Pokemon and Jesus

There are somethings I know way more about after becoming a parent than I ever would have guessed I would know about. And I'm not talking about how to change diapers or help with math homework. I'm taking about things like names of dinosaurs for every letter of the alphabet, the backstories of obscure Marvel superheroes or why the My Little Ponies each have a 'cutie mark' on their butt.

I also know a little something about Pokémon. Now, of all the kid pop-culture things that I know about, Pokémon is actually sort of low on the list. But I didn't know anything about it before kids. And as I was reflecting on the relationship between God and God's people this past week, my mind made a Pokémon connection.

When Mary receives the news that she is going to be the partner to God in bringing Jesus into the world, she proclaims God's favor. When Jesus announces the beginning of his ministry, he too proclaims God's favor. Quoting from the prophet Isaiah her says, "God has sent me to proclaim liberty to those held captive, recovery of sight to those who are blind, and release to those in prison - to proclaim the year of our God's favor."

The thing about being favored is, you might think that it's about getting lucky. And for sure, the people who are being release from captivity probably do feel pretty lucky. But really, the thing or person that's the favorite, is the thing that you keep going back to again and again. Your favorite shirt is the one that you're always happy to pull out of the clean laundry. Your favorite ice cream is your default because you know for sure you won't be disappointed. The teacher's pet (ie. favorite) is the one who always gets called on.

Here's the Pokémon connection. Pikachu is Ash's favorite. (Isn't he everyone's?) For those who aren't familiar, Ash is Pikachu's trainer. Each trainer works together with their Pokémon to battle with other trainers and their Pokémon. Even though Ash has others, Pikachu is the one he always calls on: "Pikachu," he famously declares, "I choose you!"

It's not just Mary and not just Jesus who are God's favored ones. They are part of a favored people and we too are each God's favorites. "I choose you!" God is saying to us even now. What is our response? Obviously not battling our beings with our phenomenal lightening powers. The clue is in Mary's song and Jesus' proclamation. Being God's favored ones means entering the training to bring release to the captive, food to the hungry, lifting up the lowly. Being God's favorite doesn't mean the easy life, but it does mean that God will continue to call on and choose us to be God's own.

All of this might just go to show that a pastor can bring anything back around to Jesus. But may you never see Pikachu the same way again.

Jesus Came to Live, Not to Die

I made my child cry this Easter when I acknowledged that the Easter Bunny does not exist. I'm not sure where he got the idea that the Easter Bunny would bring him Easter goodies. It has always been pretty clear that I am the one who prepares the Easter baskets, write the treasure hunt clues and hides the eggs in the back yard. But there we were, a crying kid who's asking me, if Easter isn't about the bunny and candy and baby chicks, what is it about?? I did scramble a little to explain.

I've been in conversations with a few people recently who have been confounded about how to explain what Easter means to the young children in their lives. They haven't wanted to replicate the harmful and violent stories of God making Jesus die sacrificially or even as an example of Jesus' great love for humanity. So many of us had it drilled into us: you're a sinner and Jesus died for your sins! But if it's not about that, then what is the death of Jesus about?

The most succinct way of responding is by reframing the idea altogether: Jesus didn't come to die, he came to live!

I've been impressed by the work of Traci Smith and her approach to faith formation with children and families, so I really appreciated her conversation with two other folks who have been reconsidering how we frame Jesus' death. She, Daneen Akers and Herb Montgomery talk about the cross in way that both rejects the violent and harmful understandings we may have been taught and distills it in a way can be understood by children.

My own distillation of their conversation is this:

• Stick to the story - Find a good children's book or bible that sticks to what the bible says or use the Bible itself. There's not much need to extemporize if you say: "This is the story that Easter celebrates," and then read or tell it. (I'll include some suggestions below)
• Acknowledge Jesus' death as execution - God didn't kill Jesus, people did; scared, angry people who were worried that his power might mean they wouldn't be powerful any more. God is never please when a person is harmed or killed.
• Speak the good news of new life - the power of the Gospel story is that God raised Jesus from the dead. That doesn't mean that those who we love who have died will live again, but it does mean that Jesus' story wasn't over. Jesus lived again to keep preaching about God's love and to send his disciples to share God's message of love, forgiveness and new beginnings.

The reason for the eggs and bunnies and flowers, I told my distraught child, is that all of those things show us about new life. Plants and the earth around us have been cold and dark and dead all winter. In spring, when plants are growing, and animals are being born, we remember the new life that Jesus experienced and that God's love brings us new life and new beginnings too. (I actually wasn't quite as eloquent as that, that's the gist.)

I think that an Easter that celebrates the newness of life, the power of God's love over the violence of the world can engender empathy for the pain and suffering of the world in a way that believing God required suffering does not. May we all understand ourselves to be loved and blessed by this God who brings life.

