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Thy Will Be Done (Jonah 3:1-5, 10; I Cor.7:29-31; Mk. 1:14-20)

I remember the day I received my call -- follow me and I will make you fish for people. In my case it was a call to ordained ministry. Although my call was more like a slow culmination of events and experiences, there was one dramatic moment in my senior year in high school. It was 1973, just three years after my denomination officially allowed the ordination of women. At the time, I knew nothing of this historical moment. Since the second grade I had informed those who asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" that I wanted to be a doctor. But it turned out not to be my calling. I tested my professional desire by volunteering for several years as a "candy striper" in our local hospital, and discovered that I became light-headed at the sight of anything sharp and medical. I figured medical school would be rough.

My senior year in high school I, the pre-premed student, was dutifully enrolled in biology. We were on the verge of dissecting cats, an assignment for which I had no stomach or desire.

It was then that I heard of a woman who was enrolled as a student at the Lutheran seminary in my hometown -- the first woman ever in the master of divinity program in that school. This was all I needed. I put down my scalpel, quit the class and turned my face toward Jerusalem.

It was simultaneously a freeing and frightening moment. I was absolutely convinced of my call and yet absolutely unsure how I would accomplish this new mission. I wondered if the stork had dropped the baby off at the wrong house. The call was there, but it seemed to me the gifts were not. I was terribly shy -- how could I possibly preach a sermon in front of people! I had only minimal social skills -- how could I possibly manage the dynamics of a congregation? I didn’t know how any of this could work to any good. Every night in college as a religion major, I prayed to God to just give me a sign if I were on the wrong path and I would gladly resign my call. Years later, through times of success and times of despair, I have yet to hear the summons to retreat. What my experience confirms for me is precisely what the scriptures proclaim: when God calls, it is our joyful task to follow. And it is God’s agenda that wins.

Those first fisher disciples left more than their nets by the seashore. The nets were only a symbol for all that must be abandoned in order to follow Christ. Popular psychology counsels the heavy-laden to get rid of their excess baggage. The old spiritual sang it: I’m gonna lay down my burden down by the riverside. Those called to follow litter the riverside and the "fontside" with precisely the kind of stuff Jonah had difficulty giving up. We may be impressed with the valuables Simon and Andrew laid down to follow Jesus -- families, homes and jobs -- these proved to be mere trinkets compared with what they were ultimately called to lay down at the foot of the cross. The punchline of the Jonah comedy prepares the way. Jonah was a call resister and for good reason: he objected to God’s mercy. In a sermon on God’s mercy, Isaiah once proclaimed of God, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.

In the Jonah drama on the character of God, Jonah clearly hears the call of the Lord and even more clearly knows that he will not, cannot, follow. It’s not because he’s too busy or because he has obligations he cannot imagine leaving. He intentionally sails away because he does not agree with God’s ways and God’s agenda. Jonah sees others wallowing in the mud of their disobedience, evil and immorality and believes with all his soul that they should be pelted with fire and brimstone hurled from the band of God. It’s what they deserve. The evil should be punished and the righteous rewarded. Bad things should happen to bad people and good things should happen to good people. Everybody Jonah had ever lived with, worked with or had lunch with seemed to see the world in the same way -- everybody, that is, except the God of the universe. Jonah was an honest man. Although mercy disgusted him, he knew his ways were not God’s ways. If the people of Nineveh repented, Jonah was sure God would embrace them.

When we decide to follow, we are called to lay down some of our most valuable possessions: our understanding of the world, our view of right and wrong, our assumptions about whom God favors and whom God despises, our ways and our thoughts. The Jonah drama ends incompletely yet compassionately as God consoles the pouting Jonah like a mother explaining the justice of the world to an angry three-year-old.

The disciples of Jesus discovered that fishing nets were only the first things they would be called to leave behind for the gospel’s sake. As they traveled and camped around Galilee, they discarded beliefs about the character and will of God. They cast off their assumptions about God’s mercy love and justice. Judas, of course, clung to his religious-political beliefs until they became a noose around his neck. None of the others were perfect disciples either. Each had his "Jonah moments" of resisting the call and questioning God’s agenda.

And yet for all our imperfect following, for all our resistance, for all our questioning of our capabilities and responsibilities, God’s will is done. Neither Jonah’s resistance and grumpiness nor even his disaster of a sermon could turn aside the river of mercy that was about to rain on that great city. In the end God gets what God wants. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. As we pray, so shall we follow.

