A World Where Everyone is the Greatest

(Mark 10.32-45)

A reflection by Dave Shull

Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ

Sammamish, Washington

The Fourth Sunday after Epiphany: January 31, 2010

When I think about how Jesus asks his followers to live, I wonder why any of us says Yes to his call?

Jesus tells the rich man who wants to follow him that first he has to sell everything he has and give it to the poor; only then can he return and follow him (Mark 10.17-31). So Jesus asks his followers to redistribute wealth so every life in creation has enough.

Jesus stands on a hillside in Galilee, and says, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5.43-48). So Jesus asks his followers never to respond to violence with violence. And to refuse to give permanent shelter to hate.

Jesus hangs on his cross, and prays, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing” (Luke 23.33-34). So Jesus asks his followers to move through the desire for revenge so, in time, they can forgive all who harm them.

Is there something Jesus calls his followers to do that you find especially hard these days? …

If this is how Jesus asks his followers to live, why do any of us say Yes to his call? Why does anyone choose to follow him?

This morning’s reading from Mark’s Gospel sounds like it only adds to the list of impossible things Jesus asks of his followers. In a culture whose highest-rated TV programs are championship sports events and entertainment awards shows, how do we hear what Jesus says? And how do we imagine following it?

Listen for a word from God.

Back on the road, Jesus, and his followers set out for Jerusalem. Jesus had a head start on them; the disciples were amazed, and the others following were afraid. He took aside the Twelve and began again to go over what to expect next. "Listen to me carefully. We're on our way up to Jerusalem. When we get there, the Son of Man will be betrayed to the religious leaders and scholars. They will sentence him to death. Then they will hand him over to the Romans, who will mock and spit on him, give him the third degree, and kill him. After three days he will rise alive."

James and John, Zebedee's sons, came up to him. "Teacher, we have something we want you to do for us."

"What is it? I'll see what I can do."

"Arrange it," they said, "so that we will be awarded the highest places of honor in your glory—one of us at your right, the other at your left."

Jesus said, "You have no idea what you're asking. Are you capable of drinking the cup I drink, of being baptized in the baptism I'm about to be plunged into?"

"Sure," they said. "Why not?"

Jesus said, "Come to think of it, you will drink the cup I drink, and be baptized in my baptism. But as to awarding places of honor, that's not my business. There are other arrangements for that."

When the other ten heard of this conversation, they lost their tempers with James and John. Jesus got them together to settle things down. "You've observed how godless rulers throw their weight around," he said, "and when people get a little power how quickly it goes to their heads. It's not going to be that way with you. Whoever wants to be great must become a servant. Whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave. That is what the Son of Man has done: He came to serve, not to be served—and then to give away his life in exchange for many who are held hostage” (adapted from The Message Remix © 2003 by Eugene Peterson).

This is the third time in Mark’s Gospel Jesus tells his followers that when they get to Jerusalem, he is going to be tortured and killed. And they refuse to hear it. They hold on to the belief that Jesus will lead them to a triumphal entrance in Jerusalem. And after he kills all those nasty Romans, they will bask in the glorious greatness of the kingdom he will build there. James and John’s delusions of greatness take this form: Going into Jerusalem with Jesus will be like walking down the red carpet at the Academy Awards presentation. They imagine climbing out of the limousine on either side of Jesus … spotlights and TV cameras everywhere … drumrolls announcing their entrance. James and John can see the YouTube clips already. Greatness will be ours! they think.

The rest of the disciples get angry with James and John. Not because James and John refuse to accept the fact that they’re following Jesus to his death. No. They’re angry because they didn’t ask Jesus the question first. They want seats of greatness in this glorious kingdom that Jesus will build in Jerusalem.

And Jesus tells these followers whom he loves and who drive him crazy, You don’t have a clue what it means to be great.

He asks, do you think great means achievement? Making the honor roll? Winning the pennant? Wearing the green jacket? Pastoring the biggest congregation? Shattering box-office sales records? Being known and noticed wherever you go?

Jesus says, If that’s what you think, then you’re confusing success with greatness. Winning the championship, getting the promotion, being popular and sought after may be signs of success. And may be reasons to celebrate.

But for Jesus, success has nothing to do with greatness. Jesus says, to be great, you must be a servant. The way Jesus sees it, those who are great devote their lives to help make individuals, communities, and institutions more whole, more loving, and more just. To be great is to inspire individuals, communities, and institutions to become servants themselves.

