Hope Will Heal

By Dennis Sanders

Lent 5A: April 10, 2011
Ezekiel 37:1-14

I actually remember when I first heard this scripture.  It was at a Sunday Morning service at the Baptist church I grew up at in my hometown of Flint, Michigan.  I had to be about 10 years old at the time and I remember thinking how odd this scripture was.  I mean, what was this about dried bones coming back to life?  None of it made sense.

Flash forward three decades and a whole lot of life later, these words from the prophet Ezekiel make sense, at least that whole valley of dry bones part.

As I read this text, my thoughts drifted to my home state of Michigan and how it's faring these days, which is not well.  The census figures came out recently, and the news was not good.  Detroit, which was once the nation's fourth largest city, lost 25 percent of it's population in the last 10 years.  What was once a city of nearly 2 million in 1950 is now a city hovering around 700,000.  The changes in the US auto industry have ravaged Detroit and most of southeastern Michigan, leaving utter devastation in its wake.  My hometown of Flint had close to 200,000 when I was born in 1969.  These days, it hovers around 100,000.  In the 1970s, around 80,000 people worked in the many auto factories that dotted Flint and the surrounding cities, including my parents.  Now there are less than 10,000 working for the auto industry. The loss of so many jobs can take it toll.  In towns like Flint and Detroit, where there were once neighborhoods filled with well-maintained homes, there are now places filled with rotting houses and crime.  Its always hard to come home and see how far Flint and most of Michigan have fell.

Ezekiel is taken to a valley filled with dry bones by God.  Our prophet surveys the devastation and then hears this strange question from God.  "O mortal, can these bones live?" 

Huh? 

I know there aren't supposed to be dumb questions, but this really seems like the dumbest question to ask.  These were bones.  Oh, and they were dry bones, so there was zero chance they were going to come back to life.  It seemed like there was an obvious answer to God's question, but Ezekiel was smart and replied that only God can know.

God keeps talking about how God will put the bones back together with muscles and skin and finally with the very breath of God.  Life would come from where there was no life.

God then explains to Ezekiel what this whole exercise was about.  The Israelites were in exile, far away from home.  They felt cut off from everything they knew and felt like those dried bones.  But God had a plan.  All was not lost.  God told them they would come back to their homeland and not only that, they would receive God's spirit. 

As we continue our Lenten journey this week, it might seem odd to have a story about hope in it.  After all, we are on a journey towards the Cross and this is supposed to be a "somber" time.  Hope is something that feels more Advent than it does Lent.

And yet, maybe it makes sense to have this passage of hope in this dark time.  As I think about the economic devastation that is Michigan, I am reminded of stories that point to hope, that point to something that says, "despair will not win."  I am reminded of a recent article in my hometown newspaper about folks moving into Flint at a time when so many are leaving.  They see hope when others see despair.

In many mainline Protestant churches, there is a sense of feeling like dry bones.  The glory days are long gone and there might be a sense that there is no hope. 

But God counters our despair by saying that God will save and restore us.  God will bring us back from the graves to life.  God gives us hope, not in a fairy tale-ending, but that God will be with us and breathe life into us.

This Sunday, I hope that you can acknowledge the dry bones that are in your life and in the lives of your congregation and community.  I also hope you can preach...hope.  Remind them, remind yourself that even when there seems to be no life, when the bones are raw that God will come and knit us back together, bone by bone.  Hope will heal.

Go and be church.

Dennis Sanders is the Associate Pastor at First Christian Church in Minneapolis.

Photo:Abandoned, decrepit Victorian-era home in Brush Park, Detroit, Michigan from Wikipedia.

This Is the One!

By Dennis Sanders

Lent 4A: April 3, 2011
I Samuel 16: 1-13

If you want to get great interview tips, you might not want to read the Bible. 

For some reason, God just doesn't seem to pick people with the right skills for the job. God always seems to pick the smallest, or the weakest, or the youngest candidate for whatever God wants done.

