cordeliaknits

Cooking

So, I recently saw an episode of America's Test Kitchen in which they made palak paneer, including making the paneer from scratch.  It looked easy enough, and I'd never tried making cheese before, so I decided to do it.  Sunday, I made my first batch of paneer, using whole milk and buttermilk to curdle it.  It turned out beautifully, looked exactly like it should, was the perfect consistency...and tasted like burnt milk.  Turns out you need to use a heavy bottomed pot and stir constantly to avoid burning the milk.  Darn.

OK, paneer take two.  This time I used lemon juice, my dutch oven, and a wooden spoon.  However, I didn't press it enough, and it turned out more like ricotta.

Paneer take three (on Wednesday).  Same as the second time, but I squeezed it more, and pressed it longer...just not long enough, apparently.

It was very crumbly, but tasted ok, so I proceeded with my recipe, finally!

On the show they used spinach and mustard greens, so that's what I did as well.  Lots of garlic, onion, a jalepeno pepper (they were out of serrano at the store), lots of spices, and diced tomatoes.

I cooked the greens in some water until they were wilty, then blended most of them up in the cuisinart, leaving a handfull rough chopped for texture.  Then I added them to the onion mixture in the kadhai and warmed it all back up.  Then, I added the paneer.  This happened:

If you know palak paneer, it is supposed to be lovely cubes of cheese mixed with the spinach curry.  However, my paneer broke up when I stirred it in, and it was not pretty.

The whole thing tasted ok, but I was disappointed that it didn't look nicer.  I may try again someday, but I think I'm just about paneered out at the moment!

sermons

You'll notice that I am posting past sermons, in no particular order, that I didn't post when I preached them.  I hope that's not too jarring.  I welcome feedback or discussion, and I hope you enjoy them.  If you're not here for sermons, just skip them and read the baby, cooking, and knitting posts instead!

Demons and Pigs

This sermon was delivered on June 23, 2013

Matthew 8:26-9:1

26And he said to them, ‘Why are you afraid, you of little faith?’ Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a dead calm. 27They were amazed, saying, ‘What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?’

28 When he came to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes,* two demoniacs coming out of the tombs met him. They were so fierce that no one could pass that way. 29Suddenly they shouted, ‘What have you to do with us, Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?’ 30Now a large herd of swine was feeding at some distance from them. 31The demons begged him, ‘If you cast us out, send us into the herd of swine.’ 32And he said to them, ‘Go!’ So they came out and entered the swine; and suddenly, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and perished in the water. 33The swineherds ran off, and on going into the town, they told the whole story about what had happened to the demoniacs. 34Then the whole town came out to meet Jesus; and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their neighbourhood. 91And after getting into a boat he crossed the water and came to his own town.

 Demons and pigs.  That’s what I’ve been thinking about all week.  How do I talk about demons and pigs?  What’s the lesson here, the good news?  What’s the point of this story?  The context? The symbolism?  It’s not the easiest story to interpret, but it is kind of fun.

I have always been interested in demons.  From the time I could read, I always went to the scary stories section of the library.  I loved stories about ghosts and witches and demons, not because I wasn’t scared by them, but because I was, and I loved that feeling.  I still love ghost stories, and when I go to see horror movies, I need a friend to hold on to, because I get so scared…but, this demon story is not your typical scary story.  This one is scary in different ways.

First of all, we have a man, they call him a demoniac, because he is possessed by demons.  This possession means that he is incapable of fitting in with society.  He doesn’t wear clothes, he lives in the cemetery, away from friends and family, he sometimes needs to be shackled because he’s dangerous to himself and others.  The demons in this man are scary not because they are supernatural, but because they have taken over his life to the point where he can’t function. 

 This is, unfortunately, not a rare situation.  Every day in Santa Cruz, you can see many people whose demons have taken over.  Untreated mental illness and addiction, and often the two combined, cause many of our neighbors to be in the same state as the man in this story…harmful to themselves, unable to function in society, lost and alone.

In our story, Jesus arrives on the scene.  He comes to Gerasea, a gentile town where the local economy depends on raising pigs, unclean animals, according to Jewish law, and he meets this man, and proceeds to talk to his demons.  The demons recognize Jesus right away, and they are afraid of him.  He asks their name, and they say ‘Legion,’ which tells us that there are many of them, but also remind us of the Roman legion, a violent symbol of the oppressive empire of the time.  There is an army inside this man that is destroying his life, yet that army is afraid of Jesus.

Now, the concept of demons and their like were common across many cultures in the ancient world.  One source I read said that lesser powers were thought to obey greater powers, so the fact that Jesus was able to command power over these demons symbolized his great power, especially because these were gentile demons, if you will.  If they had a master, it wasn’t Jewish, yet Jesus’s power was greater. 

 This, I think, is one of the lessons in this story that might have been more obvious to ancient listeners than to us.  We don’t spend much time thinking about demonic hierarchy nowadays, but when the gospels were written, it was common knowledge, and the idea of Jesus commanding someone else’s demons would have signified a power and divinity that was impressive.

