sermon by Carrie Eikler
Acts 3:1-19, Luke 24:36-38
Can you recall your first memory? I think I can.
I remember being on a bike ride with my family, latched into the seat on the back of my dad’s bike. I feel like were outside of our little Illinois town, on some country road. And I remember being on the ground because somehow my dad skidded or lost control and we fell. Being in the early 80s, I’m sure I wasn’t wearing a helmet. I don’t remember falling, or the bike being out of control, I don’t remember much about after the accident. I just remembering laying sideways, still strapped in the seat crying.
So can you recall your first memory? Would you say it was a good or bad one? A delightful one or traumatic one? For most of us, memories are like pearls strung on a necklace. Life is one long string of small, forgettable moments, connecting the pearls which are the big memories we can recall. Of course, it’s the pearls, not the strings that get remembered for the most part. That space between the pearls is life as usual, nothing too remarkable.
But can you imagine what it would be like to remember everything that happened to you for the majority of your life. Jill Price can. Price is one of only six people in the world diagnosed with a condition called hyperthymesia. In her book, The Woman Who Can’t Forget, she shares what it is like to remember every single day of her life since she was fourteen.
She describes it as someone following her with a video camera and if you tell her a date, March 30th 1981 for example, she pulls down the video in her mind and can tell you: it was a Monday. I was wearing a red sweater. I was in the high school and a teacher told me President Regan was shot. Give her another date: My family and I were flying to Florida from New York for vacation. It was the one year anniversary of my mother finding out she had a brain tumor. “I remember I wasn’t much fun to be around” that day, she said.
She remembers small days too, those strings for most of that connect the pearls. What she wore. Who she hung out with. What they did. She can tell you the day of the week to the corresponding date. She has instant recall. She remembers everything. Every t.v. show. Every song she’s heard. Every joke that made her laugh.
She remembers every betrayal against her. Every lie she ever told.. Everytime she embarrassed herself or stuck her foot in her mouth. Every bad decision. People tell her she has a real gift. To Jill Price, it feels more like a burden. And the hardest thing, she admits about this gift or burden (depending on how you see it), is that she has a hard time forgiving herself for the things she can’t forget. Even little things she holds onto.
The burden of remembering. We’ve all experienced that to some degree. There are still things that come to my mind that seriously make me blush because I am so embarrassed that I said that or did this or did I actually write that in an email to someone? Memories, those misty water colored memories, as much as they can comfort us, bring us joy and security, can just as easily bring us shame. It can cause us to replay events and assign blame and start thinking of other possible outcomes.
Remember those books some of us read as kids? Those choose your own adventure books? If the hero should go down the tunnel with snakes go to page 80. If she should swing across the moat filled with crocodiles, go to page 93 in his story
We look back on life in retrospect with this sort of wonderment: If we just would have done this rather than that. If we never met so and so. If we went here instead of there, made this decision instead of that one.
This is sort of the biblical adventure story that seems to be playing out in today’s scripture in Acts. The crowds are amazed that Peter healed a crippled beggar, they’re clinging to him in the cool shade of the temple’s portico. And it seems like the sympathetic Peter we just saw, the Peter who healed a man, has a choice. He can continue practicing mercy, or he can choose to start assigning judgment, he could go to page 93 or to page 80.
He chooses judgment.
He reminds them that it is not he, but the power of the risen Christ who does these actions. Remember him? Jesus? The one you handed over, the one you rejected, the one you killed.
My dad likes to practice what he calls “selective memory” or especially “selective hearing”: he remembers or hears what he wants to remember or hear. It sure seems like Peter is doing a little selective memory here. Out of the twelve disciples, there were only two recorded that openly denied or betrayed Christ in his last days: Judas…and Peter. There seems to be a little bit of the pot calling the kettle black here, when he blames these people for the part in Jesus’ death.
Jesus, on the other hand, in the story read today gives a different invitation to remembrance. After appearing before his disciples, literally scaring the be-Jesus out of them, he says relax, don’t be scared, and by the way is there anything to eat in this joint? And he reminds them as he wipes the tasty bit of fish off the sides of his mouth: don’t you remember? I told you this before—many times in fact. It is written that this would happen, and it had to happen (or be fulfilled, as it says). The Messiah had to suffer, and to rise from the dead on the third day. I’m just doing my part of the bargain here.
And with these two scriptures we have one of the few…ok, probably one of the many…quandaries and inconsistencies that arise in Christian theology. I’ll put it to you straight from my own doubting Thomas lips:
if God intended for Jesus to die and rise again (first off, yes there is a problem with a heavenly Father wanting his son to die…sermon for another time), if it was supposed to happen this way, part of the plan that Jesus was to be tried and crucified so he could be resurrected, then weren’t all those implicated in Jesus’ death really just doing what needed to happen?
Weren’t they—from Herod to Pilate to the crowds calling crucify him, to Judas betraying him—weren’t they just unfortunate and grisly players in some cosmic drama? The necessary villains so the hero can save the day.
What do you think? Should we continue blaming the crowds for shouting hosanna on Palm Sunday and turning their backs on him and crying crucify him on Good Friday, and then balk at their audacity to praise Peter when they see the work of Christ being done?
Or should we be applauding them for handing Jesus over, for moving the crucifixion plot along so we could get to the dénouement of the resurrection? Saying, bravo, well done. Because of your violence, it is fulfilled.
I can’t say. It remains for me still a question for which I have no satisfactory answer. I struggle to understand why, and you probably do to and you know what? When we struggle to understand the meaning of these events, we’re doing theology together. Like those first disciples trying to figure out what happened, not believing or not knowing what to do.
But we miss something if the entire theology game is to stand with Peter and assign blame. Was it the Romans, or the masses, or the Jewish authorities responsible for Jesus’ death? We miss something when all our theological imagination spent wondering what sin it was in the beginning that we perpetuate that made Christ’s death necessary, or who gets the salvation because they’ve done or said the right things to make up for all the bad stuff.
And we miss something when we stand in the midst of our daily lives, like Peter, assigning blame: who’s to blame for the economy? Who’s to blame for the environment? Who’s to blame for your sadness? Who’s to blame for my misfortune?
You know what is so interesting about this whole “who did this to Jesus” thing? Is that Jesus never blames anybody. When we blame ourselves for our inner darkness, or blame others for their hurtful actions we can never forget… we are preaching like Peter, instead of claiming the Messiah.
As professor Amy Allen urges, instead of assigning blame, we must recognize that this risen Lord Jesus stands among the disciples, those who betrayed him to the core—who abandoned and denied him—and Jesus treats them neither as innocent or guilty, but as people in need of grace. Instead of looking out and shouting blame, he stands within them and breathes “Peace.”
Peace. The risen Christ stands within us, right next to the Peter within us with all our judgment and blame, and breathes peace.
I don’t know if there’s enough room in me for that Jesus. There are things in my life that I’m angry about, towards people who I think are responsible for all sorts of things. Things that will not let me go, no matter how much I want to forget.
So maybe for me, and maybe for you, this is the resurrection story that needs to find its way into our hearts this year.
[light peace lamp] – “While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Life is ...?
sermon by Torin Eikler
John 1:1-5 Mark 16:1-8
When I was a child I was a big fan of “Life” – the board game, not the real thing…. (Well, I was a big fan of the real thing too, but I’m thinking of the game by Hasbro.) Anyway, I liked the game a lot, and my brothers and I used to play it almost as much as Monopoly. We certainly played it almost every time I went to visit my older cousins because it doesn’t really matter how old you are, you just spin a wheel and move a piece to play. For those of you who don’t know the game or haven’t seen it in a while, let me explain a little.
According to one website, the “rules are simple, whoever has the most money at the end wins,” but it is a little more complicated than that. The game is played on a board with a twisting, forking path that leads all around a spinner wheel – the wheel of life – at the center. You start with a car, spin the wheel, and move the number of spaces that come up. Then you follow the directions on the space where you landed. Along the way, you go to college … or not, you pick a career, you get married (everyone has to do that), you may or may not have children, you pay taxes (of course), and you end up in retiring – either at the Country Estates retirement home, Millionaire Acres, or in the Poor House.
Despite the obvious capitalist overtones, Life is a fun game that does teach you a little bit about how the choices you make can change the way your life goes. The one thing that has always made me wonder, though, is that there is no death in the game of Life. There are no spaces that talk about accidents or severe illness. Everyone ends the game in more or less comfortable retirement.
I’ve never asked anyone about this glaring omission – certainly not anyone who has a hand in the game’s design, but I suspect the reason is quite simple. Parents probably would not buy it for their children if death was such a big part of the game. It’s too morbid, too scary, … too real for a board game that can be played by ages 6 and up, and in the end, it is all about the money.
While I understand that thinking – and I even follow the same thinking with my boys, there is really no way to keep the truth from children. They know that things die – that people die, and they need to understand that because death is an inevitable part of life. It can be scary, but we all face it eventually. It’s just the nature of things, … or is it? Christ’s empty tomb would say otherwise.
I had an interesting conversation about death with one of my professors at seminary … (count on fingers vaguely) ... a while ago now. We were studying baptismal theology, and we somehow ended up talking about death. The link was Orthodox theology – and by that I mean the theology of the Eastern Orthodox Church where they understand “Original Sin” a bit differently than we do.
Original sin is the same thing for them as it is for us. It is the first decision by Adam and Eve to disobey God’s instructions and eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The big difference is that while we have a vague sense that it’s linked to sex somehow, they do not believe that. In their theology, original sin is linked to death and there they are in agreement with Paul who says that “the wages of sin is death.” The original sin got us all kicked out of the Garden with its Tree of Life. So, if there had been no sin there would be no death, and we and all the people who have ever been born would all still be living in the Garden.
And that is where I get stuck. Trained as I am in Biology and Environmental Studies, I have trouble with the idea that life can exist on this planet just as it does but without death. Imagine it, if you even can, all the billions of people who have ever lived crowded all together with the animals and plants. Even just the ants would probably cover the entire surface of the planet not to mention the dinosaurs….
