Reopening a Congregation Responsibly

              So big caveat, this is a thought experiment, if it helps you think about your congregation’s eventual reopening, good. All I’m doing is ruminating on the Governor’s plan, 3 Texas Synod’s recommendations, and the Wisconsin Council of Churches two resources. That said, there is a growing movement in my state of congregations saying, “Slow down!” For that matter, until there is a vaccine, the best we can hope for is to do church in a way that keeps our people healthy in mind, body, and soul.

              With all throat clearing, some initial thoughts.

RISK & NEED:

Firstly, I looked at my congregation’s mission statement:
“St. Stephen Lutheran: a worshiping community of the ELCA, where the faith is taught, connections are made, and people are cared for.”

              Here is a chart considering how essential and risky aspects of each of those parts are as currently practices (again, a little throat clearing, this is my assessment with some coffee and a little time… I might rate them differently tomorrow or even this evening)

MANAGING RISKS:

Worship (Services and Choir)
              Sunday services will need to be multiplied, modified, and remote.

Multiplied:
This is essential for Social Distancing, if families are going to stay 6 feet away from other families there need to be enough services that there is space in the building to do this safely. Also, in between worship services there will need to be heavy cleaning.

Modified:
-All mobile objects should be removed from the sanctuary so that there are less things that can be touched; extra surfaces spread the Virus.
-In person worship might need to be done outside for a time.
-Congregants have to be responsible that will mean: not attending worship if they are part of a vulnerable population, wearing masks in service for a good while, and entering and exiting in a sensible manner. IF THIS ISN’T POSSIBLE IT IS NOT YET TIME TO WORSHIP IN PERSON.
-Bulletins will have to be left on seats and not reused and the offering will have to be modified.
-For a time singing, the peace, and Holy Communion will have to be omitted from the service.

Remote:
-This is something the congregation has likely been doing. What will change is that we’ll need to create a hybrid in-person/on-line type of worship. Think of it as “Taped in front of a live studio audience.” The trick is that where there are people attending the taping there will be privacy concerns; how do you respect congregants privacy while also ensuring vulnerable congregants at home get to participate in worship?

Choir:
This is tough to say, but singing is one of the major ways the virus spreads. In fact, meeting as a choir can be deadly.

ELCA:  
              Continuing to tithe to the Synod is harder with irregular offerings, but not risky. Additionally, in our Synod the Bishop is going to provide worship this coming Sunday and our Synod Assembly has been moved to September. So, not too much risk.

Partners:          
              The ELCA prides ourselves on our Ecumenical and Interfaith bent, as well as our willingness to partner with a wide variety of secular organizations. On the other hand, the danger with partners is they have different values and ways of doing things. So, for example, one of my ecumenical partners let an infected person wander through our sanctuary. To them it was no big deal, to us it was.
              Creating boundaries in partnerships and clearly expressing values and operating procedures is always essential, but even more so when this is life and death stuff.

Taught:             
              We have seven different learning opportunities at St. Stephen. One of them are already running online via Zoom with another on the way that will be one part zoom and another part YouTube. Additionally, our outdoor Learning, Lawn chairs, and Lemonade Learning/Fellowship event fits social distancing fairly well, though perhaps it will need to be a Bring Your Own Lemonade (BYOL) event.
              But there are other Bible Studies that are less obvious how they’ll fit. For example, a bible study in the home of an at risk parishioner and another in a local pub. How does that work?

Connections:
              How do we do fellowship now? I think Coffee Hour is just out of the question for a good long time. For that matter, the majority of our fellowship groups are made up of people who are considered especially at risk of contracting the Virus… Perhaps it all has to go!

People:
              The Body of Christ in the world is made up of people, hubs of interconnected lives that are salt and light for the world, close contact and ongoing relationship, being gathered and sent, is innate to who we are… and that same interconnection transmits the virus; gathering and sending is sinister in this situation! We’re going to have to be so careful as we live out our call to care for people.

-This one tears me up, but I won’t be able to visit the homebound for a long time, and the hospitalized for even longer. These folk are incredibly susceptible to the Virus and I can not unintentionally infect someone, full stop. For that matter, our hospitals don’t have enough gowns and masks for the doctors and nurses, they sure as heck will not prioritize outsiders. All this means I gotta make phone calls, write letters, and encourage congregants to do the same.
-Our Pop-up Food Pantry has done a good job modifying how we are serving folk; we are bagging the food separately and depositing it in folk’s trunks. It isn’t ideal, but it is the best we can do; there are so many hungry folk in this time of quarantine.
-Then there is the council and committee end of things. I think we’ll continue to find out how many meetings could just be emails, and zooming when necessary, for a good long time.

A HYPOTHETICAL ROADMAP:

              Again, a little throat clearing, this is SO hypothetical, just playing out what people who are thinking through reopening for a living have said this might look like. Remember Clausewitz, “No plan survives first contact with the enemy.”

