rosebuds

The way to greatness is not what the disciples expect. It is not about being welcomed as great, but about welcoming even the least and littlest. How are we doing that?

What Jesus teaches us, his fellow servants, in his second warning of the passion, of the suffering, betrayal, death, and resurrection of the Christ, is that to be greatest of all is to be servant of all. And, further, that the Messiah is the Suffering Servant. 

This is not what we signed up for, is it? The disciples seem to think that they are on the road to thrones of their own and crowns of their own. Yes, it will all work out: Revelation says so. But those crowns come after and through suffering - and not around it. The role of a disciple and its reward comes in sharing in the passion and death, and the resurrection, of the suffering servant, the teacher they have come to know as Christ.

Oblivious to what he has just said to them, again, that the son of man must suffer betrayal and death, before undergoing resurrection, they begin to quibble and bargain and argue over, of all things, who among them is greatest. 

And that is when Jesus calls to himself the last and least expected: a little child. Kids were nowhere in ancient times; in fact, in ancient and even more recent societies, they were seen as inconveniences, underpowered little adults at best. But here again, as he had at the feeding of the multitude with the offerings of a child, Jesus turns the expected order of things right side up.

They expect to be lauded as great; they are already planning ahead. Is this the day you will restore Israel? they breathe with anticipation: triumph is coming, and they will share in it. 

Not so fast.

Greatness comes through servanthood, the servanthood of the suffering servant. 

And it is in the Wisdom of Solomon, as well as in the prophet Isaiah, that we learn how that will go down.

A long mocking diatribe by the disbelievers tells of the evanescence of life, its sure end in oblivion. And so let us party today, for it is all we have. And mock those who live in hope.

Verse 8 (“Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds, before they be withered”) even anticipates the poet, who expresses their attitude very well:

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying;

And this same flower that smiles today

Tomorrow will be dying.

[Robert Herrick (1591-1674) ‘To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time’] 

The ungodly in despair or cynicism make a pact with death; attempting to befriend it. But they are deceived; they do not know that innocence would have its reward. The ways of God are hidden to them, a mystery, as secret as the Messiah - until that day they stand before his throne.

So there is a mystery. And an anticipation of Christ’s passion and the mockery he will endure.

“He threw himself on the Lord for rescue, let the Lord deliver him, for he holds him dear!” (Isaiah 57:8) 

“He trusted in God, did he? Let God rescue him, if he wants him - for he said he was God’s son.” (Matthew 27:43)

The ungodly reckon without justice and immortality. The Messiah comes among the people, bringing to them the hope of justice, proclaiming and enacting restoration - healing, casting out demons - and embodying the promise of immortality.

Jesus admonishes the oblivious even among his disciples. They don’t get it - yet. 

A child of God, a servant of God: like the least and little child Jesus ‘suffers’ to come unto him, the followers of Jesus are called to welcome the innocent, the unrewarding, those who can do nothing for them, certainly not worldly preferment or the best place in the kingdom of heaven.

The hard road that Jesus reveals, that he invites his disciples to travel with him, is the road, first to Jerusalem, with all it means, and then, through the Cross not around it, finally to glory.

May we learn to walk with him, and welcome even the least as we would welcome him, as we travel the Way with him.

O God, Wisdom of the universe,

you bear the pain of your people.

Grant us the gift of wisdom,

that we may discern your way

and live justly and graciously

amid the struggles of this world. Amen.

So far what we have said sounds very personal, appealing to each of us individually. But Scripture and the Word of God speak to us not simply as discrete persons, but as members of societies, as peoples of nations, and of course ultimately as the people of God.

In recent days it has been hard to leave unquestioned how we as a nation among modern nations have done. We have sought to change the world, even far away, and have done well and not so well, in recent days. 

Often the United States and Canada and western Europe and their friends respond most quickly to the needs of others, when war, civil strife, or natural disaster harm those near or far away. 

In the forefront of our minds in recent days has been the memorial anniversary of the terrorist attacks of twenty years ago, and their modern aftermath. The extremist hosts of terrorists are back in power, or the chaos we would have hoped to prevent is overwhelming our erstwhile friends.

