Listening for a Word of Compassion … Together

Listening for a Word of Compassion … Together
(Matthew 22.34-40)
A reflection by Dave Shull
Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ
Sammamish, Washington
The 18^th Sunday in Ordinary Time: July 31, 2011

The seventh in a summer series on topics the congregation has asked to hear reflections about. This morning’s theme: What are critical stages in the evolution of the New Testament, and, what authority does the New Testament have for Christians?

A September Wednesday in 1984.

A hundred twenty of us sit in the biggest classroom on the divinity school campus, waiting for the first New Testament class to start. We’d heard Professor Malherbe did not suffer fools gladly. He walks into the room stiff and erect, like the former officer in the South African military he is. He looks out at us and smiles. He opens the class with a prayer. Then he orders, “Open your Bibles to the book of Titus.”

I don’t know what the other students are thinking. All I know is I say to myself, “I know Titus is a really short book toward the end of the New Testament. But I have no clue what books it’s between.”

I start leafing through my new study Bible. I draw comfort from the fact that some students around me are doing the same thing.

After a few moments, Professor Malherbe smiles a big smile and asks, “What’s all this mindless fluttering of pages…?”

The New Testament isn’t very long.
All 27 books of the New Testament have as many verses as the Old Testament books of Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel
(Jaroslav Pelikan, Whose Bible Is It?, Penguin, 2005, p. 101).

But on that September morning 27 years ago, I still couldn’t find the book of Titus. Even though it’s not very long, there’s nothing simple about trying to listen for the living word of God in the New Testament. The book of Titus shows us why.

The official name of this book is The Letter of Paul to Titus. But that’s even confusing. Because most scholars don’t think Paul wrote it. They think some followers of Jesus wrote it to tone down the radical nature of Paul’s earlier letters. Like his letter to Philemon. The Letter of Paul of Philemon is the shortest book in the New Testament. It has just 25 verses. All scholars believe Paul wrote this letter.

Paul has converted a runaway slave named Onesimus – a name which means useful. Paul has come to love him. He believes Onesimus would be an effective evangelist. So Paul writes to Philemon, who owns Onesimus.

In a roundabout way, Paul says to Philemon:
Since you’re a follower of Jesus, do you see how you can justify keeping Onesimus as a slave? As a follower of Jesus, isn’t it your duty to free him and treat him as a brother?

Paul’s words are clear. He says, Philemon, it won’t work for you to all Onesimus your ‘spiritual’ brother. We are all free in Christ – and that means physical and social freedom as well.
(Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The First Paul, HarperOne, 2009, p. 40.)

So Paul’s letter to Philemon says Christians should own slaves and Christian slaves should be freed.

But some followers of Jesus were really afraid what the Roman Empire would do if Christians started freeing all their slaves. So some followers of Jesus decided to write some letters that tried to say slavery was okay. And they signed Paul’s name to them so followers of Jesus would take them seriously.

Listen to how the message of Philemon has been changed in this passage from The Letter of Paul to the Colossians. In this letter t0 this church in modern-day Turkey, the writer says:
Slaves, do what you’re told by your earthly masters. And don’t just do the minimum that will get you by. Do your best. Work from the heart for your real Master, for God, confident that you’ll get paid in full when you come into your inheritance. Keep in mind always that the ultimate Master you’re serving is Christ. The sullen slave who does shoddy work will be held responsible. Being Christian doesn’t cover up bad work. And masters, treat your servants considerately. Be fair with them. Don’t forget for a minute that you, too, serve a Master – God in heaven.
(Colossians 3.22-4.1; The Message).

The writer of this letter gives slaves four verses of advice, and slave-owners only one…
(Borg & Crossan, p. 46).

There seems to be a big difference between what these two letters say about slavery. But weren’t not done yet. We’ve got to look at what it says in our new buddy – the letter to Titus. (Which, if anyone ever asks you, is in the New Testament, between II Timothy and Philemon.) Here’s what Titus says on the subject of slavery:
[Tell] slaves into being loyal workers, a bonus to their masters – no back talk, no petty thievery. Then their good character will shine through their actions, adding luster to the teacher of our Savior God
(Titus 2.9-10).

That’s it.

So we start with the radical Paul of the letter to Philemon, who says Christian slave-owners must free their Christian slaves. Then a more conservative group puts Paul’s name on the letter to the Colossians. We hear how “good” slaves and “good” slave owners should act. Finally, a third even more reactionary group emerges that either thinks slavery is okay or doesn’t think freeing slaves is worth Rome arresting and killing Christians. They put Paul’s name on a letter to Titus that tells slaves, Do what you’re told. The group of people who decided what books were going to be in the New Testament put all three of these in it. What were they thinking? How are can we hear the living Word of God in three books that disagree with each other so clearly?

This brings up one of the “critical stages” in the evolution of the New Testament Dick asks about: the people who put the New Testament together didn’t value consistency. It didn’t matter to them if the books in the New Testament contradicted each other. Which means when it was formed, everyone knew the New Testament wasn’t supposed to be read literally.

Those who agreed which books were to form the New Testament didn’t see it as history. They believed these stories of Jesus should be told in a variety of ways by a variety of voices. Because, more than anything, they wanted the people who heard these stories to be grabbed by the Spirit who flowed through these words. So they might follow Jesus and form communities with others who want to follow him.
(Luke Timothy Johnson, The Writings of the New Testament, Fortress Press, 1986, p. 538)

There’s a second “critical stage” in the evolution of the New Testament. That’s the decision to bring a collection of stories together about Jesus Christ and what a life following him looks like, put the Church’s Good Housekeeping seal of approval on it, and say no books will be added to or taken away from this collection. This collection of “approved” sacred stories is called a canon. And because that list couldn’t be changed, we say the New Testament is a closed canon.

In the year 397, the North African Council of Carthage approved a list of books “to be read in the church as divine Scripture” that is the same 27 books in the New Testament all Christians use today
(Johnson, p. 538).