It boggles the mind, and my comment during class was that if there was no death, then there couldn’t be any new birth either. There just isn’t space. To which my professor replied, “We’ll never know what God intended. Maybe the “Garden” was big enough to hold us all.”
“But things don’t work that way,” I complained. “No planet could be big enough.”
“But God is.”
God is ….
God is big enough to hold all creation and to love every living thing no matter how big … no matter how small. God’s love is big enough.
That’s a mind-boggling thought, too. And, it’s more than a little scary because it makes it absolutely clear that God’s power is beyond our assumptions and understanding. So far beyond that death and life have no power to limit God. So far that raising someone from the dead is just the beginning.
That’s the power that Mary Magdalene, Mary Mother-of-James, and Salome faced when they arrived at Jesus’ tomb on Easter morning. Until then they had known Jesus as a powerful healer, a teacher, a friend, … and a man. But when they stepped into the cave, they came face to face with a different reality. There was no body – no man shrouded with cloth and smelling of the beginnings of decay. There was no death there and no life … not the way they knew it. There was only something unknown and unknowable – an angel and a power beyond life and death.
Is it any wonder that they left in fear? … that they didn’t tell anyone what they had seen? I don’t think so. I’m not sure I would have stayed even as long as they did, and I pretty sure that I wouldn’t have gone around telling anyone such an unbelievable story … at least not right away.
And that bring up an interesting point. Where are the stories of Jesus’ appearances? … of the blessing of the disciples? Where is the happy ending? Why did Mark end the story here when there is so much more to tell?
Some scholars say that this is a literary device that Mark used to keep the focus on the suffering service of Christ rather than on a final, glorious triumph over death or to remind us that the resurrection was special – that it was “not just another event in the sequence of events that we catalogue as history.” And that may be true, but I think there’s more to it as well.
Leaving the story unfinished invites us all into the tomb. For a few moments we stand there with the women … facing the unknown, trembling with fear. We hear the words of the angel, and all of us run back into the comfort of the light and warmth of the real world where people who die stay dead … except … they don’t. What is going on?! What happens now?!
We know the rest of the story. We know that this wasn’t the end. The disciples saw Jesus again, several times. Jesus blessed them with the Holy Spirit and sent them out to the world. They continued the story with their lives. Lives that followed the path set forth by Christ… lives of service and selflessness… of hope and courage that came from knowing that life was more than marriage and children and college and retirement at Millionaire Acres and death. Jesus’ resurrection showed them that life didn’t end with death. It was bigger than death. It went on.
And even now, even here outside the garden, Christ is whispering the same good news in our ears. Life is more than just years of getting stuff and doing things. Life is bigger than that … more than that, and even if we must experience death (unless the end days come in time), it is not the end of the story.
Christ is the light of world, and if we follow that light, we find … life. “Come into the tomb,” Christ whispers. “Come in and see the truth. Come in … and then … go out, and Life - life in all its servant fullness … in all its selfless joy … in the brightness of its eternal hop – Life in the wondrous love of God will be yours … forever.
Hallelujah! AMEN.
John 1:1-5 Mark 16:1-8
When I was a child I was a big fan of “Life” – the board game, not the real thing…. (Well, I was a big fan of the real thing too, but I’m thinking of the game by Hasbro.) Anyway, I liked the game a lot, and my brothers and I used to play it almost as much as Monopoly. We certainly played it almost every time I went to visit my older cousins because it doesn’t really matter how old you are, you just spin a wheel and move a piece to play. For those of you who don’t know the game or haven’t seen it in a while, let me explain a little.
According to one website, the “rules are simple, whoever has the most money at the end wins,” but it is a little more complicated than that. The game is played on a board with a twisting, forking path that leads all around a spinner wheel – the wheel of life – at the center. You start with a car, spin the wheel, and move the number of spaces that come up. Then you follow the directions on the space where you landed. Along the way, you go to college … or not, you pick a career, you get married (everyone has to do that), you may or may not have children, you pay taxes (of course), and you end up in retiring – either at the Country Estates retirement home, Millionaire Acres, or in the Poor House.
Despite the obvious capitalist overtones, Life is a fun game that does teach you a little bit about how the choices you make can change the way your life goes. The one thing that has always made me wonder, though, is that there is no death in the game of Life. There are no spaces that talk about accidents or severe illness. Everyone ends the game in more or less comfortable retirement.
I’ve never asked anyone about this glaring omission – certainly not anyone who has a hand in the game’s design, but I suspect the reason is quite simple. Parents probably would not buy it for their children if death was such a big part of the game. It’s too morbid, too scary, … too real for a board game that can be played by ages 6 and up, and in the end, it is all about the money.
While I understand that thinking – and I even follow the same thinking with my boys, there is really no way to keep the truth from children. They know that things die – that people die, and they need to understand that because death is an inevitable part of life. It can be scary, but we all face it eventually. It’s just the nature of things, … or is it? Christ’s empty tomb would say otherwise.
I had an interesting conversation about death with one of my professors at seminary … (count on fingers vaguely) ... a while ago now. We were studying baptismal theology, and we somehow ended up talking about death. The link was Orthodox theology – and by that I mean the theology of the Eastern Orthodox Church where they understand “Original Sin” a bit differently than we do.
Original sin is the same thing for them as it is for us. It is the first decision by Adam and Eve to disobey God’s instructions and eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The big difference is that while we have a vague sense that it’s linked to sex somehow, they do not believe that. In their theology, original sin is linked to death and there they are in agreement with Paul who says that “the wages of sin is death.” The original sin got us all kicked out of the Garden with its Tree of Life. So, if there had been no sin there would be no death, and we and all the people who have ever been born would all still be living in the Garden.
And that is where I get stuck. Trained as I am in Biology and Environmental Studies, I have trouble with the idea that life can exist on this planet just as it does but without death. Imagine it, if you even can, all the billions of people who have ever lived crowded all together with the animals and plants. Even just the ants would probably cover the entire surface of the planet not to mention the dinosaurs….
It boggles the mind, and my comment during class was that if there was no death, then there couldn’t be any new birth either. There just isn’t space. To which my professor replied, “We’ll never know what God intended. Maybe the “Garden” was big enough to hold us all.”
“But things don’t work that way,” I complained. “No planet could be big enough.”
“But God is.”
God is ….
God is big enough to hold all creation and to love every living thing no matter how big … no matter how small. God’s love is big enough.
That’s a mind-boggling thought, too. And, it’s more than a little scary because it makes it absolutely clear that God’s power is beyond our assumptions and understanding. So far beyond that death and life have no power to limit God. So far that raising someone from the dead is just the beginning.
That’s the power that Mary Magdalene, Mary Mother-of-James, and Salome faced when they arrived at Jesus’ tomb on Easter morning. Until then they had known Jesus as a powerful healer, a teacher, a friend, … and a man. But when they stepped into the cave, they came face to face with a different reality. There was no body – no man shrouded with cloth and smelling of the beginnings of decay. There was no death there and no life … not the way they knew it. There was only something unknown and unknowable – an angel and a power beyond life and death.
Is it any wonder that they left in fear? … that they didn’t tell anyone what they had seen? I don’t think so. I’m not sure I would have stayed even as long as they did, and I pretty sure that I wouldn’t have gone around telling anyone such an unbelievable story … at least not right away.
And that bring up an interesting point. Where are the stories of Jesus’ appearances? … of the blessing of the disciples? Where is the happy ending? Why did Mark end the story here when there is so much more to tell?
Some scholars say that this is a literary device that Mark used to keep the focus on the suffering service of Christ rather than on a final, glorious triumph over death or to remind us that the resurrection was special – that it was “not just another event in the sequence of events that we catalogue as history.” And that may be true, but I think there’s more to it as well.
Leaving the story unfinished invites us all into the tomb. For a few moments we stand there with the women … facing the unknown, trembling with fear. We hear the words of the angel, and all of us run back into the comfort of the light and warmth of the real world where people who die stay dead … except … they don’t. What is going on?! What happens now?!
We know the rest of the story. We know that this wasn’t the end. The disciples saw Jesus again, several times. Jesus blessed them with the Holy Spirit and sent them out to the world. They continued the story with their lives. Lives that followed the path set forth by Christ… lives of service and selflessness… of hope and courage that came from knowing that life was more than marriage and children and college and retirement at Millionaire Acres and death. Jesus’ resurrection showed them that life didn’t end with death. It was bigger than death. It went on.
And even now, even here outside the garden, Christ is whispering the same good news in our ears. Life is more than just years of getting stuff and doing things. Life is bigger than that … more than that, and even if we must experience death (unless the end days come in time), it is not the end of the story.
Christ is the light of world, and if we follow that light, we find … life. “Come into the tomb,” Christ whispers. “Come in and see the truth. Come in … and then … go out, and Life - life in all its servant fullness … in all its selfless joy … in the brightness of its eternal hop – Life in the wondrous love of God will be yours … forever.
Hallelujah! AMEN.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Word of Unburdening-Possessions
by Carrie Eikler
Mark 11:1-11
Palm Sunday:
Mark 11:1-11
Palm Sunday:
During Lent we are trying to speak less and listen more. Talk less and explore more. Some of the items of unburdening we have
addressed may be just what you needed to look at. Others, less so.
As I was talking with Torin this week about our Lenten
series, I remarked on how hard it has been for me to give these shortened mediations,
so we can listen more. The challenge to
me, is to not simply sound like some sort of self-help book, giving seven to
nine minutes of platitudes and worn out clichés. It’s been hard to try to get to the fast and
furious to the heart of the spiritual longings that we fill with spending, or
media, or food.
or possessions… Those
thing we have that really end up possessing us (wow, isn’t that a cliché).
No matter how far along on the “simplify my life” path I go,
I will always have farther when it comes to possessions. Today we threw clothes in the aisle,
remembering that the people didn’t only welcome Jesus into Jerusalem with palms
but with cloaks…their clothes. For some,
clothes are a big deal they need to address. an obvious place to start unburdening.