Recently I read, with the sense of irony required, a recent book entitled, “Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America”. (2007) 

It is actually a hopeful book, calling us to be the best of ourselves. The author, Cullen Murphy, departs from the expected ‘compare and contrast’ exercise, pointing out where we can be our exceptional selves. 

Exceptional, not in the exclusive sense that we are still after all Top Nation, but that nations, peoples, and societies, can respond to the call to righteousness just as individual people, or congregations, do.

And in one particular way that comes home to us now. Like ancient Rome, modern America must respond to the influx of strangers across its borders. We here in the Southwest are well aware of the challenges facing those who cross, legally or illegally, the border through the desert from Mexico. 

We are also cognizant of the challenge facing America as it is called to welcome as refugees and new Americans its friends and allies from the fallen regime of Afghanistan.

Lutherans have been at the forefront of welcoming and resettling refugees for many years; along with Roman Catholics, secular agencies, and others.

Now once again on a national scale and perhaps even a local level, it is time to receive the stranger, the innocent and the not-so-innocent, as we would welcome Christ himself. For as we do, we welcome him, and the One who sent him.

Not all cute little kids; not all happy. But all the children of God, as are we.

May we with wisdom indeed welcome them as Christ welcomes us.

O God, our teacher and guide,

you draw us to yourself

and welcome us as beloved children.

Help us to lay aside our envy and selfish ambition,

that we may walk in your ways of wisdom and understanding

as servants of your peace. Amen.

BProper20 2021 / Lectionary 25 / Pentecost 17

RCL Track 2

Wisdom of Solomon 1:16-2:1, 12-22 [or Jeremiah 11:18-20].  

Psalm 54  •  James 3:13 - 4:3, 7-8a  •  Mark 9:30-37

This Sunday, September 19, we will welcome a new transitional pastor who we hope will be with us until our new called pastor arrives. Rev. Dr. John Leech is ordained in the Episcopal Church and has served as pastor in northern California and western Washington, as well as now in southern Arizona where, among other things, he is on call as a chaplain for Tucson Medical Center one night per week. He was baptized by his great-grandfather, Rev. Harvey M. Leech, who served as pastor of First Lutheran Church in Oakland, CA and St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in Berkeley, CA. So, he is not a stranger to things Lutheran! As Bishop Hutterer has advised and approved, the provision of “full communion” reciprocity between the ELCA and the Episcopal Church makes it possible for those ordained in one church to serve in another. Please give Rev. Leech a warm welcome on Sunday! [Footnotes, parish newsletter, Lutheran Church of the Foothills, Tucson, Friday 9/27/21]

https://www.foothillslutherantucson.org/

https://www.foothillslutherantucson.org/?wix-vod-video-id=tSXgOqixYco&wix-vod-comp-id=comp-keyll888

Hope for those in exile

 Among the many songs Linda Ronstadt has performed and recorded is the reggae song, “By the rivers of Babylon,” which draws on verses from two Psalms which you may hear this fall in many churches: 

The last verse of Psalm 19, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord my strength and my redeemer,”  and the beginning of Psalm 137: “By the rivers of Babylon…”  which is a sad and angry song about being an exile.

Invocation is often the use of that first phrase:  a preacher will say it before he begins to preach.

But we rarely hear the second because of the anger and even rage that psalm expresses as the words go on from the beginning of the experience of exile. 

Yet many of us do feel in exile or as a stranger in a strange land from time to time even in a familiar place or somewhere far away from home. 

And that is certainly the case with many people who are currently refugees in our world.

Among them are those who have been welcomed to Tucson or people who are waiting in refugee resettlement programs or people who are in a home country where they no longer feel at home or safe. 

And these are among the people we have special care for and special concern about at this time especially considering the recent upheaval and changes in the Middle East and the repercussions we will continue to feel for decades to come. 

