Love Always Falls Through the Cracks: A Sermon on Matthew 15:21-28

Preached @ Fayetteville Presbyterian Church in Fayetteville, WV June 6, 2010

I want to tell you a story about my mum. She is a darling woman and so precious. We've always had a special relationship, my mum and I. She knew I would never be the one to stay close to home and take over the family business, but she loved me nonetheless, hesitatingly awaiting the day when I would leave her and get married.

But something happened and my mum began to fear I would leave her sooner than expected and it wouldn't be to get married, but rather to die. It started slowly. One day I tried standing up from a seated position and I just plopped right back down in my sweat. My muscles ached from straining. I was a little confused. When I talked to my mom about it, we decided it must be growing pains, like my older brother had when he was my age. He had some knee problems when he was growing up and the doctor said his body was just having some problems catching up with how fast he was growing.

This sort of thing began to happen more often. Then I began losing weight. And I wasn't working to lose it. I lost so much weight that my uncle thought I might be anorexic.

One morning I couldn't get out of bed. I could move, but just not enough to pick myself up. I called to my parents who rushed to help me. It was pretty embarrassing. I couldn't even get out of bed to use the bathroom. My parents had to take me. As the day went on, I got worse. Whereas I could move when I woke up, by mid afternoon I could no longer move my legs or feet and my arms and hands were getting weaker by the hour. You could almost tell the time of day by how many fingers I had the strength to straighten.

Breathing became hard. My speech became slurred. My heart was racing.

Mum was scared. Dad wanted to get the local doctor. Ever the logical Greek, he assumed the doctor could figure things out. I had been to the doctor earlier that week and he thought I might have some rare disease called thyrotoxic periodic paralysis. My mother was skeptical. She had never fully bought into Greco-Roman philosophy and medicine like Dad had. She was still true to her Canaanite roots and all its mysticism. She thought something else was at foot, something beyond the physical realm.

She asked Dad not to go to the doctor. She tried to whisper in the other room so I couldn't hear her, but whatever was going on with my body wasn't effecting my ability to hear. To this day, I remember exactly what she said. She said every word with care, as if they were the most important words she would ever speak. "Dougie," that's my dad's name. "Dougie, please don't go, not to the doctor. I hear there is a man in town, a man who can heal people ... a man who can," and the next bit she said sotto voce, "who can exorcise demons." And then she began to sound rushed, as if my father was leaving. "Please, Dougie, oh please, go to him. He'll be able to help our daughter."

All I heard before my mother came back to me was her tears. She looked torn when she entered the room again, torn between trusting her husband, trusting her intuition, and fearing for my life. She looked at me through her tears and I watched her countenance change to something I didn't understand at the time. She closed her teary eyes and moved her lips as if she was speaking, but no sounds came from her mouth. Then I lost consciousness.

Everything else that transpired I know only through the words of others. Mom opened her eyes when I let out a blood-curtling scream. She looked and I was wreathing and wrenching on the floor. My back arched up from the ground and I spewed blood from my mouth. I started to make noises she couldn't comprehend. She swears they sounded like words, as if I were speaking a language neither she nor I knew.

She had to take all of our clean drinking water to put out the fire we had going for supper, because I had rolled through it. Her tears stopped and she gained a strength beyond herself. Throwing herself upon me, she screamed for help, a scream heard by the neighbors.

Three of the neighbors came by, all of them brothers in their late twenties. They came in and were immediately dumbstruck. Mom yelled to them with authority, telling them to take hold of me and bind me. I bit one of them and to this day he crudely jokes that I should wear a muzzle. These guys were never the friendliest. They never listen to women, but I guess a mother in duress carries an authority that subverts patriarchy.

Once I was bound, she commanded the oldest brother to tend to the youngest brother's wound. And then she ran off, faster than any chariot those brothers had ever seen. My mother did not care that it would likely be dark when she was returning, which was a dangerous time for anyone to be out, let alone a woman. She did not care what people would think about a married woman running through town at that time of day, even though she was running to another man.

You might have heard of this man to whom she was running, he has quite the reputation. Mostly you hear good things about him, well, good and strange things, but he is certainly not beyond reproach in many a persons' eyes.

He was a Israelite man in his thirties, a sort of teacher in their culture, a rabbi. His name was Yeshua, or Jesus as you all call him. Apparently he wandered around a lot and people followed him. Some of them he asked to follow him. Others he sent away. He is said to make the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the mute to speak, and the lame to walk. He healed many maladies and exorcised demons.

Most people said he had great compassion, which is not something I would ever expect of an Israelite. My people used to live in his land until his people came in and committed heinous acts of genocide, leaving barely any of us left. My family is one of the few Canaanite families remaining in the area. To imagine, my mother going to this man. His people hated ours! And I heard this man spent a lot of time with less-than-reputable people: tax collectors, beggars, lepers, and prostitutes. What might he do to my mother?

My mother found him and while she was still a ways away, she cried out with a strange confidence, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David, my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed!" I barely believe she had enough wind to yell and still be polite enough to call this man "Lord." And she didn't beat around the bush at all, she wanted him to know she knew who he was, so she called upon his ancestry, calling him a son of David, an Israelite.

Despite his reputation, this man was not so compassionate and ready to help my mother. He said nothing to her! She repeated herself as she got closer and he continued ignoring her. She said it again, lowering her voice when she was a polite distance from him. He remained silent, as if she were imploring one of our human-made idols. My mother had come so far and she believed he could and would help. Had it been me there, I would have wondered if this character only had compassion on his own people or if he was waiting for some sort of "advance," either monetary or sexual, before he would respond. Lots of miracle workers are only out for money and favors.

My mother says none of these thoughts crossed her mind. She remained hopeful and repeated herself, her voice never breaking with tears: "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David, my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed."