Which doesn’t mean servants become doormats. Jesus doesn’t ask people to follow him by themselves. It’s impossible to follow Jesus alone. Almost every book in the New Testament is written to faith communities who want to follow Jesus. Which means Jesus asks his followers to live in these next-to-impossible ways because it’s not at all impossible to follow him when we’re doing it with each other. We can be great – we can be servants – without becoming doormats because we are part of a community of servants. So there will always be those in our community who want to serve us when we need more wholeness, healing, love, and justice. So there’s no contradiction between being great … and needing others. There’s no shame in not being the best, and not having it all, and not being able to do it all. There’s no shame in needing people to lend us a hand or a shoulder or a $20 bill … or lend us their faith for a while because we don’t fell like God is too close or too real these days.

Being great means loving and letting yourself be loved back. It has nothing to do with success.

Henri Nouwen taught spirituality at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard. He was one of the most popular and sought-after religion speakers in the world. Everything he published became a best-seller. Who could argue that he had not achieved greatness? He had convinced himself he was great.

So why did he feel empty?

Nouwen left Harvard … and traveled east a bit … to Toronto. Where he spent the last 12 years of his life living and falling in love with people who couldn’t read any of his books or listen to any of his speeches or be impressed by his very impressive resume. In Toronto, Nouwen lived and fell in love with people who were so severely handicapped many could not talk, or feed themselves, or dress themselves. People couldn’t understand his actions. All those great universities where all those great students and great colleagues are … and Nouwen throws greatness away … to live with people who will never recognize or appreciate his greatness. Why would he be so foolish?

Nouwen would be so foolish because he knew he had spent his whole life thinking success was greatness. His success had left him empty. And now he wanted to be great in the way Jesus says we’re great. His teacher on what it means to be great was a severely handicapped young man named Adam. Nouwen writes:

I want you to understand a little better what happened between Adam and me. Maybe I can say it very simply. Adam taught me a lot about God's love in a very concrete way. First of all, he taught me that being is more important than doing, that God wants me to be with God and not to do all sorts of things to prove that I'm valuable. My whole life had been doing, doing, doing, so people would finally recognize that I was okay. I'm such a driven person who wants to do thousands and thousands of things so that I can somehow finally show that I'm a worthwhile being. People say, "Henri, you're okay." Here I was with Adam and Adam said, "I don't care what you do as long as you will be with me." It wasn't easy just to be with Adam. It isn't easy to simply be with a person without accomplishing much.

Adam showed Henri what all his great students and colleagues and books couldn’t. For Jesus, greatness is not about success. Greatness is about serving. To show what it means to be great, Jesus takes us back to our baptism. Where God says to each person, You are chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life. If everyone is chosen and marked by God’s love … if God takes infinite pride in everyone, then everyone is great. How dare any of us who follow Jesus believe we can decide what makes someone great? God made us. So we are great. And we live into our greatness by being servants.

A deep sadness in my family history has to do with what my grandparents decided made someone great. My great-grandparents had 10 children: 7 boys and three girls. Six of the boys became ministers. My great-grandparents were so proud. How great to have so many ministers in the family. The seventh son became a handy-man. And his parents were ashamed of him. I’m sure it’s not the only reason this great-uncle lived with mental illness most of his life. But it’s a part of the reason. To be treated like a failure, and a disappointment … to hear all your brothers called great … when Ralph was just as great as any of them.

Maybe that’s why we follow Jesus. In spite of all he asks of his followers. Because he throws out all the ways our culture tells us we’re not great. He throws out the shame that paralyzes and the standards of success that leave so many kids and adults alike feeling like failures. He says to all, no matter who they are and who they are not, no matter what they can and cannot do, Follow me. And we follow. Because all of us can bless another life with wholeness. All of us can help another life heal. All of us can love. All of us can bring a bit more justice to this world.

All of us can be servants. All of us are great. And all of us can live into our greatness by becoming servants. Amen.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Writing this sermon, I was inspired by various works on the topic of servant leadership. Check works by Robert Greenleaf, Steven Covey, and Margaret Wheatley. I also was inspired by Donald Kraybill’s book, The Upside-down Kingdom, Herald Press, 1978, particularly the last two chapters.

Companions In the Tension

(Mark 10.17-31)

A reflection by Dave Shull

Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ, Sammamish, Washington

The Third Sunday after Epiphany: January 24, 2010

I am sitting in my Christian ethics class the first semester of divinity school. Our first paper is due in a week. The professor is a nun who from time to time wears a Detroit Tigers baseball cap. She says, “I know some professors here give extensions on papers to everyone who asks. I don’t. Unless there’s an extreme emergency, all papers are due next Thursday. There will be no extensions.”

A student raises his hand and asks, “What do you mean when you say there won’t be any extensions?” He looks totally sincere. Professor Farley looks right at him and says, “When I say there will be no extensions, I mean there will be no extensions.”

