On Being Made Whole

A sermon manuscript for the Seventh Sunday after Epiphany - 

     focusing on Matthew 5:38-48.

“Be perfect.”

     Really? Wow.

          What a parting shot from Jesus today.

              “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

All the turning-the-other-cheek

     and loving-people-that-hate-you business

          would have been quite enough, thank you, Jesus.

But now we have perfection to contend with, too.

     I have a dysfunctional enough relationship 

          with perfection already, Jesus,

               without adding you into the mix…

     Maybe we could skip that bit and just move on…?

Tempting as it could be to gloss over 

     such a startlingly impossible instruction…

          this very message is what I want sit with today – 

               being perfect…

And, while I have no desire

     to explain away how strong this language is,

          I do want to break it open just a bit as we begin…

     because our ears hear the word ‘perfect’ a little differently

          than Jesus’ audience probably heard it…

               and, I think the difference in significant.

The idea of ‘perfection’ to them

     was at least partly (even mostly) 

          about ‘wholeness’ or ‘completion’…

               and while we might think of perfection as

                    a perfect 10 at the Olympics or an A+ on an exam,

                         as never saying the wrong thing 

                              or having a bad hair day…

     Jesus is surely talking about more than that.

And if we think of ‘perfection’ as ‘wholeness,’

     I think we can reflect back 

          on the rest of what Jesus has just said to us

               in a different way than we otherwise might.

Jesus wants us to be whole, to be in community, 

     to live within God’s amazing love –

          This is what Jesus has been talking about 

               for this whole chapter of Matthew –

God’s dream of wholeness and of love for God’s whole creation.

And this week Jesus just really digs in…

     and really takes us to that uncomfortable place

          between where we are and where we hope to be…

And he names some very specific 

     and very broken relationships…

          and then he talks about ways of responding to them

               that are, frankly, very hard to swallow…

                    and even sound downright foolish.

I mean, at first, the command to turn the other cheek,

     to give up both coat and cloak,

           and to walk the second mile….

sound a lot like instructions to just 

     put up with being taken advantage of…

          like directions for being to doormat…

               or at worst an outright passive victim of abuse.

And the Jesus I know…

     I just can’t believe he would want us to do that.

But, there is at least one other way to interpret these texts,

     one that is consistent with the dream of wholeness

          that I want so much to talk about…

               but it requires a bit of historical background.

So hopefully, 

     those of you who have heard this before will indulge me

          while I describe a little bit of the cultural landscape

               in which Jesus preached these words…

…and we may find it ends up sounding pretty familiar, after all….

First, there was a very divided social order in this culture

     and certain behaviors 

          that communicated the stational hierarchy in place.

To strike someone in the most insulting way possible,

     an attacker would use the back of her hand…

          indicating that the one she is striking is beneath her…

               unworthy even to be touched by her palm...

                    as if it might be dirtied…

Second, many members of the lower class were day laborers,

     essentially indentured servants,

          and debtors’ courts commonly convened

               and confiscated a garment

                    as collateral against debts owed to land owners…

               since clothes were among the few possessions 

                    a laborer might have.

Third, the empire had imposed itself upon this local culture 

     in very particular ways.

          One such way was a law that anyone living in territory

               occupied and controlled by Rome was required

          to carry the pack of a Roman soldier up to a mile if asked.

(See, for example, the Interpretation commentary on Matthew 

     by Douglas R.A. Hare, pages 55-57, 

          or Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way 

              by Walter Wink, pages 15-27.)

So…considering Jesus’ words knowing these things,

     we can now realize that he is not only saying

          that we should not ever meet violence with violence

               (and, it surely seems that he is saying that).

    He also seems to be suggesting active forms of resistance

          to the social structures that empowered and privileged

               a select few on the backs of many.

In this world, to turn your cheek to your assailant is to say,

      “You may strike me, but I am not going anywhere,

           and if you will strike me again, 

               you will do so with the palm of your hand,

                     and acknowledge that I am not beneath you.”

To hand over both coat and cloak 

     to the one you owe an unjust debt is to say,

          “You can force me to serve you, 

               but you will look at me standing here,

                    nearly naked, and you will acknowledge

                         that you are depriving a fellow human being 

                              of dignity for your own gain.”

To walk the second mile 

     with a soldier of the invading empire is to say,

          “You can force me to carry this pack, 

               but I am not a pack animal.