There was a lot of debate about what books should and shouldn’t be in the New Testament. An early follower of Jesus, Marcion, thought Jesus had created a new religion. He thought followers of Jesus shout cut themselves off completely from Judaism. So his Bible had no “Old Testament”; it only had some of Paul’s letters and his own version of the Gospel of Luke (Armstrong, p. 66). But Christian leaders rejected this view. Jesus was a Jew, so how could they ignore the Old Testament?
There were a number of reasons a particular book did or didn’t make the cut to the Final 27. All the book being considered had been around for quite a while. They had been read in churches. In order to be chosen for the canon, a book had to be one which had proven it had the power to help deepen their ties as a community local churches. Another question: A hundred years from now, could this book lead people follow Jesus? Or was its appeal limited to a particular time and place? Books were chosen for the canon if early Christian leaders believed they were flexible and powerful enough to continue to shape and inspire present and future communities of Jesus’ followers
(Johnson, pp. 542-4).

Of course some of the decisions around which books did and didn’t get into the canon were political. All human decision-making involves politics and power (Johnson, p. 543). At the same time, it’s clear that many of the books that were chosen for the canon are very threatening to those in power. So if the only motivation of those who chose what was in the canon was to keep people in line, they would have left a lot of books out that are among the Final 27.

So one “critical stage” in the evolution of the New Testament was the decision in the fourth century that having books that were consistent wasn’t nearly as important as having a variety of books that could draw people to follow Jesus. And another “critical stage” was the decision to bring a collection of books together as the church’s sacred books, and then close that list to any additions or subtractions.

There’s one more stage I’d like to speak to. It addresses the second part of Dick’s question about what authority the New Testament has for Christians.

Three years ago, I didn’t even know this part of New Testament history existed. But if Christians could put it into practice, I think it would change the face of Christianity and the history of the world.

St. Augustine was the bishop of Hippo, which is in modern-day Algeria. In the 400s, he came up with an idea about how to listen for the Spirit’s voice in the Bible. He got this idea from some of the best-known words in the New Testament. Words from Jewish sacred stories in Leviticus and Numbers which Jesus was raised on.

Listen for a Word from God.
When the Pharisees heard how Jesus had bested the Sadducees, they gathered their forces for an assault. One of the religion scholars spoke for them, posing a question they hoped would show him up:
“Teacher, which command in God’s Law is the most important?”

Jesus said, “’Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’
These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.”
(Matthew 22.34-40, The Message © 2003 Eugene Peterson)

In these words, Augustine heard Jesus say that following him and following God is about one and only one thing: living with compassion. That means compassion is the message of every word and story in the Bible. Sixteen hundred years ago, Augustine realized that, no matter what the author of a passage in the Bible originally meant, the only way we can interpret it is to find a way for it to move us toward being more compassionate. Augustine said if any words in the Bible seem to give us permission to hate or judge or hurt another, then we have to change the way we interpret those words. Augustine said love is “the beginning and end of the Bible”; so followers of Jesus must make every passage in the Bible offer a word of love. Using any words of the Bible to spread hatred is illegitimate.
(Karen Armstrong, The Bible: A Biography, Grove Press, 2007. p. 124).

Religion scholars call Muslims, Jews, and Christians “people of the book”. Our three faiths have sacred stories that call us to live in particular ways. When we worship the words of these stories and try to keep them saying the same thing forever, we create a fundamentalism which often turns words of life into weapons. When the Spirit no longer moves through these words to all us to a larger compassion, these words of life become instruments of death.

But when we pray and study these sacred stories, their words and images break us open. These stories have the power to do what the people who put the New Testament canon together hoped and prayed. Sixteen hundred years later, these stories still open us to discover and trust God has yet more light and truth to break forth from them. God’s light and truth living in these stories lead us to compassionate living. When we live compassion, the world changes.

What this means is you and I are the next “critical stage” in the evolution of the New Testament. These stories of Jesus and what it means to be a community that gathers to follow him have inspired people to acts of private and public compassion they never would have imagined themselves doing. The only way these sacred stories will have the power to keep inspiring followers of Jesus to walk in his way is if we keep listening for a word of compassion in them … and do that together. What if we created ways to come together in small and large gatherings, simply to listen to our sacred stories in the Bible … so those stories can enter us and find a home in us? And so we can argue with them, struggle with them, pray them, talk with each other about what we hear … and listen together for the word of compassion they carry. The word of compassion we hear might be a word of compassion no one has heard in that story before. But a word that the Spirit of Christ breaks us open to hear. And share.

So we become the next “critical stage” in the evolution of the New Testament. Hearers and speakers of a word that too often is twisted into a weapon of hate. Hearers and speakers of a word that brings life. Because it brings Jesus Christ alive. Here and now. For people who see a broken world. And know compassion is the only way to heal it.

Amen.

A Story of Salvation Where God Doesn’t Demand Violence

A Story of Salvation Where God Doesn’t Demand Violence
(Matthew 5.38, 42, 43-46, 48)
A reflection by Dave Shull
Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ
Sammamish, Washington
The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost: July 24, 2011

The sixth in a summer series on topics the congregation has asked to hear reflections about.
This morning’s is the second part of a reflection on, “What does it mean to be ‘saved’?”
The specific focus today is the question, “Are we finished with the concept of Original Sin?”
This morning we continue to look at Patty’s question, What does it mean to be “saved”? And we look at salvation in terms of Allison’s question, “Are we finished with the concept of Original Sin?”

The doctrine of original sin was developed 1600 years ago. St. August was the Bishop of Hippo, in modern-day Algeria. Around 400 he put together a theory as to what Jesus’ death and resurrection saved humans from. Augustine’s theory became the doctrine of Original Sin. Seven hundred years later, another priest worked out a theory about why Jesus had to be sacrificed. Around the year 1100, St. Anselm, the Archbishop of Canterbury, based his theory about why Jesus had to be sacrificed on Augustine’s theory of Original Sin. I’m putting Patty and Allison’s questions together today because the doctrine of Original Sin was developed because Christians needed to know what Jesus’ death saves us from. So for Christians, the doctrine of Original Sin cannot be separated from questions of what it means to be saved.

