JAMES CAMPBELL
  • Home
  • Sermons and Such
  • Photography
  • Writing
  • Ella

The weeping God wraps us in the everlasting arms as we grieve, and grieves with us.

3/30/2020

0 Comments

 
Watch here.
Picture
​A WEEPING GOD
Sunday, March 29, 2020 – Lent 5
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
 
 
John 11:1-45
 
Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
 
When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
 
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
 
Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.
 
 
I used to love a good theological argument, especially when I was in seminary.  My friends and I would gather for some food and then stay up until the wee hours of the morning, debating and arguing the minutiae of what we thought we knew.  But once I got into the parish; once I started to deal with real people’s problems; once I started to deal with my own problems, well, then it just seemed like a colossal waste of time to argue about what we could not possibly be sure of. 
 
Our lives and our faith are full of ambiguity.  And ambiguity is always a tough sell in world looking for the next sure thing.  It’s a tough sell in the midst of a global pandemic.  People want answers and people of faith want a faith that speaks directly to the crisis of our time.  They want a God who intervenes.  This week alone, I read about a charlatan TV preacher selling a coronavirus cure.  I saw a politician claiming that this virus could be eradicated if we would all just repent.  Two different approaches, but the same promised result: an answer in the midst of the miasma of this current moment.  An answer.
 
One day, Jesus received word that his friend Lazarus was desperately ill.   Lazarus lived with his sisters, Mary and Martha in a village called Bethany, about two miles outside of Jerusalem.  One day, Lazarus developed an odd cough.  That night, a fever shook him.  And with each passing day, he got weaker.  Finally, in full-blown panic mode, the sisters sent for their friend Jesus.  Surely, he would have an answer.
 
But despite the closeness of their friendship, Jesus delayed going to Bethany.  He delayed and said something odd about the illness of Lazarus being an avenue for the glory of God.  But then Lazarus died.  And when Jesus heard that he had died, he stayed where he was for two more days while the sisters grieved and wondered where their answer was.
 
When Jesus finally traveled to Bethany, Lazarus had been dead for four days.  And that’s a significant detail because Judaism at the time taught that the spirit of the deceased lingered on earth for four days before passing the point of no return.  In other words, all hope was gone.  
 
When Martha heard that Jesus was approaching the village, she ran out to meet him on the road.  She ran, powered by grief and anger, excitement and frustration.  She ran, and as she ran, she wept. When she got to Jesus, she erupted: “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died!” And then perhaps, in much quieter voice, she said, “But I know even now that God will give you whatever you ask.”
 
And Jesus replied with these famous words: “I am the resurrection and the life…”
 
Martha latched onto the hope in those words and ran home to get Mary. They returned to Jesus, a group of mourners trailing them.  When Mary saw Jesus, she repeated the same accusation: “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.”  And his death hit them all again with a cruel freshness.  
 
When Jesus saw the depth of despair in the sisters’ faces; when he saw the raw anguish of grief, John says that he was deeply moved.  The Greek word implies not only that he was moved, but that that he was angry.  And I like that detail very much because it is my own experience that grief is often mingled with anger; that fear is often expressed as anger.  And seeing this in his friends, evoked the same in Jesus.  And Jesus began to weep.  
 
“Jesus wept.” That is one of the most profound theological statements in the New Testament, for if you take the Incarnation at all seriously; if you believe that somehow Jesus is Emmanuel “God with us,” then that means that God, the Sovereign Creator of all that is, is deeply moved by our pain.  But God is more than just an observer of our pain.  God’s heart breaks at all human suffering.  And God weeps great, copious tears.  
 
Some people don’t like to talk about God like that.  They want a God who is all powerful and far removed from the human condition.  But a weeping God is the only way that this Christian can make sense of the pain of the world.   Theological arguments about God’s power and glory cannot comfort me in the midst of my fears and frustrations.  But a weeping God who stands beside me; a weeping God who hung on a cross, that image offers me the kind of companionship that comforts me when there are no easy answers.
 
Of course, the story doesn’t end with weeping.  The story of God-with-us never does.  Jesus asked that the stone be rolled away from the opening of the cave.  And then he cried out in a loud voice: “Lazarus, come forth!”  And Lazarus did, still wrapped in his grave clothes, hands and feet tied, face covered with a grave cloth.  It must have been quite a sight.  And Jesus said: “Unbind him and let him go.”
 
I have loved this story for as long as I can remember.  When I was much younger, I loved it because it spoke of Jesus’s power to save us even from death.  But the longer I live; the more grief I experience, the more that God seems to delay in our moments of crisis, I see a more profound truth in this story of the raising of Lazarus.  This is the story of a God who does not always arrive in time table we set, but who does come in surprising ways, and always at the right time.  
 
In the church I served in New Jersey, a young man named Doug hurt his knee in a church softball game.  It didn’t heal so he finally went for surgery at the Hospital for Joint Diseases in Manhattan.  I went to visit on the day of surgery, but when I entered the room, he and his wife looked stricken.  They told me that the doctors had found a malignant tumor on his knee.  And not just any tumor.  It was a rare and virulent form of cancer with no known treatment anywhere in the world.  In two weeks, this young father and husband was dead, leaving a family and a parish in shock. 
 
During those two weeks, I made a lot of trips to the hospital.  One day his wife asked me to step into the hallway, and without warning asked me, “Why do you believe in God?”  I knew this question was coming directly from her suffering.  At in that moment, any theological argument I had ever learned about the problem of suffering was meaningless.  All I had, in that moment, was my own experience of God.  And I remember that I said something like this: “I don’t believe in God because of anything I have ever read or been taught.  I don’t believe in God because of the Bible or because of the church.  I believe in God because whenever I have been in the depths of despair, I have known a companioning presence.  Sometimes it comes in people.  Sometimes it comes in words or in silence.  Sometimes it comes in my bittersweet longings and in my tears.   And sometimes, God even comes by way of a felt presence.  I believe in God because God comes whenever I need God the most.”  And her eyes filled with tears and she quietly replied: “Yeah, me too.”
 
In these unprecedented moments, many of us are afraid.  Some of us wonder where God is in the midst of it all.  Some of us even feel angry.  OK.  Because I think that it is in the tears and the questions and the anger that we will find God.  The weeping God stands beside us in the midst of our fears.  The weeping God wraps us in the everlasting arms as we grieve, and grieves with us.  And then, the weeping God stoops down to gather up all the broken pieces of our lives, all those things we count as lost, and from them fashions something new and unexpected.  We call that Resurrection.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
0 Comments

I have often wondered why the cultivation of the inner life is such a challenge for me.  What is it, really, that I am afraid of?

3/2/2020

1 Comment

 
Listen here.
Picture
THE JOURNEY IN
Sunday, March 1, 2020 – Lent I
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
 
Matthew 4:1-11
 
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.
 
 
On Ash Wednesday, we began our shadowy journey called Lent.  It’s 40 days long, not counting Sundays, which are feast days because every Sunday we celebrate the Resurrection.  But even on Lenten Sundays, there is a certain ominous undertone present.  We feast under the looming shadow of the cross.
 
During Lent, we symbolically reenact the 40 days that Jesus spent in the wilderness, fasting, praying, and steeling himself for the greatest challenge he would ever face.  Some of us fast and pray during Lent too, but if we really want to imitate Jesus on his Lenten journey, let me suggest that the best discipline might be something I’m calling today, “The Journey In.”  
 
The idea of an inward journey does not come naturally to us Americans.  We are an exceedingly pragmatic people who expect quick results with minimal and targeted effort.  We are suspicious of too much introspection, which we derisively call “navel gazing.”  We mostly think it’s a waste of time. 
 
I think that sometimes too.  This Journey In does not come naturally to me either.  I am too lost in and too addicted to my administrative and practical tasks.  I think I should be more introspective, but there never seems to be the time.  And I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that because I imagine that you imagine me in my study, pouring over the pages of Scripture, praying constantly for the needs of the church and the world, and walking down the sidewalks of Cheshire dispensing blessings.  And I imagine that you imagine me to have made peace with myself, having confronted my own demons in my own wilderness and coming to a place of tranquility and self-awareness.  I imagine that you imagine all of those things.  But, in the words of George and Ira Gershwin, “it ain’t necessarily so.”
 
