Unraveled: Unraveling Bias

Then Pharaoh gave an order to all his people: “Throw every baby boy born to the Hebrews into the Nile River, but you can let all the girls live.”

Now a man from Levi’s household married a Levite woman. The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She saw that the baby was healthy and beautiful, so she hid him for three months. When she couldn’t hide him any longer, she took a reed basket and sealed it up with black tar. She put the child in the basket and set the basket among the reeds at the riverbank. The baby’s older sister stood watch nearby to see what would happen to him.

Pharaoh’s daughter came down to bathe in the river, while her women servants walked along beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds, and she sent one of her servants to bring it to her. When she opened it, she saw the child. The boy was crying, and she felt sorry for him. She said, “This must be one of the Hebrews’ children.”

Then the baby’s sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Would you like me to go and find one of the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?”

Pharaoh’s daughter agreed, “Yes, do that.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse it for me, and I’ll pay you for your work.” So the woman took the child and nursed it. After the child had grown up, she brought him back to Pharaoh’s daughter, who adopted him as her son. She named him Moses, “because,” she said, “I pulled him out of the water.” --Exodus 1:22, 2:1-10 (CEB)

Grace, mercy and peace to you, from God our Creator, Jesus Christ our Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit our Advocate and Sustainer. Amen.

Genocide. It’s the world into which baby Moses was born. This week I turned to Professor Google to learn more about how genocide is defined and what exactly it is. Unsurprisingly, one of the first links was to the U.S. Holocaust Museum website. On it, they define genocide as an act or series of acts designed to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. They arrange these acts into five categories: 1) killing members of a group; 2) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; 3) deliberately inflicting conditions of life on a group that are designed to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; 4) imposing measures on a group that are intended to prevent births; and 5) forcibly transferring children of a group to another group.

So often, I think, we try to convince ourselves that we are so different from the people of the Hebrew scriptures. That we have advanced so much further. And, perhaps, we have. Yet, on a related website I found a list of places in our world this very moment where genocide is occurring or at risk of occurring. South Sudan. The Congo. The Uyghur people in China. Afghanistan. Indonesia. Yemen. 

And lest we think that we, here in this country are immune, I would like to acknowledge the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the Adena, the Hopewell, the Myaamia, the Shawnee, the Cherokee and the Osage First Nations on which we are gathering and worshiping today.

Genocide. It’s the world that Moses was born into. A world where his life should have ended just as swiftly as it had begun. But, it didn’t. Thanks to a plot devised by Moses’ mother and his sister, whose name, Miriam, we would learn later in the story - thanks to their plot, Moses survived, one of who knows how many children didn’t. 

We have to wonder how detailed their plot was. Perhaps, it was simply to place him in the basket among the reeds, hopeful that Adonai would spare his life. Perhaps, their plan was more detailed, more opportunistic, even manipulative as someone suggested this week. Regardless of the complexity of their plan, the life of Moses, first-born son in his family, was spared because of it.

There are alot of things we could consider today under our summer-long theme of unraveling. The unraveling of Moses’ mother, of her hopes and dreams for her son. The unraveling in Miriam’s life, not subject to the genocide orders and how that may have impacted her. Or even the unraveling of the Pharaoh's daughter bias, conscious or unconscious, that she likely inherited for the Hebrew people.

But, today, I’d like to spend a moment looking at the actions of Pharaoh’s daughter that go directly to the unraveling of her own father’s plans of genocide. And, particularly, what it means to be an ally versus what it means to be “nice.”

I don’t know about you, but for my entire childhood I was constantly reminded to “be nice.” That idea is so deeply ingrained within me that I even talk to my two fighting cats, telling them to simply “be nice” to each other.

To be a nice person, as pagan spiritualist, Nadirah Adeye writes is to be “someone who doesn’t want to make others feel badly.” (One can find truth in the most interesting places!) She continues, “Being nice is about the personal choices we make regarding our friendships and relationships. A nice person, for example, likes to see diversity at gatherings, but may not understand that “diversity” is not just people of different complexions or lifestyles (but who all have similar assumed world views and behavior patterns). True diversity is, at times, grinding and intense and messy and loud and awkward.” We may say we want diversity, but do we really?