                    I am here on my own terms.”

And not only that…to carry the pack further than a mile

     (the maximum distance allowed by the law)

          would actually open up the solider to punishment

               under the same law 

                    by which he was forcing your service…

               because he had you carry the pack 

                    farther than he was allowed!

Now, isn’t that all just delicious?

     This is not passive acceptance of abuse 

          but active resistance to it!

     This sounds like Jesus talking tactics 

          about how to stick it to The Man!

Or so it seems…

      You see, I was so delighted by these verses

          when I discovered this interpretation of them in college

                 that I sort of accidentally/on-purpose

                     forgot to keep reading what comes right after them.

     For me, 

          I can get so caught up 

               in my righteous indignation about injustice,

                    in my excitement about sticking it to The Man, 

                         that I can forget 2 pretty key things:

1) I’m part of the injustice, too. 

          Sometimes (maybe a lot of the time) I’m The Man.

               or I’m at least benefitting from unjust systems 

                    that are harming others…

2) We’re still talking about God’s dream of wholeness, 

          of unity, 

               of community...

      And there is no room for an “us versus them” attitude 

          in that dream…

      not even “me (or us) versus The Man”…

The remainder of Jesus’ speech about loving our enemies

     and praying for those who cause us pain…

          this is where the rubber really meets the road, I think.

Because, this is where he makes it clear 

     that the discipline of love undergirds

          every true justice-seeking act that is ever done…

               because without love we would never take such risks…

To sit at those lunch counters during the civil right movement,

     to refuse to speak on National Day of Silence, 

         to walk in a picket line…

     to turn the other cheek, to stand in front of a fire hose,

         to sit on the capitol steps, 

              to hand over the clothing on your back…

     These are all acts of extreme vulnerability…

In fact, they defy our very instincts.

     When we meet open conflict, violence, or opposition,

               every bit of us, from our guts to our toes screams at us

                    to either put up our fists and call up our fighting words

                         or to find the closest exit and make our retreat.

          Fight or flight. It’s how we’re wired.

And the only way to truly resist the way Jesus describes…

     The only way to neither fight nor flee…

          The only way to turn the other cheek to your enemy…

               is out of love…

      (Surely…you can be angry at the same time…

            We all know that it is possible to be angry at someone

                  and love them all at once, right?)

    

But the only way to stand in that impossible ground 

     between fighting and fleeing

          is to care enough about the one who strikes you to say,

               “No. This is not the way it should be. 

                    This is not who we are.

                         We were not made to be divided.

                              God has a different dream for our life together.”

To stand in the space 

     between fighting and fleeing from the adversary

          is to stand in the only space 
               where God’s dream is realized…

                    by staying painfully close and exposed 

                         to that which we fear…

                              with faith that it can be transformed…

                                   and made whole.

And we need to be honest: this is hard…even impossible…to do.

     What Jesus teaches about how the kingdom is to be born 

          into this broken world,

               is…so…hard...

                    and we hunger for it so deeply.

Jesus has laid out the path for how the kingdom will come,

          for what the fulfillment of the law 

               and dream of God look like…

 Jesus has even….astonishingly…

     invited us to be part of that hard work…

          even though we know 

               that we are not actually strong enough on our own

                    to stand in that impossible place.

     We know that we cannot make ourselves whole.

But we also find out that we don’t have to.

    Being whole 

          is never something Jesus meant us to do or be alone.

              Because the path to the kingdom

                   that Jesus has just laid out before us,

                        is the very path he himself is about to walk:

          He will turn his cheek to his beloved betrayer…

               whose kiss will bruise him more than any fist ever could.

         He will stand before a court

               and turn his accusers words back around 

                    to convict them…

                        shaming them not with his nakedness 

                              but with their garment of mockery…

                                   a king’s robe on a condemned peasant…

         He will walk the miles to the hill of Golgotha,

              and let the law do its worst.

         He will die in that impossible place

               between where we are and where we hope to be…

And…he will rise…and us with him…

     And death, division, and social station,

           ridicule, hatred and wounding…

               All will be answered in that impossible place

                    with a life that neither fights nor flees,

                         but loves in the face of every adversity…..

               And through his life and love we are all transformed

                    into the whole and perfect children of the kingdom

                         that we so deeply hunger to be.

Amen.