For me, clothes as possessions aren’t really the issue. Let
me just say… I’m glad they didn’t line the path into Jerusalem with books. Not only would it hurt to throw them at
Jesus, or each other, but it would be too painful to decide which ones to throw
out.
And things like books are possessions we can feel good
about. Clothes, electronics, lots and
lots of cars (if we had the luxury to worry about itsd). These are things (sigh) “we know” we don’t
need as many as we have. But books, for
me…don’t make me reduce those. Not my
fiction. Not that 1999 college text book
on demography. Not one out of 30 (or
more) cookbooks. Not that book about
McCarthyism that I have never read, nor ever will read, but really just like
having on my bookshelf because I want to people to think I have it…oh no. I
can’t get rid of that.
This type of book I should say is in a category all of its
own. I like to call them my “ego”
books. Books that I think say something
about me that I want to convey. That I
am the sort of person who would read that
sort of book. Ego books span the
genres.
These ego books are plentiful and are a problem for me. Even
the non-ego ones. Because what I
realized this week is that while I can rarely speak to what is in them, I
expect them to say something about me to others. I want the books to
speak for me. We want our clothes to
speak of us. Or the fact that we have
very unique kitchen gadgets. Or the
newest, fastest i-phone, or i-pad, or i-don’t-know-what-else.
I want the fact that I own something
to basically convey who I am, what I’m interested in, the type of person I want
to be in this world, and what I value.
Essentially, I want the things,
rather than me, to speak about my
life
There is an old Quaker saying: “Let your life speak.” Let your
life speak. Let how you act, what
you say, how you live (not what you live with) be the definition of who you
are.
The books on the
shelf, the movies in the cupboard, the clothes in your closet, the technology…they
are part of your life. But who are you
without them? When we speak of idolatry
of stuff, we can probably better see what our idols all, not by what we
acquire, but by what we simply could not part with.
What is the difference--or is there--between saying “Yes, I
want that” and “No, I can’t part with that, now that I have it.”
So, right, I still don’t think I’m getting to that nitty
gritty spiritual truth of the issue.
Maybe I’m just speaking still in self-help book clichés…probably from a self-help
book I still have somewhere on my bookshelf.
So I’ll call on the help of Michael Lindvall, whose article in the
Christian Century has helped me see a new see spiritual nature to our material
world. The following is from his article
It ought to be clear that God doesn’t
hate stuff. Witness the creation story. God—none other—invents stuff. At the
end of each of the six days of creation, God engages in self-congratulation. In
litany fashion, God pronounces … the stuff created by the Divine word that day:
“Good!” ,,,and then, on the sixth, “Very good!’
The problem, I think, is not so much
that we like stuff too much; rather it’s that we don’t like it enough. Before
you cry heresy, let me explain. We acquire things, but then quickly tire of the
things that seemed so important when first obtained. We replace rather than
repair because we have such fickle and passing romances with our things. The
real soul danger is not exactly in liking things too much, nor in owning them,
nor in caring for them well.
The soul danger lies in the insatiable longing to acquire new things one after another, more and more things, as if the getting of them somehow proves our worth in comparison with others, as if the having of them can fill the emptiness. It’s this insatiable drive to acquire stuff rather than the stuff itself that’s the problem.
In Jesus Christ, God has definitively entered into that very good materiality to claim it, bless it and transform it.”
The soul danger lies in the insatiable longing to acquire new things one after another, more and more things, as if the getting of them somehow proves our worth in comparison with others, as if the having of them can fill the emptiness. It’s this insatiable drive to acquire stuff rather than the stuff itself that’s the problem.
In Jesus Christ, God has definitively entered into that very good materiality to claim it, bless it and transform it.”
What is the stuff in your life that you hope speaks for you,
and what would happen if you tried parting with it? Why aren’t you letting your life speak, instead?
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Possessed by Media
sermon by Torin Eikler
Mark 9:14-27 2 Kings 22:8-11; 23:1-3
In the past couple of weeks, I have received a lot of call from people wanting me to do surveys – on politics or some product or some other issue. So, in the spirit of the season, I’ve got a few questions to ask you….
How many of you read the newspaper – oh, say at least 3 or 4 times a week?
How many of you watch television or stream shows off the internet regularly?
How many of you have the radio on most of the time?
How many of you surf the web – you know … on news sites or Facebook or any of the other places?
(pause)
How many of you sit down and pray or spend time reading the bible or poetry or something else that inspires your soul each week?
I don’t ask these questions to make you all feel guilty (though I expect that we all do), but they do point out a big problem with our lives. We spend more and more of our time with screens and paper, and less and less time interfacing with actual people let alone with God.
We say we don’t have time, but we find thirty-five minutes for Facebook and an hour or more to watch our favorite TV shows. We have half-an-hour for YouTube videos on this and that. We pull together hours over the course of the day to listen to the radio and check email and catch up on our favorite magazines or papers.
We have time. We just spend it elsewhere.
It’s not really a matter of a lack of desire. All of us want to spend more time in communion with God, but we fill all of our time with other things – things that we believe are important. And many of them are important, but, really, is the most recent episode of House all that important? We have tricked ourselves into believing that all these mundane, trivial distractions are more important than our spiritual lives.
So how do we get ourselves back to God?
In January, I told you all about the media withdrawal that attacked me when I got back from our trip to France. To tell the truth, though, I wasn’t really that detached from the technological world. I checked email regularly, and I still caught glimpses of the news in French newsstands.
What was refreshing … and disturbing about those two weeks was that I was not bound to media the way that I sometimes feel I am here. There were plenty of distractions – plenty of new things to do and see. At home, things are all familiar. Sunsets, I’ve seen them. Neighbors, I know them already. Concerts, … really … in a university town? Not all that interested – though I’m sure I would be if I actually knew what they were. At the end of the day, when I’m tired and I have time to fill, I don’t think of checking out anything new. I just want to distract myself with something on the TV.
And during the day, there’s my pride. I feel like I have to know what’s going on. How can I sound like I’m a responsible, intelligent member of society if I’m in the dark on what’s going on in the news. So, I read news online and I listen to the radio even though I know that the news cycle will just repeat the things I’ve already heard again.
Here or when I’m traveling, I fill up whatever space there is in my life with white noise or new things. There is no silence - no time left when I am alone with myself and God …, and there are many time when I could use some of that.
(pause)
But it’s not really silence that I need. What I need is stillness which is a very different thing. I need time to focus and rest. I need quiet space in my day, in my mind, and in my spirit. I need to bread down the bad habits – the fracturing addictions – that have taken over my life and build some new, healthy ones if I’m to indulge my desire for a healthy spiritual life.
Breaking down habits …. That’s hard to do, and if neuroscience is to be believed, it’s only getting harder. In 2010, The New York Times reported that …
Scientists say juggling e-mail, phone calls and other incoming information can change how people think and behave. The say our ability to focus is being undermined by bursts of information.
These play to a primitive impulse to respond to immediate opportunities and threats. the stimulation provokes excitement – a dopamine squirt – that researchers say can be addictive. In its absence, people feel bored…. [For] millions of people these urges can inflict nicks and cuts on creativity and deep thought, interrupting work and family life.
Researchers say there is an evolutionary rationale for the pressure this puts on the brain, [but] in the modern world, the chime of incoming e-mail can override [more important goals]….
“Throughout evolutionary history, a big surprise would get everyone’s brain thinking,” said Clifford Nass, a communications professor at Stanford. “But we’ve got a large and growing group of people who think the slightest hint that something interesting might be going on is like catnip. They can’t ignore it.”
And even after our multitasking ends, our fractured thinking persists. On the whole, we find it more difficult to think deeply about anything or stay focused long enough to find our way to deeper truths. I know people who can’t do any one thing for more than 15 minutes without getting restless (and I don’t mean my children) – people who get up in the middle of a concert or a play to go out and check their text messages (assuming they’ve turned off their phones to begin with which is become less and less likely). Others say they “need” to check their Facebook page just to catch up if they’ve been away from the computer for a mere 4 hours. I, myself, feel ill at ease if there is no music or news radio playing in the background. It’s just too quiet.
In many ways, we are like the boy in the passage from Mark. We are so consumed by the white noise made by the media all around us that we are unable to hear or understand the voice of God when it speaks to us. In a sense, we are possessed, and if Jesus is to be believed, the only way to put that demon behind us is prayer.
But media is not all bad. Email helps us keep in touch with people we can’t or don’t see very often. Cell phones are wonderful in emergency situations or even just when we can’t remember everything we were supposed to get at the grocery. Radio and the internet and even the television can teach us important things and give us a better understanding of how our actions affect people around the world. This book (hold up the Bible) not only helped King Josiah lead the Israelites back to the law, it helps us all as we walk the path of faithful discipleship.
The problems come when we let all those helpful tools that we have created take over. When we put set them up in the high places of our lives and pay no attention to how they shape who we are and how we live, they start to color everything. They demand more and more of our time and energy, and we begin to forget that there are others who have prior claims: our families … our friends … our God ….
Think about it for the next couple of minutes…. Think about it. If you had all the time back – all the time that media has taken up this past week … the past couple of days – what would you do with it? How would that shape you?
Mark 9:14-27 2 Kings 22:8-11; 23:1-3
In the past couple of weeks, I have received a lot of call from people wanting me to do surveys – on politics or some product or some other issue. So, in the spirit of the season, I’ve got a few questions to ask you….
How many of you read the newspaper – oh, say at least 3 or 4 times a week?
How many of you watch television or stream shows off the internet regularly?
How many of you have the radio on most of the time?
How many of you surf the web – you know … on news sites or Facebook or any of the other places?
(pause)
How many of you sit down and pray or spend time reading the bible or poetry or something else that inspires your soul each week?
I don’t ask these questions to make you all feel guilty (though I expect that we all do), but they do point out a big problem with our lives. We spend more and more of our time with screens and paper, and less and less time interfacing with actual people let alone with God.