Books for telling the Easter story:

• Children of God Storybook Bible - Desmond Tutu
• Growing in God’s Love: A Storybook Bible - edited by Elizabeth Caldwell
• Jesus is Risen - Augostino Traini
• Miracle Man - John Hendrix
• This is the Mystery of Easter - Amelia Dress Richardson

For a more middle/high grade look at the theology of atonement through a non-violent lens, the profile of Herb Montgomery in Holy Troublemakers and Unconventional Saints sums up Herb's approach. (There are several other free profiles there as well, including Bayard Rustin and Gustavo Gutierrez.) And if you want to go even further down that rabbit hole, check out his talks on nonviolence and the cross, where he draws heavily on liberation and womanist theologians.

We voted! Now what?

One of the fascinating things about having the classroom in my living room has been the window into what teachers and students talk about and how teachers are building a classroom culture and community. It's also been a huge learning experience for me in pedagogy. How do you respond to questions? How do you encourage taking turns? How do affirm ideas and encourage critical thinking.

This week and last, I've been listening in on the Southshore kindergarteners talking about voting and the election. They started with the book Grace for President, in which Grace notices that there are no women in the row of pictures of presidents, decides to run for president of her class and then shows her leadership ability through her contributions to her school and community.

The kindergarteners were encouraged to notice in the words and pictures the kind of person Grace is, what good leadership looks like, how her words matched her actions. In subsequent days their class moved on to comparing real life candidates. First for Washington's 37th district and then for president. She presented points of the candidates platforms and then the children were invited to think about who they would vote for. I appreciate the respect that our schools teachers have for children's opinions and the way they encourage them to say more, ask questions and challenge each other - even in kindergarten.

Two years ago I wrote about voting and the election with annoyance. I was annoyed both because at the time I couldn't vote and because I was frustrated with what I felt was the implication that voting is the only way one can participate in democracy or enact change. My opinion has changed somewhat - at least a little and at least in part because I can vote now - but I stand by a few of the things I said then.

What has changed in 2020 is that, yes I can vote now but also there truly is much more at stake. What hasn't changed is my understanding how much more there is to engaging in change for justice than voting. I think this is a message particularly important for children and youth to hear. After all, they can't vote. And yet their voices are so important to our communities. Even kindergarteners have opinions about what's important. And they can march and make signs and write reps and get educated and post to social media.

The other thing that hasn't changed and that will never change is that nationhood is not what defines us as followers of Jesus. And it's our desire for a just peace is rooted in the Biblical call to justice. And that something that none of our kids aren't going to get in their classrooms, no matter how well they're being formed as citizens.

It's up to us as families and as a church family to tell the stories of Jesus and other biblical characters who interrupted for the sake of justice: Jesus' crossing boundaries to sit with the woman at the well and telling stories of good Samaritans. Peter sharing God's love with the Ethiopian eunuch. The prophets demanding justice that rolls like water. Whatever this week brings, our work as citizens and as disciples continues in our families and in our communities. May God bless us in this holy calling.

The Trans-ness of God

Every year as I prepare for Transfiguration Sunday I remember a couple of conversations that I had with then 3-year-old Naomi about the identity of God.  At the time, she told me she didn't like God because God is a boy.  But also that when she pictured God, she imagined a cloud.  I still sigh at how insidious the notion of maleness is to God's identity that even when you grow up in a home and attend a church that's pretty intentional about being neutral with names and pronouns, you get the picture that God is a "boy."  

I think of those conversations because they happened right around this time of year - Transfiguration Sunday - and because of how the vision of God as a cloud was so surprisingly right on the nose to the story of God's appearance to Jesus and the disciples, though Naomi had not heard the story before.  She came up with that on her own.

A decade ago, I explained God to Naomi as both boy and girl.  In my evolving understanding of gender I think I would shake the binary or either or and now say God is all and neither.  Or at least try to be a little more expansive. No one's gender needs to be one or the other and can even change.  Theresa Thorn does a great job of explaining the gender identity and fluidity in her picture book for children called It Feels Good To Be Yourself.  I wish I'd had her book when my child was making determinations about gender categories.

The Transfiguration is perfect story in which to dwell on the trans-ness of the Divine.  Not only does Jesus transfigure to a different and mysterious and brilliant form (maybe his true form?), even in his ministry writ large, he transgresses gender norms.  He is a tender healer, compassionate companion.  He is very close with women who are not his family members.  And in the Transfiguration story God's appearance is as a-gender light and cloud.

Not too long ago I prefaced a sermon by saying that I'd be using 'they/them' pronouns for God throughout.  Even though it still takes some practice, I feel pretty comfortable with using they and them as gender-neutral pronouns for people. But I am for some reason still having trouble in my own head with they and them for God.  Even though it makes so much sense biblically and theologically (God is one but also three, God's names imply an identity that is many-gendered and multi-faceted, God identifies themself as 'we' in Genesis 1).  I am chagrined to say that as much as I try to be intentional when I speak, 'He' still rolls off my brain more easily.

This passage calls on me - and all of us - to be trans-formed, transfigured, trans-aware.  Calls on me to be more active in the way I engage conversations about gender and pronouns for people and for God, so that we aren't left with the impression, by cultural default that God is a "boy". The transfiguration story is an opening.  Jesus' disciples are opened to a vision of the Divine.  Our eyes can be opened too.  Our image of the Divine surely informs our image of people, who are the carriers and reflection of God themself.