May 15^th (this is the date some people are talking about opening schools here) Phase 1 begins
In the World: 
              New Jersey has had two weeks of fewer new cases of the virus, two weeks of fewer people on ventilators, and two weeks of hospital beds opening up; in general we have more recoveries than new cases. The Governor “soft-opens” the state.

In the Church:
              In phase one everything is still done remotely, the only change is that the Director of Music, the Pastor, and a Videographer are present in the building to broadcast worship.

May 29^th A Relapse
In the World:  Everyone went out on Memorial Day, new cases of the virus spike.
In the Church: We go back to broadcasting at home.

June 15^th Phase 1 again

June 29^th Phase 2 Begins

In the World:  Phase one works this time. People are more cautious.

In the Church: We jump up to 3 worship services, one of which is broadcast remotely. Everyone who worships in person wears a mask. The service is projected on a screen, or typed on a simple one page throw away bulletin. Vulnerable populations are required to attend online. Offering is placed in a plate at the entrance to the sanctuary, we do not pass the peace, and we do not sing (though we do listen to an amazing prelude and postlude). Council experiments with a meeting where they socially distance in the sanctuary and wear masks. Everything else is still done remotely.

July 13^th Phase 3 Begins

In the World:  The initial scare after the first phase one must have really jolted people. Everyone is following protocols. Good times!

In the Church: At this point we collapse down to 2 in person services, one of which is broadcast remotely. The vulnerable are still required to attend online, not in person. The bulletin is a little more robust, peace now involves a reverent bow to your neighbor. A soloist sings. Everything else in worship is still like phase 2. Outdoor learning opportunities are offered along with ongoing online ones, the start of a hybrid system. Pastor begins to spend longer in the church office. Committees begin to meet in a socially distanced manner.

August 1^st Phase 4 Begins

In the World:  The Virus has fallen for 42 days straight! Things are getting back to “normal”.

In the Church: We go back down to one in person service and one remote service. Masks are removed, communion, though still modified for safety, is added back, limited singing returns. The choir begins to meet and practice. Bible study returns to “normal” though Pastor still offers YouTube summaries for the vulnerable. Pastor resumes office hours and begins to visit the homebound, and the hospitalized as appropriate.

October 1^st Corona Season begins

In the World:  We don’t yet have a vaccine. It turns out the Virus is like the Flu, and comes back seasonally.

In the Church: We know how to deal with this… we return to Shelter in place, or Phase one, depending on how severe everything is.

CONCLUSION:

              Look at your congregational values and the activities that flow from them. How essential are they? How Risky are they?

              Perhaps cease to do the less essential things, especially if they are risky. Find ways to minimize the risks of things that are essential. Move slowly, this isn’t flipping a switch, this is becoming something new, it takes time. Also, we’re the church, don’t move at the same pace as the world; it is in our DNA to care for people more than profit, that is not so for those making decisions about re-opening things.

              Be safe!

Emmaus, in four parts

1

              Look at them go, away from Jerusalem. They leave hope behind there, their heads hung in sorrow
—“Looking sad” such simple but expressive words

              Expressing their shock, “Can you believe it, the mystery of this Jesus was solved so unsatisfactory… solved in an unresolved, unsettling, unfortunate way. Who knew it would end like this—savior slain, disciples dispersed…
 Cleopas just walking away.

              But he doesn’t walk alone
—even as he leaves, they still walk like sent disciples
—two by two
—perhaps hoping, even as we hope
—that where two or three gather in his name he is there, even when we don’t see
—gathered around Christ even when we are dispersed and at a distance.

              That question, “Did you hear about what has happened?”
It echoes with us too
—how could he not have heard? It has broken our whole community, this disaster
—broken, it feels like, the whole world.

              Though they don’t see it, we don’t see it
—he is there among them,
here among us
—as we gather even when dispersed into a broken and hurting world.

2.

              The only one who hasn’t heard
—marvels Cleophas and his companion
—yet as they get into it, as they describe all those things that took place,
it becomes apparent he, this one who hasn’t heard,
has heard more listening to them, than they’d even spoke.
He recites it back to them in light of the enlightenment of scripture…

              Didn’t you know there would be suffering and glory—haven’t you read the sacred story,
filled with the very experience you are having right now,
mighty failures and
astonishing whispers from unexpected sources.

              Doesn’t scripture seem especially sacred on account of its speaking to our situation,
but with the added value of hindsight
—a retrospective to clarify our perspective?
Look back to Moses’ intercessions, Jeremiah’s pathos, Job’s struggles
—how did it all look in the moment, how does it look now,
now that we know God was there with them through it all…

              Friends, scripture is BOTH sung in the minor key of our present predicament,
AND also in glorious angelic songs of alleluia
—sung with us, so that we can sing right back.

              For you see,
there are multiple acts, multiple points to scripture, multiple entrances in,
many doors, so that we may find ourselves in it
—find a door into our present situation…

but also other doors that open up to the world God intends and has offered
and is being born from the very side of his son—in blood and water,
in lives lived as disciples and in the initial act of discipleship
—yes all that lived out because scripture has joined to us and we’re returning the favor.