Time’s Up (Mark 13:1-8)

As the leaves fall from the trees and the earth goes brown and bare, the church contemplates the end as well -- the end of our lives in death and the end of the world with Christ’s coming. The very idea that there will be an end is threatening to those of us who have pretty good lives and good plans for the future. For those of us who experience life as a roller coaster of ups and downs, on the other hand, or those who experience life as mostly downs, the Idea of "an end to it all" maybe comforting.

Those among us who are very elderly or very ill think often about the end of our lives. We prepare and put things in order. Those of us who aren’t ill or elderly are busy living in the middle of things. But what if we all needed to prepare for the end?

What if you knew you had only one month left in your life?

• Would you finish up important matters at work?

• Would you travel to a place you always wanted to go?

• Would you pray more, go to church more, do that generous act you always wanted to do for others?

• Would you find ways to leave a mark on the world?

• Would you reconcile a fractured friendship?

By answering yes to one or more of these possibilities, we indicate that in our last days we would be better stewards of all the things God has given us in this life -- better than we are now. In the intensity of last days, we would live better, be better. We would be more generous, more focused on the most important things in life. The question is: Why do we need to be under threat of death to be better stewards?

Here’s another "what if." What if we discovered that our congregation only had one more month to exist? If my congregation only had a month to live, I would want all the members to be together as much as possible. If only for one precious Sunday, I’d like to have everybody listed in our church directory together for worship. If our time as a congregation was almost over, I don’t think we’d have much trouble getting inactive or barely active members and friends to join us. End times have that kind of power.

As members of a congregation at the end of its life, we would also have the great opportunity to decide what we wanted to do with our assets. Provided God or the bishop left that up to us, we would have a few million dollars worth of real estate, cash and furnishings to disperse back into the local community and the Christian community.

How would we decide what to do with the money? We wouldn’t have time to fight about it. We’d have to focus fast and get our priorities straight. What would we support and what would we want our final legacy to be? We could help start a new ministry where none currently exists. Or we could support an existing one, endow scholarships, build a youth center in town or a better shelter for the homeless. We could do so much -- if we had only a month left! We could be really great stewards of our resources -- if we only had a month to live.

The question is, why is it so hard for our congregations to consider this kind of stewardship if we have another hundred years to live? The Bible’s teaching about the end times reminds us that we have failed to see history from God’s perspective. There is a bigger picture than just the snapshot of our lives. We don’t live in the moment, we live in all of history

Yes, there’s an impracticality to living as if it were the end when it’s really not. If I knew my life would really be over in a month, I probably would jump on a plane and visit some places I’ve longed to see. But if I’ve got much more than a month, I have bills to pay and obligations to tend. Living as if it’s the end would be irresponsible. But does our best stewardship have to exist only in our imaginings of what ifs"?

Jesus calls us to do both: to live with the intensity of last days while living our regular lives. He reminds us that we are not ultimately invested in this world, and he liberates us to work with courage, with hope. End times call for tall towers of hope. They call for a lightning-speed reordering of priorities. End times call for alertness, sharpness. They tingle with expectation. They are times of uncertainty and fear only for those whose faith is thin.

While the end of the world could be millennia away for all we know, and while we expect our congregations to continue their ministries well into this new century, end times are around us. Church historians and culture-watchers tell us that we’re on the edge of an end time for the church’s traditional role in society. But this doesn’t mean things are over. As Jesus said, you will hear of wars and earthquakes and famines, but it doesn’t mean the end is near. You will hear of the comings and goings of institutions and cultures, but it doesn’t mean the end is near. It may only be, Jesus says, the beginning of what God has planned. End times are powerful times pregnant with purpose for those with ears to hear and eyes to see the advent of our God.

Saints and Sinners (Mark 12:28-34)

It always breaks my heart a little when an elderly member of my congregation dies after decades of service and faithfulness. It breaks my heart a little more when only a handful of members attend the funeral of a shut-in. But on the Day of All Saints the names of these people who have passed on are read with reverence and thanks in front of the entire congregation. "For all the saints who from their labors rest," we sing.