So, this army of demons is afraid of Jesus, they don’t want him to order them back into the abyss, something they wouldn’t be afraid of unless they thought he had the power to do it.  Instead, they beg to be moved into a herd of pigs nearby.  Jesus obliges. 

Now, we know that pigs are considered unclean under the Jewish dietary laws, along with many other animals, shellfish, for instance.  But, I was thinking about this symbolism and couldn’t help but recall many visits to pig farms, which is something children do in the Midwest.  Other kinds of farms have their own smells, farms where there are cows and horses and goats and chickens smell of manure, certainly, but I’ve never been bothered by it.  Pig farms, on the other hand, stink.  They smell terrible.  The more pigs there are, the stronger and more oppressive the stench.  It’s a stink that sticks to you, that gags you if you aren’t used to it.  And, remembering that stench, I think it’s no wonder pigs were considered unclean!

But, however bad they smelled, the pigs in this story are interesting, in that they cannot abide being possessed by demons.  Unwilling to live with the demons inside them, they commit a mass suicide, which, although he was harmful to himself, was not something the possessed man had done. 

Since we don’t hear more about them, I assume this means the demons did, in fact, end up back in the abyss.

So, the man is healed.  Suddenly, he is in his right mind, he cleans himself up, puts on some clothes, and he’s ready to sit at Jesus’ feet and be a disciple.  The townspeople, however, are not happy.  Sure, they had one crazy guy who they had to watch out for, but they also had a lot of pigs who, however stinky, paid the bills!  Now, a member of their community has been healed, but their economy has been deeply affected, and they are scared.  They tell Jesus to leave.  It’s not that they don’t think he performed a miracle, it’s that that miracle was too expensive for their comfort.  They hadn’t planned on paying so much for one man to be healed.  They would have rather kept chaining him up when he got troublesome.

Jesus obliges, and goes on his way, but when the man asks to come along, Jesus refuses him.  He tells him to stay home, and tell people what Jesus had done.  He creates a gentile apostle from a formerly demon-possessed man.  This couldn’t have been easy, though, for the man to go back to his town, to continue to live with the people that had seen him acting crazy, even violent.  Sure, they might see he had changed, but how could they forget who and what he had been?  Would he ever be able to have a normal life there, with people who knew his past?  It wasn’t an easy thing that Jesus asked him to do. 

 So, what does all this mean for us?  I’ve spent a lot of time this week thinking about demons, about the most obvious kinds we deal with, mental illness, addiction, but also the more insidious but common kind, the demons that live in our heads, telling us lies.  We all have them.  They may tell you you’re ugly, stupid, unlovable… they may repeat all the bad things anyone has ever said about you until you believe them to be true.  Or, they may tell you that money is more important than love, that power is more important than peace.  Our world is full of demons, and they are legion. 

Most of my writing these days is done with a sleeping baby next to me.  As I looked at her this morning, I realized she doesn’t know about demons yet.  Her biggest worries have to do with the location of her pacifier, and the frustration of a toy that is just out of reach.  But, unfortunately, she will know about demons someday.  She will know about her birth mother’s demons, so powerful she couldn’t keep her babies.  She will know the demons of friends and family who are broken and hurting, and she will almost certainly have some of her own, even though I will try to thwart them whenever I can. 

This society breeds demons in little girls—telling them how they should look, and dress and act, and making them think they are less-than if they don’t fit.  This society also breeds demons in little boys—discouraging emotion, encouraging violence.  These demons hurt us all, but can be invisible, and I think that makes them worse, in a way, than the more obvious demon of schizophrenia, for instance. 

When we can easily identify someone as ‘crazy,’ they become other, and we can point the finger at them instead of examining ourselves.

Unfortunately, in our society, we are too much like the townspeople in today’s story.  Less interested in healing people’s demons than making money.  Unwilling to pay the price, whether economically or emotionally, to heal those who are hurting.  When Jesus, a healer came to them, he proved his abilities, but they still implored him to leave.  Even if he could help them spiritually, he was bad for business, and that’s what their priority was. 

Demons are actually pretty good business.  The ones that tell us we aren’t good enough cause us to spend lots of money to look different, to change our bodies, or to acquire more and better stuff.  The demons of addiction keep drug lords and liquor stores alike in business, and the demons of violence and fear make for a multi-billion dollar gun industry.  The message in our story is that Jesus can heal these demons.  Jesus can bring us peace, acceptance, freedom, but maybe we can’t see past the profits to let him. 

Jesus has always been bad for business.  That’s one of the reasons he was killed.  The Roman Empire profited by subjugating the people they colonized, and Jesus was spreading the message that the God of love was more powerful.  Jesus’ disciples left their work and families to become homeless travelers who shared their resources and preached against hoarding. 

And Jesus’ teachings about money and greed are so threatening, most people, including most Christians, choose to ignore them.