I have often wondered why the cultivation of the inner life is such a challenge for me.  Why must I always be so busy?  What is it, really, that I am afraid of?  Because I am afraid, you know.  If I’m not reading or cleaning or reorganizing or surfing the web, then I’m lost YouTube or Netflix hole.  God forbid I should just be still in the silence.  But in the Wilderness, all you have is the silence – a silence so profound it seems to have a weight of its own.  And it frightens me.  I wonder if it frightened Jesus too. 
 
There are lots of curious elements in the story of the Temptation.  First of all, there is the daunting physical challenge of spending forty days and nights without food in what is one of the world’s most hostile environments.  I saw this wilderness once.  It was 117 degrees that day.  The wind-blown sand pummeled my body and forced my eyes shut. It was a desolate and terrifying landscape.  And when I saw it, I wondered how on earth anyone could stay in such a place for forty days and nights?
 
So the setting is curious.  But so is the other main character in the story.  Satan is not portrayed here or anywhere else in Scripture as our comfortable caricature of a little red man with horns and a pitchfork.  Instead, Satan is portrayed as a real force in the world and one to be reckoned with.  The uncomfortable implication of his character in this tale is that evil is organized and crafty and brilliant. 
 
But perhaps the most curious element of all is the set-up for this story – how it is that Jesus got to such a place.  The Evangelist Matthew tells us.  He writes: “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.”  Come again?  The Spirit of God, the Spirit of life and love and goodness and truth, that spirit led Jesus to that awful place?  And if that is true, then it implies a rather strange partnership between light and darkness.  Matthew seems to imply that darkness has its function in the spiritual life.   And The Journey In will often take us to dark places before we ever get to the light.  Maybe that’s why we avoid it.
 
Well, why wouldn’t we?  Who wants to poke around in the shadows if you don’t have to?   And so we run from them, and thus, sometimes quite inadvertently, we run from the truth that could set us free.  The famous Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung wrote: “Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.”  So St. Matthew and Dr. Jung seem to agree that the shadows of our lives, so often encountered on inward journeys, should be engaged because the shadows have something to teach us.  
 
So there was Jesus, all alone, with his shadows. He was hungry and tired when suddenly the devil appeared with three distinct temptations, and all of them meant to distract him from his shadows.  The first was the temptation to satiate his very real hunger.  “If you are God’s Son,” the devil said, “then turn these stones to bread.  You won’t feel so alone if your belly is full.” And isn’t that the truth?  Food is a great distraction from shadows.  Second, there was the temptation to test God by throwing himself off the pinnacle of the Temple.  “If you’re God’s own dearly loved Son, then throw yourself down so that angels can come and rescue you.  Then you’ll be the center of everyone’s attention.”  Adoration also distracts us from our shadows.  And finally, there was the temptation for power and prestige.  “Do you see all the glittering kingdoms of the world?” asked Satan.  “Just bow down and worship me and all of these shall be yours.  Bling and money and toys distract us all from our shadows.  And we even think they will dissipate if we just have more. 
 
But that wasn’t true for Jesus and it isn’t true for us.  And so Jesus, our teacher and guide and friend, showed us by example that there is power in staying in an uncomfortable and dark place until the Journey In has done its perfect work.  Jesus would not, he could not have been ready for the betrayal and trial and cross had he not first gone as deep as he did. 
 
Now, there is one more very curious element to this story.  It’s easy to miss it, coming as it does after the drama of the Temptation of Jesus. At the very end of this passage, Matthew rather undramatically states that angels came and ministered to Jesus.  The Greek word for angel is diakoneo, from which we get our word deacon, which actually means “one who waits on tables or serves food.”  And what a powerful idea that is – bright winged angels with baskets of the bread of heaven, to comfort and sustain after such an inward journey.  
 
In 2005, in the middle of one night, the phone rang.  That’s almost never good. Marcos’ mother had died, and so suddenly we were up and packing and calling the airlines and trying to get ourselves to Brazil that same day.  It was all so overwhelming and dark and full of the shadowy unknown. We worked until morning, when suddenly there was a knock at our door.  I opened it to find a rather new friend named Jeff that we had met at church.  Somehow, he had heard our news and had come over to say how sorry he was. He only stayed for a minute.  But before he left he pressed some bills into my hand.  It wasn’t a great deal of money, but it might as well have been a million dollars.  Jeff knew how expensive those last-minute tickets were.  And he wanted to help in whatever way he could.  I will never forget that because in that moment I understood in a new way, that in the darkness, God sends angels.  And they never come empty handed.  They bring baskets of bread and wads of bills and warm embraces and whatever else we might need to remind us that we never, ever take these inward journeys alone. 
​
1 Comment

"...actually engaging this book, mixed in with our own experiences of life and love, hope and longing, will not leave us content to stay where we are."

2/19/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Listen here.
THAT TROUBLESOME BOOK
Sunday, February 16, 2020
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
 
 
Matthew 5:21-37
 
“You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire. So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.
 
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell. “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
 
“Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.’ But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one.
 
 
OK, wait.  Did Pastor Alison just say, “The word of the Lord?” And did you really just reply, “Thanks be to God?”  Were you kidding?  What part were you thankful for: threats of hell fire, the restrictive teaching about divorce, or a guide to self-mutilation?  
 
This passage makes me think of my good friend Dean. Dean is a Catholic and loves to tease me about what he sees as Protestantism’s overdone devotion to the Bible, which he often refers to as “that troublesome book.”  We Protestants do have the Bible as the centerpiece of our faith.  “Scripture alone” or “Sola Scriptura” is one of the principles of the Protestant Reformation. It’s part of what makes us Protestants.  But after having heard today’s Gospel lesson, you might be tempted to agree with Dean, that the Bible sometimes is a troublesome book. 
 
Believe it or not, these strange words are actually a continuation of the Sermon on the Mount.  Just a few moments before, Jesus had said gracious, marvelous, easy-to-preach-on things like “Blessed are the peacemakers…” and “You are the light of the world.”  But then he says this! 
 
So what is going on here?  And how are we modern people to understand it?  Well, context is everything, as is so often the case.  These strange words are actually introduced and framed by verse 20, which we heard last week.  Jesus said: “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”  What follows is Jesus explaining what it means to be inwardly righteous as opposed to just outwardly religious.  
 
This passage opens with what scholars call “The Antitheses of Jesus.”  Jesus makes a statement based on a thesis of the Law and then provides an antithesis. For example: “You have heard it said, ‘You shall not murder.’  And then the antithesis: “But I say to you, if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment.”  “You have heard it said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’ but I say to you if you even look at someone with lust, the adultery already lives in your heart.” 
 
Lots of folks interpret these antitheses as new teachings from Jesus that somehow supersede the Law. But that assumption leads to the slippery slope of assumed Christian superiority over Judaism.  But remember that Jesus said he came to fulfill the Law, not abolish it.  So I think that what’s really going on here was something very common amongst the Jews of Jesus’s day. You see, the use of thesis/antithesis was not outside some forms of rabbinic interpretation and practice.  Jesus was searching for and unearthing the truth that often lives in, under, and around the words on the page.  Jesus engaged in a lively conversation with Scripture, not just because he was Jesus, but because he was a faithful Jew.
 
But having a conversation with Scripture is not how most of us think of the Bible. When I was a kid there was a popular bumper sticker that my grandparents proudly displayed on the bumper of their Cadillac.  It proclaimed: “God said it.  I believe it.  That settles it!” In other words, the Bible is not a conversation.  It’s an order from headquarters!  Therefore, we did not engage in historical or literary or social criticism.  And we certainly never thought to add anything to the conversation. 
 
But I don’t think that’s how Jesus read the Bible.  Jesus seemed to know that the truth is found in that meeting place between the words and human hearts and imaginations. Jesus’s interpretation of Scripture was very people-focused.
 
