Course Correction (maybe)

Image of flat desert with mountains, blue sky, and clouds in the background. In the foreground to the left is a road sign with an arrow curving to the left.

What if we’ve been going about being Christian all wrong, or at least partially incorrect? What if it isn’t about personal salvation at all? What if it’s really about acts of healing (hesed in Hebrew) and acts of mercy (eleos in Greek)? The more I think about this, the more I am convinced that salvation for the “whole of the cosmos” (as John 3:16 says) comes out of our ability to care for ourselves and all our neighbors. This would be embodying Christ in healing and saving ways. Perhaps it’s time we reclaim our communal roots and the goal of tikkun olam, repairing what is broken in the world. This could revitalize the church and make it relevant and vital in the world. If evangelism and soul-saving takes a backseat to acts of loving-kindness, mercy, and reparations, imagine how strong and healthy church could become.

Think about it. Christianity has taken the commandments, the ten given to Moses and the two named by Jesus, to be a kind of moral or pious code of conduct for individuals. To an extent, this is true. And, in a way, this is inadequate. Morality and/or piety do very little for an individual. However, on a communal level, these commandments give guidance for a healthy, safe community. Worship God and not the lesser God’s of our own making. Do not mistreat your neighbors or yourself. Don’t be jealous of your neighbors. Honor your elders. You know, it all comes down to love God, love neighbors, love yourself, and be good stewards of the planet. All this is not meant to elevate the individual. Rather, it is meant to strengthen the community and foster interdependence. Our actions ought not to be guided by a legalistic view of “right” and “wrong” so much as what benefits the larger community.

Several years ago I left a relationship with nothing more than what I could fit in my car. I lived in a friend’s guestroom for 18 months. During that time I was significantly under employed and wasn’t able to find another job. People were generous and caring. My friend let me stay at her house without cost. Other people I barely knew would sometimes hand me money saying things like, “You need this more than I do right now.” And, you know, they didn’t ask me how I spent it; they didn’t care if I paid bills, bought groceries, or went to Starbucks. I was also able to continue in a painting class because the instructor waived the fee asking absolutely nothing in return. What if everyone who fell on hard times was supported by those around them as I was? What if our primary question, as individuals and as communities of faith, became, “How can I/we help my neighbors?” or “How can I share my/our resources?”

I know this sounds idealistic, and I suppose it is. However, shifting the focus of religious practice from the individual to the community could make a real difference in how we are church. Worship would become a celebration of God’s abundance, and a renewal of strength so that the work of the church could continue. Faith formation would be about fostering a sense of being God’s beloved and finding a place in community to best use one’s gifts. How much easier it would be to be a follower of Christ if the church was focused on hesed and eleos to the benefit of all.

Here in the Twin Cities, there are preparations for the trial of Derek Chauvin, the police officer who is responsible for George Floyd’s murder in 2020. Authorities are concerned about the potential for more uprisings. Authorities are trying to prevent protests, marches, rallies from happening in a way that could lead to destruction. Imagine how this would shift if those with power were focused on justice rather than controlling those who have been oppressed for centuries. Surely we can do better than this by setting aside fear, hatred, white supremacy, and our need to otherize. Christians with a communally based identity could potentially shift this power dynamic…

Loving-kindness. Mercy. Repairing what is broken. These are actions the Body of Christ would do well to pay more attention to – communally and as individual members. As I’ve said before, God does not need our help saving souls; God has that covered. God needs our help saving lives by caring for the vulnerable among us and tending to Creation’s wounds.

RCL – Year B – Third Sunday in Lent – March 7, 2021 Exodus 20:1-17  • Psalm 19  • 1 Corinthians 1:18-25  • John 2:13-22

Photo: CC0image by jplenio

Life Choices

Choosing life is not simple, easy, or natural for most of us. Well, there is the drive to stay alive. However, that is not the same as choosing life. Moses was pretty clear that choosing life often means choosing the hard road, the way that is not self-focused. On the brink of entering into the Promised Land, Moses implores the people of God to choose life so that they and their children may continue to live in abundance.

