Clothed for the gospel of peace

My sermon offered at First Congregational UCC in Eugene, Oregon on August 23, 2009 on Ephesians 6: 10-20

When I was starting to gather ideas for this sermon I discovered that you can buy the Full Armor of God playset from Christianbooks.com for just $17.99. It comes with your choice of red or purple accents that label each rugged plastic piece of Roman armor as the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation, the belt of truth, and so on.

While I find this toy sort of disturbing, I guess it really shouldn’t have surprised me. The full armor of God is a compelling image. It shows up in Christian art–often on saints who weren’t militaristic at all. John Bunyan clothes the character of Christian in the armor of God in Pilgrims Progress, pointing out that there’s no armor for his back, so he can’t run. Rather, “he must venture and stand his ground.”

What I got to wondering about was whether or not the writer of Ephesians intended the hearers of his letter to become warriors for the gospel in quite so literal a way.

I began my study by reading the whole letter from beginning to end—it’s only a few pages long—and then doing a bit of reading about the letter itself.

Ephesians is one of the “disputed” letters of Paul. Unlike the undisputed letters of Paul (Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon), Ephesians doesn’t address any specific issues within the community. This, and differences in word usage, have led scholars to hypothesize that this text may have a general letter which was intended to be read in several cities. Another possibility is that it was written as an introduction to a collection of Paul’s letters gathered after the book of Acts established Paul’s importance for the whole of the early church.

Ephesians reads like a summary of Paul’s theology as if the writer is introducing a new generation of Christians to Paul’s interpretation of the life and ministry of Jesus. We’re at least two generations removed from the original followers of Jesus—late first century—and the church is no longer thinking of itself as a ragtag bunch of fishermen and healed lepers standing at the foot of the cross shaking their heads and saying, “What just happened?”

The fears of that generation have not been realized. Jesus hasn’t been forgotten, the community is growing, and its leaders are working hard to keep this fledgling new religion on the same page about what it means to be the church and what the message of the gospel is.                                            

The importance of the life and ministry of Jesus is beginning to take on cosmic importance in an evermore sophisticated theology that will continue to be worked out in the gospels that will be written over the course of the next hundred years or so and in the ongoing development of the early church.

The writer of Ephesians places Christ at the beginning of time when he writes at the earlier of his letter, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world…” (Ephesians 1:3-4) This is a theological stepping stone to the cosmic Christ we meet in the prologue to John’s gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)

Let’s hold on to this idea as we dig a little deeper into the imagery of the full armor of God: Christianity reinterprets its understanding of itself as it’s passed from generation to generation.

My first thought about the full armor of God was that the image would really speak to Christians living in territory occupied by the Romans practicing a religion that wasn’t fully accepted by the Empire.

I was surprised to learn that the idea of the armor of God wasn’t unique to the writer of Ephesians. The image first appears in the Isaiah tradition and the book of Wisdom.

Isaiah tells us this about God and God’s armor:

     He put on righteousness like a 

        breastplate, 

    and a helmet of salvation on his head; 

    he put on garments of vengeance

        for clothing, 

    and wrapped himself in fury as

        a mantle. (Isaiah 59: 17)

Well, as militaristic as the image of the full armor of God in Ephesians is, I have to say I prefer it to God’s armor of vengeance and the idea of God wrapping Godself in a mantle of fury.

So what is the writer of Ephesians doing differently with the image of the full armor of God? How is this image being reinterpreted for a new generation?

For one thing, he depicts the armor as being worn by us, not by God.

He also expressly says that our struggle is not a physical struggle, it’s not a battle, it’s not hand-to-hand combat against a physical enemy, ours is a struggle for justice.

He first seems to be describing our struggle as a political one, one that we might relate to in terms of social justice or the call of the gospel for the church to be a community that confronts unjust systems or structures in the wider culture. He writes, “For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities…”

Then the text takes a strange turn; he continues to describe our struggle as being, “against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” 

These few words are a stepping stone to a theology of good versus evil, God versus the devil, the believers versus the unbelievers that we really don’t identify with in our stream of Christianity. This, to my mind, is a version of our earlier question: Are we called to suit up and be holy warriors?

One of my favorite sources to turn to when I’m working with scripture is the original Interpreter’s Bible. It was published in 1953 and, for it’s time, represented the height of liberal biblical scholarship in the best academic senses of those words. It’s a twelve volume set that considers language, historical context, and the place of each text within Christian history. My set belonged to the pastor I grew up with. Jim gifted it to me when he retired. I enjoy seeing his circles, stars, checks, and underlines when I look things up because I know I’m working with a book that informed the interpretation of Christianity I received as a young person.