The Very Best Nativity Ever

Last year I did a Christmas story round-up thanks to a parent who asked me what the best picture books are for teaching the Christmas story. After having lived with a number of those books, I can report that I stand by the list. But I also keep coming back to my favorite, The Nativity, illustrated by Julie Vivas. The text is from the King James Bible and if I have one critique of the book it's that a different version of the scripture would have been preferable. But I just substitute my own words when necessary and that fixes that. Below are the reasons I love this book this even more than ever, including one you might not expect, and which came as a surprise to me.

1) The beauty of the illustrations in general but especially of the animals and the angels. They are rag-tag and colorful. The angel's wings have holes and they wear combat boots. Gabriel sits with Mary over tea while a chicken hangs out under the table. In the announcement to the shepherds, angels ride the sheep (below). In an illustration after the birth, an angel is cradling the infant Jesus while Mary struggles to get back up on the donkey. 

2) And speaking of people holding the baby, this book contains the only image I can think of in which Joseph holds the infant Jesus. Pictured above, Joseph cuddles the little one, while Mary slumps on his shoulder. In ever other nativity scene, a kneeling Mary looks down at her little one beatifically while Joseph stands over them, possibly with a staff. And also here, there are more chickens!

3) And finally, naked baby Jesus. I never anticipated that the Christmas story would be the thing that prompted the "where do babies come from" conversation with my child, but why not, it's the nativity after all. And sure enough. Adorably naked baby Jesus seemed to be Orie's cue to ask, "How did the baby get out?" And so together we talked about uteruses and vaginas and labor and his own birth story. And no, he won't ever be able to have a uterus but he could have a partner who has one. It was a beautiful conversation.

Thank you Jesus and Julie Vivas for providing this opportunity to talk about bodies and birth. Merry Christmas, everyone. May you too lean into the surprising opportunities of the season.

Write This on Your Doorposts

In the book of Deuteronomy, when Moses receives the law and presents it to the people, he follows up with instructions: Repeat God’s commandments often - when you’re getting up and sitting down, going out and coming in - and bind them to the door post and gate in order that you may see them often and be reminded (Deut 6.) Some Jewish families take this instruction literally by posting mezuzahs, little capsules attached to a doorway which hold the first commandment to worship God alone. A concrete reminder to make God a priority.

In recent reading I’ve been challenged by author Natalie Frisk to think about whether I “have physical reminders of the good news message of Jesus around the house and in life” in the manner that’s encouraged by Moses’ instructions regarding the law. When I look around my house, I realize that I have plenty of religious themed art - both Christian and not, often mementos of travels to other places - but nothing that speaks specifically to the good news of Jesus and the call to walk in his footsteps.

In her book, Raising Disciples: How to make faith matter for our kids, Frisk talks about how important it is to make our faith visible, not only for our own sake, but for the sake of our children and all who enter our space.  If we internalize what is most central to our identity as Christians how will we pass it on? She inspired me. I thought about which of Jesus’ teachings are good news to me and which I seek most to follow and pass along to my own children.  Which do I want to be reminded of every day?

I’d been looking for something to hang in an awkward spot in my kitchen with weird dimensions and an oddly placed electrical panel.  No painting or hanging has been quite right. Neither of the quilts purchased at the MCA fit the spot and as I thought about making a quilt to cover it I’ve drawn a blank.  Until now.

Now our family will have Jesus’ words, “Blessed are the peacemakers” hanging before us as I cajole the kids through breakfast before school and as we eat dinner together as a family. Each Sunday as we light our peace lamp in worship we pray for a just peace for all creation. I hope that these words of Jesus in the kitchen will bless us to be that peace-filled presence.

In my own childhood home, our dining room wall held a framed quotation of Menno Simons.  Words which are drawn from Jesus and which may be well known to some in our congregation.  Word which have inspired me to a faith that shows itself in action: 

True evangelical faith cannot lie dormant, it clothes the naked; it feeds the hungry; it comforts the sorrowful; it shelters the destitute; it aids and consoles the sad; it binds up what is wounded; it becomes all things to all people.

That’s just a little too long for a quilt.

The Citzenship of the Saints

I've been thinking a lot about identity this week.  I became a naturalized US citizen this week. This was after a wait of almost a year and a half after I first made my application.  The wheels of bureaucracy turn extremely slowing in this administration. So while this has been a day I've been anticipating for a long time, it's always been with deep ambivalence.  Unlike so many people who come to this country, while this was a choice for the sake of marriage and a job, it was also not something I had ever sought or dreamed of or aspired to.

As much as I have loved Seattle, I have also prided myself a little on my identity as an outsider, and particularly as a Canadian outsider.  Especially in these days when progressive Americans are crashing the Canadian immigration website with their interest in leaving the country, I think I've even felt a little smug.  So to add "American" to my identity has felt not so much like an addition but somehow like it's canceling out both my other identity and my identity as "other".

And that's a problem.  Not that I feel like American-ness is canceling out my identity as Canadian, but that I've been as tied up as I have been in my identity as citizen of any nation over what should be my primary identity as a disciple of Jesus.  If I am a citizen of anywhere it is of the Reign of God.

