-eared raff that historically is a caricature against the simpleton Irishman of the early 20th century. His blank eyes stare off obliviously into the distance and his only words are “Why, Me Worry?”
It is clear that we value motion, time-savings, innovation, technology, and good work ethics while being left with addictions, depression, hypertension, high blood pressure and stress. Well, with the stresses post-modern life and the highly accelerated pace of society one would be naïve and an uneducated under-achiever to not merge into the world’s high octane stew of fear, worry and productivity. If you had my job, life, family you’d be stressed and worried too. Right?
Yet, I am shaken from my constant cycle of worry when through Matthew’s pen Jesus says, “Brian wipe that whole list clean by trusting in what bird’s already know.” Jesus reminds me of the cold hard fact about worry in the book of Matthew. My worry has no value. Worry will not add one hour to my life. Life is more than food, clothing and (here is the difficult one) money! Jesus is telling me to quit obsessing about safety and security. Quit living in a time period that does not exist, the future.
So what are Jesus simple and difficult remedies for worry? First, we must focus on bringing the Kingdom of God into this present moment. We are to live out the words of the Lord’s prayer when we plead with the divine that reality be “on earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” When we are attempting to make sure that others are loved like we would like to be loved we are bending our minds away from our worries and concerns. We are not allowing our minds the leisure time to cycle through all the frightening possibilities in our future that probably will never occur.
This leads me to the second notion that Jesus gives us in regards to the solution to our worries. Though it relates closely to the first I think that it is a point all its own. It is that we are called to live fully in this current moment. There is enough challenging work for us in this moment if we can look around and see what our creator is calling us to do. Loving our families, visiting the sick, calling a shut-in, writing a letter to a lonely friend, working in a soup kitchen and praying while walking through the park are just a few options in turning our focus away from the future and into the present. Jesus is right, tomorrow will have its own worries, things that we could never plan for, things that we cannot change. So, wouldn’t it be better to live fully in this moment, facing the opportunities and challenges that surround us in this time. It is only in this moment that we have the possibility of meeting the one who could take all of our worries away.
When I hunch forward, squinting into the future
I feel the violent tug of yesterday
Attempting to detain me.
Ahead are illusions
Whose faces are distorted by distance
Although while trying
to divine their nature
I stumble, confused.
When I breathe through my flaring nostrils
The air is sweet with paper whites.
There is incarnation in this moment
Yet often I have poked
In the miscellany of history
Or the delusional hope
Of shimmering crowns.
The reflection is translucent
as a plastic shopping bag
revealing bits and pieces
of its inner contents.
Wet bangs hang heavy
staining my glasses with
quickly evaporating obstructions.
A short beard casts out
obtrusive flares
not yet to their apex.
Surprised at its intense gaze
I look away quickly.