   

The Careless Use of a Powerful Metaphor

Since being invited by Dr. Craig Satterlee (homiletics professor at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago) to think more critically about certain metaphors that we tend to throw into our worship life as liberally as my fellow Midwesterners and I throw cream of mushroom soup into casseroles, I have become very sensitive to them - most particularly the metaphor of blindness and sight.

This coming week both our Old Testament and Gospel lectionary texts speak of sight very literally. Some weeks the texts themselves are much more metaphorical. Often, those of us who preach interpret the language metaphorically whether the texts do or not. While I don't think we necessarily need to stop doing this entirely, I am convinced that we need to be doing it much more carefully.

Dr. Satterlee's own sensitivities and concerns, as a careful liturgical theologian and as one who is blind, have always struck a deep chord in me, because I have been fully blind in my left eye since before I was two years old. And while I have often choked on the beloved line of Amazing Grace - "I was blind, but now I see" - I had never thought much about others in worship whose experiences are similar to mine (and often tremendously more challenging) until coming to seminary.

There are many potentially problematic dimensions to the practice of using sense language metaphorically. Most common, perhaps, is the interpretation of biblical healing stories and use of sensory limitations as metaphors for sin. While those of us who experience a literal physical limitation can surely understand metaphor as metaphor - there is still something hurtful in hearing a leader talk about how we are "blinded by selfishness" or in coming upon a line of a hymn that calls for the day when "hatred and blindness will be no more," as if the two really belong in the same category of the world's ailments and brokenness. (Dr. Satterlee reflects powerfully on this particular hymn, "We Are Called," in his book When God Speaks Through Worship.)

To narrow the focus a bit - there is one particular dimension of this problem that I have been pondering and upon which this post is meant to focus. I don't mean to suggest that other dimensions of the problem are less important. It just happens that many scholars far more qualified than I have already addressed many of the implications of the use of sense language in liturgy and in the interpretation of healing stories in preaching and teaching.

As a result of my recent ponderings, I would like to assert that one huge problem with the use of the metaphor of blindness and sight, in particular, stems from this: Those who have decided how the metaphor of blindness has been used have almost surely been fully sighted individuals...because they so often use it wrong.

To begin with, consider how the blindness/sight metaphor is often paired with darkness/light language (see hymn texts like "Be Thou My Vision," "Gather Us In,"and "I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light"...and various biblical texts, especially those connected to the Johannine community). Blindness is in almost no way equivalent to darkness in my experience. Full blindness, which I experience in part, is not the experience of darkness but of visual nothingness, which is entirely different - though very hard to explain. (The closest I have come to successfully explaining the difference is when I remind my friends as they walk around with one eye closed to approximate my experience of limited depth perception, it is not the same...because with one eye closed they are still looking at the back of their eyelid.)

Furthermore, for others who live with limited vision, it seems to me that a challenge is often (though surely not always) a matter of clarity or acuity rather than "light." The resolution of images, their distinguishability, is often what makes navigating a visual world challenging. (I realize I am making some assumptions here regarding something I do not experience directly. While I know this to be true of Dr. Satterlee's experience, I hope those who have different visual experiences will feel free to correct me if I am mistaken.)

And, finally, for many who experience blindness, light is actually an enemy to sight and not a friend - especially sunlight, which is so bright that it may cause pain or even further damage visual capacity. (Again, I owe this observation to Dr. Satterlee.)

Yes, it is true that without visual sight, a guiding light cannot be followed. And yes, perhaps sometimes blindness and sight can be a helpful metaphor for spiritual matters. But the metaphor is used so often and so carelessly, that I believe it is almost bankrupt.

For example, it is one thing to say: "God, grant us sight that we might see your will for our lives even when our selfishness and the temptations of this world blind us" when we could just as easily say: "God, guide us in your pathway. Nourish us in your love. Prune away the fruits of our selfishness so that we might bear the fruit of your kingdom." Both are metaphors with biblical precedent. But, the first makes me feel like my physical reality is corollary to sin, and I suspect that fully sighted people hardly hear the metaphor at all, because it lacks any real nuance. The latter may lack some nuance, as well, but at least it might avoid marginalizing anyone.