Who are all these saints? Most churches don’t generate much excitement by talking about the early saints (the ones with "St." in front of their names). Even though many of the old hymns for this day refer to the saints of old who shone in glory, most of us prefer saints closer to home. Our communion of saints is a more familiar crowd -- those who died in our congregations in the past year our own parents and grandparents. We’re also more apt to remember those famous saints who lived closer to our own lifetimes. Because we share the same century with them, we remember Mother Teresa and Cardinal Joseph Bernardin more often than St. Teresa or St. Joseph. It’s a great day to remember all of those who have gone before us, the ones on whose shoulders we stand, the ones whose lives and witness have brought us to this new day.

We can study the history of our faith and proudly say we are where we are today because our ancestors in the faith raised their voices, made bold decisions and prayed and taught the faith. We are where we are today because our ancestors were willing to go to jail, to be thrown to the lions and be burned at the stake. We are here today because our ancestors fought for religious freedom, braved and explored a new world to establish churches in America and spread the gospel. They did all these things because they loved Jesus, but also because they loved us, their descendants whom they would never know. They loved us so much that they wanted to make sure the story of the gospel was here for us. We are who we are today because of their faith, devotion and bravery. Rise up, O saints of God!

But wait a minute. These saints were not our only ancestors. Isn’t it also true that we are here today, that we are who we are, in the condition in which we find ourselves, because we also had biological and spiritual ancestors who sat on their hands, who cared only for themselves, who thought little about the impact of their actions on future generations? We are also the products of those who were apathetic in their witness. We are the biological and spiritual descendants, for example, of those who advocated a racially segregated society. We are related to people who argued against women’s ordination. And we may have to admit that some in our heritage shrugged their shoulders in the face of oppression and greed. We are products both of those ancestors who fought for the faith and of those who fought against the faith. We are the descendants of both sets of grandparents. We have saints in our blood and skeletons in our closets.

Congregations too are the spiritual grandchildren of wonderful stewards who gave their all, and of generations of curmudgeons who threw water on the Spirit’s fire every chance they got. What type of ancestor do we, who by baptism are part of the communion of saints, hope to be?

One of these All Saints Days our names will be read. We are the potential saints for future generations. We are the shoulders on which others will stand. Will we be ancestors who sat on their hands or ancestors who raised their hands? Sometimes we forget that we aren’t just living our busy lives. We’re also laying a foundation, molding a future and establishing a legacy. How is it going?

There breaks a yet more glorious day, saints triumphant rise in bright array. Will we leave a legacy of justice or will we leave a bequest of selfishness? Those we admire as witnesses to Christ are the ones we believe are our best examples of living the simple commands of Jesus to love God with our whole selves and our neighbor as ourselves. Those who do, Jesus said, are not far from the kingdom of God.

Being a saint means living in hope and not in despair. It means forgiving, not judging; loving, not despising; lifting up, not tearing down. Being a saint means that you can mock evil (what we do on Halloween) rather than being afraid of it or controlled by it.

In this dying of the year, this time of harvest, we would do well to take stock as well as reminisce. When the low G sounds on the organ, announcing the beginning of R. Vaughan Williams’s tune to the hymn "For All the Saints," I feel as though the rumbling of that low bass note calls us to worship the communion of saints. It is a call to St. Peter and St. Paul, to Mary Magdalene and Mother Teresa, to Martin Luther and Martin Luther King Jr. As we remember these strong shoulders on which we stand, we are challenged to strengthen our own shoulders. We are ancestors in the making after all, saints for a generation yet unborn. It is an awesome opportunity. Rise up, O saints of God!

Widow’s Walk (Mark 12:38-44)

Jesus has warned before that the rich will have it hard at the entrance to the kingdom. Now he praises the poor widow’s offering, and makes it clear that the standard measurement for assessing gifts is not how much we give to the work of God or how much we put in the offering plate, but how much we have left for ourselves. Those who give out of their abundance still have abundance left. And that’s a problem.

Can it really be that the poor are praised, that this widow is lifted up, because she gave every bit of money in her bank account? Is this what it takes to follow Jesus? Why this preference for poverty in Jesus’ teaching?

Does it sometimes seem that Jesus is romanticizing and idealizing the poor? Surely the poor would be the first to object. Life in poverty is what we all want to avoid, not aspire to. No one dreams of growing up poor, of living from government check to government check, of digging through garbage cans or living in run-down apartments with no heat.