As I prepare my message for All Saints Day and think about the beloved saints who have shown me the way, I don't think about good citizens, I think of good disciples.  Sometimes they are one in the same, but sometimes, good disciples are troublemakers and rabble-rousers.  Sometimes good disciples don't follow the laws of the land (as I had to promise in my citizenship ceremony) but protest laws that are unjust.  Sometimes good disciples are noisy and nosey and get in the way of governance for the sake of peace.  Jesus was not a good citizen. And when I think about my own kids and the little ones whom we will dedicate in the way of Jesus on Sunday, I hope that they will be better disciples than they are citizens too.

At this time of year All Saints and Veteran's Day (Remembrance Day in Canada) converge to make me turn to the people who I remember as witnesses for peace.  (I've written about that before here and here). I hope that as I continue to figure out what it means to live as a citizen of two countries, I'll keep remembering the people and identity that root me in my identity not in nation but as God's beloved child.

me and my freshly minted citizenship certificate

Does God Fight?

I grew up with Bible stories in a way I'm not repeating with my own children.  We sometimes will a story or two from Desmond Tutu's Children of God Storybook Bible.  But I'm not systematic and don't, as my parents did, have multiple additional bible story books or do a daily family devotional.  I'll admit that in part it's because I don't want to have to deal with some of the problematic Old Testament stories of conquest, war and (not to put too fine a point on it) genocide.  I can't even remember how my parents dealt with that.  I think maybe we just breezed over those many other people that Israel conquered and killed to enter Canaan or somehow I saw that land as empty (besides the rivers of milk and honey, that is).  I didn't see those conquered people as people.

I'm not willing to do that now - let the conquered be invisible or non human; there are too many contemporary and historical examples of oppression based in these texts for me to let it go.  So how do I approach this?  For one, I think Desmond Tutu has it right - in his retellings of the Biblical stories, he focuses on love and justice.  And many stories of the Old Testament left out altogether.  The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, a Montessori based Sunday school program our congregation used at one time, didn't introduce the Hebrew Bible until children are at least nine - and then began with the prophets.  Early focus is on Jesus' care, welcome and love.

In the high school Sunday school class this fall we're looking at some of the stories of war and violence.  Together we're trying to examine them with some nuance.  I'm using as my starting place a curriculum called Does God Fight? from the Mennonite publisher Faith and Life Press.  Some of my takeaways from that and from my experience with these stories are these:

1. The Bible is written by people who had a particular understanding of God.  Oppressed themselves, their God was one who delivered and did so absolutely. 
2. The God of these war stories is the one who delivers.  The people are to depend not on their own power but on the God who fights for them.
3. Jesus has priority.  We believe Jesus to be the most clear interpreter of God's desire for humanity and model for how we are to be followers of God's will.  And when Jesus interpreted scripture he did so in a way that pointed to non-violence, compassion and God's love for all nations and peoples.

Do does God fight?  Well, in the Biblical narrative, yes.  If children and teens can understand the nuance of historical context and the human need to describe a God who completely and totally has their backs then maybe these stories can still have some meaning.  There are still communities of oppressed people for whom a story of a God who leads people into safety and to a home of their own is important.  I absolutely do not count myself as a part of such a community.  Instead I lean into Jesus.  Jesus who loves and blesses the the imprisoned and the weak.  Jesus who welcomes his disciples questions and chooses little ones so sit beside him.

May we always have Jesus at our side
as we struggle to be a people
who says no to violence and oppression.
Amen.

--

Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash

Raising Boys to be Believers

“They didn’t believe Mary either.” This is what’s currently on the reader board outside Luther Memorial Lutheran Church, where a friend of mine is a pastor. After Jesus rose from the dead, he appeared to Mary and (in Luke’s version) several other women, who returned to the apostles with the story of the encounter. “But these words seemed to them an idle tale and they did not believe them.” Peter and the rest of the bros had to see it for themselves. The word of their friends and fellow disciples was just not good enough or credible enough.

Looking at poll related to the Kavanaugh confirmation there is a sharp difference between the responses of men, who are more likely to believe Brett Kavanaugh’s story and support his confirmation to the Supreme Court and, and women, who are more likely to believe Christine Blasey Ford that he assaulted her when both were high school students. As a parent to a little (cisgender, white) boy, who will become a man in a culture permeated with the idea that (straight, cis, white) men’s experience is the default, I am very concerned. I want him to be a believer.

There are four essential responses to someone who discloses an assault or even coercion. The very first one is, “I believe you.” And the expression of belief should be backed up immediately by, “It’s not your fault. I will support you. Let’s get help.” We’ve all heard by now how under-reported coercion and assault are for all the reasons from fear of repercussions to shame and guilt that the survivor could have prevented it somehow. Men and boys need to be a part of changing the culture that keeps women from telling and be the first to say, “I believe you. I will help.”

We know how much Jesus valued his relationships with women.  He believed in their autonomy in relationship and believed in them as agents of the Gospel. To use a manner of speech, when Jesus first exposed himself to the women, the men who were their friends should have said, "We believe you!"