After the initial expression of loss, sorrow, and grief from psalm 19, the reggae song takes an interesting turn : moving to the hopeful and prayerful expressions of psalm 19,

In these times it is especially welcome to have those closing words of Psalm 19 so that we don’t immure ourselves in lasting despair or dwell in gratuitous negativity as we discuss these events.

Indeed we are reminded in that psalm 19 from its first words, “the heavens declare the glory of God,”  to its last, “let the words of my mouth be acceptable in thy sight,” that indeed all human beings are part of the creation of God and that the God who created us is the God who redeemed us is the God who will see us through.

So let the words we speak and the meditations at the deepest root of our being be thoughts of praise and words of hope.

A previous version of this essay appeared in the Arizona Daily Star, Keeping the Faith section, September 19th 2021, page E3.

AFTER TWENTY YEARS

 

Let the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts

Be acceptable in thy sight

O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.

The phone rang.

“Turn on the television!”

“What channel?”

“Any channel!”

Twenty years ago something happened that everybody noticed. 

Events today still reverberate with what happened that morning. 

Two thousand years ago something happened that almost nobody noticed. At first. 

Just another Roman execution. Best to just get on with business as usual. 

Around Jesus as he was led to the cross through the marketplace streets of Jerusalem, business continued as usual. 

But then something else happened. Quietly. And really, almost nobody noticed. At first.

Women went to the tomb of the dead body of their savior and he was not there. 

Quietly the word spread. 

Shock and sorrow gave way to rage and fear twenty years ago. Retaliation was sought. A blind giant struck out in all directions, setting on his known enemies. 

Shock and sorrow two thousand years ago were superseded by hope and a cautious joy. Life did not get easier for the disciples: it got harder. For he had warned them, to Peter’s dismay. Yes, I am the Messiah, but keep it quiet -- and listen: the Son of Man must suffer and be rejected and be killed and after three days rise again.

This is not what we signed up for, Jesus. Is this not the day you will restore the kingdom of Israel? Are we to give up hope? We cannot look for another: you hold the way of life.

You must go with me, on the way, not around the passion, but through it, and through the way of the Cross peace will come to all people. This is the way of joy, of life, of love.

Many times in our world we would like to respond like John Wayne: if the other guy throws the first punch, you can go to town on him. Or on anybody who looks like him.

All too quickly we insert ourselves in conflicts between brothers, taking sides where no side can be helpful. Intervention in faraway places out of altruism or greed, seemingly to make the world safe for business and democracy, often leads to harm, or disaster.

How frustrating it is that twenty years of endless war has militarized a generation and left the extremists in charge in one place and chaos in another. We cannot impose democracy by force, top down. We should know that by now.

Futility, nobility, sacrifice: the story of twenty years. Look at the monster Rome made of itself endless seeking security, pushing its boundaries ever outward, for one less enemy, one less threat.

That endless search for security through force eventually imploded.

In the end it was the way of grace that prevailed. That small and scared band of followers at the foot of the cross - or in hiding - became many and brave. Fearless witnesses to love, willing after all to pick up their crosses and follow.

Security, identity, compassion, community: found not in force or violent responses to violence, the sense of belonging not of soldiers but of witnesses. It is in that giving up that they found themselves, in that loss that they gained, in that service, freedom.

A Franciscan put it this way in a familiar prayer: Let me be an instrument of peace.

This is not the easy way. It is not safe, not as the world knows safe. It is the way of the cross, through death to life. 

What does it profit to gain the world but to lose one’s life? One’s soul? Follow the one who lived with integrity, who through the giving of his life gave new life to all.

A teacher of mine, Paul Lee from Santa Cruz, said that he’s been thinking about the idea that bad mouthing is negative prayer. 

Today drawing on the letter of James, it would be so easy to talk about parish gossip or demagoguery or whispering campaigns or gratuitous backstabbing or all the other ways in which the tongue is a nasty weapon, the abuse that people vent on each other even in their own homes... 

There are those negative things all right, but we can grasp the positive ways in which speech can be a builder-up of life as it is meant to be, indeed we know from Philippians that: “Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” 

Every tongue confess: so ultimately our speech should coincide with the speech of God, that is the word of God, that is Jesus Christ himself: in fact our speech should be immersed in Christ as we dwell in Christ.