And so, what do demons and pigs have to do with us, today, in the US, in Santa Cruz, in this room?  I’ve actually come to the conclusion that they are extremely relevant, that by hearing and thinking about this story, we can learn a lot about ourselves.  If we let Jesus heal us of our demons, will we be brave enough to stick around and tell people about it?  Brave enough to admit what those demons were, no matter the cost?  Brave enough to be witnesses to the healing power of God in a society more interested in greed? 

This is what we are called to do, to allow ourselves to be healed, and then to bear witness.  Healing our demons won’t likely result in any pigs being harmed, but our egos might have to take a jump off the cliff.

AMEN.

 

I'm Back!

I haven't been very faithful about blogging this past year, but I'd like to change that, so I am going to do my best to post every day in October.  My life changed drastically 11 months ago, when I got the call that there was a baby waiting for me in the hospital. 

Beatrix Evangeline came home that afternoon, and I was immediately on unexpected maternity leave!  She weighed just 3lbs, 11oz.  The tiniest baby I had ever held, but, I strapped her into the Moby Wrap and wore her 24-7 for that first month.  She slept all the time, and I had to wake her up every two hours to eat.  She was healthy, just tiny, and not ready to be out of the womb yet.  We bonded immediately.

My tiny monkey and have been inseperable ever since.  She's now 11 months old, and our adoption was finalized early last month.  She went to the doctor or the occupational therapist at least once a week for her first 10 months, working very hard at OT to get over her developmental delays and to heal her brain and body from the trauma she experienced in the womb.  She is now completely developmentally on track--no more delays! She weighs 16lbs, is crawling, standing, and eating solid foods!  She has one tiny tooth, and loves to babble and play.

She went from this:

To this:

She is amazing!

Needless to say, I don't get a whole lot of crafting done anymore, and most of my knitting is for her.  Thankfully, I have three knitting groups a week where I get a bit of knitting done, in between wrangling her.  Occasionally, I have a babysitter come over so I can spend some time in my studio sewing, and I think I need to do that more often.  Right now, I'm working on making her a Princess and the Pea set, with a doll and a lot of mattresses!  I figure by the time it's done she'll be old enough to know the story.

OK, time to pick her up from daycare, and go to our knitting group!  Thanks for reading.

 

 

A Quiet and Peaceable Life

This sermon was preached on September 22, 2013

1 Timothy 2:1-7

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings should be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all—this was attested at the right time. For this I was appointed a herald and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.

A Quiet and Peaceable Life

Usually, when I preach, I like to spend a fair amount of time on exegesis, which is a fancy word for unpacking scripture.  But today, we have a BBQ to get to, so, you’re getting a homily, and I’m using our scripture as a jumping off point, because I want to talk about prayer.

Our scripture begins with this line: Paul writes, “I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings should be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.”  Prayers for everyone.  Some people may mis-read this line, and think that Paul is saying that kings and political rulers deserve more prayers, and hence, submission to their rule.  But he’s actually saying that kings need our prayers as much as peasants do, and everyone should be prayed for.  Why pray?  So we can all live a peaceable life.  He’s saying that prayer will help us find peace in ourselves and also in the world.

So how do you pray?  Sometimes, when people are new to church, or new to a spiritual life, this is the biggest question they have.  I’ve had many people tell me they don’t know how to pray, or that they’re afraid they’re doing it wrong. 

The truth is, I don’t think there is a wrong way to pray.  For me, prayer is a conversation with God that continues on and off all day.  When I pray in church it might be more formal, and when I’m getting ready for bed at night, it’s like unburdening myself to a friend.  Sometimes it lasts a long time, and other times, it’s simply, help me, God!  Or, thank you so much!

 

 

For other people, prayer is very scripted.  Think of Catholics who pray the rosary.  They are saying very specific words over and over again, often while holding an intention of someone or something they especially want to pray for.  My friend Dani is a Buddhist, and she chants “Om Nyoho Renge Kyo” for an hour each and every day.  Prayer takes commitment.  Not necessarily an hour or more every day kind of commitment, but the commitment to open yourself to the Divine, to be honest, and, perhaps hardest of all, to listen.  The simplest prayer, but maybe the most important, is to be silent, to listen for God’s voice, God’s inspiration, God’s love.

And all this prayer really comes down to peace.  We pray to be at peace, we pray for peace in the world, we pray for peace for others.  When I pray for someone who is sick or suffering, what I am really asking God to do is to bring them peace, and whether that means healing or passing away is up to God.  When I pray for myself, for help with a stressful situation, I am praying to be able to make peace with whatever is going on.  And when we pray all together in worship, we are encouraging peace between members of our community. 

I presided at a memorial service yesterday for a family that was as far from churchy as you can get.  They had no ideas about scripture or hymns, they were lapsed Catholics, and hadn’t really set foot in a church since before Vatican 2, when Mass was all in Latin!  Even so, it was important to them to send their loved one off “in the right way,” they told me.  I put together a simple service, using aspects like the 23^rd Psalm and Amazing Grace, hoping that those would at least be familiar to some. 