Meeting Jesus

This week Megan will be heading up to Camrec for Pre-Junior Camp and next week Pastor Melanie and I will share the pastoral leadership at Junior Camp. So yesterday in our pastors meeting, Megan read the summer's theme verses from Mark 10. Parents bring their kids to Jesus to be blessed, are scolded by the disciples, but then welcomed by Jesus. Megan invited us to hear the passage with the ears of parents. I invite you to do it. Read it. Live it like you're there with the children you love, waiting to see Jesus. Really imagine your own kids and all they bring to that kind of situation. 

Parenting is a vulnerable thing and I experienced this story with a lot of emotion. It was like I was right there, one kid on my hip because he refuses to be put down, in a power struggle with the other because why should she be in this place doing this thing I'm making her do. And then the presumption and effrontery of Jesus' disciples to keep me from this meeting we've been planning, that I've had to wrangle my kids. We just want to see him for a minute! The anger and frustration have already been building in me and that's just the limit. I'm ready to explode or to cry.

But then Jesus. His welcome, his blessing. The immediate ease and release of breath and tension. The knowing his love for me and for my children. Seeing him embrace them and them welcoming the embrace, the recalcitrance disappearing. Holy cow, you guys, I could not stop the tears. Jesus loves me. I never felt it more profoundly and with more gratitude and picturing Jesus loving and blessing my beloved ones. May you all be blessed with the knowledge of Jesus' love and care for you.

And here are some cheesy but (if you're in the mood I was) tear-inducing pictures of Jesus with children.

The Good Centurion

This blog's title is 'What's Not in the Sermon' but every once in awhile a sermon so consumes me that there's not much left that's not in it.  That was kind of the case this week...

This is Memorial Day Weekend.  And as a gift, the Lectionary gave us a story about a centurion so that we might remember a soldier.  Luke 10:1-7.  A recap: After a discourse, Jesus went to Capernaum, where a centurion who had heard about him sent messengers – Jewish leaders – to ask him to come and heal a particularly highly valued slave.  Jesus commends the centurion for his great faith and the slave is healed.

My big struggle with this story and my immediate reaction to is has been, over and over: Jesus, why are you saying that a Centurion – occupier, soldier, holder of power – is good?  You praise this man? Basically, WTF, Jesus??  I really got bogged down in this incredulity and disbelief this week.  It is a good thing that Jesus can handle my skepticism and righteous (or maybe self-righteous would be more accurate) anger because I’ve been growling at him in my head – and sometimes to other people – all week.  I am not often an external processor, but I can think of at least 4 settings in the past 10 days in which I complained about Jesus and about this story in particular.

Here are some of the things we know: the relationship between the Centurion and the Jewish people is a complicated one.  Yes, role and title are military.  He is a ranking officer.  And yes, he has a lot of power.  He openly and explicitly describes the way his command is immediately obeyed both by the soldiers and the slaves under him.  Yes, he is the occupier, a foreigner and who commands not only people but wealth and means.  Under his rule, the synagogue of Capernaum was built.

It is something of a complicated relationship, that of the centurion and the leaders which he commissions to Jesus.  Or even between the occupier and those under occupation.  This man is, if we take the story at face value, a friend to the Jews in Capernaum.  At the very least he is benevolent.  He has invested in their community by building their place of worship, the synagogue.  But in the custom of the time, there is a patron/client dynamic going on here.  He makes a good investment to keep the Jewish population happy and grateful.  Benevolent or not he is the one with the power and the Jewish leaders are beholden to him.  They may be truly appreciative and they may feel that they are obligated because of his position and theirs to praise him and commend him to Jesus.  “They appeal to him earnestly,” (NRSV) “’He is worthy of having you do this for him.’”  Perhaps their feelings are a little of both.

The man himself never ends up meeting Jesus face to face, because again messengers intercept Jesus, this time with the message, “Don’t come.”  And with the audacity (in my mind) to compare himself to Jesus.  In his understanding of being a man under authority of another and through that authority also in command himself.  He is a man with a rank, and this is his framework for thinking of Jesus – someone who commands authority over (over demons, over illness, over nature) because he is under the authority of another (God).

A few weeks ago I spent a meal in a restaurant staring at the back of a shirt in the booth opposite me that read, superimposed over a weathered American flag, “Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you.  Jesus Christ & the veteran.”  And even now, as a pacifist Christian deeply steeped in the understanding that Jesus Christ’s death was one of non-violent love, that unmasked of the myth of redemptive violence, I cannot even tell you how wrong I think this is.  In that judgment I thought I knew all there was to know about the dude wearing that shirt – and none of it was good.  But I need to get over it.  Because the man who is wearing that shirt – the veteran (presumably) who was wearing that shirt – is a man who has great faith and whom Jesus loves.  There is no healing in my judgment.

The Centurion whose slave Jesus healed is a man who has great faith whom Jesus reaches out to in love and compassion.  If Jesus were writing a report card, and one of the subjects is ‘faith’, this guy gets an A+.  And A+ in worthiness, even if his self-evaluation in that regard is and F.

