Walking the Talk

Walking the talk is what really wakes people up. You can’t sleep when you’re plotting your next rally or food drive.  Doing something because you follow Jesus to serve human needs, or to respect people, or the planet, or to make beauty.  Doing it out of devotion, not obligation.  Can you feel the difference?  And it might turn out to be a whole lot of fun.  

Walking the talk can mean doing what you love, what brings you alive and makes you say, wow, God put me on this planet to do this!  Notice: the walk, AND the talk. Both are important.  Your body language can tell people that you love what you’re doing.  But when you acknowledge that there is something sacred about it, however you say that, you are honoring the Source, the living Spirit who invites each of us to join the dance of co-creation. Let others in on the secret of where your inspiration comes from.

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Brea Congregational United Church of Christ

June 3, 2018

Waking Up

Acts 20:7-12   On the first day of the week, when we met to break bread, Paul was holding a discussion with them; since he intended to leave the next day, he continued speaking until midnight.  8 There were many lamps in the room upstairs where we were meeting.  9 A young man named Eutychus, who was sitting in the window, began to sink off into a deep sleep while Paul talked still longer. Overcome by sleep, he fell to the ground three floors below and was picked up dead.  10 But Paul went down, and bending over him took him in his arms, and said, “Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.”  11 Then Paul went upstairs, and after he had broken bread and eaten, he continued to converse with them until dawn; then he left.  12 Meanwhile they had taken the boy away alive and were not a little comforted.

Our reading from Acts of the Apostles, did not make the lectionary.  It is nowhere in the assigned bible readings.  Paul preaching all night and some young man falling asleep and falling out of a third story window didn't make the cut, perhaps for obvious reasons.  The conventional interpretation of this story is that it shows Paul's power in reviving Eutychus from death, the same way the prophet Elijah was said to have done.  

I get quite a different message from this story.  I remember when I read it for the first time, when I was in a cover-to-cover Bible study.  I couldn't stop laughing.  By that point in my life I had sat through my share of sleep-inducing sermons.  It tickled me to know that the great preacher Paul sometimes put people to sleep too.  The youth’s name, Eutychus, means lucky in Greek.  That had me confused until my husband Scott explained it to me.  Eutychus was lucky to fall out a third story window and almost die so that he didn't have to listen to Paul keep preaching until dawn.

The next time I read this story, however, I had a different emotion.  By that time I aspired to be a preacher, and I dreaded the thought of doing it poorly, of not connecting with people.  At that point had a lot more sympathy for Paul.  Although one sermon sleeper of my acquaintance has assured me that it is the most holy rest of his week.

Falling out the window.  We hate to lose people from church.  There are no third-story windows here to hurt people on their way out.  We don’t fear losing people to eternal damnation, do we?  That is a serious amount of pressure I don’t want and I don’t need.  Do we need to keep our head count up?  That approach gets us nowhere.  If we happen to scare someone away because we stand for something, I suspect that’s better than putting everyone to sleep because we stand for nothing.

Some people who have left this church used it as a way station, a refuge.  You welcomed them when they didn't know where else to go with their unconventional beliefs, or their unconventional loves.  Here they were encouraged and strengthened, and then they moved on, to a church closer to home, or closer to their preferred style of music or theology or smells and bells… and perhaps that is as it should be, even if you do miss them. 

After church, I’ll walk you through a conversation that’s important for this church’s future.  Now I’m going to walk you through another conversation, about how we can be welcoming to young adults. Many of these things you are already doing.  By lifting them up, I hope to support you in doing them even better.

Who went to church as a kid?  Did you have Sunday School, or did you have to sit through the service?  Do you remember being incredibly bored for long periods of time?  Who went to youth group instead of the worship service?  In addition?  Youth group, I am told by a colleague who’s a faith formation expert, is a failed experiment. It graduates kids right out the window.  Even Southern Baptists, I am told, lose between 70 and 90% of their teens. My colleague had some intriguing ideas of how to connect kids to faith, and so hopefully to church.  Help them find an adult faith partner.  Help them find a real and meaningful ministry to do.  Talk them through what you really believe.  Help them know why your faith matters to you, and why your church matters to you.