 
What do I mean?  Well, consider this: Jesus brings up the law that forbids adultery.  But he doesn’t just repeat it and tell the people they should obey it.  Instead Jesus looks for something deeper and more transformative than just keeping your clothes on.  Jesus makes the astute and helpful observation that our deceits actually begin long before the deed is executed.  Jesus names the fact that an unchecked thought often finds a place to nest in our hearts and minds, long before it ever destroys lives. 
 
And then to make sure the people remembered this teaching, Jesus employed a common rhetorical device from his time and place.  It’s called the rhetoric of excess - a purposeful use of irony and humor and exaggeration to drive the point home.  Of course he didn’t really want folks to pluck out their eyes or cut off their hands.  But he did want them to remember what he said.  And his colorful language did the trick.
 
So what about what Jesus said regarding divorce?  Where is the people focus there?  It seems like he’s just being a hardliner.  --The Law of Moses taught that all a man had to do was give his wife a certificate of divorce and he could be done with her.  In a patriarchal society, this left all the power in the hands of the men.  And since divorced women were damaged goods, unable to support themselves, they were often driven into prostitution just to survive.  So when Jesus said that divorce should be avoided at all costs, it was the vulnerable members of society that he had in mind. In 2020, his words might strike us a restrictive and unenlightened, without nuance or understanding.  But if you were a woman in the crowd that day, knowing that destitution might be just around the corner when your husband was having a bad day, you probably heard those words as life giving and life preserving. 
 
These are just a few examples of how Jesus read the Bible in conversation with it.  But for the most part, we don’t do that.  We have been taught to respect this book, but we haven’t been taught to engage it with our whole selves. We’ve been taught not to question it and therefore, when life seems to contradict it,  we have been forced to ignore it. But it doesn’t have to be that way.  A lively conversation with this book can transform your understandings of God and the world and even yourself.
 
So how can you get started? Well, let me offer some quick bits of advice for anyone who needs them. First of all, don’t start at the beginning.  This is not a novel.  It’s a collection of 66 books, in many different literary genres, written over thousands of years by multiple authors.  So instead, start small. Read one of the Gospels.  Mark is the shortest and the earliest.  Or read one of St. Paul’s letters.  Or read the Psalms.  But only bite off as much as you can chew on any given day.  If that’s only one verse, that’s fine.
 
Number two: follow Jesus by reading the Bible as a conversation.  In other words, don’t discount your own thoughts and questions. If something strikes you as odd or untrue, make a note of it.  If you don’t like it, argue with it.  Arguing with Scripture is an old and holy tradition through which the truth can emerge. And don’t worry - there won’t be any lightening bolts aimed at your head because you question or dislike what you read.
 
Number three: take your own interpretations seriously.  Don’t discount your own experience of life as you read about the lives of others in the pages of this book.  The Bible is largely about how humans just like us experienced God.  But you have experienced God too.  How does your experience help you understand what you’re reading? 
 
And finally – and this one is really important - always read Scripture through the lens of love because God is love. When you read something strange or difficult, ask yourself: how does this passage help me to understand the greatest commandment - to love God and your neighbor as yourself?  How does this passage make me a more loving and generous and kind person?  And if it doesn’t, then just move on, and come back to it later.  
 
So, back to my friend Dean and his comment that the Bible is a troublesome book.  He’s right, you know, because actually engaging the words on the pages of this book, mixed in with our own experiences of life and love, hope and longing, will not leave us content to stay where we are.  The living Word of God will call us toward the transformation of ourselves and the world.  And that is troublesome, but in the best possible way I know. 
0 Comments

So give us a little shake, Jesus.  Wake us up.  And then send out to be bright and briny, loving and kind, merciful and just.

2/9/2020

1 Comment

 
Listen here.
Picture
BRIGHT, BRINY PEOPLE
Sunday, February 9, 2020
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
 
 
Matthew 5:13-20
 
“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
 
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
 
 
Her name was Patricia Walter and she was my seventh grade English teacher.  I loved her, but she terrified many of my classmates.  Mrs. Walter demanded strict order in her classroom.  Her academic expectations were exceedingly high for our grade level.  She had us seventh graders diagraming Shakespeare.  She made us memorize the rules of grammar and the parts of speech.  And she was famous for her pop quizzes.  She would say things like: “Take out a sheet of paper and list the common prepositions.  You have three minutes.”  And to show you how effective her method was, allow me to demonstrate, lo these many years later: “of, in, by, to, for, with, at, on, from, into, under, toward, between, down, among, over, across, against.”
 
One day, my father announced that he had taken a new church assignment and that we would be moving.  I still remember the morning I walked into Mrs. Walter’s classroom before school started to tell her the news.  Her response was to organize a going away party for me.  And I vowed to never forget her.
 
And I didn’t.  We stayed in touch for years, exchanging letters and enjoying the occasional visit.  Fifteen years after that initial goodbye, I invited Mrs. Walter and her husband Ray to my ordination.  They did not RSVP, but sure enough there they stood in the receiving line when it was all over.  They had driven four hours one way just to be there.  I was so overcome at the sight of her in that receiving line that at first I was speechless and then I burst into tears, sort of humiliating myself.  She hugged me and then she took me by both shoulders, looked me straight in the eyes and in her voice of English teacher authority, announced: “You can be anything you want to be.  You can go as far as you want to go.”  And I knew that she meant every word of it.
 
Those words took root in my heart, as words so often do.  Words are living things, and so what we say to each other and about each other have the power to give life or to destroy it.  Psychologists suggest that for every negative message elementary aged children hear about themselves, they will need to hear ten positive ones to restore their self-image. So, words can hurt.  But words can also heal and empower.  
 
The Gospel lesson today is a continuation of the Sermon on the Mount – a beautiful collection of the kinds of words that heal.  Jesus had just finished telling that crowd of common folk about how blessed they were even when they didn’t feel like it.  He said, “Blessed are you poor in spirit, for yours is the kingdom of heaven.” “Blessed are you who mourn, for you will be comforted.”  “Blessed are you meek, for you will inherit the earth.”  
 
But then Jesus shifts gears dramatically.  Instead of referencing the people primarily by their frailties and pain (poor, mourning, and meek), he talks instead about what else is also true about them; something not quite as evident to most as our weaknesses.  Jesus speaks of their innate gifts and their potential, proclaiming: “You are the salt of the earth…  You are the light of the world…” 
 
Do those words surprise you?  They’re a bit shocking in that they don’t fit so easily with the dominant theological narratives most often proclaimed by the church. “Jesus is the light of the world, but people certainly aren’t,” we are told.  Or, we make these words proscriptive as opposed to descriptive. In other words, this is Jesus telling us to be better – to become salt and to become light.  But that is not what he said.  He simply announces an identity that most of us are hesitant to acknowledge: “You are the salt of the earth.”  “You are the light of the world.”  
 
Now it’s also true that Jesus warns us in this passage about loosing our saltiness and hiding our light.  And lots of preachers focus on that.  But consider this: in order to loose saltiness, you had to be salty in the first place.  And in order to hide your light, you had to be light in the first place.  And that starting point is a radically different take on the human condition than most of us are used to hearing.  
 
But this idea about innate human potential as a by-product of being made in the image of God is actually a very old idea in Christianity.  The Celtic Christians and the Roman Catholic Franciscans and Eastern Orthodoxies and others begin their theology with an idea called Original Blessing as opposed to Original Sin.  Original Blessing, taken from the Creation account in Genesis in which God pronounces the whole creation “GOOD!”, teaches that before we are anything else we might be; before any of our weaknesses and sins, we are made in the divine image and likeness.  And that is our primary identity. 
 
But it’s a hard sell. We simply accept the notion that we are hopelessly tainted and incapable of goodness. And so when a thundering preacher labels us as sinners in the hands of an angry God, we believe it.  And we don’t just believe it about ourselves.  We believe it about everyone else.  We see the world through the lens of the negative.  For example: statistics consistently show that violent crime has been on the decrease in this country for some years now. And yet, more people than before think of this world as a fearful and dangerous place.  We are suspicious of strangers.  We will give up our freedoms for the mere promise of safety.  It’s a world defined by a very dim view of others.  And yet, Jesus said to all those others: “You are the salt of the earth.  You are the light of the world.” 
 