This week is no different.  The text opens with the prophet Samuel feeling blue.  In chapter 15,  Saul, the king of Israel did not heed God's instructions and was rejected as king.  Samuel leaves Saul in a huff and the long-standing relationship between them is broken.   Samuel was in mourning over the loss of a close friend.

We have no idea how long Sam is sad, but God then tells him enough is enough: it's time to get up and anoint a new king.

Samuel makes the trip to Bethlehem and meets a man named Jesse who has seven sons.  Our man Sam gets introduced to Jesse's oldest, Eliab.  The text never says that Eliab is handsome, but you can guess he had to be a looker.  Samuel is excited and tells God that this has to be "The One."

"Nope," God says. "He's not the One.  You see, you humans like to look on the outside, but I tend to look on the inside."

You know the rest of the story.  God ends up choosing David, the youngest of Jesse's sons.  The Message version of this text refers to David as a "runt."  When David is presented to Samuel you hear God saying "This is the One!  Anoint him now!"

Like I said, God is an odd God.  The people God chooses to do God's work in the world are more times than not, people who are not qualified for the job.  Gideon was chosen to be the leader of the Israelites, even though he was a fraidy cat. Jonah preached God's judgement and repentance to the people of Nineveh, even though he hated them and tried to get out of the job.  Let's not even start with the disciples of Jesus who somehow were the ones that helped found the church.

Our culture, our world is always attracted to that which is new, shiny and beautiful.   We are interested in the person that has the most awards and the most degrees from the finest schools.

But God tends to look at other things and as followers of God's Son, we are also called to look at people with God's eyes.  God seems to be able to do mighty things by choosing the weak, the cowardly, and the outcast. 

This coming Sunday, many churches will focus on the text from John 9 on the blind man that was healed.  It's an important text, but I hope pastors and Christian Ed teachers will consider using the 1 Samuel text as well.  In our congregations are people who are dealing with unemployment and feeling useless.  There are others who deal with issues of self esteem and depression.  Some struggle with substances like drugs or are in recovery and working hard to stay clean and sober.  Whole congregations deal with declining membership, declining budgets and empty buildings.  This text gives hope, the hope that God can use them to do God's work in the world- even if we don't measure up.

Working at an urban church, we tend to get a lot of people who come literally from off the streets.  It's really easy to judge these folks and not seem them as God's own and potentially as God's anointed.  But the fact is, they can be used to do God's work just like the richest person in the church.

As we walk our Lenten journey, let us have ears to hear and eyes to see when God might just point to someone we least expect and tell us that "this is the one" who will join us in God's work.

Go and be church.

Dennis Sanders is the Associate Pastor at First Christian Church in Minneapolis.

Photo: Samuel Anoints David from the Brick Testament.

Remember

All Saint's Day, even in Protestant churches, can be a celebration of remembrance. We can remember those in our families, and in the world, who have died during the past year. We can remember the 'saints' in the history of the Church, and in our own church. We can also take the opportunity to give thanks for those who have been saints along the way in our own faith journeys.

The texts for Nov. 1 lend themselves to this, but they also speak of God's desire to be remembered by God's people.

The Old Testament lesson, Deuteronomy 6:1-9, contains the Shema -- considered by some to be the most important prayer in Judaism -- "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." Some translations conclude with "...the Lord alone". (In Hebrew: Shema Yisrael YHWH Eloheinu YHWH Echad.) The passage continues with "Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength," and with instructions to keep these commandments by passing them on to generations, talking about them in private and public life, and using external rituals of binding them on their head and hands, and placing them on the doorposts of their home and gates. This passage is the source of the Jewish practice of wearing the scripture as phylacteries, or teffilin, and of the mezuzah on the doorposts of homes.

In the Gospel text, Mark 12:28-34, Jesus, when asked by a teacher of the law what the most important commandment is, recites the Shema, adding a second commandment, "Love your neighbor as yourself."

Jesus' act of remembrance comes out of his own Jewish faith. Yet, in adding this second commandment, it becomes cruciform. Love of the creator, but also love of fellow humankind -- if you visualize this, it takes the shape of a cross.

