Power and Weakness

Today was the second in a series bookending our first ever Harry Potter Vacation Bible School at Calvary UMC in Frederick. I described it in this way: The Harry Potter story is one in which love for friends and for the world wins out against this relentless drive for power and control. God uses our vulnerabilities (weaknesses) too.

Scripture:
2 Corinthians 12:6-10 (NRSV)
But if I wish to boast, I will not be a fool, for I will be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think better of me than what is seen in me or heard from me, even considering the exceptional character of the revelations. Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong. 
 
Luke 22:24-27 (NRSV)
A dispute also arose among them as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest. But he said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.” 
 
Sermon: Power and Weakness
Let us pray: 

Patient teacher, we know we seek to control our own lives, but you remind us through scripture and story that you have different intentions for us. You intend us to love. So be with us in worship this morning, speak through the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts, so we draw ever closer to your intentions for us. Amen.

I have a confession to make. I am a huge nerd. I know that is surprising to all of you, but I had to preface my sermon this week with that. When I wrote my ordination paperwork, I referenced Doctor Who and Lord of the Rings and probably Star Wars and Firefly too. So I am pretty used to connecting the Bible to my geekery. And that’s what we did this past week. We looked at the popular world of Harry Potter and used it to teach about Biblical stories and Christian values in our second Vacation Bible School of the summer. 
 
One of those values has really struck me lately. The Harry Potter story is an illustration not just of a battle between good and evil but between the love of power and the power of love.
Sure, there are definitely evil characters in the books. Lord Voldemort is the epitome of evil: he has no redeeming qualities and really spent his whole life being evil, even his childhood. Harry, Ron, and Hermione, the heroes of the story, are a little more complex, but they are at their cores good people. I would think many of us would prefer to think of ourselves as the Harrys, Rons, or Hermiones of the world, but even though evil is apparent even in our own communities, I think we would be hard pressed to point to someone and label them as the embodiment of evil the way Lord Voldemort is in the story. And so we can distance ourselves from the story. Oh, we think, we would join resistance movements if we lived in that kind of world, but we don’t, so as long as we are nice to people that counts as acting out goodness in the world. We have less responsibility in this framing of the story as good v. evil. So I want us to look at it differently. This is not just a battle of good over evil, but of power and weakness.

Did you catch that phrase in our scripture reading today about power and weakness? Paul, was writing to the Corinthian community in what sounds like a defensive way. Someone must have accused him of being weak, of being not as important as everyone made him out to be. I mean, if someone refered to me as weak, I would probably be mad. And Paul probably was too. But his response is not to show power, not to prove that he was strong, but to agree with the criticism. Yes, he says, yes I am weak. This, as my friend David points out, is a truly vulnerable moment for Paul.

He tells his Corinthian readers that he is hurting; really hurting. He is looking for God to take something from him, some part of him that caused him deep pain. We don’t know what it is, but we do know that Paul wants to be done with it. He wants an instant cure.¹ 

And he admits to that desire to the whole Corinthian community. He is hurting and uses the famous phrase everyone wonders about: he says he has a thorn in his flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7). We don’t know what it is. But I understand his desire to be done with pain and want an instant cure. 
 
My understanding comes not from a physical illness or pain in my own life, but from the pain that comes from being vulnerable enough to love and then having to face losing that love. Brené Brown, a researcher and storyteller, defines “vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.”² It is easy to decide the risk is too great, to decide that feeling is linked with failing, with weakness, and we try to shut ourselves off from vulnerability. This is what Voldemort’s whole life illustrates. His father left, mother died, he grew up in an orphanage, and so even as a child, he decided that loving someone who could leave him or die was too great a risk. Instead, he would focus on what he could control and began to pursue power and success at any cost. 
 

Over and over again throughout the books, Voldemort scoffs at the power of love. When he confronts Harry Potter in the Chamber of Secrets, he wants to know the great power that protected Harry as a baby, and when he discovers that Harry was protected by his mother’s love, Voldemort dismisses that as luck.³ Voldemort always believed that if he discovered a more powerful wand, or used more powerful magic, he would never have to love anyone and risk being hurt by them. But that meant that he never risked knowing the power of love either.⁴ He was so afraid of experiencing the thorn in his side that Paul spoke of, so afraid of being weak, that he never knew the true strength of love. 

When Voldemort was preparing to face Harry Potter for the last time, one of his henchmen asked to go find Harry and bring him to Voldemort. Voldemort declined the offer, saying “[You do not understand Potter] as I do. I know his weakness, you see, his one great flaw. He will hate watching the others struck down around him, knowing that it is for him that it happens. He will want to stop it at any cost. He will come.”⁵ Voldemort called Harry's love for his friends, his compassion for those who were hurting, his willingness to sacrifice himself for others, a weakness. And surely, Harry felt weak in the Battle. Over and over again, the narrator describes how Harry tries to compartmentalize as he sees the death toll rise, tries to keep putting one foot in front of the other, but he feels so much pain. And still he is willing to give up his own life for the ones that he loves. And that love is what kept him alive when he was thought to be dead. That love, that weakness--- spoiler alert--- wins. 