At the time, I know I couldn’t believe anyone would ask a question like that. Professor Farley couldn’t have been any clearer. But over time I’ve come to understand what he was doing. When someone tells us something that doesn’t fit with how we think the world works, or how it’s supposed to work, then we resist. We can’t believe the person means what it sounds like they’re saying. So we try to figure out a way to convince ourselves they mean something else. I know I do that with the Bible. There are things the Bible is quite clear about. And I know there are times when I can get myself to believe, It just sounds like Jesus is saying that. But what he really means is … and then I’m off! On some marvelous flight of fancy that has no basis in reality.

This morning’s Gospel reading from Mark is a story that doesn’t fit with most Christians’ view of how the world is supposed to work. I don’t think there’s any story about Jesus that Christians have worked harder to convince themselves Jesus can’t possibly mean what he says. As you listen to the first half of this story, listen for a word from God.

As Jesus went out into the street, a man came running up, greeted him with great reverence, and asked, “Good Teacher, what must I do to get eternal life?”

Jesus said, “Why are you calling me good? No one is good, only God. You know the commandments: Don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t cheat, honor your father and your mother.”

He said, “Teacher, I have – from my youth! – kept them all!”

Jesus looked at him hard in the eye – and loved him! He said, “There’s one thing left: Go sell whatever you have and give it to the poor. All your wealth will then be heavenly wealth. And come follow me.”

This was the last thing he expected to hear, and he walked off with a heavy heart. He was holding on tight to a lot of things, and not about to let go.

Looking at his disciples, Jesus said, “Do you have any idea how difficult it is for people who ‘have it all’ to enter God’s kingdom?” The disciples couldn’t believe what they were hearing, but Jesus kept on: “You can’t imagine how difficult. I’d say it’s easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for the rich to get into God’s kingdom.”

The most creative attempt to show Jesus can’t possibly mean what he says was made over 600 years ago. Some Bible scholars said that somewhere in Palestine there used to be a gate called The Eye of the Needle. The arch of this gate was so low that camels couldn’t walk through it up-right. They actually had to get down on their knees and crawl through it … (Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man, Orbis Press, 1988, p. 275). But they could make it through the eye of the needle …. These Bible scholars wanted to believe they could follow Jesus and hold on to all the wealth they had. They didn’t want to believe their wealth – or the wealth of those who were paying their salaries – could prevent them from receiving eternal life and entering the kingdom of God.

So they convinced themselves such a gate existed. They convinced themselves a camel actually could go through the eye of a needle. Because if a camel can’t do that, and the rich can’t enter God’s kingdom … then we and all the people we love who have wealth are lost. And Jesus can’t be saying that.

I’ll return shortly to this tension between wanting to follow Jesus and trying to change what he says because it feels impossible to live like he asks us to.

But first, we need a definition. The rich man asks Jesus, What must I do to get eternal life? And Jesus responds by talking about the kingdom of God. For first-century Jews, eternal life and the kingdom of God refer to the same thing. They have nothing to do with heaven, or with life after death. For Jews in the first century, “eternal life” and “God’s kingdom” describe a time and place on this earth. We have eternal life and the kingdom of God is here when and where the world looks like God wants it to look. When and where all of creation is healed and whole. Twenty-five hundred years ago, a prophet named Isaiah painted a picture of “eternal life” and the kingdom of God:

No more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress.

No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days,

or an old person who does not live out a lifetime …

They shall build homes and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit; …

they shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain

(Is. 65.19-25, New Revised Standard Version).

Any place and any time people are trying to make the world look like this is eternal life and the kingdom of God. So this rich man is asking Jesus, “What do I have to do to get a skybox seat in that world?”

After the rich man tries to convince Jesus he’s kept all God’s commandments since he was in Pampers, Jesus look[s] at him hard in the eye – and love[s] him (10.21)! And then Jesus says what Bible scholars have spent centuries trying to tell us he doesn’t mean. “There’s one thing left: Go sell whatever you have and give it to the poor. All your wealth will then be heavenly wealth. And come follow me” (10.21).

Jesus looks at this man with love … And the rich man can’t look back at him. We don’t even know if he sees the love Jesus has for him. All we know is that he knows he can’t do what Jesus asks. He can’t live without all the wealth he’s holding on to. So he walks away with a heavy heart. To look for eternal life somewhere else. Or to give up on the search all together.

What makes this story so sad is that he came so close to finding what he was looking for. Jesus, where can I get eternal life? The second half of this morning’s story tells us eternal life was looking at him with love. Eternal life was right in front of him. But because Jesus was offering him eternal life in a way that didn’t fit with how he thought the world worked, he couldn’t receive the gift Jesus offered. Instead, he turned his back and walked away.

Listen for a Word from God.