The woman at the temple was not a poor widow; she was poor because she was a widow. My understanding of sociology and economics in first-century Palestine tells me there was no such thing as a rich widow in that culture. Women were totally dependent on their male relatives for their livelihood. To be widowed meant not only losing someone you may have loved, but more tragically, it also meant that you were losing the one on whom you were totally dependent. Widows were forced to live off of the good graces of other male relatives and anyone in the community who might provide a meal here, a little money there.

The two little coins in the woman’s hand were probably all she had. The truth is -- and the extremely poor know this well -- those coins weren’t going to change her life. When you’ve got so little, a penny or two isn’t going to move you from welfare to work. She could be at peace and joyful in knowing she was able to give to the temple treasury, because with the coins or without them, she was still a dependent person.

Rich people, like most of us readers, can’t say the same. My money gives me independence and freedom from living like a poor widow. I like it that way and my family likes it that way, so I will not be putting my entire paycheck in the offering plate on Sunday. But I’ve also seen poor homeless people in worship who are anxious to find an offering envelope so they can give the only dollar in their pocket toward God’s work. When you’re that low on the economic scale, giving isn’t the problem, getting is.

The widow wasn’t dependent on her money or her status in life; she had none of these. She was dependent on God and her neighbor for everything. She didn’t have two feet to stand on, she didn’t have bootstraps to pull up. She was totally dependent -- and that’s what Jesus pulls out of her story like a pearl of great price. This is what we are to be like before God -- dependent on nothing but the grace of God. We are to be people without any resources except the riches of God’s mercy.

The issue is not how much we have in the bank, but what that money is for us. Is it our heart, our security our source of power, or is it a tool for our stewardship? Are we dependent on our money to give us all we want and need from life, or are we dependent on God to make us rich? If you follow me, Jesus teaches, you will walk in the way of the widow. Live lives that show in everything you do and say that you are dependent on God for all you have and all you are.

As good Americans we’ve been taught to celebrate our independence, but Jesus teaches us to celebrate our great dependence on God alone. If independence is a sign of strength and success, how can we possibly rejoice in dependence?

Our culture counsels us to become like the honored scribes, but Jesus counsels us to become like the dishonored widow. We are to model our lives on one we would normally overlook, being too busy admiring the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

The widow tossed the only shred of independence she had in to the offering plate, but she kept intact her complete dependence on God and neighbor. She is our spiritual mentor standing there on the margins of all we hold dear. Her way is a life of faith grounded in the love of God, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the communion of the Holy Spirit. It’s a life lived in the conviction that we are stewards of all we have in our hands and our lives, not the owners of these things.

Where previously we connected dependence with oppression and depression, Jesus shows us that our dependence on God leads to joy and thanksgiving. If God is running the universe and ruling my life, I no longer have to save myself, prove myself or justify myself. I’m the work of God’s hands. I rest and work in those hands and I shall die in those hands. To be free of those hands would be death to me, because in them is life abundant.

We give thanks for the widow’s great witness. May we be as free as she is.

Living y the Word  Philippians 3:4b-14; Matthew 21:33-46

This parable in Matthew is a sister to the song of the vineyard in Isaiah 5. In both cases, God is the farmer who has provided generously so that the vineyard will be very fruitful. In Isaiah, the distress is over a lack of good fruit despite fine care of the vineyards. In Jesus' story, the fruit is good, but the trusted stewards are corrupt and self-serving. They are terrible tenants who have come between the owner and the good produce he desires to harvest. When the owner sends his slaves to collect the produce, the tenants beat them and even kill one of them; when he sends his son, they kill him as well. Unlike the vineyard in Isaiah, however, this vineyard is not destroyed as a consequence; the healthy vineyard in Matthew is given over to new management.

The Bible provides one witness after another that God's mission to save the world will not be derailed by human wickedness, doubt or failure. God's kingdom is not built on human institutions or promises, but is built and planted in God's grace-filled will to make it happen. As Paul proclaims to the Philippians, he brings no rights and privileges to God's mission because he has no righteousness of his own. The violent tenants, by contrast, are tending the vines, but as they work they are plotting how to turn stewardship into ownership.

As members and pastors of congregations that encourage each other in faithful stewardship each autumn, we are challenged by this idea that we are stewards of much and owners of nothing. Like the tenants, we are enchanted by this rent-to-own world. We have made it if we work for ourselves or have a mortgage rather than a lease. These are signs of strength in a world that beams its favor on the strong.