              There it sits, hope denied,
so named, even as the Gospel events are retold to the one who IS Gospel and Word of God
—but it does not long sit, it sits up
—hope enfleshed before them, reciting the sacred words in such a way,
what was once cited as cold writ is now exciting, Enfleshed,
hope enfleshed,
their experience of hope denied, stabilized upon the Word of God.

              And know this, the word of God—Jesus Christ—is enfleshed for us as well!

3.

              Imagine their surprise when they realize who they’ve invited in.

              Only after
could they admit to each other what his words meant to them
before,
when he told them all that scripture had taught
—only at table,
could they admit to one another

"our hearts were on fire from his word!”

              On fire, beginning to trust what he said to be true…
their mystery that had ended in a horror show
—the death of their Lord,
the mystery made deeper still,
everything interpreted by an instant of revelation at table.

              Today though, this is the hard one…

              This table now,
so empty,
we are famished, are we not, family?
              But our hunger, perhaps,
perhaps it is a holy hunger, pointing to our present fear, yes
And also, pointing to the feast to come,
just as his sharing of the meal pointed them back to scripture,
to that experience of their hearts on fire!

4.

              And that fire, kindled by his words…
no…
first kindled by their meeting together and naming him who would be revealed
That fire
—it now blazes.

              The disciples join together again.

              Cleopas and Companion—their experience of Christ up close
in Emmaus
and the other disciples experience back
 in Jerusalem
—the two named and put together, fire meets fire,
reports reflect one another—a whole story and a whole community expand out!

              So, even as we now stay in peace
—let us prepare,
save our stories in the depths of ourselves, so that when we do meet again,
we may share with one another the fullness of what God has done as we were away
—that all the pieces of our communal puzzle
 might interlock and we shall see in full
what we only now see in part.

“Wait,” they say, and we will as well, “you too!?!”
Wait, you too?!?

Though Cleopas was “Leaving Cleopas” in the same way Thomas was “Doubting Thomas”
now he too, has returned!
Returned to say, as others had said, “Yeah, me too!”

              The stories pile up, as evidence from witnesses
—Mary,
Peter and the Beloved,
the other disciples,
Thomas,
Cleopas
—voices in dialogue, holy conversations getting a hold on this Easter thing
—voices in dialogue, but also in harmony with many Alleluias!

Christ is Risen, he is risen indeed, alleluia!

Preaching Resurrection in a Pandemic

Preaching Resurrection in a Pandemic

            How do we preach resurrection in a pandemic? How do you do Easter, when it is done alone, done remotely… how do you proclaim bodily resurrection via disembodied bandwidth and through screens?

            How do we preach Easter while millions are sick and tens of thousands are dead—whole countries crouched in their homes sheltering in place, anxiety all around—caught in a defining moment no one wanted to be in, carried away by a disease spreading without our consent or awareness?

            How do we preach resurrection in a pandemic?

            The same way we always have.

            Prayer

            Though it might seem more acute now—we’ve always been proclaiming life to a dying world. Pointing to Jesus Christ and the ongoing resurrection we have through him.
We’ve always been echoing the early morning words of Mary, “I have seen the Lord.”

            She, who had seen her savior, her lord, her friend, betrayed, denied, tortured, and publicly executed. Saw the hope of her life, die.
Yet she keeps coming back
—back to prepare the body,
back even when the other disciples go back home
—talks back to this man who seems to be the gardener.
First to receive the revelation—he is back!

She is first to hear the words of gospel,
first to be named by our resurrected teacher
—first to, in the face of death and despair, preach the good news, “I have seen the Lord!”

            Her words echoed by Peter—having denied his Lord, witnessed the stoning of Stephen and the scattering of the disciples,
preaches a new thing to Cornelius and his household
—promises a new resurrection life.
Preaches, “Peace by Jesus, who healed and did good, whom God raised from the dead on the third day.”

            Mary, echoed by John of Revelation fame, locked up on a small island, alone save his pen and his words, preached life in the face of death—that grand paradox, “The slain lamb is enthroned!”

            Another John—300 some years later—John Chrysostom, after losing a confrontation with religious and political forces of his day, he was sent into exile and eventually died there, and yet echoed Mary’s “I have seen the Lord” in his celebrated Pascal Homily, read Easter morning by many Eastern Christians to this very day, where he insisted, “Life reigns.”

            1000 years later, Mary’s words still echoed, echoed in the midst of a popular revolt and its violent suppression, echoed even in the heights of the bubonic plague, as Julian of Norwich preached, “All shall be well, all shall be well, and in all manner of things, all shall be well.”

            

            How do we preach resurrection in a pandemic? The same way we always have. Speaking life to death.

            And so too today, the ongoing echoes of Mary’s witness… “I have seen the Lord.”

            To the Pastors running around the sanctuary like Young Sheldon with red rubber gloves and unholstered Clorox spray bottles.
“All shall be well!”