Now, I don't think any of us are like Voldemort, not in the sense of his complete failure to empathize or feel remorse, but I do think we sometimes avoid being vulnerable because we don’t want to risk, we don’t want to appear weak, we don’t want to hurt. And we don’t want to change. Maybe we don’t trust that love actually wins. Many of you know I have had multiple miscarriages and suffer with infertility, and I have found that despite all the ways I have witnessed love winning in the pursuit of parenthood, despite all the different ways there are to parent, there are absolutely times I want to shut myself off, stop trying to be a mother in any way and just do something different. Maybe take up juggling? Have you ever felt that way? In the wake of a divorce or a friend’s betrayal or a lost job or an unexpected death, do you want to run away, shut yourself off from feeling? Find some way to not feel so weak and exposed?

Or maybe your avoidance of vulnerability comes within community. Maybe you don’t want to argue anymore, so you don’t engage with anyone about politics who doesn’t agree with you unless it is to shut them down. Maybe you are afraid of illness and so you don’t want to visit anyone in the hospital, not matter how lonely they may be. Maybe you are uncomfortable around people speaking a different language and so you belittle them and avoid them and start to believe they are profoundly different from you. To be vulnerable means that we might have to feel not only our pain, but also another’s pain. And if we feel someone else’s pain, we might feel a responsibility to do something to support them. 
 
Harry, Ron, and Hermione are vulnerable throughout the story. And their vulnerabilities are risks, they do get hurt. Harry spends so much of the books looking for a father figure in the headmaster Dumbledore, in his godfather Sirius, in teachers like Lupin and Mad-Eye Moody. And these figures often fail him in some way; they hide truth from him, they leave him, they turn out to be someone they are not, or they simply make a mistake. And yet from each of these figures, Harry learns love and grows stronger in that love. Even with their betrayals and failures, still that love built him up to be the hero he becomes at the end of the story. 
 
And that’s the point Paul is trying to get across, I think. He is acknowledging that he is just like us, just like Harry. He doesn’t want to hurt. He doesn’t want to be so vulnerable. He has asked God to take away his weakness. But God didn’t take away his weakness, and God doesn’t take away ours either. Through Paul’s prayers, God speaks to him and all of us, saying, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” Through the Harry Potter story, through our own lives, we see the same thing. True power, the power of love, is made perfect in weakness, in vulnerability. In taking risks and walking without certainty.

This is what Christ asks of us. This is how Jesus himself lived. In our Gospel story today, Jesus reminded his disciples that true greatness isn’t about power but about service. Throughout Jesus’ life, he consistently chose love over power, even though that meant instead of a crown of gold he wore a crown of thorns. He chose love even when facing violence and ridicule. But this choice of love is the power of Christ. That in our vulnerability, in our risk taking, in our weakness, love has the last word over death. 
 
My question for you, for us, to go home with this week is in what ways do we choose love? Not in what ways are we good and nice to other people, but in what ways do we open ourselves to one another, even when it makes us weak and vulnerable? In what ways is God making us perfect in our weakness, perfect in our love?

1David Finnegan-Hosey, Christ on the Psych Ward (New York: Church Publishing, 2018), 67.
2Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (New York: Gotham Books, 2012), 34.
3J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, (New York: Arthur A. Levine Books, Scholastic Press, 1999) 317.
4See J.K. Rowling, “Chapter 35: King's Cross,” Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, (New York: Arthur A. Levine Books, Scholastic Press, 2007) 705-723.
5J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, (New York: Arthur A. Levine Books, Scholastic Press, 2007) 654.

Birthday parties for those who are gone

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Leaning into God: Living by Faith

A sermon for Calvary UMC right before Reformation Sunday.

Scripture: Romans 1:16-17,3:21-31 (NRSV)

For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, “The one who is righteous will live by faith.”

…

But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus. Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

Sermon:

Let us pray:

Patient teacher, we give you thanks for your wisdom and ask that you move among us to open our hearts to receive that wisdom. Speak to us this morning through the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts. Amen.

October is a wonderful month, and October this year is very special. It started with a very important birthday of my own, and it is ending with a very important anniversary--- 500 years since the Protestant Reformation began. One of those days may be a bigger deal historically than the other. But anyway, this month we are celebrating with a sermon series on the important themes of the reformation that continue to help us reform today. Last week, Pastor Steve preached on God's sovereignty, a much needed message in the midst of the chaos that sometimes seems overwhelming. Today we will talk about another key theme: living by faith.

Faith is one of those words we use a lot without being too clear on what it means. Sometimes we use it to mean trust. I have faith in the new directors that the next Star Wars movie will be good. Or, perhaps more relevant for us in church today, we have faith that God is at work in the world. Sometimes we use faith to mean believing in what we can't see. Hebrews 11:1 is one of the more famous Biblical definitions: Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Belief in heaven, for example, or the resurrection of Jesus. And faith is those things. But I think the definition of faith we often forget, the one that Paul speaks of in our scripture today, is more than trust, more than belief. Faith is the ability to open ourselves to receive the gift of grace God has already offered to us.