 

 

As the church filled up, it was clear that this was a big group of people who, for the most part, were not that comfortable being in a church.  So, the first time I prayed, I prefaced it by acknowledging that I knew many of them were not Christians, and that was OK, they didn’t have to believe the prayers I said, and they could pray in their own ways.  You could almost see the body language change.  People got it.  The bikers in the back smiled, the nervous folks in the middle relaxed, and we had a short but lovely service that was really appreciated, even if Art and I were the only ones singing the hymns!

Sometimes, as Christians, that’s what hospitality means, letting people know that you believe they have permission to pray in any way that feels right to them, that there are no rules that will prevent God from hearing them if they don’t do it right.  And sharing that hospitality with people of different faiths, or no faith, is one of the greatest ways to make peace.  Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for theirs is the kingdom of God.”  Let us do our best to be peacemakers, and let the heart of that work begin with prayer.  AMEN.

Woman Wisdom: A sermon from 8/26/12

Proverbs 9:1-6
Wisdom has built her house,
   she has hewn her seven pillars.
 She has slaughtered her animals, she has mixed her wine,
   she has also set her table.
 She has sent out her servant-girls, she calls
   from the highest places in the town,
‘You that are simple, turn in here!’
   To those without sense she says,
 ‘Come, eat of my bread
   and drink of the wine I have mixed.
 Lay aside immaturity,* and live,
   and walk in the way of insight.’

Woman Wisdom throws a dinner party.  I love the images that these lines evoke.  I imagine a strong, creative woman, one who designs and builds her own house, who goes into the kitchen and gets her hands dirty preparing the food.  She has servants, but she doesn’t rely on them to do all the work.  This is her feast, and she wants to prepare it.

This is a true feast, with meat and wine that average folks wouldn’t get to eat very often, but she doesn’t restrict her invitation to the wealthy or the smart, instead she invites the confused, the simple, the lost.  In the poem we read today, Woman Wisdom is the ultimate example of God’s hospitality.

So who is she?  Wisdom, we learn from the book of Proverbs, was with God from the beginning of creation.  She is also known as Sophia, and eventually the Holy Spirit in the Christian Trinity.  But in the Hebrew Scriptures, she is simply known as Woman Wisdom, the personification of the insight and knowledge of God.  And Woman Wisdom is a nester.

I, too, am a nester.  I love creating a cozy, beautiful space to live in and then cooking nourishing food for myself and my friends.  I love the process of preparing meals almost more than I like eating them.  When I moved out of my parents’ house and lived on my own for the first time, the best part of it was being able to invite people over to my space, whether it was a tiny dorm room, or my suite in seminary, or today, years later, to my cozy apartment in the forest. 

I love being a hostess, I love feeding people, and I love this personification of the Divine as a woman like me…God doing women’s work, creating a home, cooking, feeding, welcoming us in to be nurtured and fed.

Being fed is a very common theme in scripture.  Following the lectionary, we are coming to the end of six weeks of Gospel readings about bread, culminating last week and this week with Jesus going on and on about eating his flesh and drinking his blood—thankfully, Will covered that passage last week so I could choose something else!  Every time we say the Lord’s Prayer, we ask to be fed our daily bread, and one of the most tangible things that unites us as Christians is the act of eating together in Holy Communion.  Being fed is so prevalent an idea in scripture because it is a central aspect of our lives as human beings, and always has been.  Obviously, we all need to eat, but there is a distinction between eating and being fed.

Human babies are completely dependent on their caregivers to feed them for a much longer time than most other animals.  Our first experiences of love, of connection, of attachment, are through the act of being fed.  Children understand the concept of God’s love because of the love they experience with their parents, and the most basic expression of that love is the act of feeding, from the very first day of our lives.

And so, I think there is something very primal to all this feeding language in the bible, all the different ways food is used as metaphor or in prayers or parables.  It taps into a place in our psyches that was formed from birth, and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how in our modern western culture, our relationships with food and eating are often complicated and unhealthy…frankly, so are our relationships with religion!

So, in this passage from Proverbs, Woman Wisdom has prepared a feast and invites everyone to come enjoy it, she wants to feed the people, and the food is not just succulent lamb and hearty bread and spiced wine, the food is the gift of wisdom herself.

Wisdom is earned and learned, that much is clear from the wisdom literature in the Bible.  God does not expect us to know everything, to be wise and fully evolved and perfect in every way.  If that was the case, we wouldn’t need scripture, or teachers, or preachers or prayer!  Instead, God invites us to Wisdom’s table, to her delicious and generous feast, to be fed. 

