Just Shine

Prayer is Connection

I sometimes get asked, “Does prayer really work?” I have a stock reply. “Prayer works. Prayer changes me.” At root, prayer is connection, relationship. It is self-connection: taking the time to look within, being honest, naming our own hopes and fears, griefs and joys. It is connection with others, when we pray for another person. It is connection with the larger world, when we enjoy and give thanks for the wonders around us, and ask mercy in dealing with forces beyond our control. Prayer is connection with the Source.

*****

Brea Congregational United Church of Christ

March 4, 2018

Demystifying Prayer

Mark 4:35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” 36 And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. 37 A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” 39 He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. 40 He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” 41 And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

Praying out loud, in public. How many of you are comfortable doing that? It doesn’t require a seminary degree. But it does require practice, and modeling by someone you trust other than your pastor. I’ve served six churches as solo or senior pastor. Five were United Church of Christ and one was Disciples of Christ, our sister denomination. At the Disciples church, which was born out of a holy roller camp meeting tradition, I could ask any of the church leaders to pray at the beginning of a church meeting, or over a meal, with a little warning on Sunday morning, and they’d happily accept. At UCC churches, not so much.

Growing up in my Catholic home, we said grace over dinner but no other prayers aloud outside of church, ever, though my parents were devout. Imagine my surprise when I asked my mom about prayer and she said, “Oh, I pray all the time. I don’t know how I’d get by without it.” You could have knocked my over. I was over 50 when I asked her.

Thanks to those of you who have done listening interviews with me. I intended to finish all my listening interviews with a personal prayer; it was written right on the list of questions. I succeeded with about three quarters of you. For the rest of you: sorry. Old habits die hard.

I have discovered that some UCC folks do have satisfying prayer life, if a quiet one. Sometimes a morning ritual, sometimes an ongoing conversation through the day, sometimes the very simple and effective prayers that Ann Lamott recommended in one of her early books: “please please please,” or “thank you, thank you, thank you,” depending on the situation.

Some people meditate. In my book, that’s prayer, of the listening variety. What other ways can we pray? Some people walk in nature. Or sing. There are so many kinds of prayer.

For those whose religion is about ethics and community, and you want to avoid things that might be labeled supernatural or superstitious, personal prayer may be problematic. If that describes you, please know you’re welcome here, and thank you for putting up with me.

Some people were told that they must pray a certain way, or must not pray a certain way. Or they have witnessed prayer that seemed self-serving, or unfair, or even cruel. Whatever the reason, it can be hard to relax into prayer when it has all that baggage attached. Your pastor is happy to talk that through with you over coffee.

Relationship with the Source of the creative transformation of the universe. You might think, how is that even possible? Or how is it possible not to be in relationship with a force that is in and through everything, including us? That relationship is there whether we acknowledge it or not. But when you live in the same house with someone, it is generally considered good form to acknowledge the person, have conversation with them; not treat them like furniture. If we picture God as a force rather than a person, that could get in the way of relationship. And that is why throughout history, people have personified God. Jesus did it too; he called God Father, and invited us too to imagine God as a loving parent. This assures me that we don’t have to be too careful about our prayers. Children who trust their parents are comfortable saying all kinds of outrageous things to them. The parent can sort it out. And if you do not know how to imagine a God you can relate to, you can also envision The Force from Star Wars.

Prayer is authentic relationship. It invites honesty, and it can transform you. Which is probably why the phrase “thoughts and prayers” as the only response to the latest gun massacre can seem like an obscenity. No real prayer is happening there.

So what’s prayer got to do with a boat in a storm? Mark’s gospel is not a literal history. It is a manual for discipleship, for following Jesus. We can map any story onto our own experience, and see where it takes us. The traditional mapping is as follows. Storm = trouble. We all get those. Deep water = the primordial chaos from which the world was created. That chaos is always there, ready to unmake. We moderns have been good at staving off chaos. But the second law of thermodynamics will get us all in the end. Boat = the church! Or any other community. We never pray in a vacuum. Jesus = God. The love that created the universe, and that is with us in the boat. And the disciples’ cry: “Teacher don’t you care that we’re going to die?” There’s an honest prayer for you. And then Jesus stills the storm. Prayer answered!