To be an ally, though, is very different. Anne Bishop, author of Becoming an Ally, defines it in this way: “Allies are people who recognize the unearned privilege they receive from society’s patterns of injustice and take responsibility for changing these patterns. Allies include men who work to end sexism, white people who work to end racism, heterosexual people who work to end heterosexism, able-bodied people who work to end ableism, and so on. Part of becoming an ally is also recognizing one’s own experience of oppression. For example, a white woman can learn from her experience of sexism and apply it in becoming an ally to people of color, or a person who grew up in poverty can learn from that experience how to respect others’ feelings of helplessness because of a disability.” 

To be an ally sometimes requires that we are not nice. It requires vulnerability. Risk on our part. It requires that we do the work to examine and question our own privilege. To understand who we are internally. And also how our external appearance or membership in a certain group might have an impact on our power in society. Being an ally means being willing to be uncomfortable. And trying again. Over and over. It’s less about being right than it is about being unwilling to allow wrongs to persist unchallenged. And to be willing to move toward the mess and discomfort rather than simply walk away.

Perhaps that’s why I’m so intrigued by the Pharaoh’s daughter. The unnamed Pharaoh’s daughter. Because, perhaps. Perhaps, just for a moment as she saw that Hebrew boy baby, she could connect with him. She could learn from the sexism she experienced in her own culture and use her own privilege to be an ally. To push back against her own father and against the systems of oppression he continued to perpetuate. To save a baby. To save Moses. Who God would eventually call to be an advocate - an ally - in his own right. To use the privilege he’d gained as a son of the Pharaoh’s daughter to help lead an oppressed people to freedom. 

Isn’t this the story of Jesus, too? Son of God come to earth to be an ally? To find every opportunity to push back against these same systems of oppression that continue to plague us today? To be vulnerable himself? To risk death so that all people - you and I included - might be fully free? Freed so that we might risk like Jesus? Called by God to carry on the work of unraveling and re-weaving, the mission of God to create a tapestry of diversity and beauty in our world? Yes.

For this, I say, Thanks be to God!

Preached August 14, 2022, at Grace & Glory, Prospect, with Third, Louisville.

Pentecost 10

Readings: Exodus 1:22, 2:1-10; Psalm 83:1-4, 9-10, 17-18

Invitation to Abundant Life: Thirsty?

Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, “Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John” —although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— he left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” They left the city and were on their way to him.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.” John 4:1-42 (NRSV)

Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior, the Messiah, who is Christ, the Lord. Amen.

I first experienced “it” when I was nine years old. I was a young girl, growing up on a ranch, pretty accustomed to hard work. Carrying five-gallon pails of feed and bales of hay. I was pretty strong for my age.

So, in fourth grade, after I’d already been playing piano for five years and the clarinet for one, and after I noticed a big double bass violin sitting in our music room at the public school I attended, I was kind of surprised at my music teacher’s response when I asked if I could learn how to play this big, beautifully carved instrument. “No,” he said. “Girls can’t play the double bass. Their fingers are too weak for the heavy strings.”

You see, I’d never experienced it before. That “being a girl” limited me in any way. I lived on a ranch where everyone simply had to do whatever was needed to make sure things got done. There was no difference between what I could do or what my brother could do. 

I didn’t really know at that time what “it” was. But, I knew it felt very unfair. And that it just wasn’t right. I was a strong girl and a very musical girl. After all these years, I still believe I could have learned the double bass in no time flat and with no fingering difficulties.

As I got older, “it” happened more and more. And “it” took on different forms. Sometimes, “it” was just a little slight. Something I could brush off easily. Like getting served second after a boy in the dining hall when I’d been there first. Or silly things boys would say--”Girls are weak, but guys are strong!”

At other times, “it” wasn’t so slight. Often “it” was frustrating. Like at work, when I’d put forward a new idea or raise an issue over and over again with a male superior with no response. And then see an immediate response to a male colleague who would put forward my idea or raise my issue and immediately be heard. Or the time when a deputy sheriff I worked with, said to me, “You know, you’d get more dates if you’d act more stupid.”