We say we don’t have time, but we find thirty-five minutes for Facebook and an hour or more to watch our favorite TV shows. We have half-an-hour for YouTube videos on this and that. We pull together hours over the course of the day to listen to the radio and check email and catch up on our favorite magazines or papers.
We have time. We just spend it elsewhere.
It’s not really a matter of a lack of desire. All of us want to spend more time in communion with God, but we fill all of our time with other things – things that we believe are important. And many of them are important, but, really, is the most recent episode of House all that important? We have tricked ourselves into believing that all these mundane, trivial distractions are more important than our spiritual lives.
So how do we get ourselves back to God?
In January, I told you all about the media withdrawal that attacked me when I got back from our trip to France. To tell the truth, though, I wasn’t really that detached from the technological world. I checked email regularly, and I still caught glimpses of the news in French newsstands.
What was refreshing … and disturbing about those two weeks was that I was not bound to media the way that I sometimes feel I am here. There were plenty of distractions – plenty of new things to do and see. At home, things are all familiar. Sunsets, I’ve seen them. Neighbors, I know them already. Concerts, … really … in a university town? Not all that interested – though I’m sure I would be if I actually knew what they were. At the end of the day, when I’m tired and I have time to fill, I don’t think of checking out anything new. I just want to distract myself with something on the TV.
And during the day, there’s my pride. I feel like I have to know what’s going on. How can I sound like I’m a responsible, intelligent member of society if I’m in the dark on what’s going on in the news. So, I read news online and I listen to the radio even though I know that the news cycle will just repeat the things I’ve already heard again.
Here or when I’m traveling, I fill up whatever space there is in my life with white noise or new things. There is no silence - no time left when I am alone with myself and God …, and there are many time when I could use some of that.
(pause)
But it’s not really silence that I need. What I need is stillness which is a very different thing. I need time to focus and rest. I need quiet space in my day, in my mind, and in my spirit. I need to bread down the bad habits – the fracturing addictions – that have taken over my life and build some new, healthy ones if I’m to indulge my desire for a healthy spiritual life.
Breaking down habits …. That’s hard to do, and if neuroscience is to be believed, it’s only getting harder. In 2010, The New York Times reported that …
Scientists say juggling e-mail, phone calls and other incoming information can change how people think and behave. The say our ability to focus is being undermined by bursts of information.
These play to a primitive impulse to respond to immediate opportunities and threats. the stimulation provokes excitement – a dopamine squirt – that researchers say can be addictive. In its absence, people feel bored…. [For] millions of people these urges can inflict nicks and cuts on creativity and deep thought, interrupting work and family life.
Researchers say there is an evolutionary rationale for the pressure this puts on the brain, [but] in the modern world, the chime of incoming e-mail can override [more important goals]….
“Throughout evolutionary history, a big surprise would get everyone’s brain thinking,” said Clifford Nass, a communications professor at Stanford. “But we’ve got a large and growing group of people who think the slightest hint that something interesting might be going on is like catnip. They can’t ignore it.”
And even after our multitasking ends, our fractured thinking persists. On the whole, we find it more difficult to think deeply about anything or stay focused long enough to find our way to deeper truths. I know people who can’t do any one thing for more than 15 minutes without getting restless (and I don’t mean my children) – people who get up in the middle of a concert or a play to go out and check their text messages (assuming they’ve turned off their phones to begin with which is become less and less likely). Others say they “need” to check their Facebook page just to catch up if they’ve been away from the computer for a mere 4 hours. I, myself, feel ill at ease if there is no music or news radio playing in the background. It’s just too quiet.
In many ways, we are like the boy in the passage from Mark. We are so consumed by the white noise made by the media all around us that we are unable to hear or understand the voice of God when it speaks to us. In a sense, we are possessed, and if Jesus is to be believed, the only way to put that demon behind us is prayer.
But media is not all bad. Email helps us keep in touch with people we can’t or don’t see very often. Cell phones are wonderful in emergency situations or even just when we can’t remember everything we were supposed to get at the grocery. Radio and the internet and even the television can teach us important things and give us a better understanding of how our actions affect people around the world. This book (hold up the Bible) not only helped King Josiah lead the Israelites back to the law, it helps us all as we walk the path of faithful discipleship.
The problems come when we let all those helpful tools that we have created take over. When we put set them up in the high places of our lives and pay no attention to how they shape who we are and how we live, they start to color everything. They demand more and more of our time and energy, and we begin to forget that there are others who have prior claims: our families … our friends … our God ….
Think about it for the next couple of minutes…. Think about it. If you had all the time back – all the time that media has taken up this past week … the past couple of days – what would you do with it? How would that shape you?
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Want Not, Waste Not
sermon by Torin Eikler
Genesis 2:4b-9,15 Genesis 15:7-11,17-21
You may have heard of the small nation of Kiribati in the South Pacific. If you’ve seen pictures of it, you know that it’s made up of a lot of small atolls and one small island that are home to 103,000 people. They are not rich or powerful, but they’re not poor either. And they live in one of the more beautiful places on Earth. I wouldn’t mind visiting sometime, but I don’t think I’d want to live there.
You see, the average elevation of the entire country is just bit higher than 6 feet above sea level, and that has some not-so-beautiful consequences. They are, of course, subject to the power and unpredictability of storms, but they have learned how to deal with that in the hundreds of years they’ve been there. The more unfortunate problem they face is global warming, and while most of us have the luxury of arguing about whether that is a real threat or not, Kiribati has already lost some of its land to the rising tide. Before the end of the century, they expect to be completely underwater and have already arranged to buy part of neighboring Fiji so that they can move in 2062.
News like this seems to be coming out all the time. I don’t mean that islands are sinking or that the rising sea level will swallow us all up. (Certainly not here in West Virginia anyway). That’s actually old news. But there are all sorts of stories coming out every day about the shrinking polar ice caps or the three species (non-human species) that go extinct every day or some other environmental catastrophe. There are so many that sometimes it’s hard for me to actually pay attention to them all… let alone remember them. But I do remember the first story I heard that actually made me wonder about how we are treating the Earth.
It was 1988 or ’89, if memory serves, and the Fort Wayne newspaper ran an article about a man who was suing the city so that he wouldn’t have to pay garbage collection fees. It seems that he had somehow managed to cut his waste down to one small trash bag per month, and he was more than happy to run that to the dump himself rather than pay for weekly pickup that he didn’t need.
The article went on to talk about the growing confrontation between this man and the city, but I didn’t read all of that. I was stuck on a totally impossible idea - ONE SMALL BAG of garbage … PER MONTH! Even if I multiplied that by the five people living in my house, it wouldn’t come close to the 2 big garbage bags I lugged out to the end of the driveway each week. Just one small bag per month … how did he do it? Why did he do it? It got me thinking….
Five years later I was earning my degree in Environmental Studies when we were asked to do an analysis of the county and recommend a site for the new landfill that would have to come online in the next few years. (It wasn’t the county that asked us to do the study, and I’m confident they ignored it.) So we did the project, … and in the process, I learned more than really wanted to know about toxic seepage, water table contamination, and the slow build up gasses that can cause explosions … all of which were problems with the Wabash County Landfill. I realized that I was as much a part of that as anyone, and I decided to make some changes ... to become part of the solution instead of the problem.
For years, I have tried to hold on to that conviction. I have tried not to buy pre-packaged goods, and when I do, I have looked for recyclable packaging. I have gardened and preserved in order to have good vegetables to eat without having to buy produce shipped thousands of miles with all the fuel burned in the process. I dutifully recycle everything that I can. Carrie and I have used cloth diapers 70-80% of the time with our children. And yet I take out a can-full of garbage every week, and I have all but stopped even seeing the plastic bags and cans and bottles and other trash that line the streets of this neighborhood and the ones I regularly walk through. There’s just so much that needs to be done, and it’s easy to sit back and say that I have done enough to reduce my own footprint. It’s so easy to get caught up with pointing fingers at others rather than admit my own failings … even if it means that I have to hide from the God who walks in this garden every day.
Last week, Carrie said that scripture doesn’t tell us much about Jesus’ thoughts on spending even though it records a lot of his teachings on money and economics. Well, there is even less in the New Testament about waste or caring for creation. Nowhere at all do Jesus or the disciples or the letter-writers talk about recycling or deforestation or driving less, but John tells us that Jesus was there during creation – a part of the God who called it all good. And Jesus, himself, says that he has come to fulfill, rather than overturn, the law of the covenant.
That covenant has its roots in the beginning of creation when God brought forth the Earth with all its plants and animals and called it all good. Then, she created human beings and entrusted it to us. Not to “dominate” as the unfortunate translation that has taken root in our collective subconscious says, but to care for it. In point of fact, as Wendell Berry wrote:
The ecological teaching of the Bible is simply inescapable: God made the world because he wanted it made. He thinks the world is good, and He loves it. It is His world; He has never relinquished title to it. And He has never revoked the conditions, bearing on His gift of the use of it, that obliges us to take excellent care of it. If God loves the world, then how might any person of faith be excused for note loving it or justified in destroying it?
It was not given to us to do whatever we would like with creation. It is our calling to tend it so that it multiplies and bears fruit for all of its inhabitants. We humans are just a small fraction of that group. It’s past time that we take up our trowels, gloves, reusable bags, and rakes and clean up our mess even if it seems an impossible task, and when it does seem impossible, remember these words of encouragement:
If God is really at the center of things and God’s good future is the most certain reality, [as we claim,] then the truly realistic course of action is to buck the [ethic] of our age … and simply do the right thing. If we believe it is part of our task as earthkeepers to recycle, then we ought to recycle, whether or not it will change the world. Do the right thing. If we think it part and parcel of our ecological obedience to drive less and walk more, then that is what we ought to do. Do the right thing. We should fulfill our calling to be [caretakers] regardless of whether global warming is real or there are holes in the ozone layer or three nonhuman species become extinct each day. Our vocation is not contingent on results or the state of the planet. Our calling simply depends on our identity as God’s response-able human image-beareres.