The men around him began to stir. They could no longer stand my mother to be in their midst. To them she was nothing but a sweaty, mad, terribly annoying Canaanite woman. Those dolts. One of them had the gall to say, "Jesus, please. Send her away, because she keeps shouting at us."

So he did: "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Although he said no, my mother wasn't ready to give up. She rose and boldly got in front of him to bow before him. "Lord, help me!"

Perhaps he misunderstood my mother. She was still begging for mercy. She says her voice wreaked of desperation, but I wonder if he thought she was commanding him [in v. 22 her imperative is aorist active, in v. 25 it is present active, emphasizing the need]. Whatever he thought, his answer was far from polite: "It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs" [the Greek here is the diminutive form of dog, perhaps meaning "puppy"].

My father was none to happy when mother told him that part of the story. Jesus had completely dismissed her and rudely. He may have used the cutesy, diminutive word for dog, but a female dog is a female dog, puppy or not.

Any normal woman's spirit would have been broken. Certainly any sane person, woman or not would have given up and gone home, tail between her legs. Perhaps my father had come back with the doctor. He would worry about my mother. Maybe he would be mad. Maybe the doctor could heal me. Maybe the doctor had already healed me. Was I even still alive? Were those pesky neighbors still keeping watch over me? All kinds of thoughts could have been going through her head, beating her hopes to a pulp.

Not my mum. She was not broken. She admits she was confused, but her love for her daughter created an unbreakable faith. She continued hoping she could change his mind, hoping she could convince him that all people deserve mercy, not just Israelites. Without missing a beat, my mother replied, "Yes, Lord; but even the little dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters' table."

I wish I could have seen his face. I can only imagine it was shock. He had sat around like one of our deaf idols as she prayed to him. But he could sit deaf no longer when her persistence began to annoy him and his friends. So he made that snide remark about my mother, hoping she would go away and seek some other miracle worker. Little did he know, my mother wasn't seeking out some miracle worker, she was seeking out the wisdom and power of the God of Israel.

Even though we were Canaanites, we heard those rumors about Jesus that circulated about him being a messiah and a man of God. We knew some of Israel's stories, especially since they had killed so many of our ancestors. We knew their God made a covenant with a man named Abraham and that covenant was not only to bless Abraham, but to make Abraham and his descendants a blessing to all nations. Now, certainly some of his descendants weren't much of a blessing to us, but my mother knew this Jesus could redeem their mistakes and be a blessing, if he were, indeed, a man of God and savior to his people.

She wasn't part of God's Israel and Jesus said he was only sent to Isael. But for what purpose? ln that moment she was confident that Israel was chosen in order to bless everyone. First the blessing would go to Israel and next to the Gentile, even the Canaanite, even if she had to call herself a female dog eating Israel's small, leftover blessings.

I don't know what his face looked like, but she convinced him. "O lady," he said, "your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish." He didn't ask her to become part of Israel. He didn't tell her she needed to born again. He didn't command her to leave her family and follow him. He didn't tell her to sell her possessions and give the money to the poor. He didn't even examine her faith, but he admired it. "Your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish." Before my mother could thank him or exchange other pleasantries like names and what-not, my mother sprang to her feet with joy and grace. She sprinted home even faster than she had run away.

When I came to, I saw those three men standing in the corner of our house, cowering. I hurt all over. My arm was broken, my nose was bleeding, and my legs were badly burnt, among other atrocious pains. I tried to move when I realized I was all tied up. I began to panic. Why was I tied up and what had those three brothers done to me. Where were my parents? What was happening?

I was struggling to free myself when my mother ran up to me and kissed me. She ran her hands through my dirty, tangled hair and whispered, "It's OK, my love. It's all over."

I began to cry. I still didn't know exactly what was going on, but I knew I could move again. My breathing and heart beat normalized as fear left my body. Mom was untying me and the three bothers scuttled away hurriedly, although they still deny how cowardly they acted throughout the whole event.

My mother freed me. With her hands she untied the ropes that bound me, but it was her faith that healed me--her faith, her hope, her love, that man Jesus, and his God.

I don't know where I would be today if my mum had not convinced Jesus to break bread and give her some crumbs. Ever since then, no one in my family has ever been quiet around inequality and oppression, no matter how different someone might be from us and no matter how much we might disagree with their ideology or disapprove of their actions. We know all blessings are meant to be shared. Miraculously, no matter how many times we share this bread Jesus broke for us, it never runs out, whether we enthusiastically share large pieces or reluctantly allow crumbs to fall onto the ground.

Love always falls through the cracks, sustaining every despised or oppressed person until all are sustained with the same food, and brought up to share at the same table, none of them as dogs, all of them as children of God.

Unspoken Words, Unheard Voices: A Sermon on Genesis 19:17-26

Preached @ Fayetteville Presbyterian Church in Fayetteville, WV July 4, 2010

Let's work our imaginations this morning. Let's imagine ourselves as Lot.

Three strangers come into town. Being Christian, we offer them hospitality, right? We couldn't wait for them to waltz into church before being friendly with them. We always go out of our way to see new people in town and invite them into our home, the same home that houses our two young daughters. Right?

Not this guy. I've got all sorts of wicked good excuses. I'm an introvert. I'm "busy." I've got a family to attend to. Besides, look at those new people. They don't have enough tattoos and piercings for me to be friendly with them. I know their type, they will judge me as some crazy, drugged-up lunatic. Plus, I must protect my family from these people I have never met, these people who could be the most wonderful people in the world, but are probably part of that small section of our population that does terrible things to people.

But, the main character of this story acts differently, so let's continue pretending.

We meet these people in town. We insist they come into our home, at least for tea. Once in our home, we feed them a full meal and prepare a place for them to sleep. They praise us for our hospitality, to which we reply, "Oh really, it is nothing. Please, do tell me more about your journey. I am highly interested."