Martin Luther, the German monk who lit the tinder that began the Protestant Reformation five hundred years ago, became obsessed with the concept of faith.¹ Luther was a monk, faith was his job. He was trained in the faith, immersed in scripture. And still, he doubted. He felt distant from God, sure his sins could never be forgiven and he would find himself eternally punished. He sought to discover what good works could cleanse him. And yet, still he felt distant, and he began to see how the payment of indulgences that were created to help assuage people of their guilt and give them a way to atone for their sins prevented people from truly connecting with God. It wasn't until he discovered this passage in Romans that we read today, let it sink into his heart, that he realized he had gotten faith all wrong. In reading how the righteous will live by faith, he felt the “burden of his soul” begin to roll away.² He knew he no longer had to earn his salvation. That God has done the work. He had only to open himself to God and receive the gift of grace.

Luther preached this good news of faith his whole life. The Church was Reformed, and for five hundred years we have experienced the peace and joy that comes with the assurance that God loves us and forgives us, right? Well, apparently, this ability to walk by faith is more difficult than it appears. Though it ought to bring us relief, though it ought to feel for us like we have strong, comforting arms wrapped around us in love, too often we want to be in control. Believing we can earn our own salvation means that we have some control, that we don't have to rely on God after all. If we check the right things off a list, or if we pay the right amount of money, we can control our fate. We can earn God's love.

Only, have you tried to earn someone's love before? How did it work out for you? But we still do it all the time. This is not a problem of the medieval Catholics, my friends. Even today we find it easier to clench our fists in control than we do to open our hands to receive.

Two hundred years after Luther nailed 95 theses about how we are made right with God through our faith not through our works, John Wesley, one of the founders of Methodism, was also struggling with his faith. John Wesley was the son of a preacher. He experienced a miracle as a young child being saved from a fire. He started a club in college with his brother and other friends that earned them the name Methodist because their practice of faith was so regulated, scheduled, methodical. He became a missionary, crossing the Atlantic to preach to people in Georgia in early 1736. He was on board a ship bound for the Georgia colony when a ferocious storm shredded the main sail and flooded the decks. Many of the English passengers aboard screamed in terror that they would soon be swallowed by the deep. But a group of Moravian missionaries from Germany calmly sang throughout the squall. They were unafraid of death, an astounded John Wesley later recounted in his journal. But it wasn't until two years later on May 24 that Wesley, back in England, discouraged by the path his life had taken, and miserable, stumbled into a Moravian society meeting. He would never have gone if he did not remember the calm singing on the ship two years before. That evening someone read from Luther's Preface to the Epistle to Romans. About 8:45 p.m., he writes, “while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

Wesley realized that as much as he tried, he could not control God's love for him. It is a free gift. The Moravians he saw on that boat understood that gift. They found peace even when it was difficult because they were secure in God's love for them. They knew God was with them through the storm. They didn't have to compete for God's affections, or try desperately to get God's attention. Their hands were open, and they trusted God.

I myself have been try to unclench my hands and open myself to receive God. As I have mentioned to you before, I might not be the most organized person in my everyday life, but I have a plan. Graduate college, graduate seminary, get a job, get married, get ordained, have kids...only that last piece hasn't worked so well for me. Three years of trying, two miscarriages, and decreasing hope. Last year, I lamented to a friend that hope hurts too much. That I don't trust hope. And so she told me not to focus on hope. She said, focus on faith. Lean into God in troubled times, stop trying to control everything, and look for the good things in life. Seek the gifts instead of just the things you are missing. Around the same time, someone gave me a simple gift, a candle in a jar with the words, “Faith does not make things easy--- it makes them possible.” And for a year, I have lit that candle and prayed. I have tried to lean into God when I am feeling bitter and hurt and lost. I have given thanks when I don't really want to because there is always something to be thankful for. I have tried to let go of all the “shoulds” I have in my life. This should have happened. And instead I have tried to see God beside me and receive not the grace I think I should receive, but the grace I already have just for being a child of God.

Now, Wesley still struggled with doubt, and so did Luther, and I certainly will too. Wesley wondered why he wasn't more joyful sometimes. Reformation is a constant process, which I hope you will find through this sermon series. Faith is a journey. It is something we have to live by.

I don't know that one day I will wake up and lean into God naturally, always seeing the beauty and possibility in every day. Luther and Wesley didn't. But in those moments they did, in those moments I do, that is what it looks like to live by faith.

So in what ways do you clench your hands, telling God that you know a better way of doing things, or simply unable to believe that God could love you of all people? And what can help you to open your hands ever wider to receive the gift of grace God offers us? My prayer for all of us is that we can continue to reform our own hearts, that we may live by faith.

1Marin E. Marty, Ocober 31, 1517: Martin Luther and the Day that Changed the World (Brewster, Massachusetts: Paraclete Press, 2016), 19 and 23.

2“We Live By Faith- Romans 1,” 1 June 2005, Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, accessed 14 October 2017, https://worship.calvin.edu/resources/resource-library/we-live-by-faith-romans-1/.

Rest in Our Souls

This was my first sermon for Calvary United Methodist Church in Frederick, my new appointment where I serve as the associate pastor. 

Scripture: Matthew 11:16-19 and 25-30 (NRSV)

“But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”

...

At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Sermon:

Let us pray:

Patient teacher, we give thanks for this day, for an opportunity to see new mercies. We don't always give thanks for your word, especially when it is confusing, but we know we should anyway. So we give you thanks for this word too, and ask that the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts help us to better understand you, and open us even more to that mercy and grace you shower upon us. Amen.