Because we have been trained up in the world's values, the life of a steward isn't a life we value. In Christian kindness, we might refrain from speaking ill of a member of the "least of these," but we sure don't want to be in with them. Yet when we were baptized, we were made workers in the kingdom of God. Everything else falls away as loss except for our stewardship in this vineyard.

What is scripturally clear is that with this stewardship comes the great responsibility of tending this vineyard. As Paul says to another congregation, "This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God" (1 Cor. 4:1). Stewardship in a vineyard means being entrusted with the responsibility to tend the vines so well that they produce an abundance of good fruit. It means using the owner's resources economically and wisely. For all the beautiful metaphors and poetry we might put to it, stewardship remains difficult for us because in our heart of hearts we still want to be the owners, the independent shot-callers. Even if we aren't violent tenants, we are reluctant ones. The warning in the parable, this call to repentance, is that the vineyard, the kingdom, needs faithful stewards. If the present lot is unfaithful in its responsibilities, others will be called to work. It's as simple as that.

To be faithful stewards in the kingdom of God, we must stop dreaming of ownership and stop plotting violent takeovers. We need to be honest about our deeply held preferences for ownership over servantship. We must repent of offering the world our charitable leftovers and of pouting when the world doesn't say thank you.

A pastor said he had recently learned that there was a cultural trend among some members of the congregation. Apparently those who were singing in the choir thought that their choral commitment replaced any call to make financial contributions to the church. Imagine if everyone who contributed of his or her time and talent stopped contributing treasure! There is something in this trend that smacks of plotting ownership.

Here in the South, we live either in ongoing silence or ongoing conversation about racial reconciliation. Some of us fervently believe that healing is still needed in our nation and that the gospel calls us to be active stewards in this healing. This is the tending of the vineyard we are called to do because the fruit of reconciliation is not yet ripe and the weeds and thorns are many. Others deny that there is any work left for the present generation to do; they believe that any problems are just imaginary and any wounds self-inflicted. The failure of this second group of people to take stewardship seriously is a violent plotting against the God who planted and cares for this kingdom.

God has also taken on the burdens that come with ownership. God has the ultimate responsibility for repairing, saving and guiding this worldly vineyard. The cross confirms this divine responsibility and sets us free to serve in a world with the calls and gifts that Christ gives us in abundance. Meanwhile, of course, the world will continue to sing of the glories of ownership, of the power of independence and of the violent ways we can make it all ours.

As for me, home ownership is enough of a burden. Thanks be to God who owns the world and burdens me only with the blessing of my call to tend a few vines and pull a thorn or two.

 

Living by the Word  Philippians 2:1-13; Matthew 21:23-32

Like Long-Distance Swimmers, those of us who count our Sundays by the rhythm of the lectionary need to occasionally pop our heads out of the water and get our bearings. We know the month, the day and the liturgical date. We may also know where we are in our congregational programming, especially with regard to the season of harvest and stewardship. But where are we textually? Having read along in the Gospel according to Matthew like swimmers moving methodically forward, we have just passed an important landmark.

It is Holy Monday, according to Matthew, when the religious leaders confront Jesus as he is teaching in the Temple. They want to know what gives him the right or who has given him the right to be teaching and preaching in the Temple. This is hardly unreasonable of them. They want to know: "By what authority are you doing these things?" They are referring, no doubt, to the events of Palm Sunday, but maybe also to his teachings and healings before this fateful week. I can imagine my own astonishment if, on a Sunday morning, I was confronted by a stranger who announced to me that he would be interrupting my sermon with his own preaching and that it would be better than anything I could do. I would really be thrown off guard if the interloper told me my congregation was starving to hear God's word preached to them, but since I wasn't doing it effectively, he needed to step in. (Something similar actually happened to a colleague of mine recently, and the stranger did indeed interrupt the worship service.) The religious authorities in the Temple must have felt the same way about what Jesus was doing--interrupting, interfering, interposing.

They ask, Who do you think you are? What are you doing here? Who has ordained you to this ministry? Jesus challenges them to a theological duel. He opens with a question concerning John's authority to baptize and preach. Was John an agent of God's mission or was he just a crazy guy? The religious authorities are trapped since they are skeptics when it comes to John but know that he was a popular preacher who drew crowds. Since they are unwilling to answer, Jesus incorporates his questioners in his teaching and lays out three parables of judgment against them.