Christians don't pray the Shema or wear the teffilin or place a mezuzah on our doorposts. So is there anything we have, or do, that helps us remember these two commandments that Jesus said were the most important?

Many of us wear crosses ourselves. I have several, but one that I am particularly fond of was given to me by a dear cousin. It's a simple silver design by Atlanta jeweler James Avery, given to me around the time I started seminary. I wear it almost every day. Like many necklaces, the clasp always seems to make its way around to the front, so I find myself checking it and adjusting the clasp. To do this, I have to grasp the cross with one hand while I turn the chain with the other. I do it almost unconsciously -- but I suppose, if I thought about it, I could use this as an opportunity to remember: Love God, love your neighbor.

Even if we don't wear a cross -- we may have some other emblem, item or practice that helps us to remember. Some may have a tattoo, some have a bumper sticker, some may have a special prayer they say each day.

But regardless of how we remember, the important thing is that we remember. And as Disciples, we have the table, of course. Each week, as we gather there, we remember the one whose love of God and neighbor was so strong that he laid down his life for it.

Photo: laura.wilkerson1333 (Creative Commons license)

On Community

By Brian Kirk

Mark 9: 38-50

What to choose? What to choose? So much is going on in this piece of the lectionary that I think one would have to narrow it down to a portion of the passage. If there is a theme that might draw it all together, it could be the theme of "community."

In the opening text, we have the disciples reportedly coming to Jesus to tattle on some other folks who are healing in his name. Boring, in The People's New Testament Commentary, argues that this is a clearly post-Easter reference. The disciples' claim that this exorcist "was not following us" (rather than using "you" referring to Jesus) suggests a description of Mark's historical context and the struggle in the early Church over who has authority -- who is "in" and who is "out." The renegade exorcist likely then refers to other Christian groups who were acting independently. Interestingly, Jesus' reply seems to suggest that as long as they are doing his work, they are just as much a part of the community.

In fact, note how inclusive Mark is when he has Jesus say "Whoever is not against us is for us." There is a world of difference between this version of the saying and the one we find in Matthew which reads "Whoever is not for us is against us." They sound similar, but the meaning couldn't be more different when it comes to seeing those who don't practice/live/believe the way we do as either enemy or neighbor.

The next part of the text deals with care for the "little ones" and a string of unconnected sayings about getting rid of body parts that might cause one to stumble. The reference here to "little ones" is not likely about children but rather people who are new to the faith or who have little authority. It's clear that these vulnerable ones are to be cared for by the community. This theme is carried over in the reference to cutting off body parts, the "body" here likely a metaphor for the community of faith. We have a responsibility to care for each other (and to do away with those practices that harm or cause division). And if the community extends beyond our congregation and includes even those we consider outside our boundaries (e.g. the exorcist mentioned previously) then do we not also have a responsibility to the community of our neighborhood, our city, our country, and the world?

Finally, the reference to salt also connects with the theme of community. We are to have salt (a distinctiveness about ourselves) and yet still live in peace as community. A reminder, perhaps, that faith is not ultimately a personal and inward practice but a communal effort in which we add to the flavor of those gathered around us as we strive to live in peace with all God's children.

(Note: The James passage for this Sunday deals with many of these same themes of community and caring for one another.)

Apology

So sorry for not posting last week as I was scheduled...I kind of got hung up on finishing my doctoral papers for this year.

Dan Mayes

Unclean Clean Good and Bad

OK... first of all, my apologies for a late post this week. I stopped using the lectionary about a year ago and forget that I need to check here! As I look at the Gospel lesson from Mark for this week, my first reaction is... I love it when Jesus is a rebel! When someone chastizes me or others for shaking things up, going against the grain, doing something "we've never done before!" or looking at things differently I think, Jesus was a rebel, too! Thanks for the compliment.