Sometimes “it” was frightening. Like the time in my early twenties when I went to my usual laundromat, as I did weekly, and walked in the door to see a man sitting on a washing machine exposing himself to me. I walked to the far end and, when I turned around, everything was magically normal and it was as though I’d imagined the entire experience.

Sometimes “it” was appalling. Like the time, when, as the present of my local union at the courts in Los Angeles, I sat with colleagues and listened as they told me the stories of how, when women were first hired there in the 1970’s, there was an unspoken rule for female court clerks. That, in their case, they were expected to serve the judge in every way he required. And that some of them did. Because they needed the job to support their families.

Over time, I’ve kept telling myself “it” is getting better. That there have been continuous gains in overcoming “it.” That since I started working in the 1980’s, “it” has diminished. But then another wave washes over our society. Another movement of rising up. More women sharing their stories. Vast numbers of women posting #metoo on Twitter or on Facebook . On my page alone, many. From my 16-year-old cousin, to friends in their 40’s and 50’s and from the oldest--my aunt who is 92 years old. Over and over and over again, it seems, we fight to change “it”. Over and over and over again, it seems, we fail. We cannot seem to fully eliminate “it.” We can not seem to fully erase the sexism that continues to reign in our world today.

How did we get here? How did reach a point where sexism is so deeply embedded in our society that it seems impossible to overcome?

To answer that question, we need to go back centuries. Millenia, to be exact. If we’re reading Scripture, to Genesis, chapter 3, after the fall, where God says to Eve: “I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” Sexism comes from our own brokenness. Patriarchy has reigned in our world for thousands and thousands of years. Over and over and over again, men have created structures that have sought to keep women in their place. Or at least the place where men believed women should be. It has resulted in deeply embedded biases that continue to exist today. Biases that are often implicit, hidden, unseen. Yet, still there. In men. And in women.

Yes, I said “and in women.” Because, ladies, we have learned patriarchy well. Often we are our own worst enemies. Tearing each other apart. Just as in a conversation I heard one day in my home church in Pasadena between two women. As they were talking about our pastor--a female pastor--one of them said to the other, “Oh, it would be so refreshing to hear a man’s voice from the pulpit.”

It is bias...it is sexism...it is patriarchy that for centuries has also caused the misinterpretation of the story that is our focus today. How often have we heard this story of the Samaritan woman characterized as “the woman caught in adultery!” Yet, if we read it carefully and we understand its context, both culturally and as it is placed in the Gospel of John, there is nowhere in this story that this conclusion can be reached. There is nothing in it that reflects that she is an adulteress. It is not there. Just as, in her story, there is NO condemnation from Jesus there. Either.  

So, what do we have in our story? We have a woman. First problem. If you haven’t figured it out from our Old Testament readings over these past few months, Israel was a deeply patriarchal society. Women were property. Good for bearing children. Not good if one was unable to bear children. A man could divorce a woman for the most minor of reasons simply by saying the words, “I divorce you.” She would then be homeless. And penniless. This was why producing a child--particularly, a male child--ensured her security into old age. And why being barren was terrifying.

Next, she was a Samaritan woman. Second problem. The Jewish and Samaritan people hated each other. Even though they confessed the same God, there was long-standing hostility between them that was centered around where God should be worshipped. If Jesus, as a Jew, had received a drink of water from her, he would have immediately been unclean. This is why, when he asks her for a drink, she challenges him: “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”

Next, they met at a well. Third problem. If you recall, wells were the places where you went to meet the opposite sex. To find a wife. Or a husband. And this well--well, it wasn’t just any old well. It was Jacob’s well--a place where Jacob and Rachel were engaged and, where Jacob’s son, Isaac, and Rebekkah were betrothed. Engagements happened at wells. They were places of intimacy. Intimacy experienced as sexual tension. Places where a man and a woman were not supposed to be alone together.