Someone asked me what I was going to preach on my first Sunday here, and I said the scripture where Jesus talks about giving us rest. I have always liked this scripture because of a song that quotes it, but I guess it might come off as a little strange that your new pastor has only been here a week and she's already talking about weariness and a need for rest. But no, this is not a cry for help! Or not exactly. Because I think what Jesus was telling his followers here is actually something I need help with, and I suspect some of you may need help with as well.

Summer is often seen as a season of relaxation in our culture. Many of us try to go on vacations. We spend weekends with friends eating hot dogs and hamburgers, especially for Memorial Day and Fourth of July. But I find for many of us summer becomes even more of a scramble than the rest of the year. Who will take care of the kids when we are at work? Will we get enough rain for our gardens? When will we find time to mow the lawn? Or, for many of us struggling with the basics, where will our families find something to eat without free school lunches? Where will we find a safe and cool place to sleep if we can't afford air conditioning in our own homes? The heat alone can make us weary. Summer brings so many questions and it can easily become more of a juggling act than a restful season.

Our culture is not one for rest anyway. How often have you felt like you are trapped in a hamster wheel, trying to do all the things, but as soon as you accomplish one task, there are ten others? And of course, we can't ask for help. We have to be independent, pull ourselves up by our bootstraps or something. Sometimes we seem like we'd rather do it on our own than actually rely on God.

My story is definitely one that as much in love with God as I am, I have been known to try to do the work on my own rather than rely on God. In fact, my call story is one like that and the last few years have been like that as well. I was called to ministry when I was nineteen years old. Well, it was before that, but I didn't pay any attention. I didn't think God knew what God was talking about so I kept doing my own thing. My mom is a pastor and I certainly didn't want to be like her! (I was a teenager, after all.) In fact, the call I heard first was not to be a pastor but to be a missionary. I went on a mission trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina when I was sixteen with our very own Beth Richards, among others. And I had never heard God clearer than in that country, with those people. I had never really recognized the transforming power of God's love before I went to Bosnia. So I was set. Sixteen years old, I knew what God called me to do and I worked to make it happen.

I am a planner. That doesn't mean I'm organized, but I have a plan. My roommate in seminary reminded me recently that when we were serving as student chaplains in a hospital together, I mapped out all my hours and figured out what two days I could get sick. “You know you can't pick what days you get sick, right?” She asked me. But that's just how I am. I have a plan, and I put it into motion. I had a call, so I had decided how I was going to respond to the call, what steps had to happen. I recognized God's voice and then promptly told God I'd take it from here. So when I was nineteen and one of those steps I had to take to realize my call fell through, I was desolate. I was studying abroad in France at the time, and I remember feeling so lost. I would sit in these huge stone cathedrals, a little like this one, in fact, and wonder why God would make things so hard. Why would God give me a dream and snatch it away like that?

As petulant as it seems looking back on it, I have found many I minister with have the same question in their own lives. And I find myself asking the same thing now as I get angry at God for giving me the dream of a family and snatching it further and further away. Aaron and I have been trying to have children for years, and we keep coming up to roadblock after roadblock. It is wearying.

When I was nineteen, I first felt a little of that weariness. I was weary and angry and frustrated with God. But I was also a preacher's kid, and so I kept going to church anyway. I was so weary that I think I gave up. I didn't know where I was going to go or who I was going to be after college. So I brought my burdens to Jesus and discovered that his yoke wasn't so bad after all. That maybe he could be trusted to plan things a bit. I found an awesome church community in Washington DC, joined a Bible study and did mission with them. I began to experience joy again. I didn't feel so alone. And so at the beginning of summer, at a special worship service for young United Methodist students, in a small chapel with low lighting and the strum of guitars, a pastor friend of mine lifted homemade rainbow communion bread before us, broke it, and I had this incredible sensation wash over me. I felt like I was home. I felt completely loved, completely connected. My weary soul, searching for what I was to do, who I was to be, found rest at the Table. I found rest in Jesus.

But that rest was not a vacation. It was a call. God called me to keep working to make all people feel at home at that same Table. And God told me I wouldn't do it alone.

If you remember, Jesus urges the weary to come to him, but then he talks about a yoke. I should let you know, I am a country girl. Aaron and I went to a high school that had Take Your Tractor to School day. Still, I don't know much about yokes. In fact, when I think about a yoke, I think about bondage, even servitude. I think of a power that someone places on top of another, human or animal, and forces us to work for them. But I think what Jesus is talking about is more of a double yoke to pull together, in tandem, a team. We don't have to work alone, he says. We don't have to wonder how we are going to live into our call alone. Jesus wears the yoke with us, labors alongside us, is connected to us, and helps to make our work to spread God's love easier, not more difficult.¹

I wrote in my newsletter that the scripture through which I seek to understand the journey of faith is John 10:10, in which Jesus tells us that he came that we might have life and have it abundantly. As Christians, we often think we have to work hard, suffer a lot, deprive ourselves in order to be faithful. Such a life is not abundant. Such a life is not that of one yoked to Christ. Yes, we will work. Yes, we will suffer. Yes, we will have to give up some of the things we love. But we do not have to bear our burdens alone. Christ walks alongside us, working with us, offering us more abundance always.