The question is, why do so few people accept her invitation?  If you’ve been following the news lately, you probably know what a severe lack of wisdom there is in our country right now.  We have politicians saying publicly that women can’t get pregnant from rape, and that heterosexual sex can’t transmit HIV!  One of the things that shocks me the most about these statements are that the men making them have no shame about making such damaging, offensive, and ignorant statements in public.  At the very least, I would hope that an elected official would have enough wisdom to keep his ignorance and misogyny to himself, but today, that is obviously not the case. 

People who are confused and ignorant are not accepting the invitation to listen and learn, to be fed with wisdom and understanding, and unfortunately, too many of those people have too much of the power in our world.

Perhaps part of the problem is that Wisdom’s invitation is not as flashy or tempting as the alternative.  Wisdom does not offer a quick fix, or easy answers.  She doesn’t offer instant gratification.  Wisdom takes time, and patience to attain.  Wisdom requires a willingness to be open to new experiences and ideas, both good and bad, and to learn from them.  I think it’s interesting that in our reading, Woman Wisdom specifically invites the ‘simple.’ 

Now, many of us would balk at being called simple, but as I’ve been thinking about what it takes to embrace wisdom, I’ve realized that ego is probably the biggest stumbling block for most people…

To come and be fed at Wisdom’s table, you first need to admit that you are hungry, that you don’t have all she has to offer.  For some of us, maybe for all of us at one time or another, that’s a difficult thing to admit.  When we are teenagers, we know everything, and that’s a normal developmental stage.  Perhaps part of the problem is that some people never grow out of it.  To truly learn something, you must first admit you do not know it yet, and understand that there is no shame in that.

So is Woman Wisdom’s feast only a metaphorical one?  I don’t think so.  This is not just a lovely poem.  I think there are ways we can actually be fed by wisdom, if we are willing to accept her invitation.  When we read scripture with open minds and hearts, we are fed.  When we listen to each other without judgment, we are fed.  When we open ourselves to worshipping God through song or dance or stillness, we are fed.  And then, the beautiful thing is, we go out and feed others!

I hope, therefore, that we are a church full of simple people, people willing to admit that we are often lost and confused—those very people that Woman Wisdom extends her warm invitation to—so that we can be open to being fed, to being led in the way of the wisdom of God, and then to create our own feasts where everyone is invited to the table. AMEN.

Everyone Who Loves

A short homily for Gay Pride Sunday, June 3, 2012

1 John 4:7-21

 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.

 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  It would be hard to find a clearer message than that from the scriptures for this Pride Sunday.  When we march, when we celebrate all kinds of love with our community, we affirm this message.  Not just that God loves everyone, which is something we talk about pretty often, but that when we love one another, we are abiding in God, we know God a bit better through our love for one another.

The Greeks had three words for love, eros, philia, and agape.  Romantic love, love for family, and unconditional love.  The love referred to in this passage is agape, unconditional love.  When a community comes together to celebrate gay pride, we are affirming that all kinds of love are good and Godly.  The love partners have for one another, the love families have for their children, and the love friends have for those who stand beside them in solidarity. 

There is one aspect to this charge to love unconditionally that is the hardest for most of us to practice, but perhaps the most crucial in the Christian message, and that is love for our enemies.  For most of us, practicing this kind of love is a life-long struggle, and many never get there.  It’s hard even to comprehend what it means to love an enemy.  Does it mean befriending them?  Accepting their actions that hurt us?  Ignoring their faults?  I don’t think so.  I do think it means recognizing that each of our enemies is also a child of God, also a person who loves and is loved. 

When we sing the civil rights Hymn “I Love Everybody,” and we come to the verse about Hoss Manucy, who was a particularly violent racist, I like to change the name I sing to be more relevant to my own struggles with this concept.  Lately I’ve been singing ‘I love Rush Limbaugh,’ because the misogyny he spews out over the airwaves is so despicable to me, that it is easy to hate him.  But I am called to love my enemies, and so I pray for the ability to do that.  Loving Rush does not mean I agree with him, and it doesn’t mean that I accept his actions.  Frankly, some days I don’t know how it’s possible to love him, and that’s why I have to pray.

 

I speak a lot to queer youth in this county about the Bible, and Christianity, and about how scripture is often used to bully them, but that there are Christians who disagree with that.  One question that always comes up is about the people who stand on corners or protest events with huge signs saying God Hates Fags.  These teenagers have all encountered this explicit message of hate, and they want to know what to do about it.  My simple answer is this, pity them. 

Think of what a sad, fearful life someone must lead that they feel compelled to tell other people that God hates them.  That they are so afraid of God hating them, that the only way they can allay their fears is to point the finger at someone else.  In fact, at the Salt Lake City Pride parade, their signs read, God hates fags, and Mormons and Jews and feminists!  Basically, anyone who is different in any way from the guy holding the sign!  When I am confronted with someone like that, someone who is so convinced that he is my enemy because of what I believe or who I choose to partner with, I pray for him.  Pray that he eventually finds security in the unconditional love of God.  Often, loving our enemies simply means praying for them to heal.