Then we hear a ruckus outside. On our way to peek out the window, because, let's face it, who in here would not want to know what was going on outside? It is a small town we live in, after all. Just before we can lift up one of the slats in the blinds, we hear a loud, pounding knock on the door. We jump a little and go to the door and the demanding, urgent knock.

We only intend to open the door a crack, but we can't stop from swinging the door open wide when we see so many people outside. It is truly flabbergasting. The fourth of July parade was earlier. The fireworks have long been over. What is everyone doing at our door at this time of night?

As if the whole situation isn't unbelievable enough, the event moves beyond the absurd. The person who knocked at the door, obviously the group's spokesperson, says, and I kid you not, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so we can rape them."

We stand with mouth agape. We blink a few times. The men don't go away when we open our eyes again. They are real. This really is happening.

We step outside, shutting the door behind us. We think we might be able to reason with these people. Perhaps we can expose their sins to them with an offer they will obviously have to refuse. "Look, everyone," we say, "you cannot honestly want to rape the men in my home. It is wrong! Besides, I have two young, virgin daughters," which is a lie, because our daughters are married. "I'll bring out the girls and you can have your way with them."

This cunning offer will surely make the mob realize their sins. Since they will not want to rape their neighbors, they will realize how wrong rape is even to strangers.

But the people begin to scoff: "You aren't originally from the area. Sure, you've been here a while, but you are still a newbie in our eyes. Who are you to condemn us?" Because of what they presume as haughtiness, they declare they will treat us worse than the men who just came into town that day.

The three men violently open the door, drag us inside, and shut it quickly behind them. These men repaid our hospitality by saving our lives, even though we never expected anything in return.

The night's events get heavier and heavier. The men tell us they are messengers from God and they are going to destroy the city because of the peoples' sins. Afterwards, we somehow manage to get to sleep, perhaps hoping we will wake up and realize the whole day had been a nightmare.

No such luck. In the morning, the men rush into our bedroom and tell us, our spouse, and our daughters and their husbands to flee immediately. If we don't leave right away, we will be destroyed with the city. Unlike the future exodus out of Egypt, no lamb's blood will save anyone from the destruction. Rain falls on the just and the unjust, whether it is water or fire.

We rub our eyes and slowly sit up in bed. We nod while yawning. What time is it, exactly? Can't they destroy the city at a better hour? Do they know how long it takes those two girls to get ready in the morning? Even their husbands want to take a good amount of time giving their hair that "just got out of bed look." And really, no one in the household had proper time to pack. Can the Lord's imminent judgment wait a few hours or, better yet, a few days?

The men grab us like they grabbed us last night at the door. They rush with us, our spouse, and our daughters out the door, all of us in our pajamas. The girls' husbands refused to leave. The men hurry us all to the city limits and yell, "Run for your lives! Neither look back nor stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the distant hills or you, too, will be destroyed."

Not this guy.

We put on our cunning, again. We know these men like us and we haven't fully woken up. We try to make a concession in a not-too whiny tone. "Thanks for saving my life and all, but the hills? Really? I just got up. You didn't give me time to have breakfast, use the bathroom, put on my good running shoes, or, most importantly, have my morning coffee. As you can see, I don't work well without my morning coffee. If I have to run to the hills to be safe, I might as well go to the Cathedral Café and have my coffee while I watch the city burn to the ground around me. I won't be able to make it safety. Listen. You see that place in the valley? It's really small. Why can't I just go there? It is so insignificant and, best of all, it is close."

"Fine," one of the men replies. "Go there and be safe. I'll wait until you arrive. Now go!"

We're pretty special, ain't we. God saved us from judgment and let us disobey after a small concession. And all because we didn't want to go all the way to the hills. Now we can take our sweet time, because God won't do anything until we arrive.

So we're on our way to this little city in the valley, a city the three men did not want us to go to, because they were going to destroy it. On our way, our spouse looks back towards Sodom and Gomorrah, which the men told us not to do at the same time they told us not to stop in the valley. We were given special privileges, but our spouse turns into a pillar of salt.

Weird, huh? We whine and everything is OK. Our spouse catches a glimpse to the place we long called home and were asked to flee from at a moment's notice and--BAM!--pillar of salt. Yes, she disobeyed, but so did we.

The spouse didn't ask like we did. Perhaps God wanted to be asked, not just disobeyed. Who knows? Regardless, our spouse's legacy lives on forever in the words of Jesus in Luke 17:32: "Remember Lot's Wife." The idea is, if you are not ready to leave at a moment's notice, you might never be able to leave. The message is a good one and I will not try to deny its applicability. However, Jesus' taciturn reference to Lot's Wife allows us to give other interpretations to stand side by side with the traditional one. All we have to do is listen to the unspoken words, the unheard voices.

Now, let's imagine we are Lot's Wife.

We look back to Sodom and Gomorrah, a place that became home for us, our spouse, and our daughters. We might have looked back because we wanted one last glimpse before it was destroyed. Perhaps we forgot a precious family heirloom since we didn't have any time to pack. Maybe we wondered if our sons-in-law changed their minds and decided to follow. We had grown quite fond of those boys.

Granted, it wasn't paradise, but it was home. And really, not everyone in town wanted to rape those three men. There a number of young children too young to know what sexual relations were, let alone desire them. A few of the town elders could barely move and were so kind and full of wisdom. ... And remember that time when our youngest daughter was sick and Jane and Joe Neighbor brought the doctor over so we could stay at her side? We didn't even have to ask. Surely they weren't part of that crowd.