Next, and finally, they met at the sixth hour. At noon. Another problem. Or at least, that’s how it's been interpreted for us these past 2,000 years. That, instead of going to the well early in the morning like all of the other women did, she went in the middle of the day, when the sun was bright and it was hot. Just so she could escape the shame and mockery of the other women. This interpretation completely ignores that this was also the time of day with the light. Light, which, in John, signifies belief and faith. 

When we lay this problematic story, as the Gospel writer has, beside last week’s story of Nicodemus, and we compare and contrast them, here is what we have: An unnamed woman from a despised people at the well in broad daylight, compared to a named Jewish leader coming to Jesus in the middle of the night.

What is the author of John doing?

Do you remember our passage from last week--John 3:16? “For God so loved the world…?”

By putting these two stories side-by-side, John is showing us who exactly is included in that world that God loved. Nicodemus should have been the one who got it, rather than this unnamed woman at the well. Instead, John places her here to show us just who God has invited into abundant life--into the living water.

You see it is not only for those on the inside. But, it is, particularly, for those on the outside. For those who finally say, “I have no husband,” with all of the pain and suffering that is behind those words. That, in her case, comes from the likely reality that she has either been widowed. Or divorced. Or both.  Because she was barren. And because she is likely now suffering the humiliation of a Levirate marriage, a type of marriage prescribed in Scripture. Where her husband has died and she has been passed from brother to brother, finally reaching the youngest who can refuse to marry her, but must still take her into his home to care for her. 

When Jesus asks her to go get her husband, it all comes pouring out. All the pain and heartache. All the loneliness and shame. Everything that she has experienced comes pouring out.

What does Jesus do? Jesus hears her. He listens. And he does not condemn her.  Not once.

This is what we must do to overcome “it.” To overcome sexism. Or racism. Or class-ism. Or any other “ism” that is out there. We. Must. Listen. We must hear the stories and we must believe them. We must listen to the pain and suffering, the loneliness and shame. And we must not condemn. So often, we recite the words of John 3:16, yet we overlook those of John 3:17. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Jesus did not condemn her. And, unlike Nicodemus, this unnamed Samaritan woman became a witness to him. “Many Samaritans from that city believed in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony,” our story tells us. Many Samaritans. All because of her witness.

So, let us also be like her, this unnamed Samaritan woman, who shows us what is to be Jesus’ disciple. Let us be witnesses to Jesus and to a God who loved all the world so much that God gave God’s only son, that whoever believes in him will not perish, but will have living water. Abundant life. Here and now. And for all time. 

May God grant it. Amen.

Preached February 4, 2018, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY
Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany
Readings: Psalm 42:1-3, 5; John 4:1-42

Step Back and See the Possibilities

The Son is the image of the invisible God,
        the one who is first over all creation,
Because all things were created by him:
        both in the heavens and on the earth,
        the things that are visible and the things that are invisible.
            Whether they are thrones or powers,
            or rulers or authorities,
        all things were created through him and for him.
He existed before all things,
        and all things are held together in him.
He is the head of the body, the church,
who is the beginning,
        the one who is firstborn from among the dead
        so that he might occupy the first place in everything.
Because all the fullness of God was pleased to live in him,
        whether things on earth or in the heavens.
            He brought peace through the blood of his cross.

Once you were alienated from God and you were enemies with him in your minds, which was shown by your evil actions. But now he has reconciled you by his physical body through death, to present you before God as a people who are holy, faultless, and without blame. But you need to remain well established and rooted in faith and not shift away from the hope given in the good news that you heard. This message has been preached throughout all creation under heaven. And I, Paul, became a servant of this good news.
Now I’m happy to be suffering for you. I’m completing what is missing from Christ’s sufferings with my own body. I’m doing this for the sake of his body, which is the church. I became a servant of the church by God’s commission, which was given to me for you, in order to complete God’s word. I’m completing it with a secret plan that has been hidden for ages and generations but which has now been revealed to his holy people. God wanted to make the glorious riches of this secret plan known among the Gentiles, which is Christ living in you, the hope of glory. This is what we preach as we warn and teach every person with all wisdom so that we might present each one mature in Christ. I work hard and struggle for this goal with his energy, which works in me powerfully.  Colossians 1:15-29 (CEB)

Grace and peace to you God our Father. Amen.