            To the bread winners feeling the pinch, no the jabs, of jobs drying up and doing the best you can even when it isn’t enough, but has to be enough.

            To the essential workers, who just don’t want to be essential any more—bearing too much, stuck serving, sacrificing, for the sake of the whole, they hope.

“I have seen the Lord.”

            To the interns, short of breath, but unable to discover why because the country is short on tests.

            To the students and teachers jilted by online classes that just aren’t the same as what they signed up for.

            To the families stuck inside—scared and bored at the same time—the anxiety of invisible threats too much. 

“Peace by Jesus.”

            To those living alone in this time when social distancing easily becomes social isolation.

            To the couples married irregularly, their big day overshadowed, but not overcome, by the pandemic.

“I have seen the Lord.”

            To the sick patients cut off from those they love, for lack of a bedside telephone.

            To the children of elderly parents and family members lurching toward death’s door.

“The Slain Lamb is enthroned.”

            To the doctors, good doctors, quarantined and feeling guilty because they can only do their duty remotely.

            To those people who just can’t get social distancing down.

“I have seen the Lord.”

            To the infected and quarantined.

            To all who mourn, especially those whose dead are too far away to go see,

“Life reigns.”

            How do we preach resurrection in a pandemic?

            The same way we always have. 

we echo the testimony of Mary, “I have seen the Lord.”

            And that echo expands out into Alleluia! Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Sermon: Can These Bones Live?

Can these bones live?

         Here we are, the final Sunday of our Lenten sermon series where we’ve been, at least in a broad-brush stroke kind of way, re-telling the overarching story of the first Testament—Hebrew Scripture.

         Re-telling the first 11 chapters of Genesis, where the priests and poets away in Babylon, faced with strange stories of all sorts,
oppressing, violent, enslaving, arrogant, exclusive, stories…
told better stories, truer to the God who continued to be faithful to them, stories that allowed them to survive and to continue to trust in God.
Stories of liberation, kindness and courage, peace, humility, and inclusion.

         Retelling the tales of the Patriarchs and matriarchs,
the dysfunctional family who God makes a promise to,
who God blessed, to be a blessing to others.

         Retelling, re-membering, Moses,
 the Mediator between God and the people.

         Retelling the sordid-sacred history of the Kings of Israel and Judah
—how in the eyes of God everything looks different.

         Retelling, finally, today,
the prophets and their revelation of judgment, lament, and hope.

Prayer

         We left the story of Hebrew Scripture with the centralization of worship & leadership in Jerusalem,
the Kingdom splitting,
the North’s dispersion by Assyria,
and eventually the Southern Kingdom’s exile in Babylon.

         The exile, an event that looms so large that it permanently altered the imagination of God’s people.
The Babylonians destroyed the temple—God’s house!
What now?
For a WHOLE generation all those who could read and write were taken away to Babylon and those who remained in the land were colonized and sorely abused.

         Yet, from this time of terror and uncertainty, there came an era of ferment,
a great outpouring of Holy Writ
—the joining of the traditions of God’s people up to this point
—scripture itself
—Hebrew Bible itself.
After all, when everyone who can read and write is stuck in one place with nothing to do but long for that which is absent…
Folk singing songs to one another like the 137’s Psalm:
“By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion…
How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land?
If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill.
May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you,
if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy.”
         When you get people of such passion and pathos gathered together,
surely God is going to do something! …………
(perhaps there is a lesson here for us, as we dwell in our little exiles?)

         And one such strain of imagination and interpretation of the exile, was that of the prophets. The prophets who preached Judgment, lament, and hope.

Judgment:

         “You all have broken the covenant with God
—that promise that even that trickster Jacob couldn’t break…
Your injustice and idolatry, your wanton and wayward ways… your abandonment of God has made God abandon you.”

Lament:

         “Look at the beautiful city, once so full of people—now she sits alone, she weeps bitterly at night, no lover to comfort her, all her friends… enemies.”

Hope:

         Have you read Jeremiah 30 or Isaiah 40?

         “Comfort O’ comfort my people… I hear the screams of panic, the day that is awful beyond words, but you shall be delivered! Your shackles shall be smashed, you prisoners shall be freed!”

         Yes, the prophets with their judgment, lament, and hope
—God’s gift to them in an impossible, incomprehensible, time…

         Perhaps, none were more effected by the horror of the Exile, than Ezekiel...

Poor Ezekiel—born in times of prosperity—only to see his people’s continual decline.

Poor Ezekiel—witness to the siege & slaughter of Jerusalem.

Poor Ezekiel—taken as a ransom, kidnapped, with the royal family and the priestly houses and brought to Babylon.

Poor Ezekiel—who witnessed his wife’s death, and used his method of grieving as an example to the people
—"stiff upper lip all!”

Ezekiel who warned the people with signs—Holy bug-out-bags and burnt facial hair.

Ezekiel who knew God as a spurned lover, as well as a mama lion caring for her cubs.

Ezekiel who castigated the people as price gougers and murderers, idolaters and adulterers.