These people who stood looking across the Jordan River into the land they had been promised are the wilderness wanderers, the calf worshipers, the complainers, and the whiners. The journey from captivity to freedom was longer and more difficult than they bargained for. They weren’t happy with Moses. They were tired of manna and quail. They had expected a shorter journey, one that was less taxing on their bodies and on their spirits. If Moses wasn’t around, they were pretty certain that God wasn’t around either. They survived the desert, surely life wasn’t a choice they had to make. They were alive and staring at the Promised Land. Life had already been granted them, hadn’t it?

That’s the funny thing with life. It’s easy to take it for granted. We are alive. We are breathing and moving through the world. What choice is there? Moses could have elaborated more than he did. Choose life that will enable your neighbor to live as you live. Choose life that will be gentle on the planet. Choose life that facilitates justice for all people. Choose life that always moves from captivity to liberation. Choose life that honors the Creator. Choose life in a way that blesses those around you. Choose life, not just as individuals, but also as sacred community.

There it is. Choosing life in response to God’s call isn’t about us as individual human beings. It is about us as sacred community, the Body of Christ, the church. Nearly every church I have ever been a part of has been primarily concerned with its own life. Are the pews full? Is the budget balanced? Are the programs attended? Is the Sunday School full? How about the youth program, are we ensuring the church of the future? These concerns that have absorbed so much of our churches’ attention, are not questions that support choosing life.

God has set before us the ways of life and death. The church is on the edges of something new, something exciting, something transformative. We are close enough to see that something different is coming, but not close enough to know precisely what it is. However, we can look around at our declining numbers and the building closures and know that life isn’t exactly what we have chosen. Perhaps it is time to make different choices.

Choose life so that we and those who will come after us might live in God’s love, honoring God’s commandments. Choose life so that we will stop being lured away by the false gods of individualism and independence. Choose life so that we will realize that our neighbors are our responsibility, that the way of Christ is the way from captivity to liberation.

First choose life for yourself in response to God’s unconditional love for you as an individual. Then choose life for the Body of Christ in response to God’s abundant love for the whole of Creation. No, it is not easy. Yes, we will continue to be tempted by lesser gods. No, it is not too late for us to change and embrace God’s call to the fullness of life. Yes, there are many who will think our efforts on behalf of life, love, and liberation are futile and foolish. Isn’t it time we stopped wandering in the wilderness and complaining about all that is not as we want it or expected it to be? By choosing life, we are choosing the Promised Land, a land where all are welcomed, wanted, seen, heard, and valued. Is there a better way to be the Body of Christ?

Choose life when considering the plight of refugees. Choose life when confronted with those who are homeless. Choose life when the government cuts funding for food subsidies, access to health care, or acts to promote only the white, cis, wealthy, able-bodied, educated, and male people. Choose life, interdependence and sacred community, in every moment and in every decision or the Promised Land, the Kingdom of God, will never come any closer. Generations yet to come deserve better than captivity and oppression, don’t they?

RCL – Year A – Sixth Sunday after Epiphany – February 16, 2020
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Psalm 119:1-8
1 Corinthians 3:1-9
Matthew 5:21-37

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Praying the Ten Commandments

Voice 1:          Then God spoke all these words:  I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
Voice 2:          Your people yearn for your voice! The ancient stories fade from our memories along with a sense of your nearness. It is so easy to worship gods of our making and believe that they will strengthen us.
All:                  Forgive us for the shallowness of our faith. Forgive us when we worship our small gods of money, success, power, drugs, sex, self-hatred or whatever turns our hearts from you. Remind us that you are the God who saves, who strengthens, who loves us without end.

Voice 1:          You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
Voice 2:          May your name be praised at the rising of the sun and it’s setting! How easily words tumble from our lips with so little attention given them. We have forgotten that words have power to hurt or to heal, and that some words are have sacred meaning.
All:                   Forgive us for letting the power of your name be forgotten. Forgive us for using words to bring pain to you, to our neighbors, and to ourselves. Remind us that you are the Word who lived among us that we might have life abundantly.