 
So what was Jesus actually saying? Well, it was a mouthful.  In the ancient world, salt was a very precious commodity.  Entire empires were built out of the exportation of salt.  Salt was sometimes used as money.  The word salary comes from the Latin word “salarium” meaning salt money.  Salt was also used to preserve food.  It was sprinkled on sacrifices and understood as a metaphor for wisdom.  Salt was rubbed on newborn children as a blessing.  So, when Jesus proclaimed, “You are the salt of the earth” it was a declaration of our God-given ability to preserve and to bless creation. 
 
The light metaphor is a little easier for us to understand.  Without light, everything dies.  Turning on a light can banish our fears.  Light helps us to see a way forward.  So, when Jesus said, “You are the light of the world” it was a declaration of our God-given ability to facilitate growth and banish fear and bring understanding.
 
But can we believe that about ourselves?  After decades of practiced and self-protective cynicism, can we believe it?  And knowing what we do about the human capacity for evil, can we believe it? 
 
Well, maybe it’s not a matter of belief.  The Christian faith is not primarily about a set of beliefs or dogma or creeds.  Christian faith is a living experience, a transformation that Christ works in us.  It’s a way of living in the world that makes the truth  self-evident.  As they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, “It works if you work it.”  And the same is true of our Christian faith – it works if you work it.  So maybe friends, these unbelievable words of Jesus would be more believable to us if we thought about them less and acted on them more. 
 
I’m sure the first folks who heard this didn’t believe it either.  “What did he say,” they asked one another.  “We are the salt of the earth… we are the light of the world?”  “Yeah, that’s what he said.”  And with those shocking and life-giving words, Jesus took those meek, poor, sad people by their shoulders, looked them in the eye, gave them a little shake and simply reminded them of their true identity as children of the Most High God. And if they could dare to believe it, they could change their world.  And many of them did.  If we could dare to believe it, we could change our world too. 
 
So give us a little shake, Jesus.  Wake us up.  Set us straight.  Help us to see what you do. And then send out to be bright and briny, loving and kind, merciful and just. 
​
1 Comment

Do justice.  Love kindness.  Walk humbly.  That’s a beautiful, spiritual idea.  And religion, done right, can actually help to get us there.

2/2/2020

0 Comments

 
Listen here.
Picture
RELIGIOUS, BUT NOT SPIRITUAL
Sunday, February 2, 2020
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
 
 
Micah 6:1-8
 
Hear what the Lord says: Rise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the Lord, and you enduring foundations of the earth; for the Lord has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel. “O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me! For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of slavery; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised, what Balaam son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the saving acts of the Lord.”
 
“With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
 
 
It was at this moment that I understood the world had truly shifted: Marcos and I were at a very fashionable garden party up in the Catskills, hosted by some friends of ours.  It was a beautiful summer evening, and we had gathered on the large deck as the sun dipped behind the mountains and a sudden coolness came to the air.  As one does at these kinds of things, we mingled.  I’m not the most natural “mingler” in the world, but I’ve learned to fake it. 
 
As I was mingling, I suddenly came face to face with a very elegant woman.  We chatted for a moment about the view and the delicious food and our mutual friends.  She told me a little about herself.  And then she asked me the dreaded question: “So James, what do you do for a living?”  There was a pause, as there always is when I’m asked this question, as I tried to get the lay of the land.  After a few seconds, I replied: “Well, I’m a Congregational minister.”  For a split second, her polite smile vanished before she managed a recovery. “What’s that?” she asked - just like that.  And so I gave her the user-friendly answer that I have perfected over the years.  But about three sentences into my perfect explanation of what a Congregational minister is, she mumbled, “Excuse me” and walked away, leaving me in mid-sentence. 
 
It wasn’t always like that, you know.  When I first started in ministry back in late 80s, there was still a general respect for the clergy.  I was treated with some deference in the grocery store and at the barbershop and the gas station.  But those days are long gone.  With each passing year, American society is less and less religious, and experts see no slowing in that trend. With each passing clergy scandal, ministers and priests and rabbis and imams are more and more distrusted.  Nowadays, I don’t often tell people what I do for a living unless I just have to.  Why would I invite that kind of discomfort when I’m only trying to get my haircut? 
 
Now despite this decrease in religion in America, spirituality is said to be on the increase.  People now proudly declare themselves “spiritual, but not religious.”  Maybe that describes you or someone you love.  Frankly, it describes sometimes me, when I feel fed up with religion but am still inextricably drawn to the spiritual life.
 
To declare oneself “spiritual, but not religious” implies that these two things are somehow opposed to one another or at least organically unrelated.  And while this may feel like a new thing happening in the world, it’s actually a very old thing.  There has always been a tension between religion and spirituality.  There has always been the temptation for religion to try to codify and control the things of the spirit, followed by an inevitable pushback.  And we see that tension in this passage from Micah.
 
We don’t know much about Micah except that he was a small-town boy from a place called Moresheth, about 20 miles southwest of Jerusalem.  He was a younger contemporary of other prophets you may have heard of like Isaiah, Amos, and Hosea.  Interestingly enough, scholars note that there are some striking similarities between the writings of Micah and Isaiah, implying that there may have been collaboration between the prophets, or maybe even a prophetic school from which they all borrowed.
 
Micah’s prophecy is presented as a courtroom drama.  God is the plaintiff and the people are the defendants.  And in the closing argument, God makes a striking case against the people, particularly the upper echelons of society, the intelligentsia, and the cultural elite, accusing them of being particularly hypocritical.  God also laces into the clergy, declaring them all false prophets.  And the rich, God says, are the most violent of them all.  Yet all of those accused were religious. 
 
Well, apparently, Micah was a pretty good preacher, because the people saw the error of their ways and responded with fervent repentance.  And as a way to show their repentance, they did what they knew best.  They became more religious!  Instead of sacrificing three or four rams to show how sorry they were, they would sacrifice a thousand! Instead of one hundred gallons of their best olive oil, they would offer ten thousand of rivers of oil.  They even went so far as to offer their first-born children.  They were sorry for what they had done and they thought that more religious observance was the cure. 
 
They were not so unlike many of us.  Sometime we feel sorry for our selfishness or dishonesty, and decide that the cure is more piety.  We will go to church every Sunday! We’ll make a bigger pledge!  We’ll say our prayers every night!   But those things don’t necessarily get us what we need.  And according to Micah, God doesn’t want more religion.  What God wanted is more spirit.  God wants personal transformation that results in societal transformation. 
 
So, how does Micah describe that?  Well, his answer is one of the best-known verses of the Bible: “God has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”  
 
If you Google that verse, you will find scores of beautiful images that you can post on Facebook and Instagram.  It will make you seem “woke” and enlightened.  But what does it actually mean, from God’s point of view, to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with God? 
 
In our current state of political division and entrenchment, the word justice has become a bomb we lob at one another.  Each side lays claim to its true meaning.  But the biblical notion of justice, to which we are all called whatever our political opinions, is enshrined in what we call the Golden Rule.  To do justice is to do unto others exactly as you would like them to do to you.  The great theologian Cornel West puts it this way: “Justice is (simply) what love looks like in public.” 
 
And what about kindness?  Aren’t we kind already?  Well, we might be nice, but kind is something far deeper. The Hebrew word translated here are kindness is “chesed” – a very rich word that references the idea of holy covenant and obligation between people.  This is not about smiling at the cashier at Big Y.  Chesed is about trust and vulnerability as an essential building block of human relationships.  In this way, justice (doing to others as you would want done to you) and kindness (vulnerability and trust) are cousins. 
 
And humility?  Well, is there any more precious commodity in our world today?  In a culture in which we are regularly encouraged to think of ourselves as the best or #1, cultivating humility as a spiritual discipline is about as counter-cultural as you can get.  So, what is it?  Well, here’s a very simple definition of humility: to be humble to remember that God is God… and you are not.  
 
The prophet Micah proclaimed that the religious life is not necessarily a spiritual life. Micah preached that religion cannot make one just and kind and humble.  But here’s the thing.  It sure can help. 
 