God called me. God was not going to let me be alone, lost, empty. That doesn't mean that God will prevent anything bad from happening to me. But God says I don't have to weary myself trying to figure it out on my own. And God has called each of you by virtue of your baptisms. God is not going to let you wander alone, either. You might insist on doing the work yourself. You might try to be independent. But Jesus is there, reaching for you, offering to help so life isn't so hard. Offering to help so you can find new life, abundant life.

So, are you going to keep insisting on doing it your own way? Whether that's your job, your call, your faith, your relationships? Or are you going to settle your weary self down and take up the yoke alongside Jesus? This sermon is a bit of a commitment to you, to stop trying to do it all on my own and to learn from Jesus. For Jesus is gentle and humble in heart, and in him, we will find rest for our souls. Hallelujah. Amen.

1Jan Richardson wrote a beautiful reflection on this passage that I draw on here: “If the yoke fits...” 2 July 2008, The Painted Prayerbook, accessed 6 July 2017, http://paintedprayerbook.com/2008/07/02/if-the-yoke-fits/.

The people who walk in darkness

Upper Chesapeake Medical Center has restarted a perinatal bereavement support group. I was the first speaker, and the group ended up being relaxed and informal, but this is what I had prepared to say.

In the last year, I have had two miscarriages. The last one was only a few weeks ago. We have been trying to have children for over two years. And I should tell you I am a pastor, so this is a busy time of year for me. It is Advent, the season of preparing our hearts and minds for the coming of Christ by remembering and even reenacting the birth of a baby. It's also a season of waiting.

Does this sound like a super fun time of year for a person dealing with the death of babies and wondering when, if ever, she will ever get pregnant again?

Hint: it's not.

One of the scriptures we read during Advent that I usually open Christmas Eve services with is from the prophet Isaiah. He writes, The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined (Isaiah 9:2). He writes about the Israelites, desperately hoping for a new reign of peace and prosperity after life under the oppression of the Assyrian Empire. Christians read it as the anticipation of Jesus's birth. And it is a scripture that has been sticking with me in this season. Because I feel like those people who walked in darkness--- not (necessarily) because of politics, but because of grief.

I knew I was going to have a miscarriage my first pregnancy. We had conceived on Christmas day last year, which is probably more information than you need to know, but this was after over a year of trying and my desperation was so strong that I basically missed a day of work every month when I got my period because all I could do was sit around and cry. When we learned we were going to have a Christmas baby, it seemed too perfect. I didn't trust it. Perhaps that says something about my faith, you can analyze that later, but this moment should have felt like dawn after a long night. Instead it just felt like more darkness. That is until just before the eighth week, when I finally started picking out baby names and researching potential Halloween costumes. Finally, that light seemed to be shining! And then I had a miscarriage. I remember sitting in the car on the way to the emergency room on my husband's twenty-ninth birthday while he prayed for us and he was still praying that our baby would be okay. I had no such hope. I already knew our baby was gone.

Now the days after our miscarriage were not as dark as that day. I could feel hope again. After all, we hadn't been sure we could get pregnant naturally but we did. And when it started to get dark again, after not getting pregnant for seven months on our own and with some help, the day of the baby's due date ended up being another experience of renewal that let some light seep in. And then I got pregnant again, a week after my first due date, and, even though I was cautious, I allowed myself to hope this time. To hold my belly and talk to the baby. To again try and decide on a middle name for a boy. But I only allowed myself to hope a little bit. I had grown accustomed to the dark.

I miscarried again. And this time I saw no light. And when people reminded me that God was still with me, and that I have a wonderful supportive husband and church, and that I have so much to be thankful for, I just got more bitter. I wanted to be left alone in my grief. My eyes adjusted to the darkness and my heart adjusted to hopelessness.

But I don't think hopelessness is all the darkness of pregnancy and infant loss can teach me, and maybe teach us. Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again...”¹
 
One of those things I have learned is the power of community. I have always believed that community is beautiful, but it was not until I was stumbling in this darkness myself that I actually experienced it saving me. Like just his past Tuesday, when I was exhausted and ran into a family acquaintance in a hospital waiting room while looking for one of my parishioners. She asked me which of my sisters had lost the baby. I burst into tears when I told her it was me, not one of my sisters, even though I thought I was doing so well with not crying in public. But while I tried to blink back tears, she took my hand and told me about how between her two children, she lost five pregnancies. She told me about how her son was a twin, but his twin died at seventeen weeks. She had to carry the dead baby within her as she carried the living one. And she told me this story not with triumph, not with the smile and “See, one day you will have a beautiful baby too just like I did,” end to the story. She told me her story just to let me know I was not alone, and she had cried too, so many times.

I want to run the show. I want to be able to plan my pregnancies the way my mother did, when she decided she never wanted to be pregnant in the summer again, so my sisters' birthdays are June 1 and June 3. I want my doctor to tell me the next IUI will work. I want to know when I get that positive on the pregnancy stick that I will be pregnant for forty weeks, not seven or eight. But we don't run the show. We don't have control over our ovulation or the quality of our eggs. We don't have control over crying in the middle of a hospital waiting room with an almost stranger. But when I stop trying to control the outcome, I might start to see beauty and goodness in the light there is, even if it isn't the kind of light I wanted or expected. Like the beauty and goodness there was in sitting with a woman, listening to her story and not feeling so alone anymore.