Jesus said, “I’d say it’s easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye that for the rich to get into God’s kingdom.” That set the disciples back on their heels. “Then who has any chance at all?” they asked.

Jesus was blunt: “No chance at all if you think you can pull it off by yourself. Every chance in the world if you let God do it.” Peter tried another angle: “We left everything and followed you.”

Jesus said, “Mark my words, no one who sacrifices house, brothers, sisters, mother, father, children, land – whatever – because of me and the Message will lose out. They’ll get all back, but multiplied many times in homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and land – but also in troubles. And then the bonus of eternal life! This is once again the Great Reversal: Many who are first will end up last, and the last first” (Mark 10.17-31, The Message Remix © 2003 by Eugene Peterson).

What this passage says is that following Jesus is living eternal life. Following Jesus is living in the kingdom of God. Because Jesus was healing this broken creation and making it whole again. He went from town to town. Looking into the eyes of the people who’d been taught they didn’t matter and didn’t count. And who had come to believe that. And when these unloved ones looked back into the eyes of Jesus … they saw the love of God. A love that was for them. And healing started to happen. And creation started to become whole. It’s exactly what Isaiah had written about. Eternal life … the kingdom of God … had come to earth. And everyone following Jesus was a part of it.

Including the disciples. Who dropped their fishing nets and left their boat when Jesus called them. They had done what the rich man thought was impossible. They let go of all their wealth to follow Jesus.

Jesus looks at you and me. He looks hard at us with those eyes that say, “I love you.” And what does he ask of us?

Maybe I’m being like the people who invented the gate named The Eye of the Needle when I say this. But in this story, I don’t hear Jesus saying to every single person, If you want to follow me, you have to sell everything you have and give it to the poor. There are people who depend on us for all kinds of support that require money. Are we just to leave them without that support? Is Jesus saying we should drop all our commitments and responsibilities?

I don’t think so.

But … what I believe he is saying is that eternal life and the kingdom of God are absolutely impossible without a pretty radical redistribution of wealth (idea from Ched Myers, pp. 275-6). Eternal life is no weeping because no more infants die after just a few days and none of the rest of us dies before we’ve lived out a lifetime. If that is eternal life, then eternal life is where and when every life on this planet has what they need to survive. And no one has too much. Every week, when we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread …. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” this is what we are saying. Eternal life is everyone having enough … daily bread and a roof over our heads and people who love them and let them love them back. The kingdom of God cannot come when so many have so much … and so many do not have enough.

I know I live in that tension. And I do not like it. Part of me is committed to give everything I have to follow Jesus. And a part of me holds tightly to what I have. And I don’t know what to do.

For me, Jesus is life. He is life lived passionately. He is love, forgiveness, and joy. He is life that sees violence as evil and says we can do better than that. He is life that sees converting the enemy as worth giving his life for. He is life that rejoices and weeps … dances and dreams. He is life that stops what it’s doing long enough and often enough … to notice what is right in front of it. And see all that God has given. Right here and now. He is life that knows it cannot truly be alive until there enough bread, enough shelter, enough healing, and enough love for every life in this broken and beautiful creation.

Then there’s that part of me that doesn’t want to let go of large parts of wealth. Or doesn’t have a clue what my life would look like after this redistribution of wealth Jesus clearly calls us to. And so I don’t. Which means every time I pray, and read the Bible, and come to church, that tension only increases.

Maybe your social circles are different’ than mine. Maybe your circles of friends are different. Maybe you have friends with whom you talk about the tensions we feel between your religious faith and your wealth. Maybe you have companions with whom you talk about what it’s like to have too much wealth … or not to have enough. What it’s like to want to place your faith in God … when we know we put a lot more faith and trust in stocks and bonds and mutual funds.

This congregation has done its own distribution of wealth in some pretty astounding ways. We sent boxes and boxes of supplies to schoolchildren in Iraq. We have collected 2500 pounds of food for the Issaquah food bank. We have fed children in the Reach for the Sky July program. Because so many people here want to cook for, serve, and eat with our homeless sisters and brothers in Tent City, we added a second night to provide food for them. And with the number of you who want to serve, we could probably cover at least two more nights. Last week, we collected $1499 for Haiti. Last week I was talking to a pastor friend who serves a church that has nine times more people in worship than we do. They collected $1100 for Haiti. The Spirit of Christ is so alive in this place that we consistently give far beyond what anyone could expect. We know wealth is not distributed evenly in this world and in this community. And when we’re asked to bring some eternal life into being, we consistently step up. And say, “Here we are.”