A swimmer getting her bearings will see a caution sign beginning at verse 28. We are rightly cautioned by biblical scholars to avoid hearing the judgment of these parables as a judgment against Judaism or against contemporary Jews. The religious leaders represent all who claim to be faithfully obedient to God but who are deaf and blind to God's activity in the world. In this Gospel text, those who are challenged are those who boast that they are faithful followers of the Torah but who are unable to see God at work in John the Baptist and then in Jesus. In our context, the judgment comes when our discipleship in Christ is less defined than our membership in a congregation. The authority of Jesus--who he is and what he is doing here--remains a huge question in our day. The questions in the temple are still the questions in our communities.

In order to live by the Word we must believe the Word is living. Instead, we are always looking to close the canon on God's mission in the world. We want all of our revelation in the past tense, behind us where we can look at it. We want a God who can be sent to the taxidermist and then proudly mounted on the wall. Yes, the eyes may seem to follow you across the room, but rest assured, the beast is truly dead.

To believe or even assume that God is living and active in our world is to believe that God is not finished with any of us. The religious leaders of Jesus' day do not see God at work in John the Baptist, and so it is no surprise that they also miss the incarnation. The text begs the question: What are we missing in our own contexts?

As a pastor who has spent a career serving congregations in decline along the mainline, I often feel like a religious leader standing under judgment. Are these parables aimed at the heart of my ministry? Surely. They are aimed at all of us who doubt that God can do anything new or who deny that God calls us to renewal. If we're more interested in starting a contemporary worship service in our congregation than we are in seeking justice in our community, we need to pop our heads out of the water and see where we are in the fast-running current of God's mission. If we've packed away the prophetic calls to repentance, sacrifice and reconciliation up in the attics of our new family life centers; we need to pop our heads out of the water and see where we are in the river of mercy.

The religious leaders of the gospel are any of us, in any time, who believe that God's activity is all past tense, or who believe that the Spirit has nothing new to renew in us. Pop your head out of the water and check this text against your own context.

 

Blind Spots (Mark 10:46-52)

Even the common lectionary cannot hold ecumenical friends together this Sunday. Some of us will depart from the scripture texts and focus on the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Some of us will center on the Mark 10 story of Jesus’ encounter with Bartimaeus. I want to acknowledge these different directions, and also reflect on the thematic connection between Bartimaeus’s blindness and our history of reformation.

Healing stories in the Gospels never seem to be simply a reversal of physical misfortune. A paralyzed man stands and walks. A man stretches out a withered hand to Jesus and sees it become useful again. A girl who was pronounced dead awakens. Particular suspicious are the stories of those who "once were blind, but now they see." The connections between seeing and believing are so strong in the Gospel accounts that these miracles worked through Jesus almost always seem more about growing in faith than taking off dark glasses. Though Bartimaeus was blind to many things, he clearly saw who Jesus was.

Seeing "who Jesus is" is the goal of faith, and it leads to discipleship. Only the unblind can see where to follow. Indeed, at the end of the story we’re told that this is exactly what happened. Bartimaeus regained his sight and followed Jesus on the way. Given that the very next verse in Mark narrates the entry into Jerusalem, the way Bartimaeus followed was the way to the cross.

Physical sight is not required for discipleship, but restoration is. Again and again in history, prophesy and gospel, God works through miracle, through political forces, through social action and through ordinary living to pick us up from where we have fallen and redirect us along right pathways. Blind Bartimaeus calls from the gutter until the Lord hears him. Then he returns to the Lord and is restored. I picture him, the last recruit in the discipleship army, marching toward Jerusalem with palm branch in hand.

Those who return to the Lord are restored, the Bible instructs. But how do we come to the point of return? Sometimes we make it sound easy and quick. I’m fairly skeptical of the 180 degree, born-again, overnight kind of return. Some changes are no doubt fast and immediate, but the changes that endure unto the generations are the result of a process of human or divine origin. Our returning to the Lord for restoration is a process which may be described in many ways.