But there’s always more going on than the standard interpretation. What’s Jesus doing sleeping in the boat? What happened to the God who neither slumbers nor sleeps in Psalm 121? Jesus is having human limitations again, as Mark and only Mark allows him. Luke and Matthew don’t copy this story. Mark pictures Jesus asleep in a half-sunk boat in a stormy sea. Hemust have been dreadfully tired.

According to Mark, Jesus was grumpy when he was woken up. He challenged the disciples’ faith… possibly their faith in themselves; that they didn’t need to panic. And don’t we all get ourselves panicked now and then about a tempest in a teacup? We certainly notice when other people do. If we want to participate in building God’s Kingdom, we can practice praying before we panic. Or at least shorten the lag time. That little bit of perspective we find when we take time for prayer often right-sizes our problems, and leaves us in a calm enough state to be of service to others.

But some storms are very real. They are beyond our power to fix, maybe beyond our power to endure. And now we get to the crux of the matter. Jesus stilled the storm. Prayer answered. What if our storm doesn’t get stilled? Prayer unanswered?

Remember what prayer is: relationship, not problem solved. This is where my process-relational theology is showing. If God were all-powerful, controlling everything, then God would either decide to fix things, or not. In an intimate relationship with one more powerful than we, we get a loving and reassuring presence in the midst of the storm. We get coaching on boat steering and boat bailing and boat repair. We get told to call the Coast Guard. (Prayer is not a substitute for ordinary reality help!) We might even get a scold now and then, but we won’t be abandoned. And sometimes the storm stills. And sometimes the storm persists, but we get the strength and guidance to endure it. And sometimes the boat sinks. And then, as the cross shows us, the sacred will go down with us into the depths, into chaos and unmaking, and not let that unmaking have the last word.

If we make prayer about getting the outcome we want, we will continue to be mystified, and probably offended. But if we trust that prayer is relationship with one who is powerful and loving, and wants to help us thrive but doesn’t force anybody, instead partners with us, if we allow it, to create a more just and loving and beautiful world… then prayer is nurture, challenge, reassurance, accountability, guidance, forgiveness, renewal, strength, inspiration, mercy, and hope.

And if prayer is still mystifying you, there is one way to fix that. Just start doing it. See how it works for you. You can pray, “to whom it may concern,” and that can work surprisingly well. Try whatever form of prayer you like, and if that doesn’t work, try something else.

I have several friends who are not shy about praying in public, and it is so precious when they offer to pray for me, right on the spot, out loud. I’ll be telling them my current struggle, asking them for advice, and they’ll say, “Have you prayed about that?” and I’ll say, “Oh right. Good idea.” And we’ll laugh, because we’ve had that conversation before. I keep forgetting that I don’t have to pilot the boat alone. We don’t have to wait till it’s sinking to ask for help. Amen.

Choice and Courage

Taking up your cross can be taken to mean simply doing the hard thing because it is the right thing. Which thing? That thing that you need to do. It’s between you and God. It’s your choice to do it, and if you do choose, God will give you the courage to follow through.

I’ll tell you one hard thing I’m doing. I’m paying attention. I’m listening to news I’d rather tune out for my own peace of mind, though I am trying to avoid the gossip that passes for news. I’m learning about the Powers in our time and the people who are being crushed by them and I’m using all my spiritual tools to protect myself from the meanness and desperation around politics that early Christians would call demonic. I’m going to stay woke, as they say, and keep my gospel values, and I’m figuring out where and how I can take some small actions for reconciliation or for justice.

*****

Brea Congregational United Church of Christ

February 25, 2018

Choice and Courage

Mark 8:31-38 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

34 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 36 For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37 Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38 Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

(My spoken version diverged from this considerably; check out https://www.facebook.com/groups/56642580963/ if you're curious.)

Jesus needs to talk to some marketing experts. This “take up your cross” thing is not going to go over well in recruiting followers. Ask the prosperity gospel preachers; they’ll tell you to just skip this passage altogether. The story sells better if you say only Jesus had a cross. Since he obviously overcame it, we can just jump on his bandwagon to ascend to heaven.