I received a very visual picture of the doctrine of Original Sin and Anselm’s idea that God needed Jesus to be sacrificed to save us 12 years ago in Israel. Peter and I were on a tour of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City of Jerusalem. A sepulcher is a tomb. And the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is a huge, very odd building. Scholars think under its roof are both the hill of the crosses where Jesus was crucified and the tomb where his body was placed after he was executed. We stood in front of a glass case. There was a model of the cross, and a model of Jesus. The tour guide talked about Jesus’ crucifixion. Then she took us downstairs. We stood in front of another glass case. There were a couple of human skulls against a wall. She said, “Now we’re standing directly below the place where Jesus hung on the cross. These skulls belong to Adam and Eve. See these marks on the skulls? Those marks are bloodstains. While Jesus hung on the cross, his blood dripped onto the skulls of Adam and Eve. Christ’s blood washed away the sin that stained them after they ate the forbidden fruit. Now that they were washed of their sin, God forgave them. And now they enjoy eternal life with God in heaven.”

I don’t know how many people in our group believed Adam and Eve were real people. Or that we were looking at their skulls with Jesus’ bloodstains on them. But what the tour guide said is pretty much the story of salvation Christians have been telling for centuries.

Let’s start with the doctrine of Original Sin, developed by St. Augustine 1600 years ago. This doctrine says life in the Garden of Eden for Adam and Eve was perfect. Then they went and broke the only rule in the Garden. They ate fruit from a tree God had forbidden them to touch. Christian theology calls this act of disobedience The Fall. The Fall brought sin into the world. Sin destroyed the perfect relationships Adam and Eve had enjoyed with God, with each other, and with creation. As soon as they ate the fruit, they knew they’d sinned. For the first time in their lives, they felt ashamed and afraid. So they hid from the God who had made them. But sin didn’t stop with them. The doctrine of Original Sin says eating that fruit put sin into their genetic structure. So everyone who came after them inherited sin. Sin spread through creation like a plague. There was nothing humans could do to free themselves from its power.

Fast-forward 700 years. As St. Anselm tries to figure out why Jesus had to be sacrificed, he finds an answer in the doctrine of Original Sin. Jesus’ death saves creation from the power of sin. But why did Jesus need to be killed to save us from the power of sin? Because, says Anselm, God is a God of perfect love and perfect justice. If God were just a God of perfect love, God could have forgiven everyone’s sins without the need to sacrifice Jesus. Like a giant etch-a-sketch, God could have shaken the history of human sin. All that sin would have disappeared just like that. And then we could have started fresh.

But God is also a God of perfect justice. And perfect justice says: when someone breaks the law, someone has to pay the price. Think of our symbol of justice: a blind woman holding scales. When I break God’s law by being cruel instead of loving, the “sin” side of the scale in God’s hands goes down. And the “punishment” side of the scale goes up. The only way to get the scales of justice back in balance is for me to be punished. When I pay the penalty for breaking God’s law, the sin and punishment sides of the scales of justice are back in balance. It’s all very neat.

There’s only one problem. Anselm said humans have sinned so much the sin side of the scale has gone through the floor. And we keep adding to the sin side of God scales of justice. So there’s no way humans can pay the penalty for all the sin we’ve committed. Humans can’t put the scales of justice back in balance. That’s why God sent Jesus into the world. Christian tradition says Jesus never sinned. He never added anything to the sin side of God’s scales of justice. So Jesus was the only human who could pay the penalty for all the sin of human history and all the sin that humans would do after he was sacrificed. Jesus paid the price for human sin. With Jesus’ death, the scales of justice are now in balance again. God’s demand for justice has been met. So now the God of perfect love and perfect justice can forgive us. The resurrection of Jesus says Jesus destroyed the power sin has over us. We still sin. But Jesus’ resurrection assures us sin doesn’t have the power to separate us from God again.

Finally, Anselm’s Christian story of salvation says if we believe the “right things” about Jesus, then Jesus’ resurrection promises us we will enjoy eternal life in heaven with God. If we don’t believe the “right things” about Jesus, then we will suffer eternal punishment in hell.

I really struggle with this Christian story of God demanding violence to save us. I struggle with it because it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus spent his whole life rejecting violence. And he called his followers to reject violence. In his most famous collection of teachings, the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says,

“Here’s another old saying that deserves a second look: ‘Eye for eye, tooth for tooth’. Is that going to get us anywhere? … No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously.

“You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. God gives the best – the sun to warm and the rain to nourish – to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty….

“In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.”
(Matthew 5.38, 42, 43-46, 48, The Message, altered)

How can this Jesus save us through violence? Jesus wanted nothing to do with violence. Yet for 900 years, the only Christian story of salvation has been Anselm’s. God demands violence in order to save us from sin.

A British Roman Catholic theologian offers another Christian story of salvation where God doesn’t demand violence. His name is James Alison. And this is the story he tells (On Being Liked, NY: Crossroad, 2003).

Alison reminds us Anselm’s story of salvation where God demands violence starts with the question, What does Jesus save us from? That led Anselm back to Original Sin. But James Alison says we don’t have to start there. As Christians, he says, what if we look at salvation by starting with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus? When we do that, we get a very different story of salvation than the one that demands violence. Jesus grew up in first-century Palestine, a land and people under occupation by the Roman Empire. Religion and Empire had spent a lot of time separating people in insiders and outsiders, winners and losers, clean and unclean, saved and damned. That kept people divided against each other. Which meant they couldn’t unite and oppose the oppressive policies of religion and Empire.

What did Jesus do? He spent a lot of time with the outsiders, the losers, the damned. He kept telling them, When God looks at you, God says, ‘You are my beloved daughters and sons.’ He also spent time with the insiders, the winners, the saved. And he said, “Staying behind your safe walls has made you arrogant. You think you’re better than everyone else. Let me tell you: the people you call outsiders and losers and damned are closer to God than you’ll ever be as long as you keep yourself separated from them. Let’s tear down these walls. Then you can come together. And get to work trying to convert those leaders of religion and Empire who have turned themselves in gods.”

Of course these leaders of religion and Empire didn’t take too kindly to the preaching of Jesus. They told him if he didn’t shut up they’d kill him.