And that’s the truth that some “spiritual, but not religious” folks don’t quite understand about what we do in this room – that religion practice can serve an essential purpose in our spiritual quest – because justice and loving kindness and walking humbly is hard work, and best done in community, with others who will hold us accountable and pray for us and laugh with us and cry with us. 
 
Do justice.  Love kindness.  Walk humbly.  That’s a beautiful, spiritual idea.  It will make this world a better place.  And religion, done right, can actually help to get us there.  
 
0 Comments

"The most important thing the church can do in this world is to feed and water hope."

1/19/2020

0 Comments

 
Listen here.
Picture
A HOPE THAT DOES NOT DISAPPOINT
January 19, 2020 – Dream Sunday, MLK Weekend
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
 
 
Romans 5:3-5
 
And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
 
 
I’ve loved birds for as long as I can remember.  So you can imagine my delight when we moved to Connecticut, hung a bird feeder from the dogwood in the front yard, and watched from our living room as they came to feed.  We’re have been lots of sparrows, some cardinals and blue jays to add a splash of color, the occasional yellow finch, and every now and again a redheaded woodpecker far too large for the feeder - but undeterred nonetheless. But there is one type of bird that has eluded my affections for a long time. 
 
It all began years ago when I had a job in Times Square working for a theatrical press office.  One day while running errands, the largest pigeon I had ever seen made a target out of me as I was walking down Broadway.  Its gift was so forcefully delivered that it knocked the glasses right off my face!  A few people screamed and everyone else kept their distance.  I spent the next hour or two trying to clean myself up enough.  And ever since then, I have regarded pigeons as the enemy. 
 
My dislike of pigeons reached its crescendo some years later when we moved into a new apartment.  It had windows on three sides, and after years in a very dark first floor apartment, we were hopeful for some sunshine.   We didn’t have much, but every afternoon for about an hour the sun would light up the fire escape and cast a soft glow in all the rooms.  When the spring came, I filled several planters with the brightest, reddest impatiens I could find.  And every time I walked into the kitchen and looked out the window onto the fire escape, I had this feeling of deep satisfaction.
 
I loved my flowers.  But unfortunately, so did the pigeons. Who knew pigeons ate impatiens?!  They would sit in a row on the railing waiting for me to turn my back before they feasted. And then one day, to my horror, I discovered a pigeon actually roosting in one of my planters, its overfed body crushing the life out of them.  I angrily chased it away.  Every day, I chased all of them away.  But every day those pigeons returned.  
 
Finally, one of my neighbors told me about something called bird spikes – those awful little plastic spikes mounted on window ledges that would not kill the pigeons, but would certainly discourage them from landing.  Soon every window ledge in our apartment looked like the Berlin Wall.  I had conquered them or so I thought.  -- But those pigeons were persistent, despite the obstacles. They found other places to land, still near enough to our windows for me to see what looked like disdain on their faces; still close enough for me to hear their constant cooing.  They never let me forget that they were still there.      
 
Emily Dickinson famously wrote: “Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune--Without the words, And never stops at all…”  Maybe Dickenson was thinking of pigeons when she wrote those words about hope, because hope, like pigeons, is persistent despite our best efforts to try to chase it away. 
 
Hope both amazes and perplexes me.  Human history should have beaten the hope right out of us by now.  The sins of the fathers and mothers are indeed visited upon each generation.  We seem doomed to repeat our history, and yet hope springs eternal.  Hope sings on.  Why is that?  Why do we continue to hope despite all the evidence to the contrary?  Why does hope survive in the face of what seem to be insurmountable obstacles blocking its fulfillment?
 
Last week in Confirmation class, as we prepared for this Sunday, I asked the students to name some of their fears and then to name some of their hopes.  Their fears were significant.  They wonder about the future of the planet as it warms, and what that will mean for them and their children and civilization, as we know it.  They expressed fear that another world war was looming on the horizon.  Serious stuff that worries me too.  And yet, when I asked them about their hopes, they seemed to spring to life.  They said they hope for a better future.  They hope for unity and true acceptance among all people.  They hope to make a positive difference in the lives of others.  –In the midst of this fearful moment, where does their hope come from?  Where does your come from? 
 
From a psychological perspective, hope allows people to approach their problems with a frame of mind that encourages them to strategize for success. Hope increases the chances that you and I will actually accomplish our goals, despite difficulties.  In this way, hope is essential for our flourishing and our psychological well-being.  But again, where does it come from?  
 
From a biological perspective, hope helps to ensure the survival of the species. Hope helps us to adapt and evolve and to even thrive in spite of tremendous obstacles.  But where does it come from?  And why is it so persistent?
 
St. Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome that, “hope does not disappoint us.”  Now that was quite a statement to make in the first century because the Roman Empire was mighty and vast, while the church was small and weak.  Even so, the early Christians were viewed as a threat to Rome.  They were a threat to the social order because Christians claimed that a dusty rabbi named Jesus was Lord, while the Romans proclaimed that Caesar was Lord.  That made the Christians heretics and politically dangerous.  And so they were persecuted.  Christians were hounded and imprisoned, discriminated against and martyred.  And yet it was to these suffering people, living in the very seat of imperial power, that Paul proclaimed that their suffering would produce endurance, and their endurance would produce character, and their character would produce hope, and hope would not disappoint them.  
 
This rather ridiculous message, that despite the state of the world, hope does not disappoint, has been the message of the church since the very beginning.  What else could the resurrection mean except that hope is triumphant against all odds? That belief has inspired saints and sages throughout the centuries to do marvelous things.  It has been the catalyst for massive social changes in every generation as people seek the Kingdom of God.  And it was on full display on this day…
 
On August 28, 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave what is now considered one of the finest and most defining speeches in American history, entitled: “I Have a Dream.” Delivered to over 250,000 people gathered on the Mall in our nation’s capital, Dr. King argued for the resiliency of hope in the face of overwhelming odds; hope in the face of entrenched racial discrimination and the violence that protected it. 
 
Interestingly enough, Dr. King’s prepared remarks that day did not contain the most famous words we all know – that refrain “I have a dream.”  That phrase was actually from other speeches he had given previously, but did not plan to give that day.  But one point while delivering his prepared remarks, the great Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, who had sung before his speech, shouted out from the crowd, “Tell them about the dream, Martin.”  
 
And going off script, he that’s exactly what he did.  Dr. King did what God’s prophets have always done.  He spoke the hopeful word of the Lord, despite how ludicrous it sounded.  He spoke the word of the Lord, despite the current circumstances of the people.  He spoke the word of the Lord and it stirred hope in the hearts of those people. And it was a hope that did not disappoint, as that moment became a catalyst for change in American society. 
 
I cannot listen to his speech without tears. No matter how many times I have heard it, its words move something deep inside of me.  It’s hope.  And hope, it seems to me, is so resilient because it comes from God.  And it rises in us because we are made in the image and likeness of God.  Therefore it is irrepressible.  It calls to us, because it bears witness to a truth that is larger than we are.  It rises in us, despite all odds, and sometimes it even changes the world. 
 
And because that is true, because history bears that out as the truth, it seems to me that the most important thing the church can do in this world is to feed and water the hope God has planted in each person.  If we don’t do that, who will? Who will remind the people that they are made in the image and likeness of God? Who will tell them, again and again and again, until they believe it, that they are loved beyond compare? Who will proclaim to them that this present moment need not define the future? Who will help them to see beyond this world’s brokenness to its shattering beauty?  Who will show them a hope that does not disappoint?  
 
0 Comments

Baptism is a physical reminder of a love that will go to any length, descend to any depth, take on any ugliness… in order to raise us up.

1/12/2020

1 Comment

 
Listen here.
Picture
BAPTIZED IN TRUTH
Sunday, January 12, 2020
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
 
 
Matthew 3:13-17
 
Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
 
 
It was 1968.  I wore a pair of gold trousers, a white turtleneck, and some matching gold socks.  Very sharp.  I stood in the wings watching my father wade into a deep pool of water.  I don’t know what he said to the congregation, but I do remember that he turned to me and invited me to join him in the warm pool.  I swallowed hard and began to move toward him.  Even though I walked on my tiptoes, the water came right up to the bottom of my nose.  My dad reached out his hand and drew me close, pulling me through the water.  Then he said some words about baptism and how I had decided (at the ripe old age of seven) to follow Jesus for myself.  My dad instructed me to cover my mouth and plug my nose with one hand, and then to grab my wrist with the other (like this).  With one of his hands, he covered mine.  And with the other, he supported the back of my head.   Then he said something very much like this: “Upon your profession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and in obedience to his divine command, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
 
The next thing I knew, I was literally plunged under the warm water.  My feet went out from under me as I lost all sense of control.  But I wasn’t afraid because my dad was literally holding me.  And when he lifted me back up out of the water, the congregation rejoiced that I had made my own profession of faith. 
 