The 19th Psalm ends “and let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you oh Lord my rock and my redeemer” - my rock, my strength, my fortress, my stronghold. From that strong safe place in the cleft of the rock that is God‘s heart, we can speak the truth in love.

The letter of James talks about the tongue as a small member that boasts of great exploits, of the tongue being like small flame that starts a great fire, and James acknowledges that everyone makes mistakes in speaking and we all need humility and repentance and the chance to realize how what we say can build up community, society, even the kingdom of God 

Twenty years ago something happened that everybody noticed. We are still today reacting to what happened that morning. 

Because this is the nearest Sunday to the 20th anniversary of the Al-Qaeda attacks on the United States in New York and Washington DC and the ensuing wars against Afghanistan and then Iraq are much on our minds today, and as Kabul has been retaken and therefore Afghanistan has been re-taken by the Islamist revolutionaries who had harbored the ones who plotted and planned and executed the terrorist attacks of 20 years ago. 

What has been gained and what has been lost? After 20 years of blood toil tears and sweat, of death and destruction, of hopes raised and lowered, of a generation of young women at last having a chance to be educated, to breathe more freely, who now face an uncertain future in the land of their birth, the whole generation that’s grown up after the American intervention in their countries… 

What will happen to those women, those girls, their brothers? What will happen to them now that Afghanistan is ruled again by an extremist ideology? and what will it mean for the countries around them? What does it mean for those countries as they become more surrounded by extreme ideologies? What will it mean for those who are minorities: Christian, Zoroastrian, Baha’i, Hindu, Jain, animist, followers of other religions or none? What will it mean for them, for their safety, for their ability to worship or not worship?

In America we have four freedoms which will be familiar to anyone who sings the song of Zachariah, of freedom to worship without fear: the four freedoms that were articulated by a president back in the 1930s capture something very American: freedom of speech, freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom of worship. 

Four freedoms that should be true for everyone. Will it be true for the people of the Middle East and south Asia, of Afghanistan and Iraq?

True security, trust and freedom from fear, comes from following the way of wisdom which is the way of life with God: the way that Jesus calls us to follow.

True security, trust and freedom from fear, are so often offered by those who do not truly have them to offer: demagogues, authoritarians, simple cookbook wisdom alternatives (“... do these 10 things and you’ll be free…”)  yet the way of wisdom is the way to freedom from fear.

This seems especially relevant today as we look at so many around us and wonder why they are the way they are, why we are we the way we are, when our politics or personal contact or relationships with others, our attitudes towards strangers we see casually and judge mentally, seem to be based on a desire for a release from the fear and a release of the anger that that fear instills in us; we seek so often for comfort and security and identity in some false gods and false path when we could be following the way of Christ.

***

Twenty years ago, first thing in the morning my uncle called and said to turn on the television. I asked what channel and he said any channel, so I did, and I saw something unbelievable, unreal: airplanes flying into the side of the building. 

When I went out to get the paper, it was already on the stoop: my neighbor had brought it and put a note under the rubber band: “turn on your television” and there it was again and again and again: repeats of what happened that morning in New York City. 

And then later my brother called from the Washington area, as we had set up a family disaster system: if you were on the East Coast and you were under threat you called somebody on the West Coast, if you were on the West Coast you could call and say I’m all right, I’m all right, I’ve survived the earthquake or the wildfire or the flood or whatever it was. In this case the airplane had flown into the Pentagon, two airplanes had flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, and one airplane had been brought down in a field in Pennsylvania that was intended perhaps for the Capitol building in Washington DC - it was unbelievable, unforgettable, it changed our world. 

At first other nations poured out their sympathy. Said the president of France, “We are all Americans now,” and suddenly we felt close to people in Tel Aviv or other places who had had terrorist attacks as they sat at sidewalk cafés or walked down the street or rode a bus: this was much larger in terms of damage and fatalities but it was of a kind and we were all of a kind: human kind.