Christianity reinterprets its understanding of itself as it’s passed from generation to generation.

Here’s something I read about the book of Ephesians in the Interpreter’s Bible circa 1953: “No book of the Bible is more pertinent to the life of our own times, when mankind faces the challenge now presented to us with compelling urgency: Unite or perish.” (The Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 10, p. 605)

Fifty-six years later the challenge to unite or perish, though perhaps focused on some different issues, is no less urgent. Our own United Church of Christ was formed in 1957 in response to this challenge. The people engaged in the ecumenical movement of the 1950’s who were living with the scars of World War II and the reality of the Cold War began to believe that what united us as Christians was far more important that the things that divided us into so many denominations. As our denomination’s motto proclaims, the united churches exist as living witnesses to Jesus’ vision that we all may be one.

Unity is a risky mission. It is a mission that will put us face to face with “the cosmic powers of this present darkness.” I for one don’t believe that there is a devil or an evil one in the universe. Humanity seems perfectly capable of evil without a devil to make us do it. The root of so much that gets labeled as evil seems to me to be driven by fear.

My favorite sentence in our passage from Ephesians today is this: “As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.”

Armor probably doesn’t speak to most of us in our day to day lives the way it would have to the writer of Ephesians, but the fact remains that we are called to clothe ourselves to proclaim the gospel of peace.

We have access to the same resources of faith to help us navigate a fearful world:

• truth
• righteousness (which can also be translated into English as “justice”)
• salvation (which is the state of being in partnership with God to bring healing to our own lives and the lives of those around us, bringing to life the dream of the reign of God)
• and, most importantly, the Spirit of God

Each of us will embody these resources differently as proclaim the gospel of peace, for truly it takes all of us to make God’s dream for the beloved community a reality.

So, put on your feet whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. Pray, be guided by the Spirit, and proclaim the vision that God reveals to you. This, our faith teaches, is path to peace.

“be well…”

My sermon offered on June 28, 2009 at First Congregational UCC in Eugene, Oregon.

We’re in “ordinary time” on the church calendar. We’re not in a season of preparation such as Advent or Lent. We’re not celebrating a major feast like Easter or Christmas anytime soon so, the calendar says, this is “ordinary time.” 

Whether we’re using the church calendar or our personal calendars most of our lives are lived in “ordinary time.” When we’re not celebrating big events or preparing for them we’re just living. That’s ordinary time.

During this big chunk of ordinary time that comes on the Sundays after Pentecost (virtually every Sunday from June through November) the lectionary focuses the gospel readings on the day-to-day life and ministry of Jesus–the events of his ordinary time. So what can possibly be ordinary about the events recalled in today’s text?

Jesus has just returned from the Gentile side of the Sea of Galilee where they begged him to leave town after witnessing his healing of the Gerasene demoniac (Mk 5:1-20). He’s now back in friendlier country on the Jewish side of the sea with the crowds gathering around him as soon as he steps out of the boat.

He’s first approached by Jairus, a leader of the synagogue, who begs Jesus to come and lay his hands on his daughter who is dying. I’m grateful to Jesus for not asking any questions. He just goes. And so does the crowd.

Along the way, a woman who’s been suffering with hemorrhages for many years sees in Jesus her opportunity to be well. The text gives us several clues to this woman’s experience. If she was able to afford physicians she was, at one time, part of the elite class. In her culture, her illness makes her ritually impure. Untouchable. To now be alone in the crowd without protectors tells us that her impurity has caused her to be shunned by both her family and her community. The shame and isolation of this shunning was perhaps harder for her to endure than her illness itself, but hope is a powerful thing and somehow this woman held onto just enough hope that, when she sees Jesus, she has the courage to reach out to him.

By touching Jesus, the woman with the hemorrhage broke two cultural boundaries that defined her relationship to Jesus: she crossed the gender boundary between them by touching a man without his permission and she crossed the boundary between the clean and the unclean by transferring her ritual impurity onto him through her touch. Within her culture, she has good reasons to fall down and shake when Jesus asks, “Who touched me?”

Then Jesus does the most important thing of all: he calls her “daughter.” By addressing her as a family member, Jesus indicates that not only her illness is healed, but also her separation from other people. I believe more and more that the most important healing ministry that Jesus did and we, as the community of Jesus, do is to restore people to community with God, themselves, and one another.

This is my favorite healing story to reflect on with Christian patients in the hospital who are actively trying to make sense of their illness through the lens of their faith. It’s a vivid visual image to invite people into—can you imagine yourself coming up behind Jesus in the crowd and touching his garment? Can you imagine him turning around, looking you in the eye and saying, “be well”?