What a terrible face for Jesus to find himself. If you have seen the Village Theater’s production of Jesus Christ, Superstar, you saw how deeply Jesus loved this world. How much he wanted to stay with his friends. How horrifying the torture and mocking and agony he faced. He didn’t want to die. And yet he refused to shut up. So the powerful people killed him. Then the first Easter morning dawned. Jesus is no longer safely dead. But rises to new life.

What Alison finds most surprising about the story of Jesus is that Jesus didn’t have to die. He or God could have saved him. They could have used violence to kill the people who wanted to kill him. But they rejected the use of violence. Alison says this shows us that Christians, too, must reject any story of salvation that says God demands violence.

In Alison’s story of salvation, Jesus saves us from the fear of death. Easter shows us the Enemy Death doesn’t have the last word. As much as he hated doing it, Jesus could go to the cross rejecting violence to save himself because he knew God’s love was stronger than death. He knew, beyond the grave, there is eternal life for all people. Alison says another problem with Anselm’s theory of salvation is that it says if people don’t believe the “right things” about Jesus, they’re going to hell. But if Jesus spent his life tearing down walls that divided people, then the Christian story of salvation can’t divide them again behind walls of “saved” and “damned”.

So in Alison’s story, Jesus saves us from the power of death.

What does Alison say Jesus saves us for? Jesus saves us for a job. Jesus invites us to help complete God’s dream for creation. But what we learn from Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection is that the only way we can complete God’s dream for creation is if we reject violence. Always.

James Alison’s story of salvation where God doesn’t demand violence breaks me open. It breaks me open to imagine. I imagine what would be different if the 2 billion Christians who live in this world decided to follow our Savior and reject all forms of violence. If the Christians in this world told our families and schools and churches and governments that we will no longer tolerate the use of violence, in any form, wouldn’t things have to change? If 2 billion people suddenly refused to support violence with our tacit agreement and our tax dollars, something would have to change. Maybe we’d help complete God’s dream for creation. Maybe our lives would testify to the love that shows us conflict can be handled a better way. If 2 billion Christians refused to support violence, maybe fewer broken people would grow up believing Jesus hates people of other faiths and wants us to kill them; if Christians truly rejected violence, we could show the world God never blesses (this sermon was preached two days after an anti-Muslim, fundamentalist Christian allegedly bombed a government building in Oslo, Norway, and then shot over 90 people at a Labor Party-sponsored youth camp).

James Alison’s story of salvation where God doesn’t demand violence leads me to imagine what kind of creation could we help build if we had no fear of death, and no fear of losing anything … so we were prepared to sacrifice our very lives rather than go along with violence (James Alison, p. 14)?

What Does It Mean To Be ‘Saved’? (Part One)

What Does It Mean To Be ‘Saved’? (Part One)

A reflection by Dave Shull
Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ
Sammamish, Washington
The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost: July 17, 2011
The fifth in a summer series on topics you’ve asked to hear addressed in reflections.

A number of years ago, I gave a talk at Pacific Lutheran University on the subject of homosexuality and Christianity. At the end of the formal question-and-answer period, a student who looked very sincere came up to me and asked, “Are you saved?”

I wish I could remember what I said. I know I didn’t ask him what I now ask anyone who asks me that: What do you mean by the word ‘saved’?

If you’re like me, when you hear a Christian use the word “saved”, you think it refers to where someone goes after they die. People who are “saved” believe certain things about Jesus. And that means when they die they will go to heaven. Others don’t believe the things about Jesus they need to in order to be “saved”. So when they die, they will go to hell.

That’s one way to talk about what it means to be saved. But most of the times when the Bible uses words like this, it’s not talking about where we go when we die. Instead, most of the time when the Bible uses words like saved, salvation, and Savior, it’s talking about living a changed life in this world, at this time.

Which makes sense when we look at what the word salvation means. Salvation comes from the word salve. A salve is an ointment that heals. So salvation means the way one who is wounded is healed. Salvation means the way one who is broken becomes whole. Most of the time when the Bible talks about salvation, it’s not telling stories of people who are healed and made whole in heaven after they die. Most of the time when the Bible talks about salvation, it’s telling stories of people who are healed and made whole now. So, before they die, they still have time to live this new, healed, whole way of life God has given them.

There’s another way the Bible talks about being saved that’s different than how I’ve often understood it. Often, the question, Are you saved?, is focused on an individual. Is this person going to heaven or hell? But in most of the places in the Bible that talk about this topic, salvation comes to a group of people, not to just one person.

Today and next week I’ll talk about this question of what it means to be ‘saved’. This morning, I’d like to look briefly at three Bible stories. (These three passages are part of an excellent treatment of the topic of Salvation found in Marcus Borg’s new book, Speaking Christian, HarperOne Publishers, 2011, pp. 39-43, 51).

The first is from Exodus, the second book in the Bible. God has just used Moses to free the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt. The Red Sea parted, and they crossed over to the other side of it on dry land. When the army of their former slave-master, Pharaoh, tried to do the same thing, the waters came back together, and they all drowned. So Moses and the Hebrew people are now free. And after you’ve been freed, you have to sing. Which is exactly what they do.

Moses and the Israelites sang this song to God, giving voice together:

“I’m singing my heart out to God – what a victory! God pitched horse and rider into the sea.
God is my strength, God is my song, and, yes! God is my salvation.
This is the kind of God I have and I’m telling the world!”
(Exodus 15.1-2, The Message, emphasis added)

When Moses and the people sing to the God who is my salvation, they’re not talking about where they’re going to go when they die. They’re not saying that God looked at some of the people who were in slavery and said, “You believe the right things about me, so I’ll free you. But you don’t believe the right things about me, so I’m leaving you here.” Moses brought everyone out of slavery to freedom. So Moses and the people aren’t singing this song as individuals. They are one people, singing with one voice. God is their salvation because God has just freed them from slavery. That’s how God has saved them. Salvation is liberation from slavery, persecution, and oppression. Salvation is God working to bring people out of places where the powerful treat them as less-than-human. Salvation is God bringing us out of bondage into a new space that is peaceful and spacious.

In this story, salvation is freedom, liberation, the invitation to step into a new world of hope and joy. It has nothing to do with what individual believe. It certainly has nothing to do with where individual people are going to go when they die.