This past week I was on vacation in Colorado. In fact, I was at a family reunion. My father had thirteen brothers and sisters. Every three years, our family, which is now into its fourth and fifth generations and numbers over 300, gathers together at some place in the U.S. to remember who we are and where we are from. It’s an amazing and moving time as we sit together and listen to the stories of our lives, of the lives of our parents and children, and of the lives of our grandparents and grandchildren.  This year we met for our reunion in the mountains of Colorado for five days. 

While we were there, I had the opportunity to see my niece, who I haven’t seen in a few years. She’s been busy with finishing college and starting work. I’ve been busy with school and internship and moving across country a few times. So, here in Colorado, we had a chance to catch up.

She’s quite a young woman. A mechanical engineer who graduated with honors from Cal-Poly. She has a great job with a start-up biomedical company in Southern California. She loves to hike and camp. And, she loves to tinker with machines. She has three motorcycles that she loves to mess with along with numerous other mechanical and electronic devices.

So, it seemed natural that, when she showed up at the reunion, she brought her new drone along with her. Now, I’ve only read about drones and watched them online. I’d never seen one in person or watched on in action. So, it was fascinating for me to see her operate this and to watch what it could do. 

Here’s an example of what it was able to do. Here, in this video, she was able to take a video of the members of our family who came to the reunion (by the way, this is only about half of my family!) and then to raise it up further into the sky and pan over the entire area where we were able to stay. We were able to see the setting first from a very small perspective and then to see it from a much larger, fuller perspective of the entire place. 

It is this video, taken by my niece from her new drone, that was helpful for me this week in thinking about our texts. 

Let’s first look at our Gospel lesson. I really don’t care for this story. Because it just seems to pit Martha against Mary and vice versa. It also seems to say to me that we have to choose one way of life over another--that a contemplative life is better than an active life of service. That Mary’s attention to Jesus’ teaching is better and more important than Martha’s work to be hospitable. 

But if, like the drone, I pull back and look at the bigger picture, I’m wondering if something different isn’t going on here, something I’ve never stepped back far enough to see from a fuller perspective. What Martha was doing was what was expected of her. She knew that guests were coming and so she got busy to make sure everyone had everything they needed. This is what was--and often still is--expected of women. It was work that was not just expected, but also valued. 

What wasn’t expected, though, is that Mary would take the position of a disciple, seated at the feet of Jesus, listening to him teach. If hospitality was considered women’s work, well, discipleship was considered men’s work. So, perhaps, the intent of this story is to push us out, to see a broader perspective, to see the possibility of something different, to see someone actually acting differently from what would have been expected or even allowed a woman to consider. Perhaps as Jesus repeats Martha’s name, he isn’t expressing frustration with her, but deep affection: “Martha, Martha, it is exactly because I love you that I don’t want you to be distracted or trapped by your work or your expected role, but instead to step back and see all that is possible for you, just as Mary has.” 

To step back and to see the possibilities. 

Perhaps we can take a lesson not only from Mary, but also from my niece’s drone.

To step back and to see the possibilities.

What if, for example, we were to step back and see the possibilities in the recent protests over the shootings in St. Anthony and Baton Rouge?  To not view them only from a close perspective, where they might seem out of control or disruptive or wrong. But to back up and take a broader view. To gain a bigger perspective. To see the possibility of these protests as transformative. That they might be the first step in an upsetting of societal structures that protect and elevate those of us with white skin over those of us who are people of color.  

Or what about the ways in which we deal with young Muslim men and women who go to Syria to fight with ISIS. What if we were to step back and look at the bigger picture? 

This is what crime prevention officers did in a small town in Denmark. On receiving reports of two young Muslim teenagers missing from an immigrant neighborhood outside their town, they, too, stepped back to gain a bigger perspective. After an investigation, they found out that these young men had gone to Syria. They had been drawn to the call put out by ISIS for Muslims worldwide to help build a new Islamic state. 

The police officers didn’t stop with this information, though. They stepped back and began to ask why this might be happening and what they might do to prevent radicalization.