Many of people in town did some rotten things, sure. Heck, you and I have done some rotten things, but love is not beyond our capability. We make mistakes, but we do good things, too. If God could extend grace to Lot, despite his sins, why can't God excuse a few more people in the valley around Sodom and Gomorrah? If God isn't going to start the ruckus until we arrive in Zoar, maybe we can go save a few babies or at least plead with those three men for the lives of innocent children. Yes, let's go back and plead with those men like Moses in the future will plead with God for the lives of the Israelites. We turn to go back and turn into to a pillar of salt trying preserve lives.

Lot's Wife is a silent, nameless character in this story. She looks back towards other silent, nameless characters who, according to the story, die at the command of a merciful God. And yes, the God of the Old Testament is a merciful, loving God. Grace and love are written throughout this whole book, not just the parts about Jesus.

And Jesus wants us to remember Lot's Wife and her turning back and turning to into salt. When I imagine myself as Lot's Wife, I imagine her turning towards unspoken words and unheard voices when told to flee at a moment's notice. No, it isn't written in the story, but it helps me learn a godly lesson, a lesson God wants us to hear in the unspoken words and unspoken voices. Lot's Wife wanted to preserve the life of the young and the good who would experience God's judgment because of a heinously sinful majority. And God granted her wish like God granted Lot's wish. Lot was allowed to go to Zoar and Lot's Wife was turned into the salt of the earth, the kind of salt that preserves life and quality of life for God's good purposes. Years later, Jesus remembers her by telling people to be the salt of the earth and never to lose their saltiness.

Unlike her husband, Lot's Wife would not reach freedom in the small town of Zoar, because some freedoms are too expensive for everyone to experience. She thought a freedom borne on the back of oppression is not a freedom worth having. Maybe she isn't right--but maybe she is. When we remember Lot's Wife, we are left to consider each freedom we have and wonder if we'll go to Zoar or turn back and turn to salt for the sake of others.

Is it good to have the choice of multiple coffees when the workers who grow and pick the coffee beans cannot support their families? Is it good to have the freedom of style when so many of our clothes are made overseas in sweatshops? Is it good to have the freedom to eat out of season vegetables if it means we still buy berries from California and Florida when our neighbors are selling berries on Saturday mornings at the Farmer's Market for their own livelihood? Is it good to have the freedom of diet when the environmental impact of some of our foods goes beyond our wildest imaginations, when the grain used to feed cows alone could end starvation?

These are just some things with which I struggle when I remember Lot's Wife. I don't think we're all supposed to struggle with the same things, so don't think I am telling you to struggle with my issues. But neither can I say you shouldn't struggle with these same issues. I simply present them for consideration.

I am glad for freedoms, but I fear God is calling me to leave some of these freedoms without looking back. I fear God wants me to turn into a pillar of salt, preserving the lives of the innocent who suffer for the sins of some of my freedoms.

I fear that God wants me to be like Jesus Christ, especially the part of Jesus in which Lot's Wife lives on. She has not yet lost her saltiness. She lives on as the Mother Theresas of the world who cannot bare to live a life of luxury when others suffer because of those luxuries. She is the Martin Luther King Jr.s who seek racial and economic equality. She is remembered in the Harvey Milks, the Mahatma Gandhis, the Dorothy Days, the you, the me.

She lived on in Jesus, who reminded people of her great legacy as a woman who could not leave at a moment's notice. Like all of us, there was a part of her that sought to preserve her own life, but there was also a great part of her that listened for the unspoken words and the unheard voices of the silenced and the oppressed. And she preserved their memory, too.

Thanks be to God.

===

Benediction:

As we leave the sanctity of this place, let us remember the sanctity of the places to which we go. And let us go with God, considering God's ways and what and how God wants us to preserve as we remember Lot's Wife.

In the name of God the parent,

God the Christ,

and God the Holy Spirit.

It's Just the Beginning

Before I get too far into my sermon, I thought you might want to know who is talking with you, which is easier said than done. I am giving you a first impression of sorts. Sure, some of you have already met me and, now that I am standing up here, all of you have either seen my face or heard my voice--or both. Now I have the opportunity to say what I want you to think about me.

I could introduce myself like I did during the Eco-Stewards program with a "credo," a few short statements of belief:

I believe that humans are a diverse community that can end all forms of oppression by the art, grace, and love of God.
I believe everyone is beautiful and carries the image of God in them.
I believe love and life are fun, which are best expressed in puns.

Or I suppose I could give you my geographic history: I was born and raised on the coast of Maine in a little town called Friendship. From there I moved to West Palm Beach, Florida for college. After receiving my bachelor's degree, I matriculated at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, NC, which is about one hour west of Charlotte. Given this geography, I think the mountains are beautiful and the ocean is sublime.

But what do you know about me from these introductions? You don't know I have a heart for the economically oppressed. You don't know if I am Presbyterian or not. You don't know why I am not wearing a tie or why my ears pierced. You don't know that I have spent over a year working on my thesis for my MA in English or that my thesis examines deconstruction in the orthodoxy/heresy binaries in the theological arguments surrounding the council of Nicaea and Willaim Paul Young's The Shack. You don't know if I've read the whole Bible and, if I have, how many times I've read it. In fact, you don't know me at all.

So how do I introduce myself? There is so much about myself I want you to know and, conversely, so much I don't want you to know. No matter what I say, you won't get an adequate picture of what I want you to know and whatever I want you to know is itself an inaccurate picture of me. If I introduce myself, you get only a persona, which is a word that literally refers to a mask or character played by an actor.

Sometimes the best way to get past the masks is to hear stories. Statements about someone cannot really sum up their being. I can tell you I believe love and life are fun, but until you see me enjoying life, that statement carries little to no meaning. And if I tell you a story about when my favorite seminary professor died suddenly at the age of 40 last year, then you might not believe I think love and life are all that fun.

No matter how well thought out a statement might be, it cannot accurately reflect the reality of who I am. The only way you can know me or anyone else is to get to know them through experience and story.