Mine was a baptism based on a personal decision.  And it was baptism by full immersion in water.  It’s called Believers Baptism, a reference to the fact that you need to be able to believe first before you’re baptized.  There is a whole theology around why this is the “right” kind of baptism.  Like all theology, it grows out of a particular reading of the Bible, mixed in with lots of history and tradition and firm opinions.
 
That’s very different from the kind of baptism we see around here.  More often than not, we are baptizing babies and children.  We place a small amount of water on their foreheads.  No immersion here.  And this too is based on a particular reading of the Bible, mixed in with lots of history and tradition and firm opinions.
 
So who’s right?  That’s a question with a very long history.  That’s a question over which blood has been spilled and people excommunicated.  
 
After I was ordained, I remember a conversation with my dad in which he was trying to understand how someone raised with Believer’s Baptism, someone who had experienced it personally, could possibly be baptizing babies.  And so we talked about the Bible and tradition.  We talked about what baptism means.  We talked about what we think happens to a person in baptism.  We talked and talked and talked.  And at the end of all of that talking… we agreed to disagree.
 
So, what do you think?   What does baptism mean?  What happens to the person being baptized?  I know folks who love to debate questions like that.  I used to be one of them, right in the thick of those debates.  But I tired of such conversations a long time ago because I understood what those arguments were really about.  Most arguments about theology, it seems to me, are attempts to make divine things fit into our already conceived worldview. Theological arguments are about defending your own tradition or your history or your preferences. They are about protecting the status quo.
 
Now, please don’t misunderstand what I’m trying to say.  I’m not saying that good theology is not important.  It’s just that theological discussions so rarely happen with open hearts and minds.  And while many claim to have the Bible as their source, many also do all kinds of intellectual acrobatics in order to make the Bible say what they want it to say, instead of letting the words of Scripture challenge and mold us. 
 
Today’s reading from the book of Matthew does challenges some sincerely held beliefs about baptism and about who Jesus was and about what it is he came to do.  
 
Matthew writes: “Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him.”  What a seemingly innocuous statement.  Except that it’s anything but innocuous.  You see, in the Judaism practiced in ancient Palestine, to be baptized by someone meant that you were submitting to his authority; that you were literally becoming her disciple.  So, what on earth was Jesus, who is Lord of all, doing submitting to anyone’s authority or becoming anyone’s disciple?  
 
In addition, John was preaching about baptism as a sign of repentance of sins.  And yet the book of Hebrews declares that Jesus was “one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15) So what on earth was Jesus doing participating in a ritual of repentance?  Didn’t that send the wrong message about the Sinless One?
 
Hi cousin John very clearly understands the problematic nature of Jesus’s request and protests: “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”  John gets the dissonance.  John understands how this challenges the dominant theology of the day. But Jesus replies: “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”
 
This shocking story does not fit easily into anyone’s theology of baptism.  And it certainly messes with our Christology – our beliefs about Christ.  In fact, the early church found this story to be a huge embarrassment and mostly ignored it.  We no longer ignore it, but we do all sorts of theological acrobatics in order to make this story fit into our beloved systems.  We say things like “Well, Jesus was just going through the motions, but he didn’t really need to repent.”  Or we say, “Jesus might have been baptized by his cousin, but he certainly did notsubmit to his authority.”  These are arguments from silence – a particularly weak way to make one’s point.  
 
But theology is not arithmetic.  When talking about the Divine, one plus one rarely equals two.  Our problem is that we have superimposed our Western assumptions about the nature of truth onto what is actually a living, breathing, dynamic relationship called faith.  And when we do that, we often miss the transformative truth of who Jesus was and how he came to remake this world. 
 
Did Jesus need to repent?  Did he submit to his cousin’s authority?  To get lost debating those questions misses the more important point all together.  
 
The River Jordan, where Jesus was baptized, empties into the Dead Sea.  And the surface of the Dead Sea is the lowest place on the surface of planet Earth.  And that details sets the stage for introducing the main point about the Baptism of Jesus. 
 
You see, this is not so much a story about what happened in the water that day as it is about shared human experience.  This is a tale of flesh and blood, tears and pain, laughter and hope.  This is a story about the Incarnation. This is another scandalous tale about how far down God would come to meet us where we are; to identify with us fully in our messy, complicated, sinful human condition.  This story dares us to ask: did Jesus only pretend to be one of us or did he come all the way down, into the mud and silt of this beautiful but broken world.  
 
The blessed waters of baptism are many things to many people.  Folks may argue about those meanings if they wish.  But I am satisfied with this meaning alone: these waters are physical reminders of the fathomless love of God. 
 
In a few moments you will be invited to come forward, if our wish, to receive some water on your head and to hear these words: “Remember your baptism and be thankful.”  Some of us can actually remember it.  Many others cannot.  You’re not really coming to remember an event.  You’re coming to remember a love that would go to any length, descend to any depth, take on any ugliness… in order to raise us up.  
 
1 Comment

It’s just enough light for me to know I am not alone.  And neither are you.

1/5/2020

1 Comment

 
Listen here.
Picture
JUST ENOUGH LIGHT
Epiphany Sunday, January 5, 2020
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
 
Matthew 2:1-12
 
In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: ‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.’” Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.”
 
When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

+++
 
The following story is rated PG-13 for language.  

In the insular religious world in which I was raised, morality was defined very narrowly and mostly by personal behaviors. It was largely about what you did not do.  And what we did not do was smoke or drink of chew, or go with girls or boys who do.  And we didn’t swear.  Ever. 
 
At my Christian liberal arts college, we had chapel services three times a week.  One day a famous evangelical preacher named Tony Campolo came to address the student body.  Campolo was a sociology professor and ordained American Baptist minister.  Dr. Campolo was interested in moving evangelical piety far beyond the prohibitions against alcohol, tobacco and dirty words. 
 
In his chapel sermon that day, Campolo recited a lot of statistics about hunger and the daily deaths from hunger-related causes around the world. I don’t know what the numbers were back then, but today approximately 25,000 people will die from a lack of food.  That’s 9.1 million people per year.  So Campolo regaled us with these grim statistics and then he paused for dramatic effect and announced: “These people died today and most of you don’t give a…” (rhymes with “fit.”) – The audience gasped.  And then there was a stunned silence.  Campolo continued: “And the really tragic thing is that more of you are offended that I said that word than you are that 25,000 people died from hunger today.”  I don’t know how everyone else in the room experienced what he said, but I can tell you that my own Christian faith has never been the same.  It was a very effective sermon.
 
A few years ago, I was reminded of Campolo’s influence on my life because there was an article in the New York Times Sunday Magazine about his son, Bart.  Bart Campolo, like his father, had also been a dynamic Christian speaker.  But Bart, unlike his father and unbeknownst to most, struggled with his faith. One day, while riding his bicycle, Bart hit a soft patch of dirt and had a very serious accident.  When he finally woke up in the hospital, he admitted what had been true for him for a while: that he really didn’t believe in God anymore.  The article detailed his journey from an evangelical preacher’s son to an evangelical preacher himself, and finally to a humanist chaplain at the University of Southern California. 
 
I read the article with great interest, not only because his father had been such a significant influence on me, but also because I am fascinated why some people believe and others don’t.  I too was raised by an evangelical preacher.  I too have had periods of intense doubt.  So what is the difference between us? Why do I still believe when Bart doesn’t?  Why is the pinprick of light in an otherwise dark night sky enough for me to believe in the Light of the World?  
 