Every year, In June, people all over the country celebrate gay pride with parades and festivals and parties.  We march with joy and celebration in remembrance of an uprising at a tiny gay bar in New York City called the Stonewall inn.  We march because one night, the patrons of that bar stood up against the harassment and abuse they suffered at the hands of the police and they demanded equal rights.  Sometimes, getting angry and standing up in protest is the most loving thing we can do.  Think of Jesus throwing over the tables of the money changers in the Temple.  He was angry, even a bit violent, but it was because he loved the people and had to show them that they were perverting a Holy place.

Sometimes we still have to rise up and march in protest or the rights of GLBT people to love one another freely and openly, and for the right to marry and raise children in secure families, because the fight for equality is far from over.  Every day, children get kicked out of their homes for coming out, partners are denied access to each other in hospitals, people are denied jobs or housing, and some feel so alone and unloved that suicide seems to be their only option.  

Today, we march for all of those people who cannot.  We march as a prayer for those we love and for those we disagree with.  We march in celebration of God’s love that makes all love possible.  We march with the assurance that the love we have for one another, for lovers, family, friends and community, is a direct extension of God’s love.  And we march because we know that when we abide in the love of God, there can be no room for fear.  AMEN.

April Fool's

I wore a beard for our Palm Sunday/April Fool's Day procession!  I think the kids liked it, but I had bits of fake fur in my mouth all day!  Yuck!

Ridiculous!

This sermon was delivered on April 1, 2012.

 Mark 11:1-11

When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and said to them, "Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, 'Why are you doing this?' just say this, 'The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.'" They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, some of the bystanders said to them, "What are you doing, untying the colt?"

They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,

     "Hosanna!

    Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!

    Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!

    Hosanna in the highest heaven!"

 Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

***

When Palm Sunday falls on April Fool’s Day, you just can’t ignore the significance—the similarities between Jesus’ ‘triumphal’ entry into Jerusalem and this strange holiday meant for teasing and playing jokes.  Jesus enters Jerusalem like a king, with followers singing his praises and waving branches much like we might wave flags at a parade.  It is supposed to be a triumphant entry, and yet, he rides in on a donkey, not a majestic horse, and his followers sing his praises while at the same time begging him for help.  It’s a bit ridiculous, just like the whole message of Jesus must have seemed ridiculous to many people who heard it in his day. 

His parables never made any sense.  He did things he wasn’t supposed to, like eating with tax collectors and defending adulterers.  He was always telling his disciples to do ridiculous things, like feed 5,000 people with just a few fish and a bit of bread.  He said that those who were poor, who suffered, and who were oppressed, were blessed.  Ridiculous.  Illogical.  Foolish.  That was Jesus.  He came to turn the world on its head and shake things up…and he did a pretty good job of it, since here we are, 2,000 years later, acting out a day in his life, making fools of ourselves because we follow him.

There’s a passage in 1 Corinthians where Paul uses sarcasm to admonish the church leaders in Corinth for thinking they have all the answers and are the most faithful.  He says he must just be a “fool for Christ,” if they are so wise and powerful.  What he is really doing is admitting that the Gospel message does sound foolish in a world of greed and insatiable hunger for power, and we must embrace that foolishness—let go of the need to be right, the need to win—if we are to truly embrace what Jesus taught.

This concept has particular meaning for us in a place like Santa Cruz, I think, where being a Christian, attending a church, is seen by many people as strange, crazy, and yes, foolish.  Especially as we enter into Holy Week and move towards Easter, some of the biggest mysteries of our faith are highlighted, and they may open us up to ridicule.  Has anyone ever derisively asked you if you really believe that Jesus was raised from the dead?  And you can tell by their tone of voice that no matter what your answer, it will only lead to more mockery?  It’s certainly happened to me…and in those moments all I can do is smile politely, try not to get frustrated, and remind myself that we each have our own path. 

Now, I’m certainly not saying that Christians are oppressed in our society.  But, if we are truly walking the path that Jesus laid out for us, if we are following the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves, focusing on justice, mercy, and walking humbly with God, then we are going against our dominant culture and perhaps even making fools of ourselves.

So, today is April Fool’s Day—not commonly thought of as a Christian holiday, but perhaps worthy of consideration.  But today is also Palm Sunday, a day to remember a procession that was on the surface a celebration.—Jesus entering Jerusalem, his followers watching and joining him, praising him and celebrating his arrival.  The procession was a celebration, but it was also a protest march.  Jesus’ arrival countered the arrival of Pontius Pilate, who would have entered Jerusalem in a similar way, though likely on a fancy horse with soldiers flanking him. 

You see, there was often trouble in Jerusalem around the Passover, since many Jews made a pilgrimage to the city for the holiday, and so Pilate would have come to make sure the celebrations didn’t get out of hand.  This time of year was ripe for political unrest and protests against the oppressive empire, as the Jewish people remembered the Passover and their deliverance from Egypt.