         Ezekiel, who when he heard of the temple’s destruction, received a vision of God’s throne like none had seen before him,
the throne burst forth from the temple
—God’s glory following after the people as they were taken away into exile
—even there they were not abandoned!

         Ezekiel, faced with the people dispersed by death and by distance, was asked a challenging question:

         “Can these bones live?”

         Plucked up by the hand of God and placed at the scene of the slaughter
—those killed by the Babylonians, the wrecked remains of his nation
—mass graves.

         “Can these bones live?”

         Dusty remains of aunts and uncles
—his own wife even,
all picked clean by birds and by time,
the decades since they were first separated.

         “Can these bones live?”

         They were so dry!

         “Can these bones live?”

         He spoke to them,
spoke the horror he had held in, so silently, so long,
speaking those things he never got to say,
spoke of the loss and the void in his heart!

         “Can these bones live?”

         They rattled and gathered together
—united as one again,
bone to bone,
muscle to muscle,
tendon, flesh, skin, all together…

         “Can these bones live?”

         There they were, the very people of God before him
—standing their, inanimate, un-animated, without spirit!

         “Can these bones live?”

         There they all stood, exiles and the exhumed, one in the same
—the wholesome, holy, spark of life snuffed out by sorrow,
standing, yes, but cut off from the breath of God.
The survivors as well as the slaughtered, tired and lifeless.

         Then there was a breath! There was Spirit!

         “Can these bones live?”

         Yes.

         Yes!

         The whole people of God, called out of the grave, united again,
just as spirit and skin and tendons and muscles and bones united again
—they too, no longer cut off!
The people shall return!
The exile shall end!

         

         And, not them alone.

         Ezekiel saw again the throne of God, hovering in the sky
saw it again, this time returning, holiness had been torn from the people, the temple was abandoned… but the glory of God, God’s fullness, Ezekiel saw, flying back, returning!

Because these bones live!

Amen

Free Books!

Hey all, your friendly neighborhood author, Chris Halverson, here.

There is a plague our there… everyone is stuck inside with nothin' to do but read… so, starting tomorrow (the 23^rd) I’ve made all my books on kindle free to download for the next five days.

Richardless? Free!

Silicon Soul? Free!

The Chaplain’s Cat? Free! (Yes, I am Harry Stoneguard)

An Uncomfortable Bit of Rope? Free!

Christopher’s Contemporary Catechism? Free!

Nine Sermons from LTSP class of 2011? Free!

Enjoy!

In the Eyes of God

As you may remember, for these 5 Sundays of Lent, we’re going to, at least in a broad-brush stroke kind of way, re-tell the overarching story of the first Testament—Hebrew Scripture.

         Where last we left, the people were re-living exodus after exodus
—like some family system that re-plays intergenerational trauma, reacting to things without even knowing the thing is a thing
—the grandfather eats sour grapes, the granddaughter’s teeth are set on edge… 

(I imagine, when this is all over, and even when we’re a couple of generations removed…
 we’ll still have children washing their hands to the theme song of the Golden Girls,
people will be shamed for buying too much Toilet Paper even then,
and hand shaking will be seen as socially unacceptable
—these things stick with a people, we need to be careful about the habits we develop in this time of distress, it’ll hang with us and our children and children’s children)…
In the case of the Hebrews, they would:
forget God,
be defeated,
cry out to God,
and God would send a Judge who would unite the tribes
—a mini-Moses to deliver them… over and over again and again, this pattern.

         And this goes on until the Judge/Prophet Samuel
—he goes through the same Judge cycle with the people,
and then his sons, unjust men that they were, seek to claim his mantle, to become the new Judges over the people… and the people respond by crying out for a king…

         “Make us like every other nation, give us a stable leader who will cut through the uncertainty…”

         Samuel is wroth, he harangues the people:
“You want a king? I’ll show you a king!
They’ll take your young men and conscript them as soldiers, they’ll take a second tithe from you—you’ll give 10% to God and an additional 10% to the King, so that they’ll have fancy courts and all the trappings of the monarchy…”

         And then, strangely, God steps in and says, “Chill… it might feel like they’re rejecting you Samuel, but in fact they’re rejecting me… and yes, they’ll eventually cry out against their king in the same way they used to cry out against their enemies… but that’s how it’ll be.”

         And so began the Israelite experiment in Monarchy. They choose, the first time out, with their eyes, chose in the way humans tend to choose, they chose the biggest tallest man around—Saul!

Let us pray…

         So Samuel anoints Saul
—that is, sets him aside for a particular task
—and then Saul defeats the threats at hand… and things go well, until Saul keeps back some spoils of war and refuses to execute a fellow king—a professional courtesy I suppose…

         And that is where we find Samuel in today’s reading
—as we read of his search for a new King, reluctantly looking at brother after brother, “Ohh, this one is tall too, he’ll do… but no…”
Until the little shepherd David comes along…
God sees something different in him, God sees with eyes unlike those of mortals,
So Samuel secretly anoints him King… even as there is still a king in Israel, Saul.