And then a few of them come back eventually.  Here we have maybe four younger adults here on a typical Sunday.  Thirty years ago, when I got done with my nine-year vacation from church, I became one of two young adults in my congregation.  Maybe this is not a new trend.

Younger adults in Southern California are mostly living without church.  Some are SBNR: “spiritual but not religious.” That could mean, “Church is too judgmental and mean; I’ll get my spiritual nurture on the internet”, or it could mean, “I prioritize sleeping in my bed over sleeping in church.”  Younger adults who do go looking for a spiritual community, what do they want?    Well, we should ask them, but here are some things I’ve heard.

Non-judgment.  Young people have been judged and labeled and graded from the minute they entered preschool.  They’ve been told in so many ways what’s wrong with them, how they don’t measure up.  Let’s never do this.  Nothing shuts people down like being judged.  In a generation that got labeled and diagnosed for every behavioral quirk and just generally not being perfect, non-judgment could be such a blessing.  And didn’t Jesus say something about “do not judge”?   

Let’s just admit that not judging is hard.  Our culture is pervaded with judgment, we all get taught to judge ourselves and others early on.  Even if I can manage not to say something judgmental, my body language can still speak volumes. So here we get to practice not judging.  We may fail regularly.  Please don’t judge us for it!  It is my prayer that when anyone walks through our door, this is safe space, free of judgment.

Authenticity.  Be real.  If we could just trust enough that we’d be accepted and not judged, we might risk be real! Don’t pretend to be all put together when you’re not. Don’t we all want to be real?

I’ve heard people talk about “comparing my insides to your outsides and coming up short”—judging themselves failures, because the rest of us look like we have it together.  When we’ve most of us been a mess at times, and some of us are right now.  Perfect people are so annoying.  Just be real.

How do we invite authenticity?  Listen well to each other.  Don’t judge, even with body language.  And be real ourselves: vulnerable; let the broken bits show.  In our family, we like to be proudly off the bell curve.  Any other ideas on how not to judge?

Freedom.  To believe and to doubt, to explore practices of other faiths, to be their authentic selves, to speak their minds.  Do we have that here?  We almost take our freedom here for granted.  I wonder how we could advertise it.

Walking the talk. Walking the talk is what really wakes people up. You can’t sleep when you’re plotting your next rally or food drive.  Doing something because you follow Jesus to serve human needs, or to respect people, or the planet, or to make beauty.  Doing it out of devotion, not obligation.  Can you feel the difference?  And it might turn out to be a whole lot of fun.  Cooking for the shelter and eating with the guests has been that for some of you.

Walking the talk can mean doing what you love, what brings you alive and makes you say, wow, God put me on this planet to do this!  Notice: the walk, AND the talk. Both are important.  Your body language can tell people that you love what you’re doing.  But when you acknowledge that there is something sacred about it, however you say that, you are honoring the Source, the living Spirit who invites each of us to join the dance of co-creation. Let others in on the secret of where your inspiration comes from.

Walking the talk. Please don’t add it this to your to do list.  Don’t make it a burden.  Just make some space and see where your heart calls you.  Let your church friends invite you and let it be challenge and joy.  Or if the spirit is willing but the body is not able, cheer your church friends on, pray for them, and give them your love.

Passion.  Devotion.  Celebration.  Some of you make music.  Some make art.  Teach kids.  Love babies.  Some host fun events.  Some host justice events.  Some of you are so good at lifting up other peoples’ gifts and thanking them.  I see you, and all the things you do to show your love for people, and the planet, and God.  Thank you for walking the talk.  I don’t mind doing a lot of the talking, but I cannot do all the walking.  So thank you.

If Eutychus had been invited to walk the talk instead of being bored by Paul’s talk, he wouldn’t have fallen out of that window.  So how to keep young people awake and engaged?  Let’s listen to them, and follow them when they want to lead.  Let’s help them find their passions, and live them out.  And that applies to the rest of us too. When you catch the Spirit, and I see the delight on your face, that’s how I want to do church.  Amen.