So … rather than being discouraged, rather than just giving up, let’s do what’s right. Let’s step into our roles as stewards, clear away all the junk that comes between us and God, and open our eyes to the wonder around us.
Genesis 2:4b-9,15 Genesis 15:7-11,17-21
You may have heard of the small nation of Kiribati in the South Pacific. If you’ve seen pictures of it, you know that it’s made up of a lot of small atolls and one small island that are home to 103,000 people. They are not rich or powerful, but they’re not poor either. And they live in one of the more beautiful places on Earth. I wouldn’t mind visiting sometime, but I don’t think I’d want to live there.
You see, the average elevation of the entire country is just bit higher than 6 feet above sea level, and that has some not-so-beautiful consequences. They are, of course, subject to the power and unpredictability of storms, but they have learned how to deal with that in the hundreds of years they’ve been there. The more unfortunate problem they face is global warming, and while most of us have the luxury of arguing about whether that is a real threat or not, Kiribati has already lost some of its land to the rising tide. Before the end of the century, they expect to be completely underwater and have already arranged to buy part of neighboring Fiji so that they can move in 2062.
News like this seems to be coming out all the time. I don’t mean that islands are sinking or that the rising sea level will swallow us all up. (Certainly not here in West Virginia anyway). That’s actually old news. But there are all sorts of stories coming out every day about the shrinking polar ice caps or the three species (non-human species) that go extinct every day or some other environmental catastrophe. There are so many that sometimes it’s hard for me to actually pay attention to them all… let alone remember them. But I do remember the first story I heard that actually made me wonder about how we are treating the Earth.
It was 1988 or ’89, if memory serves, and the Fort Wayne newspaper ran an article about a man who was suing the city so that he wouldn’t have to pay garbage collection fees. It seems that he had somehow managed to cut his waste down to one small trash bag per month, and he was more than happy to run that to the dump himself rather than pay for weekly pickup that he didn’t need.
The article went on to talk about the growing confrontation between this man and the city, but I didn’t read all of that. I was stuck on a totally impossible idea - ONE SMALL BAG of garbage … PER MONTH! Even if I multiplied that by the five people living in my house, it wouldn’t come close to the 2 big garbage bags I lugged out to the end of the driveway each week. Just one small bag per month … how did he do it? Why did he do it? It got me thinking….
Five years later I was earning my degree in Environmental Studies when we were asked to do an analysis of the county and recommend a site for the new landfill that would have to come online in the next few years. (It wasn’t the county that asked us to do the study, and I’m confident they ignored it.) So we did the project, … and in the process, I learned more than really wanted to know about toxic seepage, water table contamination, and the slow build up gasses that can cause explosions … all of which were problems with the Wabash County Landfill. I realized that I was as much a part of that as anyone, and I decided to make some changes ... to become part of the solution instead of the problem.
For years, I have tried to hold on to that conviction. I have tried not to buy pre-packaged goods, and when I do, I have looked for recyclable packaging. I have gardened and preserved in order to have good vegetables to eat without having to buy produce shipped thousands of miles with all the fuel burned in the process. I dutifully recycle everything that I can. Carrie and I have used cloth diapers 70-80% of the time with our children. And yet I take out a can-full of garbage every week, and I have all but stopped even seeing the plastic bags and cans and bottles and other trash that line the streets of this neighborhood and the ones I regularly walk through. There’s just so much that needs to be done, and it’s easy to sit back and say that I have done enough to reduce my own footprint. It’s so easy to get caught up with pointing fingers at others rather than admit my own failings … even if it means that I have to hide from the God who walks in this garden every day.
Last week, Carrie said that scripture doesn’t tell us much about Jesus’ thoughts on spending even though it records a lot of his teachings on money and economics. Well, there is even less in the New Testament about waste or caring for creation. Nowhere at all do Jesus or the disciples or the letter-writers talk about recycling or deforestation or driving less, but John tells us that Jesus was there during creation – a part of the God who called it all good. And Jesus, himself, says that he has come to fulfill, rather than overturn, the law of the covenant.
That covenant has its roots in the beginning of creation when God brought forth the Earth with all its plants and animals and called it all good. Then, she created human beings and entrusted it to us. Not to “dominate” as the unfortunate translation that has taken root in our collective subconscious says, but to care for it. In point of fact, as Wendell Berry wrote:
The ecological teaching of the Bible is simply inescapable: God made the world because he wanted it made. He thinks the world is good, and He loves it. It is His world; He has never relinquished title to it. And He has never revoked the conditions, bearing on His gift of the use of it, that obliges us to take excellent care of it. If God loves the world, then how might any person of faith be excused for note loving it or justified in destroying it?
It was not given to us to do whatever we would like with creation. It is our calling to tend it so that it multiplies and bears fruit for all of its inhabitants. We humans are just a small fraction of that group. It’s past time that we take up our trowels, gloves, reusable bags, and rakes and clean up our mess even if it seems an impossible task, and when it does seem impossible, remember these words of encouragement:
If God is really at the center of things and God’s good future is the most certain reality, [as we claim,] then the truly realistic course of action is to buck the [ethic] of our age … and simply do the right thing. If we believe it is part of our task as earthkeepers to recycle, then we ought to recycle, whether or not it will change the world. Do the right thing. If we think it part and parcel of our ecological obedience to drive less and walk more, then that is what we ought to do. Do the right thing. We should fulfill our calling to be [caretakers] regardless of whether global warming is real or there are holes in the ozone layer or three nonhuman species become extinct each day. Our vocation is not contingent on results or the state of the planet. Our calling simply depends on our identity as God’s response-able human image-beareres.
So … rather than being discouraged, rather than just giving up, let’s do what’s right. Let’s step into our roles as stewards, clear away all the junk that comes between us and God, and open our eyes to the wonder around us.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Word of Unburdening-Spending
During Lent, we are looking at some of the things that "burden" us and obscure the promise of Christ from our lives. We are looking at food, spending, waste, media, and possessions. Our worships during Lent will have a greater focus on silence and reflection, with a short meditation inviting you into contemplation. The worship center invites you to explore what it is in your life that “clutters out Christ.”
John 2:13-22
There was good economic news this week. According to two dozen economists surveyed by the Associated Press, the US economy is improving faster than previously predicted. “The economists foresee stronger growth and more hiring than they did two months ago, and predict an unemployment rate at around eight percent by Election Day.”
I heard this report on the news one morning this week. And really, it didn’t phase me very much. It just seems like we get jockeyed around daily with daily changing economic forecasts: one day, things are looking up, the next we’re plummeting back down into crisis. Honestly, it all sort of just slips by me. But the report ended with something that always jerks me back to attention. It said that it’s unlikely this improvement has little to do with what is going on in Washington. Rather “economists give most of the credit to consumers, who are spending more and saving less.”
This always seems wrong to me, though I know it makes sense in a macro-economics sort of way in a capitalist economy. But it is always hard for me to swallow. Especially when the rate of foreclosures is at an all time high. Especially when, according to the US Census, 15% of the US population is living in poverty.
So am I right in thinking that one of the biggest threats to the US economy is not Europe’s financial woes, or our dependency on foreign oil, or the growing dominance of China in the marketplace. But actually the greatest threat to the US economy…are people who don’t spend their money?
Now I know that’s simplistic, and not exactly true, but I have heard this over and over--what we need to do to get this economy moving is to spend, spend, spend. Remember when you got that stimulus check a few years ago and people were pleading for you not to save it, to go out and blow on something…anything?
And yes, you don’t need to tell me that I’m not an economist, I know that full well, so why should I be questioning this? I guess it is because I am a Christian. And, yes, I am a consumer. And to be a responsible Christian consumer, I need know… that fully one-third of the things Jesus talked about was about money and how we spend it, use it, lend it, abuse it.. He seemed to be obsessed with it. And he wasn’t obsessed with it in the way we are obsessed with it.
In fact, probably most of those things he has to say would cause us to stiffen and bristle and say, “well, that’s not really me he’s talking about” and “well, yes but that’s not practical.” And he probably would ask “and how many of the things I say and do are practical?”
It’s true, when it comes to economics in general, and our own private spending in particular for the most part, Jesus talks a lot more than we see him act. But when he does act it is a pretty interesting story. We don’t see what he buys, and from where he buys it, or how much. The most dramatic story about Jesus and money involves him overturning tables in the temple. Raging in the marketplace and the place of worship.
In fact, this story is one of the few stories that show up in all four of the gospels. It was impressive enough, central enough to Jesus’ life that all the gospel writers included it.
Now to be clear, many of these “tables” were there with the blessing of the temple. They weren’t just selling trinkets, or “temple souvenirs”. They were selling animals and other goods to be sacrificed and used in the holy festival of Passover. This is not an unknown or frowned upon custom.
Some have said what was going on in this story wasn’t that people were selling things, but how the selling and buying was happening. Often, as we can imagine even in this time, many of the merchants would be price-gouging goods, making it difficult for the needy and poro to obtain these things to observe the festival properly. It wasn’t that they were selling that made Jesus angry, it’s that they were exploiting the poor, and making a mockery of faith.
Jesus can’t believe that people have taken the holy temple, and turned it into a “den of robbers”, as described in Matthew. Jesus is turning the tables in anger because God’s dwelling place was turned into an arena for exploitation. And I imagine Jesus would be grieved to see us relating to this world, this sacred dwelling place, in a similar way. In our economy, human beings are first and foremost consumers, simply players in a market. We have forgotten that we should be relating to this world as children…children of God. Somehow our economic system has stripped us of that primary identity.
Isak Dineson famously said "All suffering is bearable if seen as part of a story." Sharon Astyk reflected on this quote on scienceblogs.com. She says the following: “The emptiness that people feel when they live a life primarily as consumers is no accident - the problem is that the story we're engaged in isn't very interesting. A story where your primary role is to create a market, to consume and come back for more is incredibly dull.