         Saul, whose house David joins,
Saul who stays back as David defeats Goliath,
Saul whose son and daughter both fall in love with David…
Saul’s story fast becomes one of decline, as David’s story becomes one of flourishing.

         And eventually David is cast out of Saul’s court and exiled from his country
—but continues to rise, even as he joins the ranks of Israel’s enemies
—and then turns on them and becomes King of Israel, anointed a second time, this time in public…
anointed even as he laments the death of Saul’s house
—laments the one whom his heart loved, Saul’s son Jonathan.

         And the northern and southern tribes question if he should be king of the north or the south—and David responds, “Why not both.” And is anointed a third time!

         And David proceeds to centralize power, both religious and political, in Jerusalem, a strange capital in neutral tribal territory
(not unlike our District of Colombia, which isn’t attached to any state).
And God returns the favor, centralizing the throne in the family of David, promising it to them forever…
no more moving the monarchy from family to family… 

         After this, David declines just as Saul did,
there is the infamous rape of Bathsheba and the plague that followed,
the brutal infighting between his 19 sons,
Amnon’s rape of Tamar
and the death of David’s favorite son Absalom
—all this ending with David again lamenting…
David, a king anointed and filled with sorrow…
Anointing and lamenting…

         He is followed by Bathsheba’s son Solomon… his mother gained him the crown by “reminding” an Elderly and confused David of an oath he’d never made
—this unuttered oath was to establish Solomon as King instead of his older brothers… and so it was,
Solomon, the wise—famed for his judgments that touched on the essence of every case at hand
—Solomon the builder, of public works and temples
—building using slave labor, just as the Pharaoh of Moses’ era had… its what Kings do, as Samuel rightly warned…

         Solomon known for his 1,000 wives, and by his end, his many gods….

         And after this, the Kingdom splits
—for Solomon’s son embraced all the worst aspects of Samuel’s prophecy about the hardships of Kingship.
—10 tribes go north, the Kingdom of Israel…
2 tribes—go south, sticking with David’s heirs, the Kingdom of Judah… 

and Judah and Israel parallel one another
—sometimes allies sometimes at odds, even at war,
paralleling one another for two centuries until Israel is overthrown, the 10 tribes dispersed by the Assyrians… followed 135 years later by the overthrow of Judah by the Babylonians.

         Thus ended the history of the monarchy….

         And so what, we might ask, shuttered away in our homes.

- As I mentioned at the start
—generational trauma is a thing. We as a nation, in this moment that is truly frightening, we need to be careful what we make normal
—it might stick with us for a long time,
let us meet every challenge with a kindness that later generations will long remember and emulate.

-There is also just the grand length of history, because we’re in the middle of it, we won’t see our place in it rightly,
but there will be a time when people look back and write of this and make sense of the scope of it all.
If you ever feel especially anxious, try writing a letter to yourself from the future, when this is all over…

-Also, there is an adaptability to human life and our life with God
—Judges/Kings,
worshipping at the Shrines of Abraham and Isaac, or only in Jerusalem…
There are consequences to all of it—trade offs, just as we experience today displaced from physical worship, but never an abandonment by God.

-Finally, as all the scriptures today make plain, things looking different to God, 
the little shepherd boy, a better king…
in our gospel reading
—(John 9, read it when you get a chance), the blind man is the only one who can really see…
This is always God’s story
—God in the last place we’d think to look
—fishermen not philosophers, on a donkey not a war horse, cross not throne…
in this time, let us look with eyes from below, so that we might see like God above.
Amen.

Noon Prayer: Testing Facebook Live

Blessed to be a blessing

Blessed to be a blessing

         For these 5 Sundays of Lent, we’re going to, at least in a broad-brush stroke kind of way, tell the overarching story of the first Testament
—Hebrew Scripture.

         As I said last week, the first 11 chapters of Genesis (the History before History) are pulling we the reader to chapter twelve, pulling us to the promises of God made to Abraham and his family…

         God promises them Land, Descendants, and Prosperity…

         If an economist was to describe these blessings, they might call it “Land, Labor, and Capital.”

         Or, if a therapist was describing them, they might call ‘em “the cause and ground of bad behavior and maladaptive family system dynamics.”

         What I’m saying is, while God gives these gifts to Abraham and his kin-folk to be a blessing
—in fact, the whole underlying point is that God blesses them to be a blessing to others—declaring the world good through them, a new act of creation
—yet things fall apart rather quickly…

         This is as good a time as any to remind you all that just because you find something in the Bible, doesn’t mean it is to be emulated, doesn’t mean the thing is good or right… sometimes bad examples are more instructive than good examples!

         While scripture tells a better story about God and God’s intentions for the world, as we looked at last week, it still is decidedly realistic about the human condition.

         I remember in 4^th grade when all the Church of the Nazarene children were describing the bible to me as having God’s perfect plan and being filled with nothing but uplifting stories
—I sat down and started to read it cover to cover—got about a third of the way through the book of Numbers and was so scandalized I had to stop!