Healing Power

I was raised in a worldview that said ordinary and non-ordinary reality, the physical and the spiritual, are separate, and the spiritual is pretty much none of our business. We can’t measure spiritual things, we can’t predict or control them, so what’s the use of messing with them?  Go to church, live ethically, and hope for the best.

So what happened to me?  I got religion.  The spiritual realm, non-ordinary reality, became real to me, and I wanted to understand it better.  I decided to explore spiritual healing as a possibly useful way to experiment with the spiritual realm.  This was in the early ‘90’s, pre-internet.  I found an ad for “spiritual healing classes” in a little local newspaper in Minneapolis. I joined two other students to study under Paula Sunray.  As you might guess, Sunray wasn’t her given name.  Paula was a survivor of breast cancer, a wounded healer.  She was passionate in her desire to share healing of body and spirit.  She used crystals and chakras and the archangels and white light meditations and all kinds of props.  Some of them I found very helpful, some of them I just found distracting.  Paula also had a lot of practical wisdom about how to care for others.  She taught us healer wannabe’s ways to care for ourselves, so that we could be of service to others.  She taught me how to spend a half hour totally focused on bathing somebody in the love of God, and there are few things I’d rather do.  

Working under Paula, it did become clear that I should keep my day job.  But I got what I came for, a little clearer sense of how to envision and invoke spiritual power.  That turns out to be pretty handy for pastoring a church, and for following Jesus generally.  I also got a chance to develop some solid guidelines for ethics in the practice of spiritual healing, which I consider crucial.

*****

Brea Congregational United Church of Christ

May 27, 2018

Healing Power

Mark 5:21-43   When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea.  22 Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet 23 and begged him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.”  24 So he went with him.

            And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him.  25 Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years.  26 She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse.  27 She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.”  29 Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.  30 Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?”  31 And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’”  32 He looked all around to see who had done it.  33 But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth.  34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

            5:35   While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?”  36 But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.”  37 He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James.  38 When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly.  39 When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.”  40 And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was.  41 He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!”  42 And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement.  43 He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

In the gospel of Mark, Jesus heals people left and right.  Everywhere he tries to go, lines of people are waiting at all hours to get healed, except in his hometown.  Jesus heals until he’s exhausted, escapes to some desolate place, and then people in need of healing track him down.  In today’s reading, he’s on his way to do one healing when a woman sneaks in for a quick drive-by healing.  Jesus heals.  Which, in Greek, is the same as saying Jesus saves. Did healing like that only happen two thousand years ago?  Did it happen at all? Jesus told his disciples to preach the good news, and heal.  We are his disciples.  What do we do with that invitation?

In seminary, I never studied Jesus’ healings as such.  I certainly never studied healing in the church today.  My friends in seminary and I had all experienced various kinds of spiritual healing, but we were not given a language or framework with which to share it with you.  So bear with me as I explore a topic that I have never preached about before.

If you say that physical healing through spiritual means is not possible, I respect that view.  That is what we have been taught in mainline churches, if only by omission.  Not possible.  This belief saves us from a lot of snake oil salesmen, and a lot of people who would take your money to build their egos and their wallets and their mansions.  It saves you from religions that require their members to use dicey spiritual healing instead of perfectly effective regular medical treatment.  It also saves you from hard questions about who gets healed and who doesn’t. It is a way of avoiding the horrible lies that you could have be healed “if you just had enough faith, were good enough, deserving enough, prayed hard enough…”

I believe that physical healing through spiritual means is possible. I am aware of the pitfalls associated with my views, and I do not ask you to participate in them.  But perhaps you might keep an open mind.  

I was raised in a worldview that said ordinary and non-ordinary reality, the physical and the spiritual, are separate, and the spiritual is pretty much none of our business. We can’t measure spiritual things, we can’t predict or control them, so what’s the use of messing with them?  Go to church, live ethically, and hope for the best.