We see another thing the Bible means by salvation and being saved in the book of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. ay the Old Testament talks about salvation is related to returning home from exile. In 597BC, King Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army conquer Judah. The King sends most of the wealthy, educated citizens of Judah into exile in Babylon. These exiled Jews feel like God has totally abandoned them. Many of them give up hope that God still loves and remembers them. The prophet Isaiah writes to these Jews-who-had-been-deported-to-a-foreign-and-frightening-land. He sings to them an unbelievable song of hope. He sings, God remembers you! And God is your Savior. So God will bring you home.

Thus says the Lord… “Don’t be afraid, I’ve redeemed you. I’ve called you by name.
You’re mine. When you’re in over your head, I’ll be there with you.
When you’re in rough waters, you will not go down.
When you’re between a rock and a hard place, it won’t be a dead end –
Because I am God, your personal God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”
(Isaiah 43.1-3, The Message, emphasis added)

Think of a time where you were lost. When you felt absolutely alone. When you were staring at a wall and you didn’t think there was anywhere out. What would it have felt like for you to hear God say these words to you? That is what these Jews in exile would have felt like. They were saved by their Savior God because God was leading them home. They were saved because they feared God had forgotten them, but instead God was saying, I remember you. I know your name. They were saved because they weren’t being left to face their fears alone, but God was saying, I am with you! They were saved because God said I will walk beside you to create a path ahead where there is no path now. This isn’t about what’s going to happen at some point in the future when you die. This is about God being with them. Right here. Right now.

The third story is from the New Testament – from the Gospel of Luke. Elizabeth believes she cannot have children. Then an angel tells her and her husband Zechariah that they will have a son. And God has a special job for this miracle child. This child, who will become John the Baptizer, will tell everyone that Jesus is coming. Listen for what salvation means in this part of Zechariah’s song:

“You, my child, ‘Prophet of the Highest,’ will go ahead of the Master to prepare his ways.
You will present the offer of salvation to the people, the forgiveness of their sins.
Through the heartfelt mercies of our God, God’s Sunrise will break in upon us,
shining on those in the darkness, those sitting in the shadow of death,
then showing us the way, one foot at a time, down the path of peace.”
(Luke 1.76-79, The Message, emphasis added)

Zechariah says the salvation Christ brings is light. Light for people trapped in not forgiving and not asking for forgiveness. Light for those trapped in death and deadness and fear. And this salvation will be light to show everyone the path to peace. The salvation the coming of Jesus promises is the path all of us in the world must walk if we want there to be peace.

There are passages in the New Testament which talk about salvation in terms of what happens to us when we die. I’ll look some at those next week as we continue to explore the question, What does it mean to be ‘saved’? My hope today was to look at three core texts which tell us something that might surprise a lot of Christians and non-Christians about what it means to be saved. God saves us by liberating us from oppression and torture. According to the Bible, God saves us by freeing us from everything that enslaves us, everything that takes life and hope and joy from us. The Bible tells us God saves us by walking beside us in our fear, by telling people who are lost and far from home that God is going to call people to help bring them home. God saves by helping us imagine a way where there is no way. The Bible tells us God saves by bringing light into dark places … and by sending Jesus, who leads us in the way of peace. Not after we die. But right here. Right now.

That is why the sacrament of baptism saves us. In a few moments, Luke will receive the sacrament of baptism. Baptism isn’t a private ceremony. Baptism happens in community. There will be times when Luke or some member of his family needs to remember that his true name is God’s Beloved. Because people call us by so many other names that can make us forget our true name. We make our promises to Luke and his family because we want Luke to know he is saved. So he can be freed from anything that oppresses or enslaves him. So he can know this church always will be home for him when he gets lost. So he knows when he feels forgotten, we will remember him. And when he is in dark places, we will bear Christ’s light to him. That is what we promise him and his family when we celebrate this sacrament of baptism. We will be the Body of Christ, who reminds him he is saved. We are that Body of Christ for all who come through these doors. We are the community who show this world that our God is a God who saves. In this time. In this place. Amen.

This song was sung by Music Minister Linda Srb. Her friend and music partner Susan Moore wrote it.

“Something Bigger”

Jesus saves – you’ve seen it on a bumper sticker.
Jesus saves – you’ve seen it on a banner waving on the freeway.
Jesus saves – saves what you might ask, Jesus saves – saves whom you might ask.
Jesus saves us from a lonely life devoid of a higher purpose.
Some find this message in his kind words, some find it elsewhere.
No matter how you get the message, God’s saving you for a reason:
to be a light to those in need, to be a part of something bigger.

God saves – the people from their narrow-mindedness
God saves – a child from a world of fear
God saves – a mother waiting for a sign to know what to say to her daughter who says
God saves only those who think that Jesus speaks for them, and only them,
and miss the point that God transcends the selfish views of mortal men.
No matter how you get the message, God’s saving you for a reason
To be a light to those in need, to be a part of something bigger.
God saves a mother for her nurturing; God saves a father that he might care;
God saves a child for its innocent love; God saves the elders for what they can share.
God saves us from a lonely life devoid of a higher purpose.
We know this now, we feel it when we bare our neighbors burdens.
So many teachers, so many paths that point in one direction,
no matter how you get the message, God’s saving you for a reason:
to be a light to those in need, to be a part of something bigger.

A Common Word

A Common Word

(Matthew 28.18-20; Acts 16.30-31; Matthew 7.1-8, 12; Romans 12.18; Mark 12.28-31;
Al-Muzzammil, 73.8; Sahih Al-Bukhari, Kitab al-Iman, 67-1, Hadith no. 45)
A reflection by Dave Shull
Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ
Sammamish, Washington
The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost: July 10, 2011

The fourth in a summer series on topics you’ve asked to hear addressed in reflections.
This morning’s question: “Why should Christians try or not try to convert Muslims?”

“Why should Christians try or not try to convert Muslims?” Which is another way of asking, How should Christians relate to Muslims?

Some Christians believe we follow Jesus best by trying to convert as many people as we can to Christianity. They say that’s what Jesus commands us to do. They point to Bible passages like this to prove their point:
Matthew 28.18-20

Jesus said to the disciples, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
(New Revised Standard Version)

Go and make disciples of all nations sounds pretty clear. It seems Jesus wants us to convert others.