In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem, wise men came from the East to Jerusalem looking for the King of the Jews. Traditional says there were three of them, but that tradition is only based on the number of gifts they brought.  And we don’t know their names, although tradition named them Gaspar, Balthazar, and Melchior.  And we don’t know what that they actually saw in the sky.  All we really know about them is that whatever they saw, it was enough to get them to take the first steps of a very long journey. 
 
Like so many other Bible stories, this one has been domesticated by time.  Its transformative truths are buried under tradition and sentimentality and familiarity.  But if we take a moment to unearth it from all of that, we find a subversive and transformative tale of how God works in our world.  
 
What do I mean?  Well, consider this: the heroes of this story are foreigners.  And more than that, they are pagans.  These Wise Ones received this revelation, not through the established channel of Judaism, but through their own religion.  They were like Zoroastrians, practitioners of a monotheistic Persian religion founded six centuries before Christ was born.  So, they were the wrong kind of people with the wrong kind of religion, and yet it was to them that the Christ was revealed.  
 
And consider this: they literally found God in and through their observations of the natural world.  It was a star and not a book or an approved theology that led them to Jesus.  This story reminds us that creation itself reveals the glory and truth of God.  And finally, the news of the Messiah’s exact whereabouts was delivered through the mouth of a duplicitous politician, wicked King Herod, proving once again that God can speak through anyone. These details, so often lost on us, are Matthew’s way of underscoring the new thing that God was doing in Christ – an out-of-the-box, draw- the-circle-wide, kind of thing.
 
But there’s one more detail in this story that breaks the mold of how we assume God works in the world.  Matthew’s story also strongly implies that the way to Jesus is not illuminated by a blaze of glory.  It is, more often, simply hinted at in the faint twinkling of a star. 
 
What do you mean faint twinkling?  Don’t we sing: “Star of wonder, star of night, star with royal beauty bright!”  Indeed, we do.  But that’s not what Matthew says.
 
Apparently, the star wasn’t bright enough to take them directly to where Jesus was.  The Wise Men ended up in Jerusalem, which is about 5 ½ miles from Bethlehem.  They had to stop and ask for directions before they could continue on their journey.  And once they did, the implication is that it was still dark.  Matthew writes:  as “they set out; …there, ahead of them, went the star.”  In other words, further revelation was only given as they put one foot in front of the other – meaning that they had just enough light to continue on their way.  
 
In an essay about her decision to adopt out of the foster care system, Mennonite pastor Joanna Harader writes of her own experience of having just enough light to take the next step.  She writes: “God did not lead us to adopt in any big and dramatic way.  There was no voice from heaven, no angelic visions, not even a series of inexplicable coincidences.  Just a dim gleam on the horizon, a slow but steady wind blowing in a certain direction, an accumulation of prayers and conversations that seemed to nudge us down this one blessed and treacherous path.”
 
Just a dim gleam on the horizon. 
 
I don’t know why Bart Campolo concluded that there is no God.  But I can tell you why I believe that there is.  It’s that dim gleam on the horizon.  It’s enough to get me to put one foot in front of the other.  And every now and again, just like the Wise Men, I actually stumble upon the Christ.  I turn a corner and there he is – the light of his glory blazing in my dark world, making everything clear.  It’s only a flash and then it is gone.  But it’s just enough light for me to know I am not alone.  And neither are you.
 
Thanks be to God.  Amen.
​
1 Comment

The Incarnation, Emmanuel, God-with-us, in the muck of life - that is the reason I still call myself a Christian.

12/27/2019

1 Comment

 
Picture
LISTEN: "JUST LIKE US"
​WHAT IF GOD WAS ONE OF US?
Christmas Eve, 7:30 and 11 PM
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
 
 
Luke 2:8-20
 
In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!” When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.
 
 
There are all sorts of reasons that people stop believing in God.  Sometimes it’s a trauma so intense, so painful, that we cannot imagine how a God of love would allow such a thing to happen.  My grandfather was one of those, after being left alone to raise eight children when my grandmother died before she was 40.  Other times, people stop believing in God because of the clash between science and what they have been told the Bible teaches.  They assume those two disciplines – religion and science - speak the same language – but they don’t.  Some others just loose interest as the years pass.  But of all the non-believers I’ve ever known and loved, the majority of them stopped believing in God because of religion.  These folks, once part of the church, experienced hypocrisy, the love of money, and the abuse of the vulnerable at church.  Sometimes they were the abused ones.  And so, the only conclusion they could come to, the only one that made any sense, was that all of this – the building, the liturgy, the tradition - was a bunch of hogwash.  
 
Maybe you are one of them.  Maybe you don’t really believe any of this.  Maybe you are here tonight because of tradition or because of grandma or because you’re trying to keep the peace at Christmas dinner tomorrow. 
 
Well, I know how you feel.  Despite my title and the fact that I am standing in a pulpit on Christmas Eve, dressed like, I know, first-hand what it’s like to doubt because of religion.  I’ve seen religion do a great deal of damage in the world.  I’ve seen it used to draw lines between people – who’s in and who’s out. I’ve seen it used, as a weapon to bash those not approved of, used as a manipulation or as a power play.  And so there have been times when I too was tempted to call it all a bunch of hogwash.   
 
Those who don’t believe have been in the news a lot in recent years.  Non-believers are coming out of the closet in large numbers.  And people assume that the swelling ranks of those who don’t believe is a new phenomenon. There have always been those who entertained doubts, they just did it quietly for the most part.  And there have always been those who wanted to believe but were pushed out by religion.  Some of those were around that first Christmas night.  
 
In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping what over their flocks by night.  
 
I’ve never really given those shepherds much thought.  My view of them has been shaped mostly by movies and the Charlie Brown Christmas Special and my own role in multiple Christmas pageants, dressed in a bathrobe and with a towel on my head.  At the 5 PM children’s service today, I had a pillowcase on my head.  And so my view of shepherds in the ancient world is a romanticized one.  
 
But those shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night, were actually some of the most persecuted and misunderstood people of their day.  And religion played a major part in their persecution.
 
By the time that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, shepherding was at the very bottom of the social order.  It was the job that you took when no one else would hire you.  It was the job you could get when you got out of prison and no one wanted you.  And that made shepherds the brunt of a thousand jokes; the folks you could make fun of at polite dinner parties and no one would object. 
 
Shepherds were commonly categorized as liars, degenerates, and thieves.  Thus, it was easy for politicians to use them as foils against all of society’s ills.  If there was a rise in crime, blame the shepherds.  If they moved into your neighborhood, sell your house.  If there was civil unrest, blame them.  If you wanted to score cheap political points, make the conversation about them.  After all, they’re all just liars and degenerates and thieves.
 
So demonized was this group of people, that their testimony was not admissible in a court of law.  Why would you believe a liar?  Additionally, many towns in ancient Palestine had ordinances barring shepherds from even entering the city limits. 
 
And to make matters worse, the religious establishment, who should have been advocating for the outcasts as the Hebrew Scriptures teach, instead took a particularly dim view of the shepherds.  Because they lived with the sheep, and because sheep need tending seven days a week, the shepherds were not able to keep the Sabbath as others did.  They had to work on Saturday.  And because they did, and because this was breaking a foundational religious law, the shepherds were considered ritually unclean. And any ritually unclean person was shunned by the rest of society.  
 
Now when people are shunned, they have two basic choices.  They can either accept their condition – even come to believe it’s true - and slink quietly into the shadows.  Or, they can be more proactive in their condition and simply stop caring that they are shunned.  They reject the society that rejects them. They may even claim that as a badge of honor.  Not belonging becomes its own identity.  And when religion is a cause of your social isolation, well then, forget religion!  -- And maybe, just maybe, that’s what these shepherds had done.  Maybe, just maybe, they, like some of us, had stopped believing altogether. But it was to them – these skeptics and the doubters and the outsiders – that the angel of the Lord appeared.  
 
The Gospel of Luke is written from the point of view of the outcast - the weak, the vulnerable, the misunderstood – those are the heroes of Luke’s Gospel. So it’s not surprising that the angel of the Lord did not appear to the King.  She did not appear to the priests.  She did not appear to those who went to Temple every week.  Instead, this herald announcing the birth of the Savior of the world - trusted that precious message to nobodies.  
 