This is a curious story to reflect on with people because Jesus doesn’t really participate in the woman’s healing. She heals herself by having the courage to reach out to him and believe in her own wholeness. Jesus’ healing act comes in how he relates to her and draws her into his family for, by calling her daughter, he’s not simply being kind to her, he’s adopting her into his household.

Later, when Jesus raises Jairus’ daughter, his first instruction is for her family to give her some food which is symbolic of her being reincorporated into her family. This, one of the commentators says, “is the essence of Jesus healing.”

Two women are restored to life in these parallel stories—one from physical death and the other from the social death of being shunned by her community and her family. Both are immediately restored to community which is the heart of healing.

I had an important experience early in my hospital ministry with a woman who received a new cancer diagnosis shortly after she was admitted. Within a matter of days she had surgery to remove the tumor and received her first doses of chemo. I went to her room one evening after the chemo started to find her room dark and her husband sitting outside the door. “She won’t talk to anyone,” he said, “but maybe she’ll talk to you.” I approached her bedside and gently let her know that I was there. She took my hand and said, “I just want to find some part of myself that I recognize.”

She taught me that one of the realities of a serious illness—or any crisis in life for that matter—is the way we feel exiled from ourselves. Like the woman with the hemorrhage, we must discover that nothing can take our true self away from us and, when the time comes, we must reach out to the Source of our being and take the risk to restore ourselves to relationship with God, self, and others. I also believe that the only way to be ready for these moments is to practice. So, perhaps practice is what ordinary time is about.

We can use the ordinary time in our lives to discover and practice those things we need to be well and to be whole. When the extraordinary times come, and we all know they will, we can draw on all of these resources to continue to be able to recognize ourselves in the midst of the chaos.

I like to think we come here for practice Sunday after Sunday, building relationships, deepening our sense of community, eating together, praying together, questioning together, learning the songs and stories of our faith until the time comes that we need to draw on all of this to hold us up and remind us who we are.

Like Jesus, we must also be ready for those moments when someone comes up to us and sees in us the healing they’re seeking. We must be ready to share with them what we’ve learned on our journey and bear witness to the truth that this is a place in which people can be in relationship with God in a new way.

Whether we’re preparing for our own time of need or preparing to respond to others in need, we need to use part of our ordinary time to do the work of our own soul forming. This begins with learning what fills us up—beauty, art, music, exercising our creativity, building our relationships, caring for our bodies, learning to have fun—and it begins with attending to the places in our lives that need healing.

Can you imagine yourself coming up behind Jesus in the crowd and touching his garment? Can you imagine him turning around, looking you in the eye and saying, “be well”? 

there is no other plan

My sermon offered on the Third Sunday of Easter at First Congregational UCC in Eugene, Oregon.

Christianity has a long and curious relationship with technology, especially communication technology.

The book which has done so much to shape Western Christianity since the Reformation didn’t even exist when Jesus was teaching. 70 to a hundred years after his death, the Codex is mentioned for the first time in Hellenistic sources. This form of the book took root in the Christian community in the third and fourth centuries because it was portable, easily searchable and concealable. From our earliest times, it’s been important for our community to know and share our formative stories.

When I thought about it, I realized that every form of communication technology that’s been invented has been used to share the Christian story and build Christian community–letters, art, music, stained glass windows, the telephone, radio, television, and, of course most recently, the Internet.

As in other parts of our culture, the manifestations of Christian community on the Internet prompt a familiar question: “Is social networking online real?” Are we in real relationship with one another if we can only hear people’s voices, see their picture, or read their ideas?

The presence of the church online can be as simple as prayer requests sent by email or as complex as an entire congregation that exists only in a 3D virtual world. The online version of this sermon will include links to several examples to enhance your virtual preaching experience.

But that prompts another question: if you read this sermon on my blog or on our congregation’s website, have you experienced this sermon? Is a sermon a text or is it a sacramental moment that’s only a sermon if it’s experienced as a part of a whole worship service that’s created by every single person who is present in this room?

All of these questions about what makes the Christian community real are, at their core, Easter questions. Does it matter that we are present to one another in the flesh, embodied, incarnate?

My favorite Easter story is the road to Emmaus which comes immediately before the portion of Luke’s gospel that’s appointed for today. In that story, Jesus joins two of his followers who are walking to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. The two don’t recognize him at first and start describing the events of the past week to him. After Jesus listens to their story, he begins to teach them all of the things that the prophets said about him and his ministry. When they reach their destination, Jesus starts to walk on, but the followers invite him to stay with them. During the meal, the followers at last recognize Jesus, as he takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them.