And Astyk ponders, “Is it any wonder, if you live your life like a baby bird with your mouth open that what gets dropped into it every time is a worm? People will attempt to reshape your worm and convince you that it is extra yummy this time, but it is still a worm. And the story of consumers is still boring.”
“[A]nd it is no accident” she says “that despite the fact that bazillions of dollars are spent telling us we are just consumers, and that's all the story we could ever need, people by the thousands and sometimes even millions are frustrated and looking for a better story…The good news is that there are better stories out there for the claiming and the living. The good news is that we can do better than worms.”
We can do better than worms."
Spending is what gives us credit as a citizen in a capitalist economy. But we are not just consumers. We are not just citizens. We are children of God who have been taught a different story. One where concern for others comes before our acquisition of stuff. One where sacrifice was shown in service to others not in slavery to rising interest rates and collection agencies. One where compassion trumps comfort and money and cloaks and extra miles were to be given graciously.
To start living that story will need some tables turned upside down. And Jesus isn’t here to do it for us. So we need to start with our own.
And to begin that turning, we enter into a time of confession, laying out some of the tables we have setup in God’s holy temple. Please turn to the insert, the
Testimony/Reflection on Spending, given by Kim Cockroft our worship leader
Right away I think of this story: my first truly sacrificial gift, and how it was given in ignorance that ripened into bitter regret.
I was about six, old enough to know how rare and wonderful a silver dollar was. My granddad gave these gleaming discs to us on our birthdays, and they were precious things. My sister never spent hers’, and I once bribed her out of one, but that’s a different story.
We were at our grandparent’s church—a place of plush carpet and gleaming wooden pews softened by long red cushions. When the offering was taken, I fumbled in my pockets for a quarter—then, as now, I felt a compunction to place something in the offering, even if it was from a panicky impulse not to be embarrassed in front of the solemn offering men in their suits, looking like Mafia envoys. As the velvet plum-colored pouch, split in half by slick walnut handles, passed me, I slipped in a quarter—a small offering, perhaps, even for a child like me who received allowances, but enough to get by, I thought, much better than a dime, say, or a handful of pennies, pathetic as they slide from the palm. In any case, I’d be guilt-free at least until communion, when my mother would cry and I’d struggle to come up with a list of sins to confess silently to God so I’d not drink unbearable punishment on myself. At least offering was over with.
But my sister passed the pouch to my father, as it disappeared out of reach down the aisle, I realized what I had done. Oh, no! My silver dollar. Given to me by the warm, old hands of my grey-haired grandfather. Given to me in love and in trust. I’d put it in a pouch with other meaningless coins, and it would be counted and dropped into the church coffers by more men in suits. Nobody would know how precious it was to me—nobody.
I pulled my mother’s ear down to my mouth and whispered, “I gave away my silver dollar. Into the offering!”
She sensed the desperation in my voice, I knew it. Would she help me retrieve it? God didn’t care what denominations the money came in, after all! Couldn’t I just give four quarters, the same amount of money but not the monumental treasure that my Granddad’s silver dollar was? I only got one once a year, and not even that often, since we lived overseas. Granddaddy had to go to the bank especially and exchange regular paper money for the silver dollars he’d place in his grandkid’s palm. Surely God would understand that this gift was too precious?
My mother leaned over in the church-way she had, where she could whisper in our ear without moving her eyes from the front of the church. “Never regret giving anything to God,” my mother whispered back.
What? Why did parents never understand?
I spent the rest of church—the scripture readings, the long sermon, right through the last hymn—in agony over my loss. I pictured how it had happened over and over again. I’d felt in my pockets, yanked out a silver coin, and tossed it in the offering pouch. I saw it disappear down the aisle again and again, and I thought about what my mother had said—never regret, never regret, never regret.
I still think about this moment. I don’t know if the loss of my silver dollar, which was of utmost significance to me at six, was a defining moment in my life, but the memory still defines me today, when I struggle to give away what’s precious. The giving, done in a moment of spirited generosity, perhaps, is not as hard as the trusting—the trusting that the one to whom I give can appreciate the gift enough, will be careful with what I have given—my money, my time, my children, my love.
God will take it all—and in my clearer moments, I realize it was never mine in the first place. I realize that there is no such thing as possession in the Great Story—that all things are entrusted, but not given away for keeps. God is not trustworthy in the way I want God to be. I want to receive a gift and hunker down in my favorite chair, savoring it without fear that a thing I love so much will be taken from me. But there are no such promises, and love rarely makes such promise. I can’t tell my children that their lives will be easy. I wish I could, and believe it, but I can’t.
One thing—no, two at least--that have not been given to me with any conditions. Love and grace. Love and grace—they are the sky, the stars, the ground, the ocean, the very air I breathe. No one can take these from me, and these I can give freely, freely, forever.
It’s the silver dollars I’m still struggling to find in my pockets, and knowing what I give, slip them into the offering basket. Today my silver dollar is my sense of security, control, and my knowledge of the future. Surely something else would do just as well. Surely it can’t be expected of me. Perhaps it’s not quite clear how much it means to me. And yet, I fumble about in the darkness of my pockets, untangle it from my grasping fingers, and let it go.
And as I watch it disappear down the aisle, as I watch other hands dropping coins—gifts that I cannot begin to understand or know—I feel panic, fear, grief—and then a growing sense that all is okay, not perhaps in the particulars, the lists of worries I love to obsess about—but in the large sense. I ask regret to leave me. All will be well. And all will be well. All manner of things will be well
John 2:13-22
There was good economic news this week. According to two dozen economists surveyed by the Associated Press, the US economy is improving faster than previously predicted. “The economists foresee stronger growth and more hiring than they did two months ago, and predict an unemployment rate at around eight percent by Election Day.”
I heard this report on the news one morning this week. And really, it didn’t phase me very much. It just seems like we get jockeyed around daily with daily changing economic forecasts: one day, things are looking up, the next we’re plummeting back down into crisis. Honestly, it all sort of just slips by me. But the report ended with something that always jerks me back to attention. It said that it’s unlikely this improvement has little to do with what is going on in Washington. Rather “economists give most of the credit to consumers, who are spending more and saving less.”
This always seems wrong to me, though I know it makes sense in a macro-economics sort of way in a capitalist economy. But it is always hard for me to swallow. Especially when the rate of foreclosures is at an all time high. Especially when, according to the US Census, 15% of the US population is living in poverty.
So am I right in thinking that one of the biggest threats to the US economy is not Europe’s financial woes, or our dependency on foreign oil, or the growing dominance of China in the marketplace. But actually the greatest threat to the US economy…are people who don’t spend their money?
Now I know that’s simplistic, and not exactly true, but I have heard this over and over--what we need to do to get this economy moving is to spend, spend, spend. Remember when you got that stimulus check a few years ago and people were pleading for you not to save it, to go out and blow on something…anything?
And yes, you don’t need to tell me that I’m not an economist, I know that full well, so why should I be questioning this? I guess it is because I am a Christian. And, yes, I am a consumer. And to be a responsible Christian consumer, I need know… that fully one-third of the things Jesus talked about was about money and how we spend it, use it, lend it, abuse it.. He seemed to be obsessed with it. And he wasn’t obsessed with it in the way we are obsessed with it.
In fact, probably most of those things he has to say would cause us to stiffen and bristle and say, “well, that’s not really me he’s talking about” and “well, yes but that’s not practical.” And he probably would ask “and how many of the things I say and do are practical?”
It’s true, when it comes to economics in general, and our own private spending in particular for the most part, Jesus talks a lot more than we see him act. But when he does act it is a pretty interesting story. We don’t see what he buys, and from where he buys it, or how much. The most dramatic story about Jesus and money involves him overturning tables in the temple. Raging in the marketplace and the place of worship.
In fact, this story is one of the few stories that show up in all four of the gospels. It was impressive enough, central enough to Jesus’ life that all the gospel writers included it.
Now to be clear, many of these “tables” were there with the blessing of the temple. They weren’t just selling trinkets, or “temple souvenirs”. They were selling animals and other goods to be sacrificed and used in the holy festival of Passover. This is not an unknown or frowned upon custom.
Some have said what was going on in this story wasn’t that people were selling things, but how the selling and buying was happening. Often, as we can imagine even in this time, many of the merchants would be price-gouging goods, making it difficult for the needy and poro to obtain these things to observe the festival properly. It wasn’t that they were selling that made Jesus angry, it’s that they were exploiting the poor, and making a mockery of faith.
Jesus can’t believe that people have taken the holy temple, and turned it into a “den of robbers”, as described in Matthew. Jesus is turning the tables in anger because God’s dwelling place was turned into an arena for exploitation. And I imagine Jesus would be grieved to see us relating to this world, this sacred dwelling place, in a similar way. In our economy, human beings are first and foremost consumers, simply players in a market. We have forgotten that we should be relating to this world as children…children of God. Somehow our economic system has stripped us of that primary identity.
Isak Dineson famously said "All suffering is bearable if seen as part of a story." Sharon Astyk reflected on this quote on scienceblogs.com. She says the following: “The emptiness that people feel when they live a life primarily as consumers is no accident - the problem is that the story we're engaged in isn't very interesting. A story where your primary role is to create a market, to consume and come back for more is incredibly dull.
And Astyk ponders, “Is it any wonder, if you live your life like a baby bird with your mouth open that what gets dropped into it every time is a worm? People will attempt to reshape your worm and convince you that it is extra yummy this time, but it is still a worm. And the story of consumers is still boring.”
“[A]nd it is no accident” she says “that despite the fact that bazillions of dollars are spent telling us we are just consumers, and that's all the story we could ever need, people by the thousands and sometimes even millions are frustrated and looking for a better story…The good news is that there are better stories out there for the claiming and the living. The good news is that we can do better than worms.”
We can do better than worms."
Spending is what gives us credit as a citizen in a capitalist economy. But we are not just consumers. We are not just citizens. We are children of God who have been taught a different story. One where concern for others comes before our acquisition of stuff. One where sacrifice was shown in service to others not in slavery to rising interest rates and collection agencies. One where compassion trumps comfort and money and cloaks and extra miles were to be given graciously.