Yet  before you knew it the United States had attacked Afghanistan and then Iraq, so like other world spanning powers before us we became involved in conflicts on the far side of the world. 

So how do we now as we speak of these events on a Sunday, when the epistle focuses on the word of God and of speaking rightly in his praise and rightly in terms of a positive and loving attitude? How do we speak about or think about the terrible events of 20 years ago in their long lasting event effects?

Well for one thing I think we can choose to be among those who speak positively of what can be spoken of positively, we speak hopefully of what can be spoken of with hope; and we proclaim God‘s kingdom, God‘s goodness, his ultimate triumph over evil, the triumph of good through the Cross. 

That’s why we try to curb our own tongues as we speak to others, even in the simplest ways: in the checkout line at the grocery store or speaking about people we do not like or do not know or those close to us. How do we speak positively, how do we find not in this tragedy a good thing but in this kingdom of God a good thing?

What could we do differently, what should we do, what should we have done: all those questions are part of the heartbreak but the question to ask is where we move from disillusionment and disgust, a feeling of betrayal or loss or grief or anger or fear or nothing? How will we move from there to a place not of despair but of hope?

Hope is the last thing you would expect Jesus followers to have as they watched him expire on a Cross suspended above the heads of the few who watched.

Hope was far from anyone’s mind you would think and yet on the morning of the third day it came in an astonishing way, beyond hope to something like love and joy, and somehow that became the response of these bereft, grieving, lost people.

A peacemaking specialist told me the other day that when people had sat behind tables with name tags and microphones and spoke to each other formally they didn’t make a lot of progress until they got away from the table and their name tags and began to relate to each other on a human, even spiritual, level, as they broke bread together. 

Which is after all what we’re about isn’t it? We here do not separate people into camps and choose one side: what we do here is all come to the common table in the name of Christ, to the glory of God, and ask for the prince of peace to reign in our hearts and in this world as he does in heaven.

Among the many songs Linda Ronstadt performed and recorded was one by Bob Marley entitled “By the rivers of Babylon” which draws on verses from two Psalms that you may hear this fall in many churches: the last verse of Psalm 19, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord my strength and my redeemer,”  and the beginning of Psalm 137: “By the rivers of Babylon…”  which is a sad and angry lament about being in exile.

Invocation is often the use of that first phrase:  a preacher will say it before he begins to preach. But we rarely hear the second because of the anger and even rage that psalm expresses as the words go on from the beginning of the experience of exile. 

Yet many of us do feel in exile or as a stranger in a strange land from time to time even in a familiar place or somewhere far away from home. 

After the initial expression of loss, sorrow, and grief from psalm 19 the reggae song takes an interesting turn: moving to the hopeful and prayerful expressions of psalm 19, “Let the words of our mouth and the meditations of our heart be acceptable in thy sight.”

In these times it is especially welcome to have those last words of Psalm 19 so that we don’t immure ourselves in lasting despair or dwell in gratuitous negativity as we discuss these events. 

So let the words we speak, and the meditations at the deepest root of our being, be thoughts of praise and words of hope.

The Lessons Appointed for Use on the Sunday closest to September 14

Proper 19 Year B RCL Track 2

Isaiah 50:4-9a. Psalm 116:1-8. James 3:1-12. Mark 8:27-38.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mto7cdYDrxI

The Episcopal Church of Saint Matthew, Tucson.

BProper18

In the gospel reading for Sunday 5 September 2012, Jesus releases the tongue of a man with a speech impediment (Mark 7:31-37). Yet next Sunday, September 12th, 2021, we will listen to the admonishments of the letter of James to beware the tongue. And we will hear the apostle Peter both declare Jesus to be the Christ and rebuke him for forecasting the Passion.