While this story has been one of my favorites for a long time, the reason has changed over time. This story has spoken to me at times when I’ve met Jesus most vividly at the Communion table or at the dinner table– like those who walk with Jesus on the road to Emmaus, we too meet Jesus in the breaking of the bread.

There have been other times when the image of the journey itself drew me to this story. Recently, my imagination has been captured by the follower’s reaction after they recognize Jesus. They say, “were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road…?”

The followers quickly return to Jerusalem to tell the disciples that they’ve seen the risen Christ and so begins the story we’re called to consider today.

The disciples are sure they’re seeing a ghost when Jesus appears and bids them God’s peace. Perhaps, like the followers on the road to Emmaus, the disciples don’t recognize him right away. There seems to be something different about Jesus’ resurrection body that the Easter stories don’t share with us perhaps because transformation can’t always be captured well in words.

Jesus responds to the disciple’s terror by showing them his body. “Look at me,” I imagine him saying, “look closely and deeply.” “Touch me and see that I have flesh and bones.” When this doesn’t work he does what he’s done with them hundreds if not thousands of times, he eats with them. Eating with them not only demonstrates that he’s not a ghost, but also binds them together. Theirs was a culture in which eating together was symbolic of a deep bond between people. By eating with the disciples, the risen Christ says to them, “we are one.”

Once again, he teaches the disciples all of the ways he understands his life and ministry to be grounded in Scripture–in the law of Moses, in the prophets, and, interestingly, the psalms.

He ends his time with them by saying, “You are witnesses of these things.” The word Jesus uses that’s translated as “witness” means “one who bears testimony” as in the sense of being an eyewitness. In the case of these first disciples they were the eyewitnesses who could testify to the gospel. This was Jesus’ only plan for continuing the work of the gospel, for continuing his mission to bring heaven to earth: he left the mission in the hands of the eyewitnesses who could tell the story, who could continue to live the dream. There was no other plan. There still is no other plan.

There are several parallels between these two stories that the writer of Luke puts together at the end of his gospel…

• people don’t recognize Jesus after the resurrection
• Jesus eats with people
• Jesus interprets scripture
• Jesus’ followers have a deep felt response to what they’re experiencing that they’re called to act on

These parallels tell us important things about our Christian tradition and about the many ways we encounter God together:

• we will be transformed by being in relationship with Jesus and people might not recognize us when new life is resurrected in us as we move continually from Good Friday to Easter on our journey of faith.
• our Sacraments of Baptism and Communion–of washing and feeding and being fed–remind us that our bodies matter, our physicality matters. We are called to be tangibly present to one another as living, breathing, images of God.
• we are called to listen to our formative stories over and over again, struggling with them, and interpreting them to one another
• and we are called to be the witnesses in our time and place to the transformation God is working in our lives

I’m coming to believe more and more that the heart of Jesus’ mission was to teach us that the reign of God will come about, and it will be on earth as it is in heaven, when each and every one of us brings the gospel to life in our own unique way.

I first heard this possibility in these words spoken by the 14th century mystic and reformer, Theresa of Avila:

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which Christ looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which Christ walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which Christ blesses all the world.

So tell the Easter story how ever you can, using whatever technology is available. This, too, is part of our Christian tradition, but most of all, embody the Easter story as only you can for there is no other plan to keep the gospel alive and bring heaven to earth. There is no other plan.

a new symbol for a new season of faith

I’m doing so much deep and careful reading of celtic and creation spirituality these days that I recently discovered that I needed to take a break from exclusively wearing a cross as a daily reminder of my faith. In fact, my two favorite crosses to wear remind me more of the pilgrimage on which they were gifted to me by my love than they do of Jesus.

I didn’t imagine that I’d find a new image quickly, but a beautiful celtic tree of life pendant quickly came to my attention. It’s made Wellstone, a family owned company that states as its mission, “to provide various symbols of truth and transformation with authenticity, power and beauty.” I was also impressed with the profound way in which they described the symbol of the tree of life.

In both symbol and reality the tree holds deep meaning and many lessons. The roots of the Celtic Tree of Life are in the darkness of the soil, Mother Earthy. Its crown is in light, growing toward the sun. As it is above, so it is below with half of its being in light and the other half in darkness, half in air and fire, and half in water and earth, half male and half female. Life is represented here in the Tree of Life as a whole that cannot be divided.

I’ve been looking at trees differently ever since I read this. All trees are trees of life in so many ways.

kindling new fire

This year more than many I can remember, my symbolic Lenten journey and my life journey have been in step. I’ve spent a lot of energy during the past forty days looking at what I believe about ultimate things, what I believe about my call, and what I believe about the setting in which I do ministry. I read Cynthia Bourgeault’s Wisdom Jesus as my Lenten book this year. Thanks to her, I’ve even examined whether or not believing is even the point of Chrstianity. I’m increasingly discovering that the contemplative stream of Christianity is a not a path of believing per se, but a path of transformation in response to our beliefs.