The gospels are a good example of this theory about story and identity. Whereas people like Paul makes statements about Jesus, the gospel writers want to tell about Jesus in carefully crafted and arranged stories. I can barely read Mark's gospel without thinking about the interactions between identity and story.

In Mark and the other Gospels, Jesus is often known by who is father is. But unlike Matthew and Luke, Mark does not start with a genealogy or a birth narrative, which would bring Jesus' identity into question in first-century Israelite culture, where your identity is closely to your ancestry. Instead of a genealogy or birth narrative, the gospel begins: "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God."

To begin with, Jesus is introduced in a statement, but one that needs more information. What does "the good news of Jesus" mean? Why is Jesus the Christ? What kind of Christ is he? What significance is there in Jesus being the son of God? Other parts of the Bible call lots of people the children of God, why would it be special for Jesus to be the son of God? Mark apparently places a lot of significance on this son-of-God title. Before the first chapter is over, he tells the story of Jesus' baptism where a voice from heaven says in what I can only imagine sounding like Charleton Heston, John Earl Jones, or Morgan Freeman: "You are my beloved son, in you I am well-pleased."

What really confuses me though, is that Jesus constantly refers to himself as something quite contrary; Jesus is always talking about the son of man. What is the big deal in being the son of man? Who isn't the child of a man and the child of a woman? And why does Jesus refer to himself as the son of man while Mark and some unclean spirits call Jesus the son of God?

And so we have stories about Jesus to give us a little more into the persona of Jesus presented in Mark. These stories mix Jesus' dual sonship to God and humanity. Amidst this confusion of sonship and all these stories, the disciples don't completely know what is going on either. Peter understands Jesus is the Christ, but he doesn't understand what Christ means. He misunderstands so much that Jesus calls him Satan. In response to Peter's misunderstanding, Jesus tells a crowd to deny themselves and lose their lives. Jesus asks them to give up their identities and personae.

Jesus embodies this command. It is a command to be like Jesus who "emptied himself" and allowed his identity as Christ to be crucified--not what anyone expected a messiah to be. It was only in offering his identity to God that Jesus created his own identity (cf. Philippians 2:5-11). The reality of Jesus Christ subverted the definition of messiah. And Jesus didn't simply go against the norm when he crucified his identity, he experienced the pain of giving up his selfhood. In the garden of Gethsemane he prayed for things to change. On the cross he cried out, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me? Jesus gave up his identity on the cross and felt alone, forsaken by God and humanity. He felt like the son of no one, let alone God.

By now the pain has seared into his innermost being. He can barely make coherent thoughts. All he wonders is where God is in the midst of his suffering. Although he cried aloud, he couldn't speak well from the pain and the dryness of his mouth. Some of the people near by thought he said "Elijah," not "Eloi." "How gravely humorous," these people must have thought. They thought Jesus was a nutcase, especially when he called out for a prophet who had been dead for centuries. Wanting to prolong this sick humor of theirs, they decided to satisfy Jesus' thirst. If they wet his throat a little, then he could cry out to Elijah and they might understand him better. So they soaked a sponge in sour wine, which is all the better for ridicule. He would want the liquid, but the sourness would just make things worse.

After, Jesus just yelled. "AH!" The cry might have been a knee-jerk reaction to the sour wine. It might have included a tinge of anger or annoyance at the people. A touch of desperation and tiredness was likely mixed in to that last note. I imagine Jesus was ready to just be done and die.

And Jesus' physical suffering ended. After that cry, his identity was completely a thing of the past, for he was dead. He was no longer the son of anyone except the grave. So much for a long awaited messiah. That hope could be put to rest with Jesus' body.

According to Mark's telling of the story, a curtain in the temple was torn from top to bottom about this time. There were a number of curtains in the temple and Mark doesn't exactly specify which one is rent in two--torn like Jesus' flesh, torn even like the distinction between being a son of God and a son of humanity. After Jesus dies, a centurion makes a confession much like Peter's: "Truly this man was the son of God."

In this confession, it turns out to be a child of humanity is to be a child of God. The centurion says Jesus was the son of God, but he was also a man, which means he must be a son of humanity. And Jesus goes on to do something no human does who is not embracing his or her humanity and godliness: he is raised from the dead.

After he is raised, two women go to anoint the body, but instead of Jesus, they find a man who asks them to spread the word of resurrection. But the women are surprised and afraid. Mark says they don't tell anyone, because of their fright and astonishment (16:8).

And the gospel ends with their silence. Sure, your Bible probably has 10 or more verses after, but you will probably also notice a note saying everything after 16:8 is not in the oldest copies of Mark's gospel, which isn't to say the added endings aren't proper for teaching or inclusion in the Bible. But, it can be healthy to look at the book without the added parts.

Listen to the ending: "They went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had gripped them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid." It isn't much of an ending at all, and it is nothing like the other gospels' endings. It is quite likely the additions were added to tidy up this gospel a bit and give it a "proper" ending.

But I don't think it is supposed to have a neat ending. It isn't supposed to end at all. According to the first verse, the whole book is only the beginning of the good news about Jesus. Verse 1 isn't an introduction to the book, it is a summary of the book, which is why the book doesn't end. We read the last part of the book and we know eventually the women say something, contrary to the gospel's pseudo-ending. If they never said anything, that part of the story couldn't have been in the book, thus the women's continuing story is invited to be part of Jesus' continuing good news.

And so we are invited to become part of Jesus' continuing good news as we are to be Jesus' body here on earth.

We are to give up our identity, to crucify it with Jesus in all the pain and suffering he incurs. And we are to be resurrected without any identity other than our continual attempts to try and be Godly. We are to be children of God while we are children of men and women. The veil between us and Christ, between us and God is to be torn so that people can remember us and say, "Truly, those people are children of God."