I hesitate to even try to give an example of how the metaphor of blindness might be used well...but for the sake of discussion, I'll attempt it:

"There is a truth...a deep beauty we crave...that seems to lie behind a veil. We sense it but lack the ability to fully perceive it, to truly have communion with the one for whom we long. This separation we feel is painful, even more so because it is beyond our power to change. Just as I cannot change the way I see or hear the world, neither can I change my inability to reach beyond that veil. But, this is the amazing truth of the Love behind the veil. It is perfect and safe from all the wounds of this world if it stays there...but it does not. God comes into the wounds and limitations of our life. Jesus comes to be human, to be hurt, to be limited, to love us, and to die. He takes on all our limitation - losing all his capacity to walk and see and hear and feel as he breathes his last on the cross. And in the first breath of his resurrected life, we are born into the promise that whatever limits us in this life is not what defines us, and does not finally claim us. Through Christ there is no separation between you and the love and life for which you hunger anymore. Love has come. For you."

It seems to me that thoughtful speech pruned of careless cliches would go far in creating a loving space where all people are valued and fully welcomed. I encourage you to pay careful attention sometime, if you haven't already done so, to how many times sense language is used during a Sunday liturgy. I know that, as I have become more conscious of this issue, I have been amazed by what I've noticed - even (and sometimes especially) in my own choice of words.

Finally, as we vet our liturgy, hymnody and our own language, it might behoove us to be in conversation with those who experience blindness, deafness or limited mobility. Who could better teach us whether our metaphor is helpful or even truthful than one who actually has experienced that which we use as the basis of metaphor? We might learn something astonishing about God in the process. These words we use have power - more than we know. They aren't just cream of mushroom soup. I, for one, will strive to use them with tender care, so all might be encouraged to tenderly care for one another and speak the precious truth of God's great love.

An Initial Reflection: Being Who We Are

It wasn't enough that I subscribed to twitter a week ago, it seems. I am all too quickly taking yet another step into this century. Welcome to my blog.


This may end up being primarily a forum for posting sermon manuscripts; it may become more. We'll see how the plot unfolds. I thank those who have encouraged me to share my words. I don't tend to presume that what I write needs to be broadcast beyond the Sunday assembly which is the primary forum for my creative work (well...not really mine...you know). But maybe this means of sharing and reflecting together will be valuable, too. If you think so, I welcome you into reflection with me. If you think not, I hope you will not think me too presumptuous as you go about your life and work without stopping to read.


Following is my sermon manuscript for today: February 6, 2011 - the 5th Sunday after Epiphany, Year A. The message is drawn from Isaiah 58:1-12 and Matthew 5:13-20. 


Almost 5 years ago, in 2007, when I was living in Minneapolis,

     I came home from work one day

          to hear that the interstate highway bridge just north of downtown

     had crumbled into the Mississippi River in a matter of 60 seconds.

For hours I couldn’t even envision exactly where the bridge had been,

     not because I didn’t know the area –

          I worked less than a mile away –

               but because it was so fixed in my mind

          as a permanent piece of the city’s landscape

               that I couldn’t imagine the landscape without it.

It was a catastrophic moment that changed many lives 
     and my home city forever.

          And, as much as I like to think of myself as a rational person,

              I have had a fear of driving on bridges and overpasses ever since…

          which, incidentally, I recently learned,

                makes getting around Houston an exercise in sustained anxiety.

I just don’t trust that a bridge will stay under me and hold me up anymore…

     and the world has felt slightly less safe to me ever since that day.

This year, in 2011, a junior high girl named Julie

     living in the north suburbs of Chicago

          went to school the day after getting her hair cut…

               and she got shoved into the lockers in the hallway 
       by some classmates

          who decided she deserved to be the object of their ridicule

               because they thought her short haircut 
                    was a sign that she was a lesbian.

And so, she doesn’t trust that her classmates will accept her anymore…

     and the world has probably felt slightly less safe to her 
         ever since that day.

I’ve had other days like these, days whose scars I still carry.

     And I imagine you have, too:

          days that have taught us to fear and to hide.

We don’t trust the world.

     We don’t trust it to protect us,

          and we don’t trust it to accept us…

               because it hasn’t so many times in the past.

And, for those of us who are the church, 
     maybe it is important to confess and repent

           that we have sometimes been a place where,

                instead of safety and acceptance,

                     God’s children have just found more rejection and pain…

          and this is not God’s vision for our life together.

We hear what God’s vision for us is throughout our whole story of faith…

     from Genesis to Revelation…

          but particularly today from Isaiah and from Jesus.