What I think of the centurion doesn’t matter.  Whatever else the Centurion is, or has done, or believes does not matter to Jesus.  The man had faith that a somewhat out-there Jewish rabbi had the power given to him by the God of Israel to heal a man in his household.  And to heal the slave without even being present, because the rabbi Jesus was under the power of God and was able to use that authority for healing.  Even at a distance.  Even though he hasn’t met him.

He hasn’t met him but he has heard of him.  And he has heard about Jesus ‘sayings’.  Immediately before this story, Jesus has given a sermon.  In Matthew it’s called the Sermon on the Mount and that version is a little more famous.  In Luke it’s called the Sermon on the Plain.  Let me give you some highlights (I bet you know them):

Love your enemies.

Do to others what you would have them do to you.

Do not judge.

Whew.  Jesus nails it every time.  He certainly puts me in my place and marks me with a big ‘J’.  Judgy McJudgerson over here.  He finishes off this sermon with this, “I will show what someone is like who…hears my words and acts on them.  That one is like a man building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock.

When he heard about Jesus, the centurion acted on what he heard.  He heard a sermon about loving his enemy, the centurion is counting on Jesus doing exactly as he says and loving the one who is his purported enemy.  Indeed, without even a word.  Without a question or challenge, Jesus hears the summons and goes with the messengers on the way to the centurion’s house.  Luke’s story is all about the Gospel being for all people, not just for the insider.

I spoke a covenant in community with you all as follower of Jesus in Seattle Mennonite Church, a community of radical hospitality, an open table and unconditional welcome so I better check myself.  I was challenged by my spouse when we were in conversation about this story the other night, “Look at it this way.  If a soldier came to you for help, would you turn that person away?”

Well, of course I wouldn’t.  No!  Shame on me!  Jesus is not going to make this man jump through hoops and recite the correct creed.  It is an appeal for help.  And not even on his own behalf but of a slave.  In fact, our congregation, in partnering with Valor Housing have to some extent already made the same claim as Jesus.  Soldiers are beloved members of God’s kingdom.  We have faith that housing folks will offer opportunity to find healing from the trauma of homelessness.

I am tempted, as perhaps we humans are, to categorize: good/bad; right/wrong.  I like to think I have an open mind, but in this area, I categorized.  I recently heard from someone in this congregation not long ago how hard it is to get along with other Christians and how resentful they can feel toward people who are supposedly the same and yet who have profoundly different understanding of what being Christian means. I decided I knew what that man in the t-shirt was like.  I decided I knew what that centurion was like.

I have been listening to a podcast called Shmanners recently.  It’s present by a husband and wife team (Travis and Teresa McElroy) who tackle issues of etiquette by category based on their listeners’ questions. They begin with the history and move on to current conventions and expectations in N. American society. The most recent was about apologies.  So they talked about how and when to apologize, but what they seemed to come back to was how to get along with those with whom you disagree and emphasized: you don’t have to agree (and you don’t have to apologize for not agreeing) but basically don’t be a jerk and apologize when anything you’ve said is hurtful or mean-spirited.

So I think I owe the centurion an apology.  Even if he’s not here to hear it.  Officer, I am sorry.  I am sorry that I made assumptions about you based on your position.  I am sorry I judged your faithfulness in Jesus based on my bias.  I am truly grateful that Jesus intervened with healing in your life and the life of your servant.  I pray that your faith in Jesus will only grow and that each of us can be open to new understandings of what that faith means.

And you know what, I owe an apology to the anonymous veteran in the restaurant.  I am sorry.  I don’t know anything about you, or the experiences you’ve had or the authority that you’ve been under and the situations that you have been in.  And I am sorry that I judged you based on a t-shirt.  I am sorry that I made assumptions about you out of small-mindedness. I commend your faith.  And I pray that each of us can seek Jesus’ healing and the path of life.

Safwat Marzouk, an Egyptian American professor at AMBS approaches this near-encounter between Jesus and the Centurion as an intercultural/ecumenical encounter. Like Travis and Teresa of the Shmanners podcast he says, writing in Christian Century,“Tolerance should not depend on denying one’s own faith”.  He also suggests coming with ‘open…hands, hearts and minds to receive the gift of the other for who the other is, finding way to serve one another and with one another.”

Well, you all may be better people than me.  I suspect that is the case.  But may God bless us all with open hands, hearts and minds.  May our faith in Jesus also be great and may we seek to follow.

Marked with Love

John 13:34-35 is the lectionary text this week, but since we're doing a series on Acts, I won't get a chance to expand on this very valuable analogy.

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

If this short teaching from Jesus could be summed up in an image it would be the basin and towel with which he had just washed his disciples’ feet.  He had stooped and taken their feet in his hands,  cleaned the dust and dirt of the day from them and with care dried them.  And then he had instructed them to go and do likewise.  They are to make themselves known as followers by acts of humble service and loving care.

It is by a love like this – humble, willing to serve, possibility even willing to die – that should set the disciples of Jesus apart and make them visibly marked as his followers.