The darkness of pregnancy and infant loss is horrible. I would give up this journey in exchange for a baby in a heartbeat. But there is still goodness in the midst of the horribleness, still light in the darkness, even if it is a just faint glow. And I believe that is because the darkness is not dark to God, as Psalm 139 tells us. To God, the night is as bright as day. God can work the good from even terrible situations. God can help us see beauty by that faint starlight even when the sun isn't shining.

So though even today I do not expect to see a great light, to feel the warmth of a smile on my face when I get to hold my baby for the first time, I know that this darkness we walk in the meantime is not just a place of death and hopelessness. That we can learn to walk in the dark, and to reach out to our siblings in this journey and help them walk too. And maybe together we will find that even the night can be bright.

1Barabara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark (New York: HarperOne, 2014), 5.

Joy Happens In Relationship

This is  a sermon from Presbury United Methodist Church's Mismatched Nativity series. 

Scripture: Luke 1:39-58 (NRSV)
In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” And Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home. 

Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. 

Sermon: 
Let us pray:  

Patient teacher, we probably don't all feel very joyful this morning. Maybe we are worried about a loved one in the hospital. Maybe we saw our credit card bill and are trying to figure out how long it will take to pay it off. Maybe we just got a bad night's sleep. There are so many things that keep us from rejoicing in you. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts show us how near you are today. For that is good news indeed. Amen.      

We are continuing our sermon series on a Mismatched Nativity. You can come up after worship, or just see from your seats that this Nativity is composed of many different sets, and many from places like Haiti and South Africa. Of course, there are also gnome and Snoopy nativities represented, so it is a bit of a strange concoction here. But it serves as a visual reminder for what we have been talking about--- these characters from the story of Jesus' birth were not so different from us. Their lives are not perfect. They had problems like we do. They messed up once or twice in their lives--- but, even if you aren't convinced they did mess up, everyone around them thought they did and judged them for it, made their lives harder for it. Zechariah prayed but really didn’t have hope. Mary was less pure and holy than spunky and courageous. Today, we are talking about Elizabeth, a person of faith who experienced joy but also still felt fear and anxiety, just like many of us do.    

Our scripture today is about joy pure and simple, from Mary to Elizabeth and back again. But remember that joy and happiness are not the same thing. We are not talking about a sense of contentment, like after a long day when you finally get to put your feet up and relax. We are not talking about the feeling of pleasure we experience when eating our favorite food. We are not talking about the warm fluttery feeling like the kind you get in your stomach when you realize the next Star Wars movie is out next week. Or maybe you don't get that feeling, but I do! Joy is a deeper feeling than those even though it is sometimes fleeting. Joy is a kind of resistance and resilience. Joy transforms us, and shows us possibilities we once thought impossible.     

Let's just look more carefully at Mary and Elizabeth's story. If we picture these women at all, which, let's face it, Elizabeth and Zechariah are left out of the Nativity so often we don't think of them as being a part of the story--- but if we picture these women, we picture halos and light, big smiles and big bellies. Scripture doesn't exactly tell us otherwise, though it does suggest that Mary probably did not have a big belly yet, but I wonder if the halos and smiles put us off from the part of the story we can best relate to--- that Mary and Elizabeth were afraid.     

We aren't really sure why Mary set out and went with haste to see Elizabeth. Yes, the angel had given her the good news, but it wasn't like she had a car and could just run over with cake and balloons. Rev. Adam Hamilton in his bible study about the geography of the story of Jesus' birth says that the journey by foot between Mary's and Elizabeth's homes could have taken nine days. He writes, “The fact that Mary was willing to travel nine days across three mountain ranges [hill country, the scripture tell us, remember] to see Elizabeth speaks volumes about how she was feeling. She longed for someone who might believe her and who could help her make sense of what was happening.”1     

Now in those days, women would often journey to family member's homes to help with pregnancy, delivery, and taking care of the newborn baby. It was probably not out of the ordinary for Mary to go on such a journey, or at least women Mary's age. But I have a friend who has another theory. She believes that Mary was kicked out by angry and frightened parents. We really have no idea, but think about it--- how many of you would believe a teenager, even the sweetest, most innocent teenager you know, if they told you that the Holy Spirit impregnated them with God? Maybe they got angry and sent Mary away, to wait until her delusion had passed or to negotiate with Joseph's family so no violence would befall Mary, since the law at that time, whether or not it was enforced, was to stone a woman who had committed adultery, even against her betrothed. Whatever you believe, I think these possibilities tell us that this journey to Elizabeth's house was not taken by Mary while she was skipping and singing to woodland animals like a Disney princess. She was afraid and uncertain. Her courage in agreeing to serve God was waning in the face of very real fears and anxieties.     

