A Word on Roanoke and the Church

My newsletter article changed after talking with a couple of people affected by the events in Roanoke VA today. A word about being church. This is not the only words that need to be said right now about how to be counter-cultural (speaking about violence and how we carry it out should also be forefront, as well as how to help heal a world isolated and divided) but it is A word that God has given me to speak.


There have been other words in this space, but the events of this morning, August 26, have caused me to change the words to fit something that has hit home once again today.

 The world we live in often feels on the edge of chaos. Some events seem to make no sense, and we as a culture are often afraid that this chaos will one day affect us even more directly. Some people even feel so overwhelmed by this that they do things that seem to make no sense to us in attempts to feel in control themselves. This is core it seems to our culture, "I must gain control over the things that are important to me and protect them."

There is value in being smart and measured with the things that matter to you, but when it comes to being a community of faith, the people of God, a church there is a different call.  As I've talked with a few friends this morning who are ministers in the Roanoke, VA area, our conversations about the shock in their community and resources that may help to talking about the events here in Charleston back in June. All of these conversations have included some form of "I get the impression that they've truly forgiven and are moving forward and aren't changing the open door policy that allowed this to happen. I'm not sure we'd trust outsiders so much if it was us."

Interestingly though, a couple of the conversations moved to talking about a crossover point of these two horrible events and church life. What do we do inside the church that helps people see that trying to maintain power and control isn't getting us anywhere near God's intent for us? How do we present the alternative to "protect this house," "seize what's mine," "I/we have to win," etc?

The big question that hit time and again was "What does a community of people who feel they have nothing to protect, but just everything to give, really look like, and how do we help churches become that?" I've never been in a church where everyone was like that, and we pondered if it was possible or if human nature meant that the systemic issues would always just keep coming around and "people being people" would always keep us from ever realizing what it's like to truly be church doing what Jesus asks of us and what Acts says the first church did.

Since then I've been thinking and praying around Jesus' teachings in Luke 6:27-36 and Matthew 5:38-47. In this time, I came to ponder if really requires everyone to create what church is meant to be, or if part of the issue is that thought itself. What if we each tried to be a person who feels (s)he has nothing to protect, just everything to give? What if each of us lived out these teachings and let the chips fall where they may? What if like Abraham, we risked sacrificing everything we love to God, knowing God and trusting God to be Love and to provide perfectly? We may never do it always or perfectly, but what if we tried?

We claim to worship a God who's actions throughout our scripture are based in Manna and Mercy. Can we as the church be the place where those things live? Can we risk our own desires and our own place, so that the Spirit can move freely? Can we be what our culture is not, a place and a people who do not seek vengeance, who do not seek recognition, who do not seek power or control, but exemplify what it means to freely give as God asks?
We're all in this together
"A"

A Good Friday Sermon Unpreached

Today I am posting various artwork to create an online stations of the cross for my church.  There are many interesting images that I found as I googled the various stations, great images pointing to racism, sexism, discrimination, but done in ways that so often offered chances at redemption, showing a God whose humanity was bigger than any way we can divide ourselves.  Yet, there was one that stood out and hit me hard.  

When looking for something for Station 9: Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem, I googled images based on the words Jesus do not weep for me and found something striking: a number of pictures of Miley Cyrus on the first page. What does this have to do with Jesus and the women of Jerusalem?  

Luke 23 includes the text for this station:
A great number of the people followed him, and among them were women who were beating their breasts and wailing for him. But Jesus turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For the days are surely coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us’; and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ For if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

I can't say exactly why Miley Cyrus ended up connected to this or even if the connection is direct. It could as easily just be someone who is upset by what they think she has become as some connection to the scripture.  Either way though the idea of Jesus weeping for or because of Miley Cyrus seems a bit off.

Yet, this is often the stuff we weep over, things that happen within the culture where we assume we have the answers for another.  We claim we weep for the future, for our children who are growing up in a land of lawlessness and sexualization, yet we don't trust God to be in control, we want to make the decisions on what Jesus should cry over. 

"Jesus, do not weep for me, but for those who see something good in this celebrity..."
"Jesus, do not weep for me, but for those who follow this type of politics..."
"Jesus, do not weep for me, but for those who hear your voice saying something I don't..."
"Jesus, do not weep for me, but for those who live differently..."

Yet, when we do this we become those who decide for Jesus, and thus for others, who they are, what they should be, and how they should live.  Jesus chooses to continue his journey to death in this story.  He does not ask for mourning, instead warning us that if those close to Jesus could not see what God was all about, how could those who do not have Jesus as a reference to God living in the world.  

Those who could not see who Jesus was were afraid of him, afraid that his choices would damage their place in the world.  They believed that a world without Jesus was one they could control, but we have seen time and again that God is the one in control.  We cannot choose who Jesus weeps for, because Jesus weeps for all whom God loves that are not with Jesus and for those who will not discern what God is doing in their own lives and in the world. Jesus doesn't weep because he's worried about others, but because of pain in his heart.

We cannot know the heart of another, just  those women could not understand why Jesus was at peace with the path he was walking.  We so often want Jesus to weep over the choices of another so that we can feel that Jesus is patting us on the back for not being like them.  Yet, we see time and again that God's way is one of surprising love and grace for those who society, even religious society (often especially religious society), outcasts and despises.  Not just those weak due to station in life, but also those weak due to their own choices, those who seem far from God are often closer than we'd like to think.

So let us go forth this Good Friday, not seeing ourselves as those who are right, or with the answers, but as those who do not live as Jesus did.  Those who weep due to worry, not do to pain.  Those who want control, and in wanting control have let the wood become dry, falling short of being the church that gave all, short of the God who gave all, short of the call we received upon creation.  May we weep for ourselves, but then may we remember that this weeping is not forever, for we are the ones called to join Jesus in bringing about this new world.  A world of love, a world of diverse ways coming together as God brings us together in Christ's image, not as we make others into our image.