Sunday, October 4

Today's Reading: Mark 10:2-16

My sermon/reflection for the day...

The first job I had out of college was one where I taught English and Social Studies to offenders detained in the juvenile detention center back in Spokane, WA.

The job was a challenge for me on several levels – one of which was dealing with the way staff were expected to deal with the youth. You see at the time Spokane didn’t have an institution to process the most hardened of juvenile offenders. Consequently, every youth in the community that had committed an offense was housed together while their case was being processed. This meant you had those accused of simple misdemeanors sharing space with those accused of rape or murder. This meant the staff had to be incredibly careful about monitoring the interactions between youth. As a consequence, the rules that governed the youth were extremely strict. The kids were told, for instance, that they could not get out of their chairs unless they had permission from a staff member to do so.

I’ll never forget the day during my first year of teaching where the rigid rules of the institution bumped up against common sense. I was working with a young man in the back of the classroom when the fire alarm unexpectedly went off. Now most of the students in the school were able to intuitively interpret the rule they had learned about not getting out of one’s chair without permission in light of an emergency. So most of the students stood up, lined up single-file facing the exit, and waited for the next set of instructions. That is - all students but one: a young man whom I’ll call Shane.

As I hurried to usher the kids out of the classroom, I saw Shane out of the corner of my eye planted in his seat, smiling like a Cheshire Cat.

“Shane, why aren’t you in line?” I asked.

“Because I followed instructions. ‘Never to get out of your chair without permission, remember?’” he said, mockingly.

While Shane’s response was correct on a literal level – he was completely unaware of the deeper principle that undergirded the rules for the youth: the deeper principle being the safety of the youth came first.

All of the other students knew what that principle was, and acted accordingly. It was Shane’s rigidity –his desire to get a rise out of the staff – that set him apart.

So why am I talking about this?

Well, there are those folks in our Christian communities who hear Jesus’ words from today’s passage from Mark and receive the words much like the way Shane received his words of instruction. They look at the surface meaning of Jesus’ words and remain oblivious to the principles underlying those words.

So what principles might those be?
Well it depends on which piece of the passage you are looking at. When Jesus said, for instance, that when a person divorces his or her spouse to marry another they are committing adultery – he was speaking to an audience where marriages were understood primarily as transactions involving a primary party (a man) and his property (a woman). When Jesus those words about divorce in verses 10-12, he was attempting to inject two radical concepts in their definition of marriage: respect and balance.

Sadly, some have used Jesus’ words to force individuals to stay in disrespectful, unbalanced relationships because they - like Shane - missed the underlying point.

Similarly, folks have taken a surface reading of Jesus’ words in verse five – the part where Jesus is quoted as saying “God made male and female to be together” – and use it as a blanket condemnation for lesbian and gay persons - all the while ignoring the fact that those words were embedded in a 2,000 year old assumption that all people were drawn to partners of the opposite gender. In holding on to that ancient assumption, they miss Jesus deeper call: be true to yourself and open yourself to the possibility of finding the one who makes you whole. Those, I believe, are words we can ALL live by.

Sadly, by taking Jesus’ words out of their cultural context and completely ignoring their underlying principles, some have taken Jesus’ timeless words of love and turned them into weapons of destruction.

Friends, on this World Communion Sunday, I would encourage you to receive Jesus’ words for what they are: an honest and passionate attempt to bring all of us into right relationship with one another. For if the pressing issues of our day – issues such as global climate change and the global economic recession - have taught us anything, it’s that our relationships matter. Whether our commitment to living in right relationship is affirmed by the way we commit ourselves to our life-partner, or whether it is affirmed through our patterns of consumption that show our concern for generations to come from around the globe, may we heed Jesus’ call to embrace the integrity of ALL our relationships.

Amen.

Saturday, October 3

Today’s Readings: Job 7:1-21; Luke 16:14-18; Psalm 26

I’m someone who generally has an extremely high level of energy. I rarely slow down in life for very long. There’s about only one thing that can slow me down – and that is getting sick. Well, this week I was running around at break-neck speed – trying to get ready for Mike’s arrival last Thursday night – when guess what happened? I got sick. Tuesday I could feel the sore throat move in and by Thursday afternoon the congestion was there. By the time I picked Mike up at the airport on Thursday night at 11:00 PM I felt like a bus had hit me. Needless to say, I’ve been a little crabby as I’ve had to deal with being sick on the one weekend in a two-month span that I get to spend with Mike. On more than one occasion this weekend I’ve found myself uttering sentiments much like Job’s in today’s passage: “I’m not keeping one bit of this quiet, I’m laying it all out there on the table; my complaining to high heaven is bitter, but honest” (Job 7:11 from The Message). I know that some people of faith would be bothered by such a reaction to life’s injustices – that they would expect a person of faith to smile and simply endure the challenges without a peep. Before you give up on me, however, I would note that often – when I find myself in that place of crabbiness with my Creator – I also take a moment to reflect on how glad I am to be in relation with One who embraces all facets of my being (my crabbiness included). Til next time…

Friday, October 2

Today’s Readings: Job 4:1-21; Romans 8:1-11; Psalm 26

There are a lot of issues that cause modern Christians a great deal of confusion as they theologically wrestle with them. Some of these include issues like theodicy (why do bad things happen to good people?), the nature of Scripture (is its meaning primarily allegorical or literal), Christology (to what degree was Jesus human and Divine), and the like.

One of the more challenge issues has to do with the notion of a personal God – a God whom an individual can both relate to and feel care for by. The notion that God was a personal God was the prevailing notion for many centuries. In the days since the Enlightenment, however, this view has grown out of favor with many.

While many would find such a shift intellectually satisfying, I have watched many people - especially those in the midst of a personal crisis like the death of a loved one or a life-threatening illness - wrestle to resolve their intellectual commitment with their personal feelings.

I was reminded of this tension when I read today’s passage from Romans that said: “God went for the jugular when God sent God’s own Son. God didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In God’s Son, Jesus, God personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all” (Romans 8:3 from The Message).

So how do you balance the tension between the competing concepts of God that on one hand would describe God as remote and on the other hand describe God as personal? Do you gravitate toward one end of the theological spectrum, or do you land somewhere in between? Til next time…

Thursday, October 1

Today’s Readings: Job 2:11-3:26; Galatians 3:23-29; Psalm 26

I have a personality trait that often gets me into trouble. BIG trouble! That trait is that I LOVE to solve problems.

Now on the surface, that may sound like a very good thing – as problems are generally things most people like to see go away. There is one area, however, where being a problem solver can get you into lots of trouble. That area is personal relationships.

I’ve learned repeatedly over the years that when loved ones come to me and wants to talk about a problem– the last thing they want is for me to propose a solution. What do they want instead? Someone to simply listen to them as they blow off steam. The more I remember this (and fight my natural inclination to problem solve) the better I get along with my loved ones.

I was reminded of this important lesson in today’s reading from Job – for in that passage Job’s associates do something truly remarkable: they keep their mouth shut and simply listen to their friend who is in complete misery. What a concept! Of course later in the book, Job’s friends mess things up by opening their mouths – but I’ll leave that for another day. In today’s passage, they know enough to keep their mouths shut.

Perhaps there is a situation in your life where you are tempted to do what I often do: problem solve. If that’s the case, you might try following the example of Job’s friends and do the most important thing a person can do with a loved one: listen. Til next time…