But then there are those words he says next, where Jesus talks about teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you? What did Jesus command his disciples to do?

Listen to these words from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount:
Matthew 7.1-6, 12
Jesus said to his disciples, “Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their

faults – unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, ‘Let me wash your face for you,’ when your own face is distorted by contempt? It’s this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor ….
“Here is a simple, rule-of-thumb guide for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them. Add up God’s Law and Prophets and this is what you get.”
(The Message)

Over and over in his teachings, Jesus tells his followers to be humble. How can we try to convert people and be humble at the same time? Isn’t telling someone they need to become Christian like saying, Let me wash your face for you? If I try to convince someone the god I worship is better than the god they worship, aren’t I being just a little bit holier-than-thou? If I don’t want people to try to convert me, Jesus says I shouldn’t try to convert them.

So how do we follow both of these teachings at the same time? What does a ministry of humble evangelism or humble conversion look like?

What I think it looks like is to love. A favorite theologian of mine says love is active care (Miroslav Volf, in Miroslav Volf, Ghazi bin Muhammad, and Melissa Yarrington, A Common Word: Muslims and Christians on Loving God and Neighbor, Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2010, p. 24). So a friend of ours who isn’t part of a faith community might notice the ways we actively care. They might notice our compassion. They might realize that we don’t judge. And that we’re genuinely interested in them and their lives. They might hear us talk about cooking meals for homeless people each month. And hear us talk about eating with them, and being changed by them. When they are going through a hard time, they might notice how we want to be there for them. How we bring meals and send cards and offer to pray for them. They might hear us talk about what’s going on in the larger world. They might hear how the church community we’re part of wants to try to create a world where people have enough to eat and a place to sleep. A world where there is no fear of bombs or bullets. They might experience us as being very forgiving. And experience us caring about people everyone else criticizes or people they wish they didn’t have to deal with. They might realize that we seem to be people who really want to help people feel like they are loved just as they are.

One day they might ask us, “Where does your love come from?” That’s when liberal Christians can get kind of nervous. We’re so afraid that people will experience us as pushy that we tend to pull back when people ask us about our faith. But that’s a mistake. This person genuinely wants to know what makes us tick, and why we seem to live differently from so many others. And we owe them an honest response. If our faith helps us walk in the way of Jesus, if our church community or a Bible story grounds us, feeds us, inspires us, changes us, then we tell them that. That’s not being arrogant. That’s being humble. Because we’re responding honestly to their curiosity. They might genuinely hunger to be part of a community that loves with that much love. They might thirst to feel God real and in love with them. So if they ask us questions like this, then we can say, “If you’d like to come to church some Sunday morning, or if you’d like to serve meals some Sunday evening, or pick lettuce at the P-patch, or come to a potluck or a book group, I’d be happy to come by and take you there.”

That is humble evangelism. That is a humble kind of conversion. Showing with our lives that we believe God’s love never runs out. So we keep giving it away. That is how non-Christians might find themselves drawn to us. Not because we decide they need Jesus. Not because we’ve concluded they’re “not saved”. But because we love them. And they find themselves drawn into our circle of love. Our circle of active care. It’s how the early Christian church grew so fast. When an infectious disease ravaged a community, families would often abandon their sick loved ones in order to protect themselves. Christians not only refused to do that. But they would choose to care for those whose families had left them. People saw people loving with that much love. And they wanted to worship a God who filled communities with that kind of love.

I think that’s what humble conversion should look like for other faiths as well. Say I make friends with a Muslim. She tells me about her faith. She tells me how her life is changing by reading the Qur’an and by worshiping the one true God. I see her doing her prayers five times a day. I see her fasting, and know she gives to the poor. I hear how gathering with millions of other Muslims on pilgrimage in Mecca made God so real for her. When I am with this Muslim woman, I feel compassion, love, peacefulness, and an unyielding commitment to justice. If those are values I long for, and I’m not part of a faith community, I might ask to go to the mosque with her. Or to attend a class with her to learn more about Islam. Or she might sense my hunger. And know I’m not part of a faith community. So she might ask me to come with her to some service or some class. And see what it’s like.

Humble conversion is about mutual respect. It isn’t about judging others. It doesn’t coerce or manipulate by telling people they’re going to hell if they don’t follow the God you follow. Humble conversion comes through loving friendships. And seeing each other as people God loves just as they are.

Every person I know who works to build love between people of different faiths says the same thing. It’s a huge mistake to believe people of different religions will get along with each other better if nobody takes their faith too seriously. People who take their faith seriously have a living relationship with the God they worship. The God they worship fills them with love. And calls them to love all people, no matter who they are or what they believe. Of course the exception is those who practice fundamentalism. Fundamentalists of all stripes believe their way is the only way, and all others are wrong, bad, mistaken, evil, or damned. Except for fundamentalists, people in interfaith conversations say the deeper our faith is, the more loving we are. If I’m serous about loving God and loving my neighbor, then I will work for peaceful ways for all people to live together, no matter how deep our disagreements. The more committed I am to being a passionate follower of Jesus, the more committed I am to forming a living faith and to knowing the Bible and the history of my faith, the more I will work for a radically inclusive society that seeks the common good for all people (ideas from Volf, et a., p. 24).

Instead of trying to convert others – instead of looking for a smudge on your neighbor’s face – those involved in humble evangelism keep our attention on our own faces. We want to keep walking the path which frees us most fully to love God and our neighbor. So instead of praying that someone else will convert, we ask the Holy Spirit to keep converting and re-converting us. Because we drift away from the path Jesus asks us to walk with him. We fall into bitterness, cynicism, cruelty, apathy. So we need to keep asking the Spirit to help us, to help us let go of what pulls us away from the love we want to shower upon this world.

The terror attacks of September 11, 2001, radically changed the ways people in this country view Muslims. So I believe any response to Catherine’s question has to look at this. People in this country, including many Christians, know next-to-nothing about Islam. We still read stories in the paper of Muslims who are thrown off of airplanes for doing their daily prayers because people around them are afraid of them. We are still engaged in the longest war in U.S. history … a war against a Muslim country. There are 2 billion Christians in this world, and 1.5 billion Muslims. Together, we make up almost half the people on this planet. If there is to be peace, we have to learn how to love each other. How might we begin to do that when many extremist Christians and Muslims are trying to make us hate and fear each other?