I wish I could give you more specifics of what it looks like to crucify your identity and be a child of God and a child of humanity--to be Jesus on this earth, to continue in word and deed the good news he was spreading. If I tried, I would only be giving abstract statements like Micah 6:8: "do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God." Certainly we should do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God, but we need stories and experiences to know what that statement means. The gospel of Jesus is just beginning to explicate that statement in narrative. Church, what will we do to continue it, to give life to abstract statements like the one from Micah? What will we say and do in place of the silence of Mark's non-ending story?

Whether we like it or not, we are continuing the story Mark started. Sometimes we follow characterizations we learned from Mark's stories about Jesus. Sometimes our stories give a new glimpse of Jesus through the innovative movements of the Spirit and other times we miss the mark a little, basking instead in the forgiveness and mercy of God.

Since I cannot give you specifics, consider a story from my life, which will serve as a continuing the introduction I began:

This winter I worked at a homeless shelter for men in North Carolina. I worked Christmas Eve through much of Christmas day at the shelter. On Christmas morning I gave the normal 6-am wake-up call, because some of the men rely on that wake-up call like an alarm clock. I didn't ask them to get out of like I would on a normal day, though. I just let them know it was 6 am, in case anyone needed to be anywhere.

Around half of the guys got out of bed, two of whom came by the office where I was and asked to have a moment of my time. The men would come talk to me often, but they seldom prefaced it by asking for some of my time. I figured something was awry and I started to tense up, wondering if someone was hurt, if something had been stolen, or if these guys were going to rat someone out for having drugs or alcohol. And all this, on Christmas morning.

One of them asked me: "How did you get conned into working from 7 pm Christmas Eve through 2 pm Christmas day?" As the tension left my body, I couldn't help but smile, even though that question was enough to make me cry. These two men thought someone would have to be conned into spending that much time with them during the holidays. I don't remember exactly what I told them, probably something crass about how I didn't have anywhere else to be, since all of my family was in Maine. Or maybe I told them there was nowhere I would rather be, which was the truth.

The shelter provided Christmas gifts for everyone and I had the honor of passing out the gifts. A few weeks prior, each man filled out a piece of paper requesting two gifts of $15 or less. A few of the men complained, because they didn't get what they wanted, while others were very grateful, thanking me over and over, even though I had nothing to do with the purchasing or wrapping--I just handed things out. One of the guys told me he shed a few tears of joy, being overwhelmed by the gifts. He said he didn't expect to get so much. He got the same thing every other man got--a garbage bag with two or three large-ish gifts and then miscellaneous items like socks, gloves, and whatnot. I doubt the contents of the bag were worth more than $50, if that.

Around 8 o'clock that morning, a church group came by to serve a breakfast feast. They had biscuits and gravy, an egg casserole, coffee, and juice--all of it was hot, too, except the juice, of course. They brought in a radio to play music and they handed out small gift bags with lotion, chapstick, and a few other hygiene items. I told one of the ladies they did a great thing. Not only did they bring the breakfast, but they also visited with the men. Not only did the men get normal hygiene items like soap and deodorant, but also special items like lotion and chapstick, those not-so-necessary items so many of us take for granted.

None of the gifts or fellowship had strings attached. Usually we give gifts on Christmas to those who also give gifts to us, which is especially true with Christmas cards. If we don't receive a card from someone to whom we sent one, they come off of next year's Christmas card list. That church group that came into the shelter Christmas morning expected nothing in return from the men. A gift that expects a gift in return is not a gift, it is more like a payment or an exchange of goods. That church group gave to those who could not give back to them--they truly gave gifts, asking for nothing in return and with no ulterior motive. They just gave.

They didn't announce to the men they were from such-and-such a church. They didn't say they were giving because they felt guilty if they didn't. They didn't say they were serving because Jesus told them to. They forwent their identity in order to give themselves fully to the moment of service, justice, and love. The saddest thing about that Christmas morning was knowing how little attention the men would get when the holidays were over.

That story is just one of the many stories of the gospel today, one I am so glad I got to witness. If you listen hard enough, Xhurch, I'm sure you'll hear the gospel all over the place, perhaps in places you never thought you would. In Matthew and Luke, Jesus tells the story of the good Samaritan, emphasizing how the gospel will be found in unexpected places. Even Jesus was surprised where he found the gospel once when he found it in a centurion who asked for Jesus to heal his slave from afar.

Listen for it. Live it. Let us leave those around us with an impression of who we are and an impression of who God is, and let us give that impression in narratives, not propositions.

As for who I am, I hope this sermon was good introduction. There is still a lot you don't know about who I am and who I am becoming. If you're curious, I guess you'll have to ask questions and observe, looking and listening for stories.

It's just the beginning.

It Was For Him That Her Red Light Shone

I'm going to read some pieces of Ezekiel 16. Don't follow along in your Bible, because I'm not going to announce when and where I'm skipping. I'll read enough for you to get the gist story, but be warned: it is a little vulgar and it doesn't value women. Listen to the story.

Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, "Son of man, make known to Jerusalem her abominations. ...

You were naked and bare. ... I passed by you and saw you, and behold, [fn] you were at the time for love; so I spread My skirt over you and covered your nakedness. I also swore to you and entered into a covenant with you so that you became Mine," declares the Lord GOD. Then I bathed you with water, washed off your blood from you and anointed you with oil. I also clothed you with embroidered cloth and put sandals of porpoise skin on your feet; and I wrapped you with fine linen and covered you with silk. I adorned you with ornaments, put bracelets on your hands and a necklace around your neck. I also put a ring in your nostril, earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your dress was of fine linen, silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour, honey and oil; so you were exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. Then your fame went forth among the nations on account of your beauty, for it was perfect because of My splendor which I bestowed on you," declares the Lord GOD. But you trusted in your beauty and played the harlot because of your fame, and you poured out your harlotries on every passer-by who might be willing. ...