Voice 1:          Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. For six days you shall labor and do all your work.
Voice 2:          In your wisdom, you made the sabbath for us. You knew that we would forget to rest, to take time to be still with you. How foolish we are to try to live without time to rest in you.
All:                  Forgive us for our foolish ways. We work too hard. Over-schedule ourselves and can barely take an hour to worship you. Remind us of the rest and renewal that comes from time spent being still and knowing that you are God.

Voice 1:          Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
Voice 2:          We give you thanks for those who can honor their parents without hesitation. At the same time we pray for those who have difficult relationships with their parents, for those children who are lost in the world of addiction or illness and cannot honor their parents, and for those children who have no parents.
All:                Forgive us when we fail to honor our elders. Forgive us when we fail to reach beyond our own families and into the community to extend care, compassion, and love to those fathers and mothers who are alone in the world. Remind us that you created us to be in relationship to one another and to care for those in need.

Voice 1:          You shall not murder.
Voice 2:         All people of the earth are created in your image and you have called us to love one another. While murder may seem far from our daily living, there are those among us whose loved ones have been murdered, and those whose loved ones have committed murder. Yet we often remain silent in the face of violence in our world, in our country, in our community, in our homes.
All:                 Forgive us when we fail to see you in the face of another. Forgive us when we choose what is over what could be. Remind us that you are the one who gives peace, peace that brings hope, healing, and life for all your people.

Voice 1:          You shall not commit adultery.
Voice 2:          You shaped us and breathed life into us. You desire for us to live in loving relationships and for some this is celebrated in marriage. Society makes it easy for us to believe that marriage and other relationships are not sacred and that we may do as we desire.
All:                  Forgive us when we fail to see you in our relationships, when we do not treat one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. Forgive us also for those times when we make harsh judgements about those whose failures become public. Remind us that you call us to love our neighbors as ourselves, to live lives of respect, compassion, forgiveness, and kindness.

Voice 1:          You shall not steal.
Voice 2:          You know us more deeply than we know ourselves, knowing our needs and our wants. Sometimes the world seems so unfair and we entertain the impulse to take what is now ours. Others feel they have no choice but to steal in order to survive.
All:                  Forgive us for those moments when we take what we do not need. Forgive us for not feeding those who are hungry, leaving them little choice but to steal in order to feed themselves or their children. Remind us that those you have blessed with more are the ones whom you have asked to bless others.

Voice 1:          You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Voice 2:          Your wisdom displays our foolishness so clearly! We are ruled by our emotions so very often, letting petty differences ruin relationships. From the time of Eve we have struggled with taking responsibility rather than placing blame.
All:                  Forgive us for those moments when our neighbor seems to be our enemy. Forgive us for those times when we let fear or anger determine our actions, causing pain to another. Remind us that you have given us a spirit of self-control and a call to live in love.

Voice 1:          You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
Voice 2:          How well you know the human heart! You know how difficult it can be for us to be content with what we have and how easy it is for us to believe that what others have is far better than what we have.
All:                  Forgive us for all the times we want what others have and fail to give you thanks for what we do have. Remind us that our value is in who we are, whose we are, and not in what we possess.

Voice 1:          When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance, and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.” Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid; for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin.”
Voice 2:          Long ago you gave these commandments to your people because you knew the challenges they would face. You also knew their desire was to love and serve you even when they fell short. Not much has changed in human nature in the thousands of years since.
All:                  Forgive us when we think we can get through life on our own, having no need of you. Forgive us when we forget that you desire only good things for us and our own choices often get in the way of that goodness. Remind us of your power and presence, your loving-kindness, and your steadfast love which endures forever. Amen.

RCL – Year A – Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost – October 5, 2014
Psalm 19 or
Isaiah 5:1-7 with Psalm 80:7-15
Philippians 3:4b-14
Matthew 21:33-46

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