Around the year 60, Paul wrote a letter to Christians in Rome. In that letter, he said,

Romans 12.18

As far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. “I’ll do the judging,” says God. “I’ll take care of it.” (The Message)

In October 2007, 138 Muslim scholars wrote an open letter to the world’s Christians. The title of their letter is “A Common Word Between Us and You.” (The text of this letter and thoughtful discussions of it by Muslim and Christian scholars can be found in Miroslav Volf, Ghazi bin Muhammad, and Melissa Yarrington, A Common Word: Muslims and Christians on Loving God and Neighbor, Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2010.) These 138 scholars invite us to take a different path. What these Muslims remind Christians of is that what Jesus says are the two greatest commandments are exactly what the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) calls the two greatest commandments.

These Muslim scholars point to the following texts from the Holy Bible and the Holy Qur’an to show what we have in common:
Mark 12.28-31

One of the religion scholars came up … and put in his question: “Which is the most important of all the commandments?”

Jesus said, “The first in importance is, ‘Listen, Israel: The Lord your God is one; so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.’ And here is the second: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ There is no other commandment that ranks with these.”
Al-Muzzammil, 73.8

God said, “Invoke the Name of thy Lord and devote thyself to Him with a compete devotion.” (The Holy Qur’an)

Sahih Al-Bukhari, Kitab al-Iman, 67-1, Hadith no. 45

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said “None of you has faith until you love for your neighbor what you love for yourself.” (The Holy Qur’an)

While Christianity and Islam disagree about a lot, they agree on this core teaching: that God is One, and we show our love for God by loving our neighbor. If Christians and Muslims know that we have this in common, then we certainly can “love God and neighbor together” (Volf, et al., p. 20).

A Christian leader in this effort to live this common word says this:

Agreement on the dual command of love encourages each community to hold the other accountable to its best insights and commitments. A Muslim as the target of Christian verbal attacks can now say to a Christian, “How can you claim that you love me when you only speak ill of how I understand and worship God, when you malign my Prophet, and when you despise my way of life?” A Christian convert from Islam, [who in some countries risks being put to death for doing that] can now say to a hostile Muslim, “How can you say that you love me if you want to kill me just because I have followed my conscience and embraced the Christian faith?” (Volf et al., p. 22).

Christians walking in the way of Jesus and Muslims walking in the way of Prophet Muhammad finally will be about more than respecting each others’ lives and faiths. “A ‘common word’ between Muslims and Christians … should also be, and maybe above all be, about the common good for the little boat that is our common world. In addition to sitting face to face and trying to make peace with one another, we need to start walking shoulder to shoulder in trying to heal the deep wounds and inspire the noble hopes of all people in our common world” (Volf, et al., p. 25).

May it be so. Amen.

To Make Room for God

To Make Room for God To Come In, and Say, ‘Here I Am!’
(Psalm 23; Psalm 23;“Guest House” by Rumi)
A reflection by Dave Shull
Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ
Sammamish, Washington
The Third Sunday after Pentecost: July 3, 2011

The third in a summer series on topics you’ve asked to hear addressed in reflections.
This morning’s question: “Why do we praise, adore, and worship God?
As an all-knowing, all-understanding entity, does that maybe seem like groveling?”

The first time it happened 15 years ago, it surprised me. Someone called me at the church and said, “I don’t know why I’ve been crying in worship. It’s so embarrassing. What’s wrong with me?” I don’t remember how I responded.

After thinking about Patti Gray’s question for today – Why do we praise, adore, and worship God? – I think I know what I’ll say to the next person who tells me that. I’ll say something like, “I wonder if you cry in worship because coming here, you stop all the stuff you’ve been doing all week. You’re free from some of the distractions and responsibilities. what you’ve been doing all week. Now you’ve made room inside you for God to come in. And say to you, “Here I am!” Why wouldn’t you cry if you hear those words? I think everyone wants to feel God that close.”

Why do we worship God? I think we come together to worship so each of us can make room for God to come into us. And say, “Here I am!”

Worship is about God, not about us. We don’t gather for worship to give God our laundry list of things we want God to do. Worship isn’t us doing all the talking and God doing all the listening. Worship isn’t therapy. We don’t worship to feel happier. Or to be told what we want to hear.

Worship is about making room for God. For at least one morning a week, we choose to open ourselves to God. And let God in. One morning a week, we come together. Because you can’t do worship alone. We can do private devotions. And pray our private prayers. We can meditate. All these are important. But we can only do worship as part of a community. I hope to make that clear as we look at how we worship. Because how we worship shows us why we worship.

We start by walking through a door that’s always wide open to any who want to come in. Worship starts with a wide-open door (image from Gordon Lathrop, Holy People: A Liturgical Ecclesiology, Fortress Press, 1999, p. 93).

Every week in worship, we say, We welcome people just as they are. It’s hard to believe that’s real. Because if I’m really welcome just as I am, that means I can take off my masks here. That means who I am is acceptable. Who I am is enough. But how can that be? Because out there I wear masks. Out there I get in trouble if I say what I really think. Or if I let people see who I really am. We’re used to hiding. And pretending. We’re used to doing what we need to to please people. Or prove we’re not weak. We even wear masks with ourselves. We try to convince ourselves everything’s fine. So it can be hard to walk through a wide-open door and believe worship is come-as-you-are. Worship is take the risk to show your true, beautiful, God-loves-me-just-the-way-I-am face. I don’t think most people bring that face to church. I think most people, including me, usually come to worship wearing our “Sunday morning” face. We smile at each other. And say, everything’s fine. It’s all good. For some of us, when we say that we’re telling the truth. Others of us aren’t fine. But usually we still say we’re fine. Because somewhere we learned the world wants to see us happy. And wants to hear everything’s great. So we think that’s how it is in church too.