So what happened to me?  I got religion.  The spiritual realm, non-ordinary reality, became real to me, and I wanted to understand it better.  I decided to explore spiritual healing as a possibly useful way to experiment with the spiritual realm.  This was in the early ‘90’s, pre-internet.  I found an ad for “spiritual healing classes” in a little local newspaper in Minneapolis. I joined two other students to study under Paula Sunray.  As you might guess, Sunray wasn’t her given name.  Paula was a survivor of breast cancer, a wounded healer.  She was passionate in her desire to share healing of body and spirit.  She used crystals and chakras and the archangels and white light meditations and all kinds of props.  Some of them I found very helpful, some of them I just found distracting.  Paula also had a lot of practical wisdom about how to care for others.  She taught us healer wannabe’s ways to care for ourselves, so that we could be of service to others.  She taught me how to spend a half hour totally focused on bathing somebody in the love of God, and there are few things I’d rather do.  

Working under Paula, it did become clear that I should keep my day job.  But I got what I came for, a little clearer sense of how to envision and invoke spiritual power.  That turns out to be pretty handy for pastoring a church, and for following Jesus generally.  I also got a chance to develop some solid guidelines for ethics in the practice of spiritual healing, which I consider crucial. 

I continue to practice and refine my modest spiritual healing skills. I became a Reiki master in 2012.  That means I am in theory able to teach others to do Reiki, though I haven’t yet done that. I have seen a few pretty powerful transformations in my Reiki practice.  I can pretty reliably promise people that they will feel very deep relaxation.  The retreat I took earlier this month in Virginia included a lot of spiritual healing, both giving it and receiving it. 

Let’s try looking at today’s bible reading as if spiritual healing is a real possibility.  I have some “hypotheses” about how it works.  See what you think.

Our reading from Mark’s gospel is another one of those story sandwiches, chiastic narratives to be technical.  The top slice of bread is Jairus, the head of a synagogue, kneeling at Jesus’ feet and requesting healing for his very sick daughter.  The sandwich filling is that drive-by healing. A woman who has suffered for years from a hemorrhage, and from useless medical treatments, sneaks power from Jesus’ robe.  But he senses it happening.  His disciples make fun of him for that.  He stops everyone, finds the woman, and lets her know that she hasn’t sneaked anything he would not have freely given.  And the bottom slice of bread is Jesus refusing to acknowledge that Jairus’ daughter is dead, arriving at her home, and with some drama from the wailing chorus, he heals her from her near death experience.

The first thing to notice in all this healing may be so familiar we overlook it. Jesus never turns down a healing request.  He never tells anyone they are not good enough, or deserving enough, or holy enough, or have not done the right rituals, or that God never gives you anything you can’t handle.  He never says their suffering was given by God to punish them or to make them a better person.  Jesus frequently says peoples’ suffering is caused by some kind of evil, and then he rids them of it.  He gets angry at anybody who try to stop him healing.  Jesus clearly wants everyone who asks to be made whole, body and spirit.  And his tenderness, his caring, comes through loud and clear in today’s stories.  Can you picture his strong hands gently enfolding that little girl’s small limp hand as he says, “Little girl, get up”?

As Christians, Jesus reveals God to us.  So a first hypothesis about spiritual healing:  Healing is God’s will for us, always; we don’t have to earn it or deserve it. You knew that, right?  Only at this church you might have heard in this way:  “Creative transformation is always luring us toward what is good and true and beautiful.”  That’s great, but people who actually think God would cause illness need to hear it more bluntly.  Healing is God’s will for us, always; we don’t have to earn it or deserve it. 

Next, Jesus is always talking about peoples’ faith making them well.  Uh oh, we have responsibilities.  Jesus tells the drive-by woman that her faith has saved her. He tells Jairus, don’t be afraid, just have faith. What is this faith, and how do we get it?  Simple.  If you believe you can’t, you won’t.  If you go to the doctor and submit to the treatment, it might work.  If you never go to the doctor, the treatment that you never get is guaranteed not to work for you.  Openness to God’s power, willingness to ask for help: that is the faith that makes healing possible. This requires vulnerability: we admit our brokenness, and we risk being disappointed.  And it requires willingness to change.  Our second hypothesis about healing:  God doesn’t force healing on us; healing can happen when we seek it out and are willing to receive it.

Imagine yourself at a dinner party with Jesus.  Would you be willing to tell him your particular hurts, and ask for his help?  Or are you fine, fine, everything’s fine, don’t worry about it?  God doesn’t force healing on us; healing can happen when we seek it out and are willing to receive it.