Apparently it is not speech only that can be wicked or misleading. And after all as the 19th Psalm sings, “The heavens declare the glory of God!” We are invited to be part of that divine chorus of voices; what shall we do with the voices given us?

mustard

 

Mustard blooms between the rows of vines even before bud-break promises the arrival of grapes. And the mustard reaches above the heads of the vines, before the sprout of new growth. But it is not a tree. Why didn’t Jesus choose a redwood tree or a saguaro? They are big and their seeds are small. And birds nest in them. But as Michael Gibson pointed out Sunday, he was cooking a different fish. It wasn’t just about large from small, in the realm of seeds. It was about small to large among men and women. A few people, not noticed by the great, could rest in the convenient shade of an assuming bush, which thereby made itself and them mighty. Mighty -- that is, powerful -- because of their modesty. For they would depend not on their own size but on the size of God. And that is big enough for anyone. 

In Jesus’ land and in his day there were great and small among the ranks of people. Some had high status and great power, as some do today. And some, Jesus’ particular friends, not so much.

So the faith he sought to find he found on a small scale, among the ordinary, among the vines, where the promises lay still dormant as the mustard bloomed: but the promise was already there.

Soon a new harvest would come. One that depended on God for its abundance and its joy.

That is the kingdom of God. So small to see and so great in effect. 

Keeping the Faith on Memorial Day

 Over there is your great-uncle Francis and here is your great-great-uncle Thomas. Your great aunt Maud is there and Mary, your second cousin twice removed, is here. And you are standing on your great-great uncle Mark. I jumped! Great aunt Carol had taken me with her on her annual Memorial Day visit to the cemetery where her family, and mine, were buried. I have not taken up her practice but I think of her every year. It is some comfort to me, not just for the people whom I had never met and whose names I heard for the first time that day, but for all the people I have known that have passed away.

Memorial Day - Scouts decorate veterans’ graves with flags. People barbecue. And sometimes we remember.

This year I am thinking about the girl in the gospel, twelve years of age, who lay on her death bed as Jesus tarried on the way, to heal a woman of seventeen years’ affliction. He came, but apparently too late: “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” Jesus nevertheless went to the child’s bedside, saying, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” They laughed at him. But he dismissed the crowd, and took the girl by the hand: “Little girl, get up!” (Mark 5:21-43)

William Temple says, maybe Jesus wasn’t wrong. Maybe Jesus knew what he was doing. Maybe the girl was at the point of death. 

Or maybe “sleeping” was just a figure of speech. In any case, the father was in distress, and anticipating the end of his daughter’s life, when he came to Jesus in the first place. 

Anticipatory grief, grief in advance of the expected loss, can take many forms. The desperate plea of a father - not so desperate, as he had faith that this faith-healer could make his daughter well - or the casual disbelief of the onlooking crowd. 

What we are assured of is that those who are going before us into that good night are, like us, in the hands of God. There may be no great-aunt Carol for us to remember us, but we are held in an eternal embrace, which has not just started but has always been. For God is love, and that love is eternal. And in it we dwell.

"For the Lord will not cast off for ever: But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies." (Lamentations 3:31-32)

"For God made not death: neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living. For he created all things, that they might have their being: and the generations of the world were healthful; and there is no poison of destruction in them, nor the kingdom of death upon the earth: (For righteousness is immortal:) For God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity." (Wisdom of Solomon 1:13-15; 2:23)

"Remembering loved ones lost," Arizona Daily Star, Keeping the Faith, June 6, 2021. https://tucson.com/lifestyles/remembering-loved-ones-lost/article_dd5e2100-bdb6-11eb-a65a-7b667ac3ff6e.html

ask me anything again

"Purity of heart is to will one thing"--Soren Kierkegaard

When the Lord asked Solomon what he wanted, Solomon was wise enough to ask for wisdom. He knew he'd need that to honor and serve his people. And God granted his request. 

In the Gospel of Matthew, people exercise a crazy wisdom: a man liquidates all he owns to buy a field - for there is a treasure in it; a merchant sells all he has to purchase one great perfect pearl. 

And there is more crazy wisdom: a little yeast leavens a whole lump, a mustard seed grows into a bush that birds of the field can rest in. 

Little things grow big. 

If you want your dream to be, build it slow and surely; small beginnings, greater ends; simple things are holy. --Donovan Leitch.