And … I’d like to invite us to take another step. I’d like to invite us to become a community where we can companions for each other in the tensions. I don’t know if that will ever happen here. But I hope we can be companions in the tensions that exist between having too much or too little wealth … and following the Jesus who says, You can’t pray, “Thy Kingdom come,” you can’t talk about eternal life, unless you are willing to redistribute the wealth you have. Amen.

Other Seas

(Mark 8.27-29)

A reflection by Dave Shull

Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ

Sammamish, Washington

The Second Sunday after Epiphany – January 17, 2010

Jesus and his disciples headed out for the villages around Caesarea Philippi. As they walked, he asked, “Who do the people say I am?”

“Some say ‘John the Baptizer,”’ they said. “Others say ‘Elijah.’ Still others say ‘one of the prophets.’

He then asked, “And you – what are you saying about me? Who am I?”

Peter gave the answer: “You are the Christ, the Messiah” (The Message Remix © 2003 by Eugene Peterson).

When I think of Jesus asking his disciples, “Who do the people say that I am?”, I think of the movie “Telladaga Nights. ” And the prayer Ricky the race-car driver offers before the family dinner.

Ricky prays: "Dear Lord Baby Jesus … We thank you so much for this bountiful harvest of Dominos, KFC, and the always delicious Taco Bell. I just want to take time to say thank you for my family .... Dear Lord Baby Jesus, we also thank you for my wife's father Chip. We hope that you can use your Baby Jesus powers to heal him and his horrible leg …. Dear Tiny Infant Jesus..."

His wife Carley breaks in, "Hey, um... you know, sweetie, Jesus did grow up. You don't always have to call him baby. It's a bit odd and off puttin' to pray to a baby."

Ricky’s undaunted. "Well, look, I like the Christmas Jesus best when I'm sayin' grace ….

Ricky’s father in law screams, “He’s a man! He had a beard!” ….

Ricky insists, “Look, I like the baby version the best, do you hear me? ….

Ricky’s friend Cal now chimes in. “I like to picture Jesus in a Tuxedo T-shirt, 'cause it says, like, 'I want to be formal, but I'm here to party, too.' I like to party, so I like my Jesus to party.”

Not to be outdone, Ricky and Carley’s son, Walker, joins the conversation: “I like to picture Jesus as a ninja, fighting off evil samurai.”

Friend Cal continues, “I like to think of Jesus with like giant eagles' wings and singin' lead vocals for Lynyrd Skynyrd with like an Angel Band, and I'm in the front row ….

Then Ricky concludes, "Dear Eight Pound, Six Ounce, Newborn Baby Jesus, don't even know a word yet, just a little infant, so cuddly, but still omnipotent: we just thank you for all the races I've won …. Thank you, for all your power and your grace, Dear Baby God, Amen."

A couple of months ago, I shared a quote with you from a pastor of a huge church in Seattle, who said, “In [the book of] Revelation, Jesus is a prize fighter with a tattoo down his leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is a guy I can worship …. I cannot worship a guy I can beat up” (Mark Driscoll, quoted in Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw, Jesus for President © 2008 by The Simple Way, p. 194).

“And you,” Jesus asks, “What are you saying about me? Who am I?”

It’s a question all Christians need to answer again and again through our lives. Jesus is the one Christians follow. And who we say Jesus is has a lot to do with how we live. What we live for. And what we dream about doing.

Today, Linda and I are going to share with you one way each of us answers Jesus’ question. We’re going to do that by talking a bit. And by singing a bit.

For me, a hymn that answers Jesus’ question, Who are you saying I am? is “You Have Come Down to the Lakeshore”. It is #173 in your hymnals. Please sing with me.

You have come down to the lakeshore seeking neither the wise nor the wealthy,

but only asking for me to follow.

Refrain:

O Jesus, you have looked into my eyes; kindly smiling, you’ve called out my name.

On the sand I have abandoned my small boat; now with you I will seek other seas.

You know full well my possessions. Neither treasure nor weapons for conquest,

just these my fishnets and will for working. (Refrain)

You need my hands, my exhaustion, working love for the rest of the weary –

a love that’s willing to go on loving. (Refrain)

You who have fished other waters; you, the longing of souls that are yearning;

as loving Friend, you have come to call me. (Refrain)

It’s in the refrain where I hear who I say Jesus is:

On the sand I have abandoned my small boat; now with you I will seek other seas.

All through the Gospels, Jesus tries to get people to leave their small boats behind. And step out with him to seek a different way to live. There were all kinds of people in Jesus’ day whom respectable people avoided – sick people, poor people, women, foreigners. If you wanted people to respect you, you avoided these people as well. But for some reason, those were exactly the kinds of people Jesus hung with. He talked to them. He healed them. He ate with them. He loved them. He treated them like they mattered. They were used to being alone. And ignored. And despised. They didn’t need very bit boats when they were alone, ignored, and despised.