Then it came about after all your wickedness ('Woe, woe to you!' declares the Lord GOD), that you built yourself a shrine and made yourself a high place in every square. You built yourself a high place at the top of every street and made your beauty abominable, and you spread your legs to every passer-by to multiply your harlotry. ...

How languishing is your heart," declares the Lord GOD, "while you do all these things, the actions of a bold-faced harlot. When you built your shrine at the beginning of every street and made your high place in every square, in disdaining money, you were not like a harlot. You adulteress wife, who takes strangers instead of her husband! Men give gifts to all harlots, but you give your gifts to all your lovers to bribe them to come to you from every direction for your harlotries. Thus you are different from those women in your harlotries, in that no one plays the harlot [fn] as you do, because you give money and no money is given you; thus you are different." Therefore, O harlot, hear the word of the LORD.

You just heard an extended metaphor that surprises its hearers with its vulgarity. Because of the shock, the hearers recognize how heinous their sins are.

I want to tell you another story, a story inspired by this one and in a similar vein. This story is also vulgar, mimicking Ezekiel's style to emphasize some of our heinous sins, at least, I know it reflects some of my heinous sins. I also play around with gender. Whereas the Bible might devalue women by portraying polygamy, I will portray polygamy and polyandry, which is the practice of having multiple male partners. In Ezekiel, the God character is seen sexually accosting a young, naked girl. In my story, the God character does some equally odd things, but only to portray God's radical character, not to portray God as a person of vice.

Listen for the metaphor. Listen for the surprises. Disagree or agree with any messages you might find. Accept the story not as perfect, but as the result of a young man wrestling with God and the church. After I tell the story, I'm going to ask you to wrestle with or against me. I hope we can debrief and talk as a group after the story. Be prepared to interact. Listen not just to fill out the evaluation, but to interact with the text and communally create meaning.

To recap, part of this sermon, is talking about the story.

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A young man was backpacking in the mountains. He was enraptured by the beauty of the trees and the songs of the birds. He meandered along the path, his mind wandering as much as his feet.

Then he saw a most unexpected thing: a young, naked woman. She stood there, unashamed, as if she had been left in the woods naked for a long time. She stood still, off the beaten path, shivering with cold, and red from sunburn.

He took any extra clothes he had and put them over her. She jumped when she felt his hands through the coat he wrapped around her shoulders. It was awkward clothing her, trying not to touch her inappropriately. She offered little help, as if she longed for his touch.

He looked deep into her eyes, captured by them for what seemed like an eternity, for in her eyes, he saw eternity, although she looked no older than 21. Her eyes communicated fear, as if she had not seen or interacted with a human in a long time. And her eyes spoke trust and love, too, knowing, somehow, that she would be his, for she knew he loved her when he clothed her and laid out food for her.

With the food out, he took her hands inside his with intent to lead her to the food. He began to ask for her name when the jacket over her shoulders came undone, showing again her breasts. He paused and went to close the jacket once more, but as he gazed once again into her fearful, loving, eternal eyes, his hands instead went inside the jacket. He gracefully caressed her bosom as her arms wrapped around his body. They embraced. He warmed her body with his and they became one in the woods, proclaiming their love in the marriage act in front of creation. Like David and Jonathan, they swore their love unto to each other and entered into a covenant. And so the man became the woman's and the woman became the man's (Ez. 16:8), each of them the other's beloved.

When finished, she ate and he led her down the mountain. He bathed her and soothed her burns by rubbing them with ointment, by rubbing her with ointment. He put perfume on her and adorned her with the most beautiful jewelry: necklaces, bracelets, rings on her hands, rings in her ears, and a ring in her nose. He combed her hair and paid for a manicure, a pedicure--a full makeover.

She was beautiful from the start and he wonderfully complemented that beauty with things made by hand. He wrote stories about her, he wrote psalms about her, he wrote wise sayings and attributed the wisdom to her, for it was she who inspired everything he wrote, she who out of her very being breathed the words into his heart. He sang to her. He worshipped the very ground she walked on.

Because she lived some of her life as the least of peoples, the two never forgot to bless the unfortunate. Together, they blessed the world, preaching good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to those who desired it, freedom to the oppressed, and jubilee to all. In their blessing each other, they became a blessing to the world, serving all others in their public lives and servicing each other in private.

He bought her a car and he carried her wherever she thought they should go. When arriving at a destination, they relied heavily on the kindness of strangers and friends. They weren't quite homeless, but, unlike birds and foxes, they had no place to rest their heads, no place to call their own, except their love for each other and their love for the world.

One day he decided she should have a home, a sort of sanctuary erected in her honor. She was touched by his desire to set aside a sacred space for her, but she could not be bound by four walls. So he built her another home, this one a summer home by the beach. And then another for weekends in the mountains. A fall home in New England. A condo in the Bahamas. A homeless shelter in the Bronx. A hut in Africa. The list went on and on. Nothing was too good or too wild for his love.

After a while, many of the homes began to look similar: brick on the outside, painted windows, and white on the inside. Even when the two weren't present, he hired people to officiate ceremonies in honor of his love. The people would sing the songs he wrote about her, read the letters he wrote to her, and learn from the wisdom she inspired. They all desired a lover like her.

Somewhere in the building of these houses and the pomp and circumstance surrounding the house parties, the woman left the man. Her beauty was lost amidst the accoutrements and the pillars and spires that reached towards heaven. The man forgot her when he wasn't in her house and he was promiscuous in his own home, having frequent banquets and orgies of the most detestable sorts. When alone, he either brooded over his disdain for others or sang his own praises in a masturbatory fashion.

He used to love and serve her and others all day, every day, exploring all senses of those words. Then he would visit her daily, before slowing down to a few times a week with daily calls. He blessed himself more than he blessed others, sometimes blessing himself at the expense of others. He no longer wrote her love letters or Psalms. He presumed his earlier texts were enough and he re-read and studied them, as if they could take the place of his love and service.