So, Jesus’ arrival was clearly a protest march, in addition to being a celebration, but there was one more aspect to it.  The procession we commemorate on Palm Sunday was also a funeral march.  Perhaps his followers did not realize it, or want to think about it, but Jesus knew that he was heading into a political situation that he would not likely survive.  He knew that his radical teachings and the movement he initiated were threatening to the empire, and that those in power would have no qualms about shutting him up for good.  He went anyway, because he had a passion for God’s justice and a purpose to spread his message.

There’s a way in which, every year on Palm Sunday, I feel like I’m watching a horror movie.  I want to scream, “No, Jesus!  Don’t go into the city!”  There’s something terrible about knowing how the story will play out and yet watching it again and again.  So why do we do it?  Why do we spend our time and energy, our spiritual practice, on remembering and reenacting this scary, sad, painful story?  In some ways, I think that’s a question we all need to answer for ourselves…but here’s why I do it… 

I do it because life is often scary and sad and painful, and ignoring those facts won’t make them go away.  I do it because Jesus experienced this fullness of life as a human being, and it is good for us to remember that.  I do it because I feel like, even, after 2,000 years, Jesus deserves a witness.  He deserves for us to watch and remember and not look away in avoidance or shame. And I do it because without Good Friday, there can be no Easter.

I spoke a few weeks ago about coming back to Christianity in college, and how I prayed and prayed that Jesus would give me a sign or a reason to believe in him.  I told you I didn’t get a concrete sign, but I came to a love and belief anyway.  Well, the story doesn’t end there.  That same year, after I had been on my Christian journey for several months, Holy Week came along, and I found myself at every service we had in the chapel, helping to lead them.  We held our weekday services at noon, and something about Mandy Thursday and Good Friday services being done in the sunlight was not quite satisfying for me. 

Growing up, Maundy Thursday had been one of my favorite services, because at my church it was a tennebrae service, combining remembrance of the last supper with the seven last words of Good Friday.  Something about sitting in that dark sanctuary, watching as each candle was extinguished was so powerful, so sacred to me.  And so, that first year, I went to a local church for another Maundy Thursday service in the evening.  As I sat in the darkened church, listening to the story of Jesus’ suffering and death, I was overcome by grief. 

All the anger I felt towards God for my own illness and suffering, all the loss I felt from the infertility that resulted from my cancer treatment, all my fears about the future…they all were condensed into an intense grief over what happened to Jesus, and I wept.  I wept for him, and for me, and for all of us living in this broken, greedy, war-mongering world.  And as I sat there in the dark, crying, I distinctly felt Jesus there beside me, his arm around my shoulder.  He wasn’t comforting me, exactly; he wasn’t saying everything would be all right...  He was sitting with me, being present with me in my grief, weeping with me, and letting me know I would never be alone.  I felt him there so concretely, as a strong, loving presence, that in that moment, I knew I was having a mystical experience, and I knew, without a doubt, that Jesus was real.

And that is why I believe it’s so important to be present during all of Holy Week.  It’s hard to take several evenings in one week to come to worship, I know.  It can be uncomfortable—even seem foolish—to allow someone to wash your feet in church.  It can feel too intense when you see others lamenting their own losses, or expressing their anger towards God on Good Friday, and you may not want to feel the emotions that can come up.  And it can feel like you are way too busy on the Saturday night before Easter to take time to wait in peaceful vigil for the culmination of the story.

Holy Week takes us on a roller coaster of emotion, and that’s something most of us try to avoid in normal circumstances, so it’s understandable that many people will choose to only attend the high of Palm Sunday and the high of Easter Sunday.  That’s OK.  We are each on our own path.  But, I guarantee that if you open yourself up to the fullness of experiences that are offered this week, Easter will have a much deeper, much greater meaning for you.

Jesus’ ultimate message was one of transformation—radical transformation of the world, of the self, and of human relationships with each other and with God.  Unfortunately, transformation doesn’t happen by sitting idle.  Transformation happens when we show up, when we open up, and when we are willing to let go of comfort, let go of ego, and let go of the need to be right.   You may not be ready yet to be seen as a fool for Christ, but if you are, then you are in good company.  AMEN.

God SO Loved

God So Loved

(a sermon on John 3: 14-21, delivered on March 18, 2012)

“For God so loved the world He gave His only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”  John 3:16… Some of the most familiar words in the Christian scriptures.  They seem to be a concise and straightforward summary of the Gospel message, and yet, what do they really mean?

God SO loved the world… An assurance of God’s love for us, for all creation.  He gave his only son…God came to the world through Jesus to save us from ourselves.  So that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life…and here’s where it gets hairy.  What does it mean to believe in Jesus?  What does it mean to believe in anything?  Is believing different from knowing?  Does believing leave room for doubt?  And what exactly are we supposed to believe about Jesus?