         You get all these moralizers complaining about rap music and video games, Hollywood and half-time shows
—they don’t hold a candle to this family we follow in Genesis, Abraham and his kin… it’s got everything: sex, Violence, incest, sibling rivalries, and murderous fathers—this is Game of Thrones level stuff! All you need is dragons and ice zombies!

         But Genesis is ultimately about God’s promise
—I bless you so that you might be a blessing—this promise we read here in chapter 12—God’s promises, and o’ so human responses…

-With Abraham and his extended family there is an attempt at faithfulness—an opening negotiation of relationship with this God…

-With Jacob we get a trickster who constantly tests the promises of God—what would it take to break what God has offered my family? Truly an unfaithful response.

-Then, there is Joseph—God is continually faithful, even in the cruelest times, ever faithful—in Joseph’s story we see the promise redeemed.

Abraham’s attempt, Jacob’s testing, Joseph’s redemption. That is the story of God’s promise, blessed to be a blessing.

Prayer

         Abraham is the first to hear God’s promise and receive God’s blessing. Land, Family, Prosperity…

         He goes, immediately!
—and I don’t think most of us can truly understand what he is giving up
—he is willingly becoming a Sojourner, no longer under the house and protection of his extended family
—there is such risk in this, and yet immediately he sets off
—what faith, what trust, truly a courageous and good response to God’s promise…

         Yet he sets off, and ends up in Egypt—he takes a detour…
you see, this becomes the see-saw relationship between he and God
—Abraham endangers the blessing
and God heightens the promise.

-He leaves the promised land—God reminds him of his blessing.

-He decides his nephew Lot (God help us) will be his heir, then his servant Eliazar of Damascus will be his heir, not whoever God has in mind—God reminds him of his blessing.

-Abraham rapes Hagar and makes their child Ishmael his son and heir—God reminds him of his blessing

-God shows up and promises a son—Sarah, Abraham’s wife, laughs. God reminds him of his blessing.

-Eventually they have a son, Isaac—and the next thing you know, Abraham attempts to take the life of his first son, Ishmael and his mother Hagar… God sees what an evil thing Abraham has done to her and her family and expands the blessing, blessing Hagar and her son Ishmael.
-Then Abraham tries to take his second son, Isaac’s, life! Such a scary action that it kill’s Sarah…

         Then you have Isaac—he’s passive the whole time
—I swear whatever Abraham ended up doing on the mount of sacrifice never really left Isaac… All he is able to do is re-digs some wells his father had neglected, marries Rebecca, and then they plays favorites with their two sons.

         Their two sons, Esau and Jacob…
Jacob, who steals the blessing of prosperity by trick, who ruins every familial relationship he runs across, and who is driven out of the land because of his trickster nature—Prosperity, Family, Land—all won and lost based on his unfaithfulness, yet still left standing on the basis of God’s promise.
In fact, God gives Jacob a new name, Israel, and with that new name a new claim to the promise.

         Then, finally, we reach the story of Jacob/Israel’s son Joseph, who awkwardly
—arrogantly even
—describes to his family how the blessing is his
—the story, too, of his brothers leaving him to die in a well and telling a lie to their father about his death
His brothers go on to commit genocide on account of a Romeo and Juliet type situation between their sister and a local guy
…the story of Joseph’s continual humiliation and rise
—sold into slavery, blessed.
Imprisoned, blessed.
Forced to perform the impossible for Pharaoh, blessed.

         Eventually things work out such that he gets to see his family again, even his dying father, Jacob—they are able to reconcile, they all are blessed on account of him…
In fact, Genesis ends with Jacob relinquishing a final blessing of prosperity to his children, the family all together at Jacob’s deathbed, the family buying a plot of land—owning land in the promised land for the first time—prosperity, family, land…

         BUT

         At the same time,
-Their prosperity is attached to Pharaoh’s good pleasure.
-Their family is together free… but along the way Joseph created the institution of debt-slavery, which will come back to bite their descendants in the book of Exodus…
-and while there is a tomb in the promised land, the people are all in Egypt.

         God’s promise is that his people are blessed to be a blessing—often poorly done,   yet even in this messiness…
-Abraham the Sojourner finds a home,
the barren Sarah a child,
Hagar and Ishmael, cast away yet land in God’s loving arms, blessed as well.

-Jacob the trickster with a bad reputation given a good name!

-Joseph an arrogant dreamer who is humbled.
A truly messed up family, given a chance to forgive each other before their father dies. All the while, Blessed to be a blessing. 

Amen.

Telling a Truer Story

Telling a Truer Story

         In today’s Gospel we read about two competing stories, the devil’s “If/Then” story and Jesus’, “Because/therefore” story.

         The devil’s story he is telling Jesus is that Jesus has to earn his Sonship—that Jesus’ Heavenly Father will only acknowledge that relationship if…

         If you transform stones to bread, then you are God’s son…

         if you temp angels by throwing yourself off a high point, then I will be your Father,

         and if you conquer the world, by whatever means necessary—even worshipping the devil—then my inheritance is yours!
If/then.