Mark clearly did not consult the marketing experts because he doesn’t hold back in this passage at all. “Get behind me, Satan,” says Jesus to Peter. Jesus wasn’t speaking to Peter at all. He was speaking to the temptation Peter gave him. Yes, according to Mark Jesus was really tempted, because Jesus was really human. The temptation went, “You don’t have to do this the hard way, Jesus. You can just be a law-bending rabbi, settle down in Galilee, a safe distance from Roman power and the corrupt Temple leaders in Jerusalem. You don’t need to make a stand before the Powers that Be.” But apparently he did. And according to Mark, so do we.

The cross is a pivotal symbol of our faith. As any pivotal symbol, it has been understood different ways. But the original meaning of the cross before Christianity was: an instrument of torture used by the Roman empire not only to kill criminals and enemies of the state, but to shame them utterly, deny them humanity; to make of them such horrors as to terrorize their family and community into submission. Only it didn’t work with Jesus and his followers.

Until the fourth century after Jesus’ death, the cross was not widely displayed by Christians. Only after crucifixion was banned in the Roman Empire did the symbol of the cross take hold. The cross was the means to an end, an obstacle that was overcome. So we don’t get to glorify or seek out suffering. (Actually for me that’s never been an issue.) But neither do we always get to take the easy way out, when we are called to love and serve as Jesus showed us.

The cross is strong medicine. Strong medicine, taken in the right amount, for the right purpose, can save. Taken at the wrong time, it can do great harm. So you won’t hear me preaching about the cross every week.

In Catholic grade school my teachers thought it fitting to bring us into the sanctuary each Lent to walk the stations of the cross. This is a long meditation on fourteen different detailed images of Jesus’ suffering and death, for the purpose of immersing oneself in the experience. The stations of the cross form the plotline of the movie “The Passion of the Christ,” rated “R.” Strong medicine. Possibly appropriate for some adults. Never appropriate for a child with a good imagination.

It is natural for us to recoil from suffering. It is healthy. Yet sometimes we can’t avoid suffering. We are also very capable of facing suffering when it is for a good purpose. My husband Scott and I were debating which is more painful, a kidney stone or natural childbirth. He had the kidney stone, and I had the natural childbirth. I’m pretty sure his was worse. Pain level aside, there is nothing redeeming about a kidney stone; it is just something to be endured. The pain of childbirth has an awesome purpose.

Most Christians are pretty sure Jesus endured the cross for a good purpose. We differ, however, on what that purpose was. New Testament writers differ on what that purpose was. Theologians have argued about this extensively. A variety of explanations have been given; you can track them down in Wikipedia under Atonement in Christianity.

Let me say a few words about the most common understanding of what Jesus accomplished on the cross. Substitutionary atonement has been the dominant explanation in the Western church for many centuries. Substitutionary: Jesus substituted himself for us, took our punishment to pay our debt to God, the great lawgiver in the sky who required the death penalty from all of us for our sins. Atonement- we are at one now, all good. Does this make sense to you? It makes Jesus sound so heroic and generous… and it paints a picture of God the punishing Father that I want nothing to do with. But then, God accepted the sacrifice and became loving and forgiving, so this works for some people. I think this is basically Paul’s view– and maybe understandable with the personal load of guilt that Paul had.

Taking up your cross and following Jesus makes no sense if the point of the cross is substitutionary atonement. Jesus already did the work; put that cross down! So let’s try a view that may resonate better with you: moral influence atonement. Kind of a lame name. Jesus went to the cross to show us the lengths to which his love, God’s love, would go to get through to us; to death and beyond. We can trust that he truly accepts us. And in relationship with him we can stop being selfish and love generously too. To the extent that liberal Christians deal with the cross at all, it has usually been with this understanding.

To some people, this understanding of the cross seems wimpy. And if you keep the whole experience at arm’s length, I suppose it is. But if you seek to draw close to such a radical love, in my experience, it is transformative. Let us call this drawing close participatory atonement. When we follow Jesus we are invited, in our own small way, to sacrifice ourselves, so that we can be transformed. To lose our life, so that we can find it

I suppose the stations of the cross were participatory in a way. Well, they backfired on me pretty spectacularly. A reminder not to force any interpretation of the cross onto someone else.