We hear Isaiah declare that the pursuit of justice

     and freeing the oppressed is the work God chooses for us…

          It is the work that rightly flows out of our liturgy…

               the work of feeding and freeing a starving, enslaved world.

                    After all, we are gathered here to be fed, 
                         freed and transformed,

                    And so it makes perfect sense that we are sent out

                         as part of God’s work 
                              of feeding and transforming the whole world.

     As Pastor Mike said in his sermon last week:

          Liturgy needs justice, and justice needs liturgy.

               The two go hand in hand,

                    as we heard from Micah before and from Isaiah today.

And then in Matthew,

     Jesus declares to us that he is to be the completion and fulfillment

          of what God began so long ago in the story of Israel,

                beginning with the first breath of creation.

          Jesus is the continuation of God’s work of transforming the world,

                   not a departure from it, 
                         as some of his contemporaries seemed to think.

The law – God’s Torah – which he comes to fulfill

     is the very gift that God gave to Israel

          so her people might live in safety and joy,

               in a community of love and care.

It is hard for us to understand the word “law” this way sometimes.

     The law that Jesus comes to fulfill is not the kind of law we know best.

          It is not a punitive one that exists to demand adherence

               and dole out punishments for the lawbreakers.

A teacher of mine (Dr. Ralph Klein) somewhat whimsically calls the law

     God gave to ancient Israel a “playpen” for the children of God.

          It is as if God has said to the people,

               “Here…and here…and here…and here…

                    these are the boundaries in which you can live and thrive

                         and be safe and be loved…

                   I want you to flourish and have joy…

                        And this is where you will find it.

                             So do these things, and avoid these.”

And Jesus tells us that he is the completion of that gift and that promise.

     He is the one in which we all finally find our belonging

          and our acceptance and our peace.

     Even when we are not safe and accepted in the world,

           we have safety and acceptance in God.

And this vision of God for our life together comes with a call.

     We are called to do justice, yes…

          to be salt that seasons and enlivens the earth…

               to be light that shines out from the hilltops 
                    and signals safety for all.

But, we are not called to do this as a requirement 
     for living within God’s love…

like a citizenship test we must pass…
     or a pledge of allegiance we must take.

Listen again to what Jesus says to you, to each of us:

     “You are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world.”

He is not telling us what we must do to be a part of the kingdom of God.

     He is telling us who we already are, 
          who he has made and declared us to be.

               He is inviting us to be our truest selves.

This is hard to do, though,

     because we have spent so much time being afraid to be ourselves…

          because we are afraid of being rejected.

               We have so much practice hiding our true selves behind a veneer

                    of what we think people want us to be.

      We have been laughed at, yelled at, shoved into lockers, and ignored.

           And so we are afraid to be ourselves –

               because we think ourselves aren’t worth being.

Perhaps we can’t even believe Jesus

     when he tells us that we already are exactly who we aught to be.

          But that is the freedom offered in Christ’s Way:

               This is the truth we all need so much:

                    freedom from the fear that we aren’t accepted,

                        aren’t good enough, aren’t who we need to be.

We are. You are.

And Jesus welcomes you to be who you are.

     He welcomes us all to be who we already are – 
           light and salt for the world…

                bearers of the safety and love

                    for which those who live trapped in shame and fear

                         so desperately hunger.

And, Jesus welcomes us, also, I think,

     to bear that message again even to one another when fear and shame –

          whose roots are so deep – begin to take hold of us again.

God promises us that in this truth will be strong and nourished,

     like a well-watered garden,

          and ready for the work of the kingdom.

               We will be repairers of the breach.

                    Where the world’s bridges fall 
                         and people are separated and injured,

                              we will rebuild and reunite.

               We will be the city on a hill.

                    Where God’s children have felt rejected and afraid,

                         we will tell them they are beautiful and beloved.

               We will offer food to the hungry:
                    at the shelves of the food pantry

                         and in the shelter of church basements on freezing nights

                              and with our neighbors 
                                   when there are leftovers to share.

               We will begin more and more to be who we already are in Christ –

                   and through this we and the world are transformed.

This is what Jesus tells us:

     You are exactly who you are meant to be.

          You are safe within God’s love and light.

              You can tell and show others that they are, too.

                   You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

                        Let us go out, then, into the world and be who we are.

Amen.