When I have a question about words in the Bible, lately I always turn to Marcus Borg’s latest book, Speaking Christian to see what he has to say.  And in terms of belief, his perspective is very interesting.  He writes, “The modern meaning of the word believe is very different from its meanings from Christian antiquity until the seventeenth century…The similarity to the modern English word belove is obvious. To believe meant not only confidence and trust in a person, but also to hold that person dear—to belove that person.  Believing and beloving were synonyms.”

 

“Thus, until the 1600’s, to believe in God and Jesus meant to belove God and Jesus.  Think about the difference that makes.  To believe in God does not mean believing that a set of statements about God are true, but to belove God.  To believe in Jesus does not mean to believe that a set of statements about Jesus are true, but to belove Jesus.”

Now, think of what a difference that distinction makes when we read the Gospel.  It opens it up, so that we might read and interpret stories about Jesus in many different ways while still loving him.  Reading this scripture this way, the implied threat in John 3:16 is considerably minimized.  And what of that threat? 

It’s disturbing enough that it often gets left out when we recite this line.  Eternal life is promised to those who believe in or belove Jesus, but everyone else will perish!  It’s pretty ominous, and it has been used and abused to justify religious intolerance and persecution.  But what is it really about?

To begin to answer this question, it is imperative that we remember the context in which it was written.  John’s community in the first century had begun to separate from the synagogue, while other Jesus followers had chosen to stay connected to the religious authority.  They were a minority community who needed to define themselves within Judaism as well as among other followers of Jesus. 

John’s community was a small minority, without power or influence to marginalize others or cause harm by excluding them.  This is not the case for modern Christians, nor has it been for much of Christian history.  And so, in our hands, the Gospel of John can do great damage, because we live in a much different Christian context.  The power tables are turned, and that is important to remember when we interpret this scripture.

Here we have a promise of eternal life, with the alternative of perishing.  When most of us hear eternal life, we assume it’s referring to an afterlife.  Heaven, perhaps, but in John’s Gospel, it is a present experience.  Borg tells us, “The Greek words translated into English as eternal life mean “the life of the age to come.”  Within John’s theology, this is still future and to be hoped for.  But it is also present, something that can be known, experienced now…To know God and Jesus in the present is to participate already in the life of the age to come.”

Thus, this passage is not about heaven and hell, but about the possibility for transformation in the present through love and connection with the divine.  And we are often our own worst enemies when it comes to transformation.  John puts it succinctly: “The people loved darkness rather than light.”  This passage, then, is also about the choices we make.  The choice to see and accept God’s love and the light it brings, or the choice to stay in the darkness of our own egos, our own self-destructive choices. 

So…believing, beloving, and transformation.  I just happen to have a story about that!  Forgive me if you’ve heard it before.

When I was in college, I started to feel a call to ministry.  To say this call was shocking would be an understatement.  I was not a Christian, and told myself I had only been attending chapel services for the hymns and the friendly faces.  But, God is sneaky sometimes, and the more time I spent with the progressive Christians at college, the more I wanted to be like them—to walk the walk, to be open and loving, to trust in the Divine again.  The moment I allowed myself to consider coming back to Christianity, the thought popped into my head, “then I could be a minister!”  This thought filled me with such excitement that I literally felt my heart swell. 

And then, of course, immediately, I tried to talk myself out of it, to discount the call.  It was a crazy idea.  I wasn’t even a Christian.  I didn’t even know what I believed about Jesus, so how could I minister to others?  You see, I thought, as many people do, that what you believe about who Jesus was and is is what matters.  I thought I wasn’t worthy or called because I didn’t know what I believed.

Thankfully, the call was strong, and was recognized by others, so that soon I found myself even more deeply involved—leading worship and Bible study and fellowship groups, and even preaching occasionally.  But I still didn’t know what I believed.

And so, I prayed.  I decided that if Jesus was so darn powerful, then he should be able to make me believe in him.  It should be that simple.  Every night I prayed to Jesus: “Please, Jesus, if you are out there, just make me believe, just give me a sign, just take my doubt away.  I know you can do it if you’re real, and if you are I will promise to follow you and serve you—just prove it to me!”

I gave Jesus ultimatums, I begged, I goaded.  But Jesus didn’t come.  There was no flash of light, no visit in my dreams or picture of his face on my toast.  I wasn’t going to get a miracle.  And so, I kept going.  I kept studying and talking with friends, kept praying and questioning and worshipping.  Until one day, I realized that the more I prayed, the less worried I became about what to believe about the deity I was praying to.  The more I prayed, the deeper my connection felt to this mysterious Jesus, and the easier it was to relax into his love and guidance and trust in my call.

I didn’t have words for it then, but know I realize I was moving from feeling that believing was necessary to realizing that beloving was all that was required of me.

Now, after three years of seminary and an extensive ordination process, I have had to state my explicit beliefs about Jesus many many times.  So, I’m not saying that being able to articulate our beliefs isn’t important.  What I am saying is that transformation does not come from believing the right things…  Transformation comes from love. 

AMEN.