In Mark’s view, Jesus didn’t get a cross because Rome made a mistake, or was tricked by God or Jewish leaders into executing an innocent man. For Mark, the cross is Jesus going before us to face the worst that the Powers of empire and warped values and death-dealing injustice can dish out. Jesus became powerless and helpless, the lowest of the low, and was crushed to death, and yet his life, his Spirit, could not be crushed, and he lived on in and with his followers, and lives on still.

Those of us who are in positions of comfort and power get invited to follow Jesus into places we don’t want to go. Matthew got a little more systematic about it; in his Gospel, Jesus says, whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me. If we refuse to let go of comfort and status for those who have none, how could we enter an upside-down Kingdom?

Wow, this is hard. Participating in Jesus’ work of the cross is incompatible with capitalism and nationalism and war or political feuding. It is incompatible with NIMBY and gated communities. People who embrace the cross fully are the saints and revolutionaries, people so courageous we want to be inspired by them, but maybe not too much; it would be too hard. No wonder substitutionary atonement won the theological debates in the church of the Roman Empire, and is still winning many places today. Substitutionary atonement is a transaction between the individual and God. It allows systematic injustice go unchallenged.

So, how will we take up our crosses? One thing I want to make very clear: your cross is the cross you are given by God, that you accept of your own choice, and not the one any human being forces on you. How convenient if someone in power goes about assigning powerless people their oppression with the church’s blessings. One of the ways this strong medicine has been warped is by church authorities telling victims of domestic violence: well, this is just your cross to bear. Slave owners and the religion of slave owners used to tell slaves that their bondage was their cross to bear. Bosses have told laborers that unsafe or degrading working conditions were their cross to bear. Nobody gets to tell you what is and what isn’t your cross. That’s between you and God.

This church did a hard thing, the right thing, by becoming open and affirming; publicly proclaiming gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgender and queer people, among others, are welcome here. You do a hard thing, the right thing, when you make your hall into a homeless shelter each summer and treat the people in it with respect and care.

The first time I helped out in a homeless shelter was in a church basement in Minneapolis in 1992. I was very excited to be walking the talk of my newly recommitted Christian faith. I was also petty scared that as one of two overnight volunteers in that large shelter I would be getting four hours off duty to sleep. I wasn’t in the least scared about being a young woman and the only volunteer staff in a room full of forty people. My cross looks different from your cross.

Before I arrived, I was tutored by my friend Ardys. Ardys liked to cooked piles of roast chicken for the guests, and she said, “You have to go sit with them and talk with them and hear their stories.” So I had a long talk with Ed. Ed had open-heart surgery not long before, and between not being able to work and not being able to pay his medical bills, that surgery made him homeless. See how the Powers hide their dirty work? Surgery didn’t make him homeless. Having no sick time or medical coverage made him homeless.

I noticed that the crew that was cooking that night didn’t sit with the guests; they ate in the kitchen. Actually eating with homeless people was out of their comfort zone, I suppose. Their loss. At lights out, a guest who was bent out of shape at getting his TV show interrupted grumbled at me, “You people don’t care about us, you’re just here for the money.”

“Excuse me sir,’ I said. “I am a volunteer.” Hearing me, his jaw dropped. He apologized. “Really? You’re doing that for us, for free?” He looked like I had just given him a surprise birthday party.

That was the first time I learned a lesson about carrying crosses that I’ve relearned many times since. You can’t carry someone else’s cross. But when they know that you are beside them, and you care, their cross can feel a whole lot lighter.

Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. Losing the life we think we should have according to our plans, to participate in something bigger than us. Living for a purpose, God’s purpose. Participating in the upside-down Kingdom where nobody is rejected. Living courageously. Living faithfully.

Our sanctuary cross is empty, because Jesus didn’t stay on it. And we don’t have to either. Nor should any human being. With Jesus’ help, we can choose to carry our cross with courage, and we can also join Jesus at the very large and joyful and abundant celebration that is the Kingdom of God, on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.

Touching Wonder

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers…

“This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. . . . And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun…

“If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed…” Thomas Merton, March 18, 1958

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Brea Congregational United Church of Christ

February 18, 2018

Touching Wonder

Mark 9:2 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, 3 and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. 4 And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. 5 Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 6 He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. 7 Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” 8 Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.