And Elizabeth, she was also full of fear and anxiety, despite the faith she exhibited when we read about Zechariah a few weeks ago. Of course, I could be projecting my own experiences onto Elizabeth, but two different people I talked to this week who had multiple losses and struggled with infertility agreed with me, so this is not isolated. As much as Elizabeth wanted to become pregnant, as much as she realized our God is a God of miracles, for those who experience pregnancy loss and infertility, pregnancy is scary. Every time I told someone I was pregnant this last time--- which was only a few people because I was so scared--- I burst into tears. And not happy tears. Every time someone responded with congratulations, I didn't feel like I could accept it yet. I felt like I was holding my breath--- and I could tell Aaron was too. I remembered seeing people post pictures not of 12 week sonograms but of the actual pregnancy test just weeks after conception and could not fathom how you could share something that was so uncertain.     

Elizabeth, you may remember from the beginning of chapter one of Luke's Gospel, went into seclusion for the five months after she conceived. Even though she was a woman of deep faith, a woman who proclaimed, “This is what the Lord has done for me when he looked favorably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people.” Elizabeth felt like she was holding her breath. Did Zechariah really have a vision? Did God really mean this baby would be the one, or maybe she would miscarry and have another? God's time isn't our time after all. Even though she had faith, she was afraid. Rev. Hamilton points out that, “It seems to have been Mary's visit that drew Elizabeth out of her seclusion. Mary needed Elizabeth, but perhaps Elizabeth also needed Mary.”2     

Mary and Elizabeth were not these majestic superwomen who could do anything and everything easily and without any fear or worry just because God called them to do it. They were people full of faith, people seeking to love God more. And as people of faith, when their belief waned, when their fear reared it's head, they reached out to one another. And that reaching out made their faith even stronger. That reaching out gave them joy, true joy, based on the knowledge that they were not alone. That God was with them, helping them to see beauty and goodness even in the difficult things.3     

“Joy happens in relationship.”4 There isn't some magic formula for joy, some specific prayer or action that only haloed people with big smiles can experience. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child that would become John the Baptist leaped in her womb. But her heart leaped too. And she finally felt the presence of the Lord again stronger than her fear and anxiety over her pregnancy. She blessed Mary, crying out to her in joy, which then prompted the most joyful song in all of scripture, at least to me. The Magnificat. With Elizabeth's blessing, Mary was able to let joy fill her again after over a week of walking and worrying, seeking a friend. She knew God had remembered her because Elizabeth did--- not as a teenage mom, but as a person blessed by God.     

Do you have a person like Elizabeth and Mary had? A friend who is there to help you find God when it is hard, a friend who can help you hear God's voice when you can't? That is what this week was for me, from church people to life-long friends, to Muslim women, to a virtual stranger in a hospital waiting room, I encountered people like like Elizabeth, who emerged from their own pain to speak a word of blessing upon me.     

This is a congregation full of Elizabeths and Marys who need to take the journey to reach out to one another in love and let God transform them. So let us open our hearts to the joy God already has in store for us. In the spirit of reaching out, I invite you to turn to your neighbor and rejoice together, as Elizabeth and Mary did together. Offer one another signs of God's joy!    

1Adam Hamilton, The Journey: Walking the Road to Bethlehem (Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 2011), 63.     

2Ibid., 65.     

3I thought about this following a comment on The Young Clergy Women Project Facebook Group, posted 1 December 2016, accessed 10 December 2016.   

4Another comment this time on the YCWs Preach the Narrative Lectionary Facebook Group, posted 10 December 2016, accessed 10 December 2016.

After the flood you set in the clouds a rainbow: more reflections on miscarriage

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Mountaintops, the Force, and Faith: More Reflections on My Ordination

In United Methodist tradition, ordination happens at Annual Conference (you can read a summary of our annual conference here or here) through the laying on of hands by bishops. My experience was a blessing, especially because in addition to my wonderful bishop, the bishop who ordained my mother and another bishop were present. The bishop who preached the ordination service preached the exact sermon I needed to hear. But I also like how in other traditions the local church has more of a role in the ordination service, and how it is more personal. So the Sunday following my ordination, I designed the service with a nod to our ordination service to include my local church, Presbury United Methodist Church, who has had a pretty big part in shaping me as a pastor after all, and share my call story.

Scripture: Matthew 28:16-20 (NRSV)
Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Sermon:

Let us pray:

Patient teacher, we give you thanks. We should always start with thanks because no matter how low in the valley we may feel, and no matter how steep the climb up the mountain can be, there is always something to give thanks for. So we do. We thank you. And we ask through the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts this morning that you may help us always to give thanks for your presence all around us. Amen.

In our scripture today, Jesus directs his disciples to go up a mountain. Mountains have great symbolic importance in scripture. One of the names for God that you will find in the Hebrew Bible and you may have heard in praise songs is El Shaddai. There are a few different translations for this name, especially some interpreted as a feminine name for God, but one of the usual ways we translate it is God of the Mountains. It is a name that symbolizes power and majesty, as mountains also illustrate power and majesty. Mountains are also the site where pretty important things happen in the lives of people of faith. Remember that guy Moses we sometimes talk about? Well, he was called to lead the Hebrew people to freedom when he was on a mountain. Later, he received the Ten Commandments when he went up a mountain, Mount Sinai or Horeb. In the New Testament, Jesus takes Peter and James and John up a mountain to pray and he is transfigured before them. His face and clothes glow and Moses and Elijah appear beside him. God speaks, revealing to these disciples that Jesus is God’s beloved son and they are to listen to him.