But, of course, the Gospel goes on to deal with issues of what is unclean and clean. The decisions about what is clean and unclean are human decisions, and Christ emphasizes that it isn't external things, or things we take into ourselves that make us unclean or unclean, but more what comes out of us that can be unclean or make us unclean. How interesting that we are so good at deciding what is clean and unclean, or what is good or bad. We are especially good at determining that for OTHERS more than for ourselves. The 'log in our eye, splinter in others' syndrome. But how do we determine that? And how often do the things we look at as being 'bad' turn out to be 'good' in the long run? 25 years ago I went through a horrendously painful time that I thought everything that was happening was bad. I even prayed for God to turn things around and make them 'good' again. But it didn't. For awhile I wondered if God had turned away, but I know now that God was just helping me get through because something really good would come of all the bad. In our adult study class at the Parish, we were talking about death and someone said, "Why do we always look at death in negative terms? I think God looks at death in a loving, positive light." We are very quick to put labels on things, situations, rituals, and people...especially labels of good and bad or clean and unclean... based only on our own experiences and thoughts. But if God created us and all around us and saw that it was good... why are we so quick to deem it bad or unclean?
There are many folks in this small town I live in who are unchurched, living below the poverty level, not related to anyone else in town, not involved in anything in the town, spend time at the local bar... and a myriad of other things that the 'regulars' in town use to deem them 'bad' and not worthy of their time, friendship, or care. And yet these 'misfits' are the ones that are reaching out to others, especially other 'misfits', sharing what they have, and the first to respond when help is needed. I know some of the 'church' folks question when I help them, sit with them at the park, or am in any way a part of their lives. But I think that it is exactly what Jesus calls us to do... to stop determining what WE deem to be good, bad, clean, unclean, worthy, unworthy, and see people and situations as God might see them... as basically good, worthy of our care.... and if we want to put a watchguard out for the negative, put it out in front of ourselves to make sure that, before we are so quick to judge others, that what comes from us is not bad, unclean or unworthy of God's glory and what comes from us is essentially good and that we are a conduit for the light of God.
So... in the midst of this prestigious group of folks with whom I have a high respect for... there's my 2 cents worth. Oh yea... and go out and be a rebel for Christ!

Who has the authority?

Going with the Roman Catholic passage...

Ephesians 5:21-33

²¹Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. ²²Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. ²³For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior. ²⁴Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands. ²⁵Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, ²⁶in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, ²⁷so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind—yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. ²⁸In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, ³⁰because we are members of his body. ³¹“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” ³²This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church. ³³Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband.

I've chosen this Ephesians passage because I think it all too often gets used inappropriately. I once attended a wedding in which the bride was told that according to the law of God, she would be sinful if she did not submit fully to the desires of the groom. Of course nothing was mentioned to the groom about loving the bride as he would love himself.

That, and interpretations like it are dangerous, to say the least.

Immediately my mind jumps to asking what was going on in Ephesus that lead the writer of Ephesians to comment on household relationships (he also goes on to discuss children and slaves).

This section might be better understood in the larger understanding of how first century households were to be ordered. Among that, Paul describes the nature of the relationship of Christ to the church, as if to use the example of the household to teach his first readers about how they should look on the purpose of the early church, and the relation of the believers to the teaching of Jesus.

So what about the misuse of v. 22-24? This reading really should focus on v. 21,"Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ" (NRSV). This verse is the foundation for what comes next, and gives meaning to the discussion of how women and men should relate to their spouses. Without this verse being included in the reading (as often is the case in some weddings I've attended), the language about women submitting to their husbands clearly can be misdirected.

But focusing on how we can be subject (servants) to one another out of respect for Christ brings back the language of Jesus about the last being first and the greatest among us being the servants. So what does this look like in a selfish and individualized western capitalist culture?

And the idea of the husband being the head of the household simply was the legal understanding of the time. Women, children and slaves could not own property, and therefore the Ephesians writer uses this understanding to set up Jesus as the "head" of the church, meaning it is Christ who is to be the one who has established the 'house'.

Do we still set up Jesus as the head of the church? Have we replaced his teachings with self-help programs and a generic faith, based on common morality but ignores justice, healing and community connection?

How do we encourage healthy households which might not be of the standard described here? Single parent homes, same-sex homes, extended family households? How does this passage apply to other forms of modern households?

Happy homilizing!