If our faith ancestors thought God only wants happy people in worship, then Psalm 13 wouldn’t be in the Bible. Psalm 13 didn’t come through the lips of someone wearing a Sunday morning face. Whoever prayed Psalm 13 felt like God was missing in action. And they weren’t afraid to let God know it. This angry, hurt lover-of-God gives us permission to drop our masks in worship. And be real.

Listen for a Word from God.
Psalm 13
Long enough, God— you've ignored me long enough.
I've looked at the back of your head
long enough. Long enough
I've carried this ton of trouble,
lived with a stomach full of pain.
Long enough my arrogant enemies
have looked down their noses at me.

Take a good look at me, God, my God;
I want to look life in the eye,
So no enemy can get the best of me
or laugh when I fall on my face
(The Message © 2003 Eugene Peterson).

I want to stop here before Nan reads the end of the psalm. This is not polite speech. I don’t often hear prayers like this in public. I know I’ve never prayed like this in public. Though at times in my private prayers I get quite angry with God. But the man or woman who prayed this prayer trusted the folks they were worshiping with not to throw them out for being so disrespectful toward God. Though the language is harsh, we can see this person is having a lover’s quarrel with God. In the midst of their anger, this person prays, “Take a look at me, God, my God” (13.3). To call this God my God means they’ve had a close relationship before. So the person prays, Why are you ignoring me now, my God? I need you. Show up! … And then they wait for God to respond.

It’s impossible to know how long this person waited for God to respond. A week. A month. A decade. All we can be sure of is that God did respond. How do we know? Look how the prayer ends:

I've thrown myself headlong into your arms—
I'm celebrating your rescue.
I'm singing at the top of my lungs,
I'm so full of answered prayers.

Somewhere between the words of complaint and the words of praise, God came in to this person. And said, Here I am. And that was all that person needed. To know God hadn’t abandoned them. To make room for God to come in, though, this person needed to drop the masks and tell God how bad it was. This person needed a community of worship to hear how God had abandoned them. The past couldn’t be changed. Maybe this person’s enemies were still around. And people still laughed at them. But their honest, risky speech opened a space for God. And God came in. And now their relationship with God has been given new life. Which tells us we don’t gather for worship to be polite. We gather for worship because, at least on Sunday mornings, we can be real.

If the person who prayed Psalm 13 struggled to hold on to a confident faith, the same cannot be said for the person who prayed Psalm 23. If Christians have any part of the Bible memorized, it’s likely to be the 23^rd psalm. It has brought comfort in times of grief more than any other words in the Bible. At times of loneliness, shock, and fear, God comes to us through those words. And says, Here I am! I invite us to pray the 23^rd Psalm together. The words are in the bulletin. If this isn’t the version you know, then pray the words that are part of you. Let us pray.

Psalm 23
The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.
You make me lie down in green pastures. You lead me beside still waters.
You restore my soul.
You lead me in paths of righteousness for your name’s sake.
Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil.
For you are with me. Your rod and your staff – they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.
And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

These words have so much power when we know them by heart. When they have become a part of us. That’s why I like sung prayers. Because when we sing something a couple of times, the words become part of us. Sometimes that’s not something to be grateful for. A case in point: It’s a small world after all…. Worship invites us to sing …. and not be self-conscious about how we sound to ourselves or to those around us. Worship invites us to sing, so Bible stories and prayers become part of us. So when we need comfort, joy, or hope, those words of God that say “Here I am!” are part of us.

I see myself sitting at morning worship in the divinity school chapel. It’s spring of 1985. We’re singing the 143^rd psalm. A soloist sings each verse of the psalm. After each verse, the congregation sings,

Bring me news of your love ev’ry morning.

I’d like us to sing parts of Psalm 143 with you this morning. So we can hear God’s word in a different way. After each verse, I’ll play these two notes [play guitar]. Then you sing,

Bring me news of your love ev’ry morning.

Let us pray.

Lord, my hope is in you.
Bring me news of your love every morning.
Hear my prayer, O Lord. Hear me, for you are faithful and just.
Bring me news of your love every morning.
I remember former times, and think of all you have done.
Bring me news of your love every morning.
I stretch out my hands toward you – I am like dry, waterless ground.
Bring me news of your love every morning.
Show me the way to walk, for I lift up my life to you.
Bring me news of your love every morning.
(Elizabeth Frohrip, 1980, adapted from Praise God: Common Prayer at Taize)

The soloist that morning back in 1985 was a Methodist divinity student named Peggy Anne Sauerhoff. When she sang the words, I stretch out my hands toward you – I am like dry, waterless ground, for the first time in my life I felt like God had broken me open. God broke me open to see myself without masks. At that moment, I knew I was the singer of that psalm. I am like dry waterless ground was my truth. I was pretending everything was great. But even around my friends I didn’t feel like I could real. And I couldn’t be real with God. I hadn’t come to chapel that morning expecting anything to happen. But all God needed was for me to show up. And make a bit of room for God to come in. That’s all God needed. Through a verse from a psalm I’d never read before, God broke me open and said, Here I am. For the past 27 years, I have sung the 143^rd psalm at least once a month. In hard times, I sing it every day. The words live in my bones. More than almost any other words of scripture, they have the power to break me open. And to bring God close.

We come together for worship so there’s at least one place where we can drop our masks and speak what’s real, and sing stories and prayers that become part of us. Life is full of loss. The world is full of reasons to prove God’s doesn’t exist. Or doesn’t care. So those of us who know God is here and God loves us, and those of us who have a thirst to know that, keep coming together. We keep coming through those wide open doors. And keep welcoming and keep being welcomed. We keep dropping our masks so we can be real. We keep singing. We keep looking for the face of God in those we don’t like, those we disagree with, those we even hate. We keep refusing to walk the easy road of revenge, violence, arrogance, and fear.

Because another word lives in our bones. Another Spirit speaks through our lips. Finally, it is a word of quiet trust. That no matter what happens, God is with us and walks beside us. God’s love fills us. The people we gather for worship with each week will be there to catch me when I fall. And I will be there to catch them. And that is enough.

I will know I walk with such a quiet trust when these words from the 13^th-century Muslim mystic Rumi become part of me.

“House Guest”

This being human is a great house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and attend the all:
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture, still,
treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī (1207-1273)

Amen.