As the parent of an 8-year-old I have become very familiar with marks that set individuals apart.  I’m talking about My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and the image on the flank of everypony in Equestria: the cutie mark. Each pony is marked with an image that represents their special gift. Often the gift and the cutiemark that it represents are way each pony serves their community.  The pony who’s marked with butterflies loves and cares for animals and nature.  The pony marked with apples farms and feeds the town. 

Cute though the marks – and the message – may be, the series’ emphasis on relationships, welcoming strangers, second chances, making friends out of enemies and discovering the way each one can contribute to the strength of the community has been a great seed for conversation about those things.  There has been much speculation in my household about what each of us might have as a cutie mark if we were ponies.  What one image sums up each of our special combinations of gifts and interests in a tattoo-like mark?

As Jesus’ disciples we know that we do each have gifts which we have been given by God.  These are the things we’re good and the things we love.  The things that work together with the gifts of others to build community and show God’s love to the world.

The love by which Jesus loved his disciples and the world is a powerful love.  We are charged with bearing that love in our lives now.  Jesus passes his very love onto us and we are branded.  And the way we put that mark on display is through the humility, service, care, compassion and non-violent acts of just peace.  Whatever each of our particular ‘cutie marks’ might be we are all marked and can be identified as Jesus’ disciples by his love.

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Finally, because the internet, these. 

  

  

To Remember is to Work for Peace

Tomorrow is Veteran's Day in the United States.  I grew up in Canada, where my experience was with Remembrance Day, also celebrated on November 11.  Similarly, it is a day to celebrate and give thanks for those who gave their lives in war, particularly in the World Wars.  In Canada it is traditional to wear a red poppy as a sign of remembrance and respect.  You may have noticed these poppies if you've been following the recent news of the Canadian elections; all the newly elected officials, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, are wearing poppies.

The symbol comes from the poem "In Flanders Fields," by John McCrae.  It speaks of the poppies growing between the cross-marked graves of soldiers killed in the trenches of WWI Belgium.  It's a poem I copied and decorated with red poppies along with "Lest We Forget" posters. I actually gave this very little thought as a child, but now revisiting it, I realize that it calls those who live to ‘take up our quarrel with the foe’!

It is appropriate to remember deaths as a result of war.  It is in fact important to remember: war kills.  Our remembering should be an act of saying ‘no’ war, to loving our enemies, to reconciling rather than to continuing the ‘quarrel’! Jesus' way is the way of peace and we, his followers, remember so that we can work and walk in that way.  Mennonite Central Committee Canada has for years been offering red poppy-alternate buttons for peace-minded followers of Jesus to wear.  They are a witness and a reminder of exactly this call on our lives.  “To remember is to work for peace.”

Many schools have assemblies that offer stories about war 'heroes', or invite military recruiters to make presentations during this week.  What alternative narratives are we offering?  What peacemakers can we remember who worked during times of war or who make peace in our communities?  What stories can we tell and celebrate?  Who are the people in our lives and in our families who have said no to violence and embraced peace instead?  What small acts of peace-making can we do this Veteran’s Day?  

Check out One Thousand Acts of Peace for small acts of peace you could do this day and ever day.  And this video from MCC Canada.

What do you want me to do for you?

This week we’ve been preparing worship with the story of Bartimaeus, (Mark 10:46-52) a blind man who wanted to get to Jesus but was shushed and pushed aside by the crowd.  Children and youth most certainly know what it feels like to be shushed, told to wait because more important people are talking, instructed to get out of the way because they’re too small, not significant.  When this happen to Bartimaeus, he is not deterred, even though the crowd is “sternly ordered him to be quiet.”  I cringe thinking of the way I may sometimes have been overly ‘stern.’ But unlike a frustrated parent or teacher who has had enough of interruptions and begging, Jesus turns toward the nuisance. 

“What do you want me to do for you?”  Jesus gives Bartimaeus agency and Bartimaeus receives sight.  And then he becomes Jesus’ follower!  

It can be really hard to listen to children when they are being ‘pests’.  We teach them that to be respectful they need to be quiet.  I ran into a funny video this week in which three parents talk to each other as if they were talking to children and the first 10 seconds hilariously illustrate how ridiculous it would sound if we shut down another adult for inserting an opinion or response.

Okay, I’m not saying it’s bad to teach respect.  But I had a bit of a ‘How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk’ moment with the text.  When he is given agency and a voice, Bartimaeus becomes Jesus’ follower.  He makes a choice toward relationship with the one who listened.  That’s certainly what we want with our own children and what we want in their relationship with Jesus and their faith.d their faith.

The Color of Lent

The other night, for bed-time reading, I was handed My First Message open to the crucifixion story   and told, “Here, read this.”  While it not unusual that the reading choice would be Bible stories, the choice of content was unexpected.  Usually we either skip right over the crucifixion in favor of the more happy and appealing resurrection story.  Or we just skip adult Jesus altogether and read about the annunciation and the nativity. Baby Jesus is so cute and the angels are so beautiful.