Throughout the history of our faith, even modern day history, mountains are synonymous with God’s presence and power. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s last speech given before he was murdered. He said: 

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live - a long life; longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

Powerful words. Mountaintops are a place of vision, where Rev. Dr. King saw the kindom of God or the Promised Land, saw God’s intentions for us and was moved to continue God’s work no matter what he may face.

So mountains are important physical and symbolic sites for us as people of faith. And one mountain in particular in our scripture today served as both physical and symbolic in the disciples own journey. At this point in the story the disciples are in a valley. Valleys we have also heard of before--- does the verse, I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, sound familiar to you? Jesus has resurrected by the time we get to our story today, he has appeared to women, and they've shared what he told him with the disciples, but some doubted. The pain and horror of Jesus’ death is too fresh. But no matter their hurt and confusion, they go up the mountain anyway, and there they meet the risen Christ. Some still doubt. But they meet him all the same. Jesus does what he always does. He teaches, gives them direction, loves them. Some of them are finally getting it. Some still aren't. But then he says: And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

I've preached on this verse before, and within the last two years, so it's probably bad form to preach it again. But I'm going to anyway. Because that's the key to everything. I am with you always. God is with us in the valleys and on the mountains. God is with us in our worship and in our doubt. God is with us when we are joyful and when we are despairing.

I have experienced this in my own life. My call to ministry, which I have also used in a sermon fairly recently--- it's terrible to be ordained for a day and already reusing sermons! Ah well. Anyway, my call to ministry happened after a sojourn in the valley. God had called me to be a missionary. When I was fifteen, I had such a transformational experience on a mission trip to Bosnia that I understood God to be calling me to similar work in my adult life. I planned to go to Cameroon to study abroad and my parents would not let me go, which felt like a betrayal by God since my mother was also my pastor. I studied abroad in France instead, and while that was an amazing experience, it was also lonely. I was confused. I didn’t understand why God would call me and then wouldn’t open doors for me to live out the call (now of course, as I go on our AppalachiaService Project trips I see God is, but that’s another story). All this to say: I was nineteen and in a very dark place spiritually. When I came back to the states, I lived in DC and would not have gone to church except someone told me just to try a church called Dumbarton. Dumbarton is a radical place, a church that explicitly welcome all people regardless of sexual identity or gender expression. This was a place where anyone could lift up personal prayer concerns and joys in the same moment one could plead for prayers for far away war-torn countries. It was a church where people could open up their hearts and use their hands and feet to do the work of Christ in the world. I joined their young adult group that met in the Methodist building on Capitol Hill to do bible study together and talk about science fiction. And even though I was still mad at God, even though I still didn’t hear God’s call on my life anymore, I felt myself moving out of the valley and slowly back up the mountain. 

An ordained elder attending the church who was working at a faith-based, non-profit invited me to Student Forum's MOSAIC service, which in that year was held in DC. MOSAIC is the young adult ministry working for a fully inclusive United Methodist Church. This is not just about sexual identity but about welcoming people of all backgrounds and races and ages, about helping us as a church to truly reflect the diversity of the body of Christ. It was there that I could no longer deny God's call on my life.

The lights were dim, the chapel small but filled with warm bodies swaying slightly to the music from the guitars. And my friend walked up to the altar where communion lay and she took the bread and broke it. It was rainbow challah bread. And at that moment I felt like I belonged, I felt that this was home. It was a feeling of completeness that I wish for everyone. And I knew in that moment that God was calling me to be like my friend, breaking bread and building community in such a way that all people feel welcomed and loved. 

Now, as I always say when telling my call story, there were plenty of times before May of 2008 when God called me. People in my home church will tell you that they knew I was called when I was in elementary school. My mother knew when I was in middle school. The agnostic and atheist I lived with in DC at the time knew it. Heck, I remember looking a little at seminaries when I was in France--- I knew it but just wouldn't admit it. This is how the call on our lives works--- and we all have a call, whether or not it is to ordained ministry. God is always calling us because God is always with us.

And there have been valleys and mountaintops since. My experience of the exam for becoming a provisional elder was emotionally awful and followed by the ugliness of General Conference 2012, I wasn't sure I was going to stay Methodist. And then I went to Deer Creek and Mt.Tabor, and they reminded me that God has given me gifts for ministry. They have a gift for teaching pastors, and they took a tired, nervous young woman who was frustrated with the church and even a little frustrated with God, and you turned her into a confident pastor.
And I have been in a valley since my miscarriage. Maybe even before, frankly, because of our battle with infertility before we even got pregnant. And I certainly am not far away from that valley yet. But the overwhelming love I received yesterday--- the cards and texts and messages and posts about the live stream on top of having almost my whole immediate family, people from my home church, people from Mt. Tabor, people from Presbury, friends from high school, friends from seminary, congratulations from colleagues--- that was a mountaintop when I heard again the call to go therefore and make disciples. People all around the world need to feel that kind of love, so if I'm feeling it I can't keep it bottled up! I need to go, therefore, and share that love.

Bishop King, who preached the ordination service, told us we have to keep moving. So that is my invitation to all of you. When you are in those valleys, keep on walking. Try looking for higher ground, if you can, but keep on walking. Because the Force is with you always. I mean, God. God is with us always, to the end of the age.