But Jesus had shown them they were sacred. He’d opened them to larger lives, bolder dreams, and wider grace. These all take up far more room than their small boats can hold. Now that they have felt his love, their small boats can’t fit all the new possibilities and paths that lay before them So Jesus tells them: “Leave those small boats behind. Follow me. And we’ll seek other seas.”

For a while I’ve felt like Peter, Pedro, and my current living situation in our condo was like a small boat Jesus was calling me to abandon. As I’ve shared with you, I hear Jesus calling me to help create a place where Christians can live together. A place where we can share living space, meals, worship, money, cars … a place where we can share a vision of what it means to follow Jesus in an economically edgy area. So we can build friendships with people who live with addiction and mental illness, people who have spent time in prison and who have no place to call home … I dream of a group of Christian who live together, and who live with and around people who don’t often get invitations to dine and hang out with respectable people. But who have wisdom, faith, and life to share which respectable people like me need.

The biggest obstacle to moving ahead with this dream has been my certainty that this community needed to be somewhere other than Seattle. When Peter and I moved out here over 15 years ago, my Midwest soul couldn’t imagine making the upper-left-hand corner of the US my long-term home. So these are the things I knew needed to happen before Jesus and I could seek the other sea that is this residential Christian community:

1) Peter needed to stop enjoying his job at University Congregational United Church of Christ;

2) Then Peter and I needed to look for and find church jobs in some city closer to the middle of the country;

3) Then we needed to get settled and get to know some people.

4) Then we needed to start talking up this idea of a residential Christian community and hopefully find people who were interested so we could move ahead to try to create it.

Only after all that happened could I abandon the small boat that is my current living situation … and seek the larger life and bolder dream I know Jesus wants me to seek with him.

A couple months ago, I was telling a friend how stuck I felt because I couldn’t move ahead with this dream. She asked, “Why?” And I listed the four things that needed to happen before I could move ahead. When I got done, she just looked at me. And said, “You’re really making it hard for God to help you make this dream come true.” It was like Jesus was speaking through her. “I’m calling you to abandon your way-too-small boat, Dave,” Jesus was saying. “I’m telling you to drop it like a bad habit. But you’re setting up all these things that need to happen before you leave it behind.” Jesus was trying to get my attention.

Then, in December, Peter and I had dinner with a couple in their 20s we hadn’t seen in months. We talked about community. And I felt their passion. And I felt our shared energy. As Peter and I were biking home from that dinner, I asked myself, Why have I limited my imagination so much when it comes to where this community might be? Why have I always assumed it can’t be in Seattle?

Who do I say you are, Jesus? I say you’re the dream-planter. You plant dreams in us … and you will not leave us alone unless we’re doing whatever we need to to make that dream real. If we’re setting up obstacles to the dream you’ve planted in us, then you’re the frustration-builder. For you refuse to leave us alone. When our lives are too small, when our dreams are too safe, when we close ourselves off to the grace that reminds us we’re sacred … you keep calling us. Abandon that small boat. Because the life I have for you, the dreams I’ve planted in you, the grace I have to shower upon you will never fit in that boat. You and I – we’re going to seek other seas.

So this dream-planter, this frustration-builder, this companion-to-other-seas, has called me to bolder dreams. I’m learning how to dream that this community of Christians living together will take shape in Seattle. I don’t need to keep making it hard for God to help me make this dream come true. I believe Jesus plants dreams in us. And wants to hear how they form. And, if they’re his dream for us, he then wants to walk beside us to seek ways to make them real. Because that’s were the largest life and the widest grace is for us.

In Ted Kennedy’s autobiography, True Compass, he tells this story. It’s August 28, 1963. The day of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s March on Washington. Kennedy writes,

I [was in] my office [in the Capitol] watch[ing] the speeches on television. That iswhere I saw Dr. King rise to deliver his prepared remarks about Negro suffering andaspirations for freedom ….I listened to those remarks and watched as Dr. King finished and turned to sit down and then abruptly turned back to the crowd. Although I could not distinguish her, and her voice was not picked up by the microphones, the great gospel singer Mahalia Jackson had blurted out to Dr. King from behind him, ‘Tell them about your dream, Martin! Tell them about the dream!’ And Martin Luther King did. In a decade in which cataclysmic events inspired lasting oratory, the Georgia-born minister spontaneously delivered the great aria of the civil rights movement (© 2008, Hatchette Book Company, p. 201).

Jesus, what I say about you is that you blurt out to each of us, usually from behind, “Tell me about your dream. Tell them about the dream. Then ditch that too-small boat that isn’t big enough to carry that dream. And walk with me. You and I, we’ll seek other seas.”