         But Jesus tells another story—Jesus tells a better story in Matthew’s Gospel—because/therefore…

because his is the Son of God, therefore he will feed the 5,000, the 4,000, and the 12 at table—feed them with the bread of life.

         Because he is God’s beloved son, therefore he will reach the heights by preaching the sermon on the mount, be transformed on the mount of transfiguration, and die on mount Calvary.

         Because he is God’s heir, therefore he will teach and tell parables about his Kingdom, and it shall have no end!

         

         And here’s the thing—Jesus isn’t the first to tell a better story
—in fact God’s people have been telling a better story from the beginning.

         In these five Sundays of Lent, we’re going to, at least in a broad-brush stroke kind of way, tell the overarching story of the first Testament—Hebrew Scripture. Tell of:
-the History Before History,
-God’s calling to the Patriarchs and Matriarchs,
-God’s ongoing provision to his people during their wilderness wanderings,
-the drama of the Kingly era,
-and finally the prophetic hope the people held onto even in Exile in Babylon.

         Not the whole story, for sure, but a thread that is intimately woven into the story of Jesus, whose death and resurrection we prepare for.

Prayer

         The first 11 chapters of Genesis are the history before history, the prologue, the set up
—the weight of the book is on Abraham and those who come after him, that’s the focus… but the poets and priests putting together the story of God
—these faithful folk telling a better story,
telling a truer story
—were captive together in Babylon, far from home,
with nothing but a pen and their God to get them through in the hostile and bitter land…
a land where they were constantly bombarded, saturated, constantly told tales that were, “if/then” tales.

1.      “In the beginning there was grave violence among the gods, the world was created and is sustained by subjugation and terror, tearing a monster to piece is the only way this world exists at all…
if we continue conquering, subjugating all before us,
then some stability and peace may be bought with blood and sustained upon the back of those not like us.”

         To this the Hebrews responded, “No! There is a better story! God created with a word, no struggle, only goodness!
Because God created the world and declared it good,
Therefore, there is enough, we are enough, we are blessed.”

2.      “The gods created humans as slaves, humans to work themselves to death producing sacrifice for the gods.
if we follow the practices of the gods and force those weaker than us to labor without rest
then we too are like gods, knowing good and evil.”

         To this the Hebrews replied (as we see in today’s reading), “No! There is a better story! God created a gentle world with limits to labor, and the joys of family and relationships. The world as it is, is off kilter on account of human hubris and disobedience—this isn’t as it should be.
Because God gave us a good garden and relationships,
Therefore, our oppressor’s evil practices are not good—they are fallen.

3.      “We Babylonians, because we live in cities, fed by unending agricultural achievement, are the height of humanity, all other peoples who do not submit to our urban empire are lost and hardly human. If you don’t believe it, look to our mighty towers, the Ziggurat, proof of our greatness!
If we impose our ways upon these backwards shepherds,
Then, the whole world will embrace our technological wonder, and be uplifted, or at least look up at our grand buildings, our architectural achievements.

         Again, the Hebrews respond, “No! Haven’t you heard, the first murder was predicated on this kind of thinking—Abel the shepherd was killed by his settled farmer brother Cain, who went on to founded the first city, and all of this eventually led to the towers of Babylon… oops, I mean the tower of babel…
Because, God’s blessing and ongoing faithful is what determines greatness and goodness,
Therefore, we can take or leave any particular human arrangement and assumptions about greatness and hold onto God’s blessing alone.

4.      “When humans rebelled against the gods they were all drowned, except for one particularly strong and crafty guy, Gilgamesh, who seduced a goddess to find the date at which the deluge would begin, and kept himself alive. When the flood was finished, the gods realized they would starve without we human slaves, so when Gilgamesh made a sacrifice, the gods swarmed the meal like flies, in fact their shimmering fly wings were the first rainbow!
If we impose our will upon others and are a particularly strong and crafty people,
Then, we are descendants of Gilgamesh and godlike, a unique people.”

         And one final time the Hebrews tell a truer tale, “No! God is not a god of violence, in fact, the rainbow signifies that, he has put away all violence! For that matter, Noah’s sons fill all the earth; ultimately we are all siblings, all one humanity.
Because, God always strives to stay with us, even in our unfaithfulness
Therefore, violence isn’t the way of the world and all the earth shall be blessed!”

         Faced with strange stories of all sorts, If/Then stories, oppressing, violent, enslaving, arrogant, exclusive, stories…
         God’s people told better stories,
stories truer to the God who continued to be faithful to them, stories that allowed them to survive and to continue to trust in God.
Because/therefore stories, stories of liberation, kindness and courage, peace, humility, and inclusion.

           I pray that we people of God too, faced with plenty of bad stories, if/then stories
tell better stories,
stories that describe the God who is always faithful, because/therefore stories.

Amen.