9 As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. 10 So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean.

“If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed…” Thomas Merton, March 18, 1958.[1]

How should we label experiences like this when they happen in our time? How can we put them into our modern categories of thought?

Transcendent. Mystical. Spiritual. Divine.

Metaphysical. Metaphorical. Psychological. Delusional.

One thing is clear. Most old-line Protestant churches have gone to great lengths to avoid dealing with “those kinds of experiences,” and we are paying a price for it.

Another story.

Once upon a time, on a radiant hilltop, a man had an experience of wonder. An experience he labeled divine. So he built a shrine, and in that shrine he did his best to put words to that experience. Words could not do it justice, but others gathered just to experience a little of that reflected glory, to be inspired and enlivened. After many years, though, the man grew old and frail, and he had to pass on the telling of wonder to others.

Those others were kind and generous, and had in fact been running the shrine for years already. But they only knew reflected glory. They were not very inspiring. They had a familiar ritual around the telling of the story of wonder. Some participants felt comfort from the ritual. Some were comforted by the thought that the divine had been sighted at that very shrine at some time in the past. But to some the ritual began to feel dry. Attendance fell. The shrine-keepers got grumpy, and started making rules about attendance and shrine upkeep, rules which were never needed before. And you can imagine how well that went over.

Meanwhile, a former participant from the shrine was wandering, and hoping to renew the sense of wonder that didn’t seem to be at the shrine anymore. To her great surprise, at a very ordinary-looking bend in the river, she had a radiant, life-changing experience. It was clearly an experience to be shared. So she invited a few friends to come each week and sit at the riverbank while she told her story of wonder. And eventually they built a shrine. Also, there was a great tree on the plain…but that’s another shrine.

God is still speaking. I love that slogan of the United Church of Christ. It says that there is no whole and final truth when it comes to our understanding of the sacred. More will be revealed. We can continue to touch wonder today, whether that experience happens in our logical left brain, through some transformative idea, or in our creative, relational, mysterious right brain, through some visionary or creative experience. And I don’t get to tell you that your experience is wrong, or that you are wrong for not having the right kind of experience. You all have some experiences of touching wonder, affirming meaning and value, even if you prefer not even to categorize that experience as spiritual.

These experiences can be hard to put into words. Maybe that’s why so many of us treasure the words of Michael’s prayers. But these experiences are not really hard to have, if you make space for them. What works for one person may not work for another. I hope worship works for you in this way, at least now and then.

One ancient Christian practice that invites the sacred is guided meditation in the tradition of Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises. So let’s do it. Let’s do a guided meditation together. If at any time you do not want to do this, just open your eyes. Different things work for different people.

Please close your eyes now. Get settled and comfortable in your seat. Take a deep slow breath, and release it. Now in your mind’s eye, get ready to witness the scene of our bible reading in your imagination. I will read the scripture, and you put yourself into the scene. Look for details. Let your imagination play the scene like a movie. Let your senses engage. What do you see, hear, feel, smell?

Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves.

And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.

And there appeared to them Elijah, the greatest prophet, with Moses the lawgiver, who were talking with Jesus.

Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three shrines, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 6 He did not know what to say, for they were terrified.

Then a deep fog enshrouded them them, and from the fog there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”

Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.

If you are still in the scene, your time is nearly over. Perhaps you want to say one last thing, or listen to one last thing, or get a hug.

Now come back to the here and now.

Wiggle your fingers and toes, and when you’re ready, open your eyes.

Now take a minute or two to reflect, and if you like, jot some notes.

In our Lenten journey toward Easter over these next six weeks, I invite you to take time and make space to touch wonder, in whatever way might work for you. If you’d like to try Ignatian-style exercises, there is a handout in the church entry just left of the doors that you can take. And you may touch wonder in nature, prayer, music, special people, reading and conversation, meditations of different kinds, art and dance, and much more.

May the still-speaking God embrace you and guide you and inspire you on your journey in Lent. Amen.

[1] From Confessions of a Guilty Bystander

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Prayer is Connection

Choice and Courage

Touching Wonder