I was grateful.  Our usual mode for Bible story reading is the usual mode for many church-goers: we have a big festival at Christmas to celebrate and adore the baby Jesus, skip over his life and (maybe especially) his death to celebrating his resurrection with all things spring: new life, growth, color.  Reading the crucifixion story together was an opportunity.  We talked about Jesus’ offer of forgiveness, the way he loved the criminals who were crucified with him, that he was crucified because his love was threatening to people with power – that he hadn’t done anything deserving punishment.  And we often talk about what it means to follow Jesus.  This story and the conversation about following Jesus were an apt way to begin thinking about the following Jesus into the season of Lent.

We often think of Lent as a time to follow Jesus into the wilderness.  We think of the asceticism, the sparseness, of letting things go and giving things up.  We associate Lent with fasting and prayer and renunciation.  Although the liturgical color of Lent is a rich purple, if Lent were to be characterized by any color, it would (in my mind anyway)be the gray of the ashes we are marked with on Ash Wednesday. 

And yet, this year – year B of the three cycles of the lectionary – is markedly colorful.  It begins with the multi-hued promise of God to Noah and all creation that God will be present in covenant relationship.  That God’s mark of covenant would be the rainbow, a reminder to God like a string around a finger, that God will never again visit such destruction on the earth and that ‘every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth’ is included in covenant with God.

In fact the whole season of Lent is an assurance, turning our usual idea of Lent 'Upside Down and Inside Out'.  Using this theme throughout our Lenten worship, Sunday after Sunday, we hear that God’s covenant is for God’s creation – and for us, God’s creatures.  We will hear after the rainbow promise the covenant and promise to Abraham and then to the Israelites, a covenant written on our hearts, a promise that in love, God “did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”  The story of Jesus as we follow him to the cross and through the cross to Easter is the story of the new covenant, in which Jesus gave his very blood in an act of love that exposed evil and pointed to the triumph of life. 

That doesn’t seem gray at all!  That seems exciting, bright, vibrant.  An upside-down notion of victory - that violent death would lead to new life.  We in turn are invited to turn ourselves around, toward the God who love us and all creation so fully that in spite of the many times that humanity has failed, turned away, God continues to turn toward us.

I feel personally an extra turning upside down of Lenten seasons past.  Two years ago, I felt thrust suddenly and painfully into the gray wilderness of Lent after experiencing a miscarriage.  So it is feels wonderful to me to be anticipating new life in this season, that Lent is a time of waiting with joy.  And it seems right and good that date given for the triumphant entry of the little one we wait for is on Palm Sunday. 

This year, by all means, offer something up to God for Lent in an act of letting go and fasting.  But consider taking up something that will color your Lent experience.  Pray in color, create something, plant something new, take pictures, visit galleries, get to know the colors and cultures of God’s people.  God’s colorful promise to all creation is still alive and growing and waiting for us to  be drawn in and turned inside out.

What's Your Superpower?

What would your super power be?

 

On Sunday I preached about the kinds of power we admire and long for, the kind of power of which we are in awe.  Superheroes capture many of our imaginations.  I am learning a lot about Rogue – the one from the X-Men – these days.  I’ve always kind of liked Rogue, at least as she’s portrayed in the movie franchise (I’ve never really been into comics) but having a child obsessed about something brings a new level of knowledge.

Rogue’s power is enviable in that she can adopt another’s power at a touch.  And yet she, understandably, also sees this as a curse.  It drains anyone she touches of their power and sometimes of their consciousness.  She can’t control it.  It robs her of intimacy even while it gives her great strength.  In the power Jesus wields, again and again we see him offer his power of healing to another.  Instead of taking from another he transforms what is broken, withered, captive into something whole and healed and free.  He’s the anti-Rogue.  Except that if one definition of rogue is “Not controllable or answerable; deviating, renegade” well, maybe Jesus and Rogue have something in common after all.

He is in control of his power to heal and offer release, however Jesus is certainly not answerable to any earthly authority.  His is a ‘new teaching’ and its author is God alone.  When we’re asking each other, or when we’re talking with our children about what power they would like to have consider that we already have power at our disposal.  Ok, it’s not a superpower maybe.  But we do have the power to heal, reconcile with and free each other and so do our children.

As I think about our power to heal, free and reconcile I’m reminded of the Circle of Grace teaching that the children are learning.  Central to the understanding of their Circle of Grace is knowing that all around them, the Spirit of God is empowering them to know themselves and use their feelings and intuitions as signals to understand their environment.  As children – as any of us – become more in tune with our senses and feelings, as we understand those around us we are empowered to protect ourselves and those in our midst.  It’s no force field, but it is powerful.

Powerful Graphic Resources

If you are interested in the direct intersection of faith/ethics and graphic novels, you may want to check out one of these resources from our library:

Pax Avalon, about a peace-making superhero with the power of God on her side.  This graphic novel written by Reese Friesen  chronicles  the city of Avalon is under siege and in her heart she knows that violence is not the solution.  There’s a trailer on YouTube here.  There is at least one further addition to the first novel in the series and a web comic that will be the forerunner of a third.

Radical Jesus: a Graphic History of Faith is by several authors and illustrators. Menno Media calls it “A compelling, graphical rendition, Radical Jesus tells the story of Jesus and his social message, not just in his own time, but also through the Radical Reformation, recent centuries, and our own time.”