Now, that alone was shocking enough.  But there is even more scandal here. 
 
Shepherds were also the brunt of jokes because they lived with the animals they cared for.  They slept with them and ate with them and everybody thought they smelled like them.  But the angel of the Lord told the shepherds that this Baby would be found wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger – an animal-feeding trough.  The Son of God would be found among the sheep and goats and cows and manure and the smell – the very things that made the shepherds outcasts.  That’s where God would be found.  
 
Back in the 1990s, when I had left the church and was feeling very much the outsider because of the church, the singer Joan Osborne recorded a song that, in some ways, literally saved me.  The song simply asks “What if God was one of us?  Just a slob like one of us, just a stranger on a bus, tryin’ to make his way home.”
 
I remember at the time that some religious people were scandalized by these lyrics.  They were scandalized because they needed a God who was high and exalted; a Heavenly King, a being so wholly other that we humans could have no real connection.  They complained that this song demeaned the Almighty and brought him down to our level.  But they shouldn’t have worried about that so much – because Christmas already took care of that.
 
The Incarnation, Emmanuel, God-with-us, in the muck of life - that is the reason I still call myself a Christian.  And so on this holy night, I am once again left to ponder: what wondrous love is this that God would come to live like one us, to smell like one of us, to laugh like one of us, to cry like one of us, to die like one of us.  Just like us.
 
 

1 Comment

"I have sometimes wondered what a Christmas pageant would look like if we allowed Mary a speaking part that was more in line with what she actually said."

12/16/2019

2 Comments

 
Picture
SING MARY, SING!
Sunday, December 15, 2019 – Advent III
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
 
 
 
Luke 1:46b-55
 
And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”
 
 
 
“Oh! You better watch out, You better not cry, You better not pout, I'm telling you why: Santa Claus is coming to town!  He's making a list, Checking it twice, Gonna find out who's naughty or nice. Santa Claus is coming to town! He sees you when you are sleeping, He knows when you're awake.  He knows if you've been bad or good, So be good for goodness sake!  Oh! You better watch out, You better not cry, You better not pout, I'm telling you why: Santa Claus is coming to town!” (John Frederick Coots and Haven Gillespie)
 
As a kid I hated that song!  It always sort of creeped me out, this notion that there was an old man in a red suit who lived all the way at the North Pole and still could somehow manage to see everything I did.  Everything.  And not only did he see what I did, but he judged me accordingly.  I didn’t like that song because, quite frankly, it reminded me of my version of God.
 
God was likewise an all-seeing old man.  God knew when I had been naughty or nice and was fully prepared to reward or punish me in kind.  As a child I lived under the constant threat of the all-seeing eye of God.  I didn’t need Santa Claus to do that too.  I was already neurotic enough.  
 
Well, obviously, I didn’t stay there in my concept of God.  Instead I grew into a relationship with God.  Through the hard knocks of life, I learned, first-hand about mercy and grace.  And I came to depend, body and soul, on that marvelous affirmation from I John 4:8: “God is love.”  I still believed that God was watching us.  I still believed that I should be nice instead of naughty.  But, I thought, in the end everything would be OK.  It was sort of a “I’m OK, you’re OK” approach to Christian faith.
 
I found a new spiritual home where those “I’m OK, you’re OK” values were affirmed.  In that new home, the religious concepts with which I had grown up were largely absent.  One almost never heard the H word (hell) or the J word (judgment).  Instead we heard a lot about the L word (love).  We heard the P word (peace).  And we heard a great deal about another J word (justice).  And all of that seemed very nice.  And all of that seemed the way it should be.  And all of that was being said from an ivory tower.  But the more I lived, the more I understood that one J word actually required the other.  Justice and judgment walk hand in hand.  And those who easily dismiss the judgment of God have probably never really needed the justice of God.    
 
But Mary did.  Blessed Mary, the mother of our Lord, needed the justice of God because she was a poor, uneducated, unmarried and pregnant teenager.  She lived under the oppression of a government bent on her subjugation.  She had watched her parents and relatives and friends suffer the constant humiliations of a police state.  
 
In Mary’s world, the divide between the rich and the poor never seemed to narrow because government policies favored the rich.  Mary never had a chance at full Roman citizenship with all its rights and privileges because she was the wrong kind of person.  She was destined to be part of the visible but largely ignored underclass.
 
But Blessed Mary was not only shaped by the dominant culture of Roman Imperialism.  Mary was also steeped in the traditions of the Jewish people, who believed that God would one day set this world right.  She had heard the stories of the great prophets, who called the people to live in hope and expectation despite their circumstances.  And she knew that some of those prophets were women like her: Miriam the sister of Moses, Deborah one of the great judges of Israel and the childless Hannah, who longed for and received another baby of promise.  Mary lived, like we do, in that in-between place of the world as she knew it and the world that she hoped for.  
 
One day, pregnant and afraid, Mary went to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who was also pregnant with John the Baptist.  And when those two faithful and strong women met each other, the moment was suddenly charged with the power of the Holy Spirit.  And Mary, like Miriam and Deborah and Hannah before her, began to prophesy.  First she talked about the incredible thing that God had done for her.  She sang that despite her lowly position, God had looked on her with favor and chosen her for special purpose.  And she prophesied that all the future generations would call her blessed.  I sometimes wonder how we Protestants fulfill that prophecy since we so remiss in speaking about her at all, let alone calling her blessed.
 
Blessed Mary sang about the shape the world was in.  And then she sang about what God was going to do about it.  She proclaimed that the wicked and the selfish and the corrupt would get what was coming to them (judgment); and that God would give to the oppressed what they needed (justice).
 
Her prophetic song is called the Magnificat, and although we might read or sing it at Christmas time, most Protestants don’t pay it much mind.  And besides that, its basic premise messes with our images of the Mary of Christmas pageants - silent and serene and utterly harmless – a womb without a voice.  But I have sometimes wondered what a Christmas pageant would look like if we allowed Mary a speaking part that was more in line with what she actually said.  Can you imagine your daughter or niece or granddaughter coming center stage, lifting her head and voice, and thundering the words of a prophet calling out for justice? 
 
Thundering Mary said that the One coming into the world through her own flesh would change everything.  Forget “Silent Night, Holy Night.”  This child, she sang, would turn up the volume and raise a ruckus.  Through this baby, God would scatter the proud like sawdust in the wind.  Through this Jesus, God would bring down the powerful from their thrones of arrogance.  God would fill the hungry with good things, but the rich would go to bed with their stomachs empty.  The coming of Christ would be good news for the “have nots,” but bad news for those who have because they took it from those who didn’t.  -- And that, in essence, is the message of Christmas.  That’s hard to wrap in bows and feel sentimental about, but that’s exactly what Blessed Mary sang.
 
And her powerful song has never stopped.  Every time people see their worth and demand justice, Mary’s sings.  Every time the poor demand their place at the table, Mary’s sings.  In the protests for freedom that are currently rocking our world, Mary’s song is heard above the din.  When people put their own bodies on the line for what is right, it is her holy song that inspires them.  
 
Mary put her own body on the line.  She said yes to the angel.  She said yes to the unbelievable.  She said yes to an incarnational faith.  Blessed Mary literally gave birth to justice.  And in that regard, she is not exceptional – because that is exactly what we are all called to do. 
 
The medieval German mystic, Meister Eckhart, once famously said that we are all called to be the mothers of God.  Now don’t get lost in those words, dear Protestants.  What Meister Eckhart meant was simply this: in each of us, in every reaction to injustice, in every act of kindness, Christ is given physicality through our own flesh. And each time that happens, the Kingdom of Heaven has come near, and judgment and justice walk hand in hand.   
 
So, sing Blessed Mary, sing! And teach us your song.  Sing about how Christ longs to be born through us.  And sing it until we learn it.  Help us to sing it, until the Kingdoms of this world have become the Kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ.
 
2 Comments
<<Previous

    Author

    Some of my Sunday morning musings on this crazy, wonderful life we share and the God whose gift it is.  

    Archives

    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

"The glory of God is the human person fully alive."
Saint Irenaeus of Lyon, 2nd century