To start living that story will need some tables turned upside down. And Jesus isn’t here to do it for us. So we need to start with our own.
And to begin that turning, we enter into a time of confession, laying out some of the tables we have setup in God’s holy temple. Please turn to the insert, the
Testimony/Reflection on Spending, given by Kim Cockroft our worship leader
Right away I think of this story: my first truly sacrificial gift, and how it was given in ignorance that ripened into bitter regret.
I was about six, old enough to know how rare and wonderful a silver dollar was. My granddad gave these gleaming discs to us on our birthdays, and they were precious things. My sister never spent hers’, and I once bribed her out of one, but that’s a different story.
We were at our grandparent’s church—a place of plush carpet and gleaming wooden pews softened by long red cushions. When the offering was taken, I fumbled in my pockets for a quarter—then, as now, I felt a compunction to place something in the offering, even if it was from a panicky impulse not to be embarrassed in front of the solemn offering men in their suits, looking like Mafia envoys. As the velvet plum-colored pouch, split in half by slick walnut handles, passed me, I slipped in a quarter—a small offering, perhaps, even for a child like me who received allowances, but enough to get by, I thought, much better than a dime, say, or a handful of pennies, pathetic as they slide from the palm. In any case, I’d be guilt-free at least until communion, when my mother would cry and I’d struggle to come up with a list of sins to confess silently to God so I’d not drink unbearable punishment on myself. At least offering was over with.
But my sister passed the pouch to my father, as it disappeared out of reach down the aisle, I realized what I had done. Oh, no! My silver dollar. Given to me by the warm, old hands of my grey-haired grandfather. Given to me in love and in trust. I’d put it in a pouch with other meaningless coins, and it would be counted and dropped into the church coffers by more men in suits. Nobody would know how precious it was to me—nobody.
I pulled my mother’s ear down to my mouth and whispered, “I gave away my silver dollar. Into the offering!”
She sensed the desperation in my voice, I knew it. Would she help me retrieve it? God didn’t care what denominations the money came in, after all! Couldn’t I just give four quarters, the same amount of money but not the monumental treasure that my Granddad’s silver dollar was? I only got one once a year, and not even that often, since we lived overseas. Granddaddy had to go to the bank especially and exchange regular paper money for the silver dollars he’d place in his grandkid’s palm. Surely God would understand that this gift was too precious?
My mother leaned over in the church-way she had, where she could whisper in our ear without moving her eyes from the front of the church. “Never regret giving anything to God,” my mother whispered back.
What? Why did parents never understand?
I spent the rest of church—the scripture readings, the long sermon, right through the last hymn—in agony over my loss. I pictured how it had happened over and over again. I’d felt in my pockets, yanked out a silver coin, and tossed it in the offering pouch. I saw it disappear down the aisle again and again, and I thought about what my mother had said—never regret, never regret, never regret.
I still think about this moment. I don’t know if the loss of my silver dollar, which was of utmost significance to me at six, was a defining moment in my life, but the memory still defines me today, when I struggle to give away what’s precious. The giving, done in a moment of spirited generosity, perhaps, is not as hard as the trusting—the trusting that the one to whom I give can appreciate the gift enough, will be careful with what I have given—my money, my time, my children, my love.
God will take it all—and in my clearer moments, I realize it was never mine in the first place. I realize that there is no such thing as possession in the Great Story—that all things are entrusted, but not given away for keeps. God is not trustworthy in the way I want God to be. I want to receive a gift and hunker down in my favorite chair, savoring it without fear that a thing I love so much will be taken from me. But there are no such promises, and love rarely makes such promise. I can’t tell my children that their lives will be easy. I wish I could, and believe it, but I can’t.
One thing—no, two at least--that have not been given to me with any conditions. Love and grace. Love and grace—they are the sky, the stars, the ground, the ocean, the very air I breathe. No one can take these from me, and these I can give freely, freely, forever.
It’s the silver dollars I’m still struggling to find in my pockets, and knowing what I give, slip them into the offering basket. Today my silver dollar is my sense of security, control, and my knowledge of the future. Surely something else would do just as well. Surely it can’t be expected of me. Perhaps it’s not quite clear how much it means to me. And yet, I fumble about in the darkness of my pockets, untangle it from my grasping fingers, and let it go.
And as I watch it disappear down the aisle, as I watch other hands dropping coins—gifts that I cannot begin to understand or know—I feel panic, fear, grief—and then a growing sense that all is okay, not perhaps in the particulars, the lists of worries I love to obsess about—but in the large sense. I ask regret to leave me. All will be well. And all will be well. All manner of things will be well
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Word of Unburdening - Food
During Lent, we are looking at some of the things that "burden" us and obscure the promise of Christ from our lives. We are looking at food, spending, waste, media, and possessions. Our worships during Lent will have a greater focus on silence and reflection, with a short meditation inviting you into contemplation. The worship center invites you to explore what it is in your life that “clutters out Christ.”
Matthew 4:1-11
I know that our time of confession is later in the service, but I’m just going to start with one now. Part of this reflection on food was written while perched high on a stool at Kenyan Café, as I nursed a steaming mug of chai and noshed on a beef samosa. I don’t know if it was inappropriate, or highly appropriate.
Either way, it tasted really good. As you know, I really love food. I love it love it. In a book I read on the French way of eating and appreciating food, a book I read early on in my new found love of food and cooking, , Dr. Will Clower said something like “Americans say they love food. But that’s not true. Americans are addicted to consuming food. We neither appreciate nor really enjoy what food is and what it can do for us.” And that started me on a new food revolution for myself about seven years ago.
I have rehearsed that statement as I’ve watched people scan Cheetoes and Pepsi at the grocery checkout, feeling superior with my organic cabbage and tofu. I’ve scoffed at “typical Americans” when I’ve passed by the McDonalds on my way to eat out at our neighborhood Japanese restaurant. As I’ve sat down to pray with my family at dinner, I admit to feeling self-rightous pity for families who have made the decision to overschedule their lives so much that they never sit down together. Really, I have thought, I have the food thing figured out. I eat mindfully, appreciatively, locally, seasonally, organically…(except for the occasional scarfing down of Ramen noodles at midnight, or the sudden urge for a macaroni and cheese from KFC).
But really, those “Americans” Doctor Clower mentions, whiles still probably a large part of our society, have seen a dramatic shift since I first read that book seven years ago. In fact in the last decade, the middle class (and I should admit that this is the perspective I and many of us in this congregation live in and see the world through), the middle class has had an explosion of “foodies”. [Eating out is a national pastime. Culinary schools proliferate. Cookbooks take up more and more shelf space in bookstores and homes. Films and books have brought to the mainstream the unethical and environmental devastating ways Americans obtain their meats, grains, vegetables, and fruits. A TV network devoted to food allows us to spend all 24 hours watching people prepare or consume food—such programming has even been labeled… “gastroporn.”]
Which is an interesting comparison. Linking food with desire, cooking with sex. Now we’re getting into some real sinful Lenten stuff! In the journal Policy Review, Mary Eberstadt wrote an article asking “Is Food the New Sex?” [She says that a generation ago it was generally assumed that food was a matter of taste, whereas sex was governed by universal moral law. These days, she asserts, the assumptions are almost exactly the reverse. In many quarters there is more of a laissez-faire attitude towards other people’s sex lives, or at least a reluctance to appear judgmental about them. But people are quick to judge the eating habits of others with great indignation once reserved for other moral violations.]
And probably this goes beyond just food—just look at the list of things we are “unburdening” ourselves from this Lenten season. It’s not sex, alcohol, familial abuse, gambling, stealing, cheating. It’s food, spending, media, possessions, and waste. These are the things we like to judge these days.
So when I thought about food, I had to read the congregation, like we do as pastors. I didn’t feel I needed to say “give up the Twinkies. Twinkies are junk food.” or “Think about were your food comes from.” In our midst we have farmers, vegetarians, raw foodists, locavores, gardeners, fair trade activists, international cuisine aficionados, bakers, etc. etc. And putting myself in the middle of you, I thought, maybe the message I needed to hear, and by extension the message you might relate to, is, still, about gluttony. My favorite deadly sin…second only to sloth because sloth was sleeping and not paying attention as it was being usurped.
It would certainly seem like mindful, aware foodies such as ourselves should not need to worry about gluttony. But, I was reminded in an article by Martin Copenhaver, an article I was reading as I licked the samosa residue off my very happy fingers, that “Gluttony takes many forms.” Copenhaver reminds us that “Gluttony, properly understood, is the sin of being fixated on food to an inordinate degree. It is exhibited not just in the person who mindlessly wolfs down a lot food. [It is also] the dieter carefully meting our quarter cups of no-fat cottage cheese[… It is also] the person who drives across town to get organic lettuce.”
In my life, I went so far as to admit the sin of being unaware of food, of not focusing on food and where it came from and what it does for us, that I probably have gone a little too far of focusing too much on it, and not in a healthy way. More a fixation on judgment than the desire to appreciate it that I originally hoped for, the divine gift it is to be able to take and eat and see how very very good it is.
For sure, food doesn’t seem simple anymore. If the devil was only tempting us to turn stones into bread it would be so much easier, we might think. Foodie guru Michal Pollan spells out 64 rules for healthy, socially responsible eating: Sixty-four. But it’s with his last one that he sounds a lot like Jesus, the last one being “Break the rules every once in a while.” Because while there is a lot of rules about food in scripture, Jesus was more of one who broke the rules, rather than followed them.
People didn’t like the way he ate, the fact that his disciples picked grain and ate it on the Sabbath, the fact that some of his disciples did not fast, the fact that he kept inappropriate company at his table, the fact that some thought him a glutton because he enjoyed his food and drink.