Now most of the rest of the European countries came down hard on citizens who traveled to Syria. France shut down mosques it suspected of harboring radicals. The UK declared citizens who had gone to help ISIS enemies of the state. Several other countries threatened to take away their passports--a move previously reserved for convicted traitors.

But Danish police took a different approach. They made it clear that any citizens of Denmark who had traveled to Syria were welcome to come home and that, if they did, they would receive help with going back to school, finding an apartment, meeting with a psychiatrist or mentor, or whatever they needed to fully integrate back into society. In the process, they ended up creating an unusual--and unusually successful--approach to combating radicalization.

This program came to called the “hug a terrorist” program in the media, but this description doesn’t sit well with the cops. They see themselves as making an entirely practical decision designed to keep their city safe. From their perspective, coming down hard on young, radicalized Muslims will only make them angrier and more of a danger to society. 

To step back and see the possibilities. 

You see, that’s also the point of our Colossians text today. From a close-in perspective, it would seem impossible for an infinite, eternal God who exists outside of time to indwell in one human being who is mortal, finite and who dwells inside of time. 

Unless, of course, it isn’t. 

Unless, of course, we step back and see the possibilities.  See a new way that God was and is at work. As we read in verses 19-20...For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven.

To step back and see the possibilities. To step back and see that, through the event of Christ, God has reconciled himself to all things--on earth and on heaven. That God is at work making a new reality. A new social system. A new creative order marked by peace and reconciliation. Salvation is not about the transformation of our existing reality--the defeat of enemy powers. Salvation is about a radical reconciliation of the entirety of the created order. Salvation here is not about God making an offer and waiting to see who takes it. Here, it is about God just doing it. About God turning all creation on its head and reconciling himself to it through Him in whom all of the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.

To step back and see the possibilities. And to imagine God in a way that we have never imagined God before.

May that be our lesson today.


Amen.

Preached Sunday, July 17, 2016, at Chatfield Lutheran Church.
Ninth Sunday after Pentecost (Year C)
Texts: Psalm 15, Colossians 1:15-29, Luke 10:38-42

Choose Love

When Judas was gone, Jesus said, "Now the Human One has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify the Human One in himself and will glorify him immediately. Little children, I'm with you for a little while longer. You will look for me--but, just as I told the Jewish leaders, I also tell you now--'Where I'm going, you can't come.'

I give you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, so you also must love each other. This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, when you love each other. (John 13:31-35 CEB)

Love. That's our main topic today. Love.

Isn't love what the resurrection is all about? It seems so simple, doesn't it? Resurrection is love. Love is resurrection. No matter how you slice it, when you are talking Christ's resurrection, you are talking love.

And, today, in our lessons for this fifth Sunday of Easter, we are not only talking love. We are being told to "choose love."

If I were to go around this room today and ask you whether or not you choose love, I would dare say that everyone of you would answer, "Yes."  "Absolutely, positively, yes!" This is a warm, loving congregation. It is who we are. Besides, after all, who wouldn't choose love?

But, do we? Choosing love can be really hard. Choosing love can make us vulnerable. It can feel like we're taking too much of a chance sometimes, can't it? It can expose us to the possibility that our love might not be reciprocated. It might be a waste of our time, especially if we give it expecting something in return and don't get anything back. Choosing love can hurt, especially if the person we want to love doesn't see us as worthy of their love.

Yet, if we are truly the resurrection people we claim to be...if we, as the church, truly seek to be a partner with the Spirit at work in our world making all things new, then the only right choice for us is love. Our only choice is to be on the side of God and to be part of God's new creation and to choose love.

And, if we truly choose love, then our only other choice is to turn toward God and away from the influence of the world. To be in the world, but not of the world. To work toward a new way of living, a "new heaven and a new earth." Toward a place where God will come down and dwell with us.  A place transformed by God into something fully beyond our wildest imagination. To work toward the new Jerusalem instead of the global empire in which we currently life.