As we approach the end of our Lenten fast tonight, it’s the image of kindling new fire that is capturing my imagination. The first activity of the Great Vigil of Easter is to kindle new fire, sanctifying it with this prayer:

O God, through your Son you have bestowed upon your people the brightness of your light: Sanctify this new fire, and grant that in this Paschal feast we may so burn with heavenly desires, that with pure minds we may attain to the festival of everlasting light; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

For the first time ever, I feel ready to submit to the fiery will of the Spirit and risk burning with heavenly desires! I’ve never really understood the cleansing and renewing power of fire until living in the Northwest and being called to a new appreciation of Creation by its beauty. I’ve tended to be more comfortable with the watery images of the Spirit in birth and baptism, leaving the fire for braver souls.(My otherwise fairly formal and academic ordination paper included the phrase, “the Spirit freaks me out!”)

In truth, both of these images of the Spirit are risky. Water can destroy just as easily as fire and both are life-giving if we are in right relationship with them. We have the illusion of being able to tame both fire and water, but both are wild things that defy mastery. I still question why these elements of risk and danger must be a part of our relationship with the Living God, but that’s a question for another reflection.

My hope on this Easter eve  for myself and for those with whom I minister is that we will be granted the ability to kindle new fire that we may burn anew with heavenly desires. Thanks be to God.

Signs of Spring

“native” daffodils

Originally uploaded by greeningwood

As the earth tips towards spring here in the northern hemisphere, there’s lots of greening here in our little wood. One of my favorite signs are the daffodils that were naturalized here and there before we arrived. This little plot of land is such an odd mix of care and neglect. We took it into our hearts when we first saw it much the way people might a stray animal, knowing we could re-home these stray acres and love them into something beautiful.

This weekend’s projects included hauling off two more loads of branches, transplanting a wayward cedar tree from my parent’s yard to ours, and finishing up a blueberry patch on the sunny side of the house. All of this work was done in the sunbreaks between rain showers and snow squalls.

Four of the six Lenten candles were lighted this morning on the altar at church. The pastor reminded us in her sermon that “Lent” comes from the Old English word for “lengthen.” Our faith lengthens during this season along with the days. All of this–the light, the unpredictable weather, and the new life that’s growing–are all signs of hope for me. This, ultimately, is resurrection: hope in a dark world for another year. Alleluia! Alleluia!

sitting shiva for CPE

A week ago we learned that our Clinical Pastoral Education program will be closed in August due to hospital budget cuts. We’ve had a week of mourning both for our education program and for the many ways the global economic crisis is impacting our community both within the hospital and around it. My friend and colleague who blogs over at Extreme Thinkover wrote an eloquent reflection in a recent post that is also a letter to Sen. Max Baucus in support of his plan for universal health care.

God’s guts

We set up our new canvas labyrinth today at church for the first of a series of Lenten labyrinth walks. The 2nd and 3rd grade Sunday school class walked and then offered their reflections. One boy said, “I felt like I was walking around in God’s intestines!” All in all, this isn’t a bad image for being drawn more deeply into the body of God. The labyrinth is a tool that helps us reconnect with our body and with movement as a form of prayer. It’s only natural that we’ll be reconnected with the body of God in the process.

Listening to the rain

Earlier today, I loaded up another truck load of branches and hauled them off to Lane Forest Products. Most of our neighbors burn the branches and other debris from their property, but we’ve chosen to do what we did in town–haul it off to be recycled into mulch. The branches I’m gathering up came down during the winter, or rotted in the creek, or were cut to make room for the power lines coming into the house. I dream of a day when the bulk of this stuff is gone and my task will simply be to gather up what’s fallen. This, perhaps, is wishful thinking!

I pass Lane Forest Products every day as I drive to and from work. In the morning, in particular, the giant mulch piles look wonderfully rich and steamy as the stuff of life gets recycled into new life. It’s satisfying to know that a bit of our Greeningwood is making  a tiny contribution to the steamy, mulchy greening that I breathe deeply of as I head off to the house of healing.

Spring cleaning…

As we move more and more into spring, my thoughts are turning back to reclaiming Greeningwood. Our new yard tool is a used Dodge Dakota pickup truck which will be invaluable for helping us bring some shape to this property. We picked up a load of plants at a local nursery today and dropped off a load of branches for recycling. It’s so satisfying to be able to begin getting some of this work done!