Between What’s Counterfeit and What’s Real

(Mark 7.1-13)

A sermon preached by Dave Shull

Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ

Sammamish, Washington

The First Sunday after Epiphany: January 10, 2010

When you really want to do something, and you want to convince others to support you, what do you do? And, if you’re a person of faith, and you want to believe that what you want to do is God’s will, what do you do?

That’s what the Pharisees and the religion scholars are dealing with in this morning reading from the Gospel of Mark. The Pharisees are one of a number of “denominations” within Judaism in Jesus’ day. They and the religion scholars believe it’s time for the Jews to be free from control by Rome. So they’ve decided to support a movement to use violence to overthrow Rome. They need money for this. And they decide one way they can increase donations to the temple is to create a counterfeit God. They don’t admit what they’re doing. When we’re trying to get God to bless something that we know breaks God’s heart we never admit what we’re doing. Instead, we try to convince even ourselves that we’re doing God’s will. That’s what’s happening in this morning’s reading.

Listen for a word from God.

The Pharisees, along with some of the religion scholars who had come from Jerusalem, gathered around Jesus. They noticed that some of his disciples weren’t being careful with ritual washings before meals. The Pharisees – Jews in general, in fact – would never eat a meal without going through the motions of a ritual hand-washing, with an especially vigorous scrubbing if they had just come from the market (to say nothing of the scourings they’d give jugs and pots and pans).

The Pharisees and religion scholars asked, “Why do your disciples flout the rules, showing up at meals without washing their hands?”

Jesus answered, “Isaiah was right about frauds like you, hit the bull’s-eye in fact:

‘These people make a big show of saying the right thing, but their heart isn’t in it.

They act like they are worshiping me, but they don’t mean it.

They just use me as a cover for teaching whatever suits their fancy,

ditching God’s command and taking up the latest fads.’”

He went on, “Well, good for you. You get rid of God’s command so you won’t be inconvenienced in following the religious fashions! Moses said, ‘Respect your father and mother,’ and ‘Anyone denouncing father or mother should be killed.’ But you weasel out of that by saying that it’s perfectly acceptable to say to father or mother, ‘Gift! What I owed you I’ve given as a gift to God,’ thus relieving yourselves of obligation to father or mother. You scratch out God’s Word and scrawl a whim in its place. You do a lot of things like this” (The Message Remix).

It’s a perfect defensive tactic. The Pharisees and religion scholars know that trying to overthrow Rome violently is not something that will be pleasing to God. They know Jesus is probably going to criticize them in some way for what they’re up to. So they beat him to the punch by criticizing the behaviour of his disciples. Jesus will not be dissuaded.

How is it that the disciples are trying to make God say something God never says to support their efforts to overthrow Rome?

We know one of the ten commandments is Honor your father and your mother. For those of you who keep score of such things, it’s the fifth. This commandment didn’t just mean to respect your parents and treat them well. In the days before Social Security and pensions, the commandment also required children to support their parents financially. Without the support of their children, as soon as most parents could no longer work, they would sink into poverty. So this commandment guaranteed that parents would have some support in their old age.

Everyone in Jesus’ day knows that’s what honor your father and your mother means. Especially the Pharisees and religious scholars. But because they need money, they tell people, “Look. If you give money to the temple, and say you’re giving it to God, then no one can tell you you need to spend that money on your parents. God needs that money, and you’re doing God’s will by giving it to the temple.”

Jesus knows these people are creating a counterfeit God who blesses violence and greed. When he knows the real God he embodies refuses to respond to violence with violence. They have an agenda and they’re trying to twist God’s word to justify what they want to do. And Jesus will have nothing to do with that. So he tells the Pharisees and religion scholars that the real God sees right through what they’re trying to do. And the real God is not pleased.

When I think of someone who was a master and trying to get the Bible to support his prejudices, I think of Archie Bunker from the 1970s TV show All in the Family. Once Sammy Davis, Jr., leaves something in the taxi cab Archie is driving. So the African-American entertainer comes by the house to pick it up. They inevitably get into a conversation about race. Archie tries to say it’s God’s will that the races stay separate. He says to Sammy Davis, Jr., “Now, no prejudice intended, but I always check with the Bible on these here things. I think that, I mean if God had meant for us to be together he'd a put us together. But look what he done. He put you over in Africa, and put the rest of us in all the white countries.” To which Sammy Davis, Jr., responds, “Well, [God] must've told 'em where we were because somebody came and got us.”

And I know I’ve done the same thing. As a Christian, I want to believe my life and my beliefs reflect central teachings of the Bible. And when I’ve struggled with that, I’ve tried to get the Bible to say things I’m pretty sure it doesn’t say. But I’ve tried to get it to say that anyway. To justify myself.