So what’s your food hangup? For some of us, food is that sin that we fixate on to an inordinate degree. Maybe if you don’t have something to nibble on every two hours, you start feeling panic. Maybe you anxiously count every calorie that passes by your lips and just know that looking at that bowl of ice cream means an extra pound. Maybe you are so confident about your food choices that you are convinced that everyone who doesn’t eat like you is misguided. Maybe your desire to eat and cook is covering something else up, wrapping up a dark burden with a more colorful, and socially-appropriate, distraction.
As I sat with that Kenyan samosa digesting, wondering what sort of sin I was committing, I finished that article by Martin Copenhaver, in which he grants a small word of grace, "Perhaps all of us are guilty of one sin or another when we sit down for a meal. That is one reason why I am particularly comforted by the reminder that Jesus welcomed sinners…and that he ate with them, too.”
[silence]
Taste and see the goodness of the Lord. As we prepare for a time of confession, I invite you to turn to #86 in Sing the Journey songbook. To begin our time of prayer we will sing through this song once and at the end of the prayer we will sing it again. Taste and see, the goodness of the Lord.
hymn: "taste and see"
God of wind and sun, grain and vine
We confess that we have not looked at
food as a source of nourishment and connection.
Forgive us for worrying about convenience rather
than celebrating goodness
Help us taste and see
(pause)
God of the poor and oppressed
We confess that we have delighted in food
at the cost of the earth
and to the exploitation of others.
While we become more aware of this, help us
not fall into fatalism and cynicism.
But help us taste and see that the Lord is good
(pause)
God of the field and the table
We confess that we have stood in judgment
of others for their food choices.
We know this does nothing to bring us together
but pushes us further apart by our ideologies
Humble us, make us aware of our shortsightedness
so we can join you at the table
So we can taste and see all you have for us.
AMEN
hymnTaste and See
[silence]
Just as Christ invited sinners to his table, so we are invited. Because on that night, Jesus took simple things: bread and wine.
He took bread: at its essence flour, yeast, water, and salt. And he broke it saying everytime you do this, every time you eat with your sisters and brothers, remember me.
And he took the juice of the vine: grapes, pressed and aged. And as he poured it he said every time you lift a cup with another, I am there. Remember me.
And in that he blessed us, he blessed simplicity, he blessed the gathering. Let us pray: God, you are present in the food. We focus on you, not on what we consume. We take your goodness, not simply bread and cup. Bless these things, and bless us as we draw closer to you. Amen.”
You are welcome to the table: no matter your doubt or your faith, no matter your religious affiliation, no matter the sins you have done or will do. All who repent of wrongdoing and wish to enter the path of rightness and justice and oneness with God may come forward, take a piece of bread, dip it and eat it.
Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
Matthew 4:1-11
I know that our time of confession is later in the service, but I’m just going to start with one now. Part of this reflection on food was written while perched high on a stool at Kenyan Café, as I nursed a steaming mug of chai and noshed on a beef samosa. I don’t know if it was inappropriate, or highly appropriate.
Either way, it tasted really good. As you know, I really love food. I love it love it. In a book I read on the French way of eating and appreciating food, a book I read early on in my new found love of food and cooking, , Dr. Will Clower said something like “Americans say they love food. But that’s not true. Americans are addicted to consuming food. We neither appreciate nor really enjoy what food is and what it can do for us.” And that started me on a new food revolution for myself about seven years ago.
I have rehearsed that statement as I’ve watched people scan Cheetoes and Pepsi at the grocery checkout, feeling superior with my organic cabbage and tofu. I’ve scoffed at “typical Americans” when I’ve passed by the McDonalds on my way to eat out at our neighborhood Japanese restaurant. As I’ve sat down to pray with my family at dinner, I admit to feeling self-rightous pity for families who have made the decision to overschedule their lives so much that they never sit down together. Really, I have thought, I have the food thing figured out. I eat mindfully, appreciatively, locally, seasonally, organically…(except for the occasional scarfing down of Ramen noodles at midnight, or the sudden urge for a macaroni and cheese from KFC).
But really, those “Americans” Doctor Clower mentions, whiles still probably a large part of our society, have seen a dramatic shift since I first read that book seven years ago. In fact in the last decade, the middle class (and I should admit that this is the perspective I and many of us in this congregation live in and see the world through), the middle class has had an explosion of “foodies”. [Eating out is a national pastime. Culinary schools proliferate. Cookbooks take up more and more shelf space in bookstores and homes. Films and books have brought to the mainstream the unethical and environmental devastating ways Americans obtain their meats, grains, vegetables, and fruits. A TV network devoted to food allows us to spend all 24 hours watching people prepare or consume food—such programming has even been labeled… “gastroporn.”]
Which is an interesting comparison. Linking food with desire, cooking with sex. Now we’re getting into some real sinful Lenten stuff! In the journal Policy Review, Mary Eberstadt wrote an article asking “Is Food the New Sex?” [She says that a generation ago it was generally assumed that food was a matter of taste, whereas sex was governed by universal moral law. These days, she asserts, the assumptions are almost exactly the reverse. In many quarters there is more of a laissez-faire attitude towards other people’s sex lives, or at least a reluctance to appear judgmental about them. But people are quick to judge the eating habits of others with great indignation once reserved for other moral violations.]
And probably this goes beyond just food—just look at the list of things we are “unburdening” ourselves from this Lenten season. It’s not sex, alcohol, familial abuse, gambling, stealing, cheating. It’s food, spending, media, possessions, and waste. These are the things we like to judge these days.
So when I thought about food, I had to read the congregation, like we do as pastors. I didn’t feel I needed to say “give up the Twinkies. Twinkies are junk food.” or “Think about were your food comes from.” In our midst we have farmers, vegetarians, raw foodists, locavores, gardeners, fair trade activists, international cuisine aficionados, bakers, etc. etc. And putting myself in the middle of you, I thought, maybe the message I needed to hear, and by extension the message you might relate to, is, still, about gluttony. My favorite deadly sin…second only to sloth because sloth was sleeping and not paying attention as it was being usurped.
It would certainly seem like mindful, aware foodies such as ourselves should not need to worry about gluttony. But, I was reminded in an article by Martin Copenhaver, an article I was reading as I licked the samosa residue off my very happy fingers, that “Gluttony takes many forms.” Copenhaver reminds us that “Gluttony, properly understood, is the sin of being fixated on food to an inordinate degree. It is exhibited not just in the person who mindlessly wolfs down a lot food. [It is also] the dieter carefully meting our quarter cups of no-fat cottage cheese[… It is also] the person who drives across town to get organic lettuce.”
In my life, I went so far as to admit the sin of being unaware of food, of not focusing on food and where it came from and what it does for us, that I probably have gone a little too far of focusing too much on it, and not in a healthy way. More a fixation on judgment than the desire to appreciate it that I originally hoped for, the divine gift it is to be able to take and eat and see how very very good it is.
For sure, food doesn’t seem simple anymore. If the devil was only tempting us to turn stones into bread it would be so much easier, we might think. Foodie guru Michal Pollan spells out 64 rules for healthy, socially responsible eating: Sixty-four. But it’s with his last one that he sounds a lot like Jesus, the last one being “Break the rules every once in a while.” Because while there is a lot of rules about food in scripture, Jesus was more of one who broke the rules, rather than followed them.
People didn’t like the way he ate, the fact that his disciples picked grain and ate it on the Sabbath, the fact that some of his disciples did not fast, the fact that he kept inappropriate company at his table, the fact that some thought him a glutton because he enjoyed his food and drink.
So what’s your food hangup? For some of us, food is that sin that we fixate on to an inordinate degree. Maybe if you don’t have something to nibble on every two hours, you start feeling panic. Maybe you anxiously count every calorie that passes by your lips and just know that looking at that bowl of ice cream means an extra pound. Maybe you are so confident about your food choices that you are convinced that everyone who doesn’t eat like you is misguided. Maybe your desire to eat and cook is covering something else up, wrapping up a dark burden with a more colorful, and socially-appropriate, distraction.
As I sat with that Kenyan samosa digesting, wondering what sort of sin I was committing, I finished that article by Martin Copenhaver, in which he grants a small word of grace, "Perhaps all of us are guilty of one sin or another when we sit down for a meal. That is one reason why I am particularly comforted by the reminder that Jesus welcomed sinners…and that he ate with them, too.”
[silence]
Taste and see the goodness of the Lord. As we prepare for a time of confession, I invite you to turn to #86 in Sing the Journey songbook. To begin our time of prayer we will sing through this song once and at the end of the prayer we will sing it again. Taste and see, the goodness of the Lord.
hymn: "taste and see"
God of wind and sun, grain and vine
We confess that we have not looked at
food as a source of nourishment and connection.
Forgive us for worrying about convenience rather
than celebrating goodness
Help us taste and see
(pause)
God of the poor and oppressed
We confess that we have delighted in food
at the cost of the earth
and to the exploitation of others.
While we become more aware of this, help us
not fall into fatalism and cynicism.
But help us taste and see that the Lord is good
(pause)
God of the field and the table
We confess that we have stood in judgment
of others for their food choices.
We know this does nothing to bring us together
but pushes us further apart by our ideologies
Humble us, make us aware of our shortsightedness
so we can join you at the table
So we can taste and see all you have for us.
AMEN
hymnTaste and See
[silence]
Just as Christ invited sinners to his table, so we are invited. Because on that night, Jesus took simple things: bread and wine.
He took bread: at its essence flour, yeast, water, and salt. And he broke it saying everytime you do this, every time you eat with your sisters and brothers, remember me.
And he took the juice of the vine: grapes, pressed and aged. And as he poured it he said every time you lift a cup with another, I am there. Remember me.
And in that he blessed us, he blessed simplicity, he blessed the gathering. Let us pray: God, you are present in the food. We focus on you, not on what we consume. We take your goodness, not simply bread and cup. Bless these things, and bless us as we draw closer to you. Amen.”
You are welcome to the table: no matter your doubt or your faith, no matter your religious affiliation, no matter the sins you have done or will do. All who repent of wrongdoing and wish to enter the path of rightness and justice and oneness with God may come forward, take a piece of bread, dip it and eat it.
Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
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