Faith is necessary, but not sufficient.  Jesus did not say, “Your faith will heal you every time.”  I do suspect there were times when Jesus couldn’t heal, certainly not completely.  Those stories were not reported.  Physical healing will fail every one of us at some point.  But Paula used to tell me that when we practice healing, some kind of healing always happens, be it physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, or relational.  Spiritual or relational healing… those are things churches could do, should do.

As you may already know, a large part of the drive-by woman’s healing was a healing of relationship. Her monthly period should have been, for an observant Jewish woman, an occasional time apart for rest and renewal.  Instead we suspect that it had become unending years of estrangement from God, or her family, or both.  The healing of her body was also a healing of her relationships.  It’s all connected.

Healing relationships…our church is already doing this.  We do it when we declare that sexual minorities are whole and good and beloved of God.  We do it when we visit people who can’t make it to church because of illness or disability. We heal relationships when we advocate respectfully for a more just social order.  We do it when we treat our shelter guests as friends. 

How about the church and the healing of our spirits?  There are epidemics of spiritual sickness around us.  We call them hatred and tribalism and scapegoating, violence and despair and loneliness.  Has anybody felt the effects of those things recently?  Just like in Jesus’ time.  These things are contagious, but our faith, and our faithfulness can help protect us and heal us from these spiritual sicknesses.  From this perspective, who among us needs healing?  Maybe all of us.  Do we seek the power of Jesus in our lives to overcome these things, to give us hope and healing? I do, daily.  Can prayer and study and supportive community help?  Can church help?  Absolutely! 

So here’s my third hypothesis: Healing is the work of the church.  Spiritual healing of physical illness may be too “woo-woo” for you, but healing from the things that warp our souls helps our bodies too.  Jesus’ power for healing did not end two thousand years ago.  We can claim it, and we can share it.  The language may seem odd to you, but we are already doing it here, and it makes a difference.

So here are those three hypotheses about spiritual healing. Put them to the test.

First, healing is God’s will for us, always; we don’t have to earn it or deserve it.

Second, God doesn’t force healing on us; healing can happen when we seek it out and are open and willing to receive it. 

Third, healing is the work of the church. And I am grateful to be able to name that ministry out loud.

May you experience Jesus’ healing power in your life, through your relationship with God, and with people who love God, and may you share that healing power.  Amen.

A Prayer for Mustard Seeds

A Prayer for Mustard Seeds 
Brea Congregational United Church of Christ 
May 20, 2018

(This prayer deserved its own post.  Thank you Michael for letting me share it!)

Thank you, dear God, for dangerous, peaceful people who have planted mustard seeds in our world.

Thank you for troublemakers and agitators, people who upset the norm, for protesters and marchers, for leaflet printers and speech-makers, for joke-tellers and those who speak truth to power, for people who refuse to sit down, refuse to stand up, people who won’t shut up or be shut out.

Thank you for parents who know better and for children who ask why.

Thank you for teachers who love knowledge and for students who speak bravely and prophetically even in the face of gun violence, for people who won’t take it anymore, who fight back, fight cancer, fight with chants and charts, teach-ins, sit-ins, and kiss-ins.

Thank you for Bill W. and for Nelson M. and for Ruth B.G.

Thank you, dear God, for people who peacefully resist and civilly disobey, people who use their minds and their words instead of guns and bombs.

Thank you for those who work to heal the wounds of Santa Fe and Palestine and Brea.

Thank you for justices who vote for justice, for the justice workers who keep working, and for the indefatigable power of love of all kinds.

Thank you, God, for Jesus Christ and for all prophets who overcome.

And, thank you, Loving One, for planting a seed of all of these things in each of us so that we, too, might lend a hand, a hug, a thought, a tear, to the effort to change the world from a place of fear and domination to a place where children and ice caps are safe, where justice and equal access wins the vote, where there’s enough room for everyone at the dinner table, where people stay at the negotiating table until problems are solved, where good is common and the Common Good prevails. 

In the name of peace, 

Amen 

© 2011, 2018 Michael D. Lewis 

All rights reserved.