An example: for many years, I really tried to get the Bible to say something positive about homosexuality. As a gay pastor who loved the Bible, I needed to believe the Bible had something positive to say about my relationship with Peter. So I found scholars who studied the Hebrew and Greek words English Bibles translate as homosexual. And I was excited when they said these words don’t describe same-gender committed relationships. But instead they’re words for boys and men who were used sexually by other men in various religious ceremonies. So I’d point to these word studies, and I’d say, “See! The writers of the Bible aren’t condemning same-sex committed relationships. So that means Peter’s and my relationship can be pleasing to God.”

Several years ago, I decided to stop doing that. Not because I believe God is displeased with same-gender committed relationships. Hardly. I stopped looking for the Bible to say something positive about gay relationships, because when I did that, I was misusing the Bible. I was starting with my agenda, and then looking for something in the Bible to justify to myself why my agenda is God’s agenda. When, if I wanted to be faithful, I would go to the Bible with an open mind and heart, to listen for what the Holy Spirit was trying to say to me through that story.

A wise person once told me, “You can’t expect the Bible to answer questions no one at the time was asking.” When the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament were being put together, no one was asking how people with different sexual orientations should be treated. The concept of sexual orientation didn’t even exist until the mid-1800s. Before then, it was assumed men went with women and women went with men. Nobody was questioning that. So I can’t expect the Bible to speak positively about a concept that hadn’t even been discovered. It’s like searching the pages of the Bible to try to find specific statements in it about genetic engineering or invitro-fertilization or Facebook.

Let me quickly add that there are central themes in the Bible and in the teachings of Jesus to guide us as we seek to live faithfully. In my search for a way to feel like God could look at Peter’s and my relationship with each other and smile upon it, I find many stories in both Testaments about commitment, covenant, honor, and kindness. And I find again the words I so often use here – God’s words to Jesus at his baptism. Which I believe are God’s words to all of us at our baptisms: You are chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life. I haven’t come across any translations of the Bible that have an asterisk at the end of these words that says, sexual minorities are not included in this blessing.

All I’m trying to say is I can hear a story like Dan just read. And I can get pretty self-righteous. I can point at all the nasty ways my very conservative Christian sisters and brothers use the Bible to support their agendas. Without remembering that when I point a finger at them, three other fingers are pointing back at me. And so I have to confess the ways I do the same things. Sometimes, I start with things I believe are true. I start with the ways I believe the world should work. Sometimes, I start with the kind of life I want to live, and what justifies that way of life. And then I look through the Bible and through Christian tradition to prove to myself that how I want to live is how God wants everybody to live. I look through the Bible and through Christian teachings to prove there’s no tension at all between how I want to live and how Jesus wants his followers to live.

And so Jesus isn’t just saying to those nasty Pharisees or those nasty right-wing Christians that they’re just pretending to want to do God’s will. He looks at the ways I try to persuade myself that the ways I live are totally consistent with God’s will. At such times, Jesus says to me, [You] just use me as a cover for teaching whatever suits [your] fancy, ditching God’s command and taking up the latest fads.

I don’t know why I do this. Because I know Jesus doesn’t demand perfection from his followers. He’s not looking at the ways I fall short of his hopes for me, and giving me a failing grade. Grace is the opposite of that. Grace is Jesus leading me into communities of people who care about me … and who help each other live our lives like he would live our lives. But at times I still try to slide by … At times, I still try to avoid what I know he wants me to do.

Derek Webb, a modern Christian songwriter, talks about how we try to shield ourselves from how Jesus is really calling us to live: [Jesus] had a car that's bullet proof / that way everyone is safe from the man who tells the truth.

I believe we need God’s love and grace to fill us if we hope to show the world healing. But for God’s love to fill us, we need to open ourselves to that love. We need to open ourselves to all the ways God wants to say, “I’m here! I love you!” Which includes being open to what the Holy Spirit wants to say to us in the Bible and in our prayer time. We close ourselves off from the love the Spirit wants to fill us with when we come to the Bible with our own agendas, looking for proof that my way is God’s way. Coming to the Bible and to prayer with open hands and open spirits, we let God’s Spirit fill us with love. Because we start by asking, “What is your desire for me?”

It’s what the first verse of the song the choir just sang is all about:

Lord, I need your grace to help me see

that a “yes” to you is what I need to do

if I want to know the love you have for me (Tom Booth, “I Give You Permission”).

With open hands and open spirits, we come to God. And let ourselves be filled with the love that heals. Amen.

* - The title is based on a phrase by John Neafsey, A Sacred Voice is Calling, Orbis Press, 2006, p. 36.