Reformation is one of those ways. As people of the 21st century, we may be more in tune with some of reformation’s synonyms, which also begin with "r": renovation, reorganization, restructuring. These are, interestingly, words we use in large corporate settings rather than small personal ones. The church, the corporate body of Christ, is a voice that calls for the wandering to return and then hosts the restoration banquet. In order to fulfill this mission, it must constantly be reforming. And yet most church folk know all too well that many "r" words can be fighting words in congregations. While many Protestant congregations (especially Lutheran ones) are willing to celebrate the Reformation of October 31, 1517, with pride and pomp, reformation’s synonyms -- renovate, reorganize, restructure -- can be sources of conflict. All of these words indicate that something will he changed. And change is often heard as a synonym for "loss."

We enjoy 20/20 hindsight vision, proud of reformations past even as we are blind to the present need for reformation and restoration. This is true not only of the 16th century, but of the 20th century as well. Our nation recently recognized the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s "I Have a Dream" speech. Though the reformation of racism in America is ongoing, much has changed in the past 40 years. When King was preaching and protesting in the ‘60s, many of the adults in my life were shaking their southern heads and lamenting all the trouble he was causing.

Decades later, this "troublemaker" is a martyr and a hero, whose birthday is a national holiday. I continue to be amazed at our collective blindness to the effects of racism and poverty in those days. My children shake their heads at the stories of segregation in schools, restaurants and doctors’ offices, unable to believe such things took place in their parents’ lifetimes.

These are the rhythms of reformation. The troublemakers become heroes. The radical new ways eventually become beloved traditions. We are always moving from blindness to sightedness, from unfaithfulness to faithfulness. On days such as this, I am less interested in how the church was reformed than I am in recalling the lessons of reformation. Reformations teach us that we continue to need reform.

What corners of the church, of society need serious reformation in this 21st century? Where are our blind spots? Will a reformer arise among us? Should one arise, what will we do to him or her? What do we allow to go unchallenged today that will one day cause our grandchildren to shake their heads at how blind we were to the gospel?

We disciples of Jesus have vision problems. We sometimes describe our blindness as an inability to see the forest for the trees, but that’s a benign analysis. More worrisome is the inherited blindness of each generation, which so often assumes it is the best generation of all, with no lessons left to learn, only an inheritance to enjoy. This arrogance is the root of our blindness. We still need the miracle of restored sight.

Meeting the Awesome She

Twice I have experienced the immediate presence of God: at the age of 19, when I met Jesus on the cross, and last October 27, at about three in the afternoon. At that moment, I’m ashamed to admit, I was feeling an upsurge of lust in the presence of a young woman.

As I was wrestling with myself, trying to stop the flow of fantasy, I was interrupted by a gripping awareness of divine presence, arresting and unmistakable. For the first time in my life I met the living God as Holy Femaleness, Awesome She. She impinged on me not as Mother, Sister or Lover (though no doubt she can be so known) but as the archetypal power and spirit from which such personal images derive. She told me, in words I can’t now frame, that the woman in my thoughts was precious to her, under her protection and someone I had better treat with respect. Faced with that towering presence, my fantasies evaporated, leaving me chastened and changed.

Between the immediacy of that presence and any conceivable representation of it lies a gulf. Her presence was sensed rather than seen, the visual element being indistinct. When I later tried sketching the impact of that presence, drawing rapidly, frustrated by lack of skill, I found myself summoning visual symbols I had not seen clearly, or seen at all, in the moment of encounter. The picture that follows is therefore partly a "vision" and partly a rendering of indefinable experience into visual form.

I saw, and met, a divine presence that was toweringly female yet beyond sexuality: She was arresting and awe-inspiring. There was the impression of a great dark mask, covering what was not a face. Above the mask of the face-not-a-face was an impression of hair, sweeping upwards and outwards on either side, becoming great wings, as of an eagle facing me, poised to soar upwards, or beat downwards in bone-breaking fury. The hair becoming wings was not joined to the mask, but above and close to it. Between the wings was neither shape nor form, but dark purple fire.

Below the mask over the face-not-a-face was the impression of an iridescent robe -- dark blue, purple, russet and black -- flecked with gold, covering a torso whose breasts were indistinct yet immense, able to comfort someone embraced or snuff out the life of one hugged in anger.