This new Jerusalem spoken of in our Revelation text today isn't some eternal place up in the heavens paved with golden streets. Unlike most of what we've heard in contemporary culture, this isn't a rapture; this new Jerusalem isn't a place for us to escape to from our current world--a place away from this messed up world to which God will rescue us.

No.  This new Jerusalem that God is creating is right here, right now. It's happening in our presence. In this very moment. Here and now the Spirit is at work in our world, creating a new world where every human being and all of creation might experience the joy and goodness and fullness of God's love.

And our job, as the church, is to walk alongside the Spirit--to partner with God in ways that allow God's power and Christ's love to be experienced in the world. Our job is to be involved in making God's dream come true in this world. Our job is to choose love.

But, once again, it's not easy to choose love, is it? To treat all people with love? To treat people as if they are no different from us, regardless of race or religion or class or gender or age or sexual orientation or political persuasion. It's not always easy to set aside the biases and prejudices that are so deeply ingrained in us, is it? Or to even recognize that we have bias and prejudice in the first place.

It's hard for us today. It was hard for the early church, too.  Look at our Acts reading. Hear the Jerusalem council grilling Peter as to why he was baptizing those Gentiles--those unclean Gentiles. It is hard for all of us, past and present to choose love.

This past week, as I drove home from my vacation in Texas, I listened to an audiobook. The name of the book was "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking." I've wanted to read it for a long time, so I decided I would use my driving time efficiently and listen to it instead.

In it, the author Malcolm Gladwell, presents research on what is called the "adaptive unconscious." Our adaptive unconscious is our ability to use limited information from a very brief experience to come to a rapid conclusion--like when you reach a quick, gut-level decision about something or someone. He argues that a decision like this--one reached quickly and with limited data--is often better than one that is reached with much more information or a longer period of time.

Yet, there is also a dark side to our adaptive unconscious. Prejudices and biases operate at this same level, even in someone who doesn't consciously exhibit such behavior. To test whether or not one has unconscious bias, readers of his book are invited to take a test on a Harvard University website.

So, when I got home on Tuesday, I took one of several possible tests--a test to measure any implicit bias I might have toward African-Americans.

Now keep in mind that, although I grew up in very white South Dakota, our ranch was situated between two reservations--the Cheyenne and the Sioux. In Los Angeles, I lived in a very diverse area. Within 10-12 blocks from my house lived immigrants from Korea, El Salvador, the Philippines, Mexico, as well as African-Americans. There was a large Muslim mosque only a few blocks from my house and a Jewish temple within a quarter of a mile.

For ten years, I worked for an organization with a leadership that was predominantly African-American. For many years, I worked with undocumented workers, primarily from Mexico and Central America. I worked for three years along the Texas-Mexico border. I have many close friends who are Hispanic and Filipino and African American.

So, although I knew I might have some unconscious bias, I thought my test results might be okay.

Well, I was stunned!  The data compiled from my test suggested a "strong automatic preference for European American compared to African American." It was the highest level of unconscious bias possible on the test.

You see, it is hard to "choose love." Even when we consciously do choose it, trying to treat others with dignity and respect and as no different from us, our unconscious biases and prejudices creep in.  "Them." "Those people." "They." Not "us" or "we."

The only way for us to begin to put an end to making "us and them" distinctions is to begin to recognize and admit our biases and their impact on our relationships with those who are different from us. Racism, sexism, classism, ageism, heterosexism, and other biased behaviors and thinking are not godly. They are motivated by fear of the other and not by a love of humanity. They are not the result of choosing love.

And, yet, in spite of us...in spite of even our unconscious bias and prejudice, God continues to work in our world. God, who created this world and all living and life-giving things in it, continues to disrupt and overturn the walls and the barriers we create between each other or any bias and prejudice we may have.

"See, I am making all things new." This is our promise. It is a promise that is trustworthy and true. It is a promise for a new world--a world where God will dwell among us, where God will wipe every tear away, where there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. And where those who are thirsty will receive water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.

Let us working alongside the Holy Spirit, then. Let us seek to overcome our unconscious biases and prejudices.  Let us choose love.

Amen.

Preached April 24, 2016, at Chatfield Lutheran Church.