When she left, he never noticed. He still visited her house, praising her name and studying their past love, but every trace of love left his heart long before the appearance of love became habit.

As much as he did or did not think about her, as much as he did or did not worship her, as much as he did or did not speak to her, she wasn't there. He grew accustom to her face and when it was gone, he imagined it was there. He remembered the ecstasy in his spirit and convinced his subconscious to duplicate the emotion in a way he could neither understand nor explain. It was indescribable to him. It was real to him, if only a façade. He felt this fakeness more than he understood it. Amidst this rote pretense of orgasmic love, he traveled from lover to lover. Prideful and ignorant, he searched for what he could not name: the unspeakable name of his beloved.

He didn't even know she was gone.

She left lost and confused. She was a strong woman, having spent much of her life on her own. But she had been with him for so long and she loved him so much. She didn't know what to do without him. Hurt that he didn't even know she was gone, she bounced from relationship to relationship, never selling herself short and always remembering him.

She began to travel in less-than-reputable circles. She began to sell herself and then, worse, she began to pay people to take her. Her legs opened to anyone. If they would love her, then she would enter into relationship with them and bless them and make them a blessing to others. As she again became the least of people, she still lived to bless people and turn them into blessings. And she did so, over and over, with men and women. When one became faithful to only her, she still turned for others, never filling the void left by him, but always trying. The hurt she experienced with him happened over and over again as different people built different houses, many of them claiming to be her sole lover. But so many of them she left, because they ceased to loved her. Those who stayed became monogamous and accepting of her polyandry, of her freely giving blessings of love, of her many covenants with many people.

And she truly loved these other men and women, in every sense of the word. She learned she was full of love for everyone who would love her, never running out of love to give to them, love to give to everyone, as if her body were broken and her blood spilt for many, but miraculously multiplying to satisfy the appetites of anyone who would take their fill.

She became her own woman, a woman the first man only once knew, but had since forgotten.

One day their paths crossed again, serendipitously, providentially. He had turned to depression and making love, but never giving or receiving love. He stumbled towards her on the street one night in the same way he stumbled to any promiscuous man or woman. He became callous to loving, having no expectations to find what he was looking for in her.

He didn't recognize her, for she was beautiful in a way he could never have imagined, a beauty beyond what he and his preconceived notions could understand, a beauty found in prostitutes, drug dealers, the socially awkward, the differently abled, the sinners of every shape and kind--a beauty found in people he continually refused to love.

She refused to take the money he offered her. She smiled and, as she did so often, she tried to explain it was not he who found her, but she who found him, she who lost him, but had been looking for him in the love-making of every man and woman since he became lost. She who stood on the street corner calling for love, for his love (Prov. 8). It was for him that her red light shone.

He stood, dazed. He didn't know she was, who had left, or that he or she was ever lost. He thought he had come to her. How could she have been looking for him? He didn't know what was going on. At least, not until she began to love him once again.

When he felt her touch, he remembered. When he tasted her lips once again, he knew. When his hands caressed her breasts and her hands swept up his thigh, he once again was lost and found in his lust for this one woman.

He cried after they made love and she wiped away his tears with her hair, washing him with the aroma of love and forgiveness. She loved him though he had forgotten her. Without even knowing he lost her, he found her once again. Their old covenant was remembered and renewed alongside another, new covenant. He accepted her multiple lovers and he repented of his matrimonial sins, becoming monogamous, loving only her, entering into community with her lovers, people with whom he never thought she could make covenants, people he never thought he or she could enjoy. He received them as his brothers and sisters and was ashamed of his sins, ashamed that he could not receive them in community as equal lovers of his beloved.

She once again became his God and he once again became part of her people. They work together for their love and for their love of others. He worships the ground she walks on, recognizing her beauty wherever he sees it, be it in one of her houses, in the rain, in sorrow, in joy, or reflected in the eyes of one of her lovers, in the eyes of any and every other human being.

===

I just shared a pretty extreme, extended metaphor. What do you think? What can you hear from a story of harlotry, if anything? What can you glean from God playing the harlot? From God having multiple sexual partners, both male and female? In Ezekiel's story, Israel trusts in the beauty God gave her, while in our story, the church trusts in the beauty he gives God;i n one situation, Israel leaves God, whereas in the other the God leaves the church--which scenario do you fear most in your life? in the life of your church?

Behold, everyone who quotes proverbs will quote this proverb concerning you, saying, 'Like mother, like daughter.' You are the daughter of your mother, who loathed her husband and children. You are also the sister of your sisters, who loathed their husbands and children. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite. Now your older sister is Samaria, who lives north of you with her daughters; and your younger sister, who lives south of you, is Sodom with her daughters. Yet you have not merely walked in their ways or done according to their abominations; but, as if that were too little, you acted more corruptly in all your conduct than they. ...

Nevertheless, I will restore their captivity, the captivity of Sodom and her daughters, the captivity of Samaria and her daughters, and along with them your own captivity, in order that you may bear your humiliation and feel ashamed for all that you have done when you become a consolation to them. Your sisters, Sodom with her daughters and Samaria with her daughters, will return to their former state, and you with your daughters will also return to your former state. ...

You have borne the penalty of your lewdness and abominations," the LORD declares. For thus says the Lord GOD, "I will also do with you as you have done, you who have despised the oath by breaking the covenant. Nevertheless, I will remember My covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you. Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when you receive your sisters, both your older and your younger; and I will give them to you as daughters, but not because of your covenant. Thus I will establish My covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the LORD, so that you may remember and be ashamed and never open your mouth anymore because of your humiliation, when I have forgiven you for all that you have done," the Lord GOD declares.