On each side of the robe was the impression of great arms in movement, indistinct, yet with fur and forepaws clearly visible. The paws, I thought, can bless and embrace, but also seemed those of a she-bear robbed of her cubs -- reaching out ready to hug or crush and rip apart in wrath: a warning from fierce love. The robe swept down for a great distance, becoming indistinct far below, lost in clouds of thick darkness, with lightning flickering within and without. Beneath the clouds were tiny figures -- the women whom she loves and protects with her power.

She is the Holy One of Sarah and Abraham. Miriam and Deborah, Mary of Magdala. Martha and John. She is Moving and Flowing Spirit, Birth-giver Unborn. Word and Wisdom, present in Jesus, El Shaddai, Awesome She. Protector of Women.

The presence came unasked, an encounter with the whole being of the one God, known in that moment as She. It was as if the complex diamond of the divine shone at me intensely from that one facet. In the moment of meeting there was no time for reflection.

I suspect that if men could pray to, and be encountered by, God present as She, the experience would transform their attitudes toward women (and I suspect that for women to do so would transform their valuations of themselves) Both women and men have mostly spoken to God, and depicted God, in male language and images. A hidden assumption of such language is that it is definitely not right for the Holy One to be represented in female terms. In part, this is because the female and feminine are disvalued in our culture. To see God in terms of what we are conditioned to disvalue is a culture shock -- akin to seeing God in a peasant woman looking for a lost coin or in a failed Messiah with a mock crown of thorns.

Some of us, men and women, are trying to repent of such disvaluings. We may even have begun to use more diverse names and metaphors for God, including female ones. I have done so for half a decade, and doing so may well have opened the bridge for the encounter I’m trying to share. But theory and experience are not the same. Meeting God unmistakably as She was shattering and transforming. Though I have always believed that each woman I meet is made in the image and likeness of the living God, henceforth, when I speak to a woman, I shall know, deep within my being, that I am meeting an icon of God herself. I suspect that until we men -- and perhaps also women -- have met God as El Shaddai, Awesome She, Protector of Women, we cannot know the deep maleness of God. Though we constantly speak of God as Father, King and He, the particular beauty of the male icon will be known to us only when we have shed the proud pretense that it is the only true and whole representation of God.

Is my experience in continuity with the mainstream of the Christian faith? Trinitarian doctrine has been elaborated with the male metaphors of Father and Son, plus the nonpersonal name Holy Spirit. These names are a signpost pointing into the clouds, not a nametag identifying a guest. To speak of God as She is not to add a new nametag. and thus give God conflicting identities, but to follow a different signpost into the cloud of mystery. I believe I was stopped in my tracks by the first person of the Trinity, the source of all things. But since God is indivisible, when we meet one person of the Trinity the others are immediately present. The Holy One who met me certainly had something of the untameable wildness of Holy Spirit. She also had something of the fierce love for each human being that was enfleshed in Jesus of Nazareth. and which prompted that male Jew to treat the disvalued and subordinated women of his time with revaluing love and respect.

The Waters of Solidarity (Gen. 1:1-5;Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11)

After the hectic and holy Christmas season, after the unusual turning of a new century, and, wonderfully, a new millennium, the church and the culture will settle back into familiar rhythms. For the church and its calendar, this means the season of Epiphany with its festivals of Magi, miracles, baptism and transfiguration. On the cultural calendar none of these celebratory times appears even as a footnote in the march of days. Between the Christian observances of Christmas and Ash Wednesday, the world knows only the festivals of Super Bowl, Martin Luther King Day, Presidents' Day and the next retail opportunity, Valentine's Day. The term "Epiphany" is an alien word in this our new century.

What of the gospel in this season? We begin this new time by reading the no-nonsense Gospel of Mark. There is no birth story to woo us into the good news. Mark begins with a full-grown Jesus meeting the grimy baptizer at the Jordan and going under the water in solidarity with those he came to save.

This is Mark's Christmas story, if we understand that story to be the one that proclaims the birth of God's new plan of salvation. In Luke 2, after Jesus comes through the birth waters, the angels proclaim, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom God is pleased." In Mark 1, God declares, "You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased." God speaks words of pleasure over God's latest creation just as God spoke words of pleasure over each new item in the litany of creation way back in the genesis of all things. No matter how it's told -- as a birthing narrative, as a baptismal narrative or as poetry -- the facts of faith remain the same: Jesus has come among us and behold, a new day has dawned.

While our culture may know little of things epiphanal, it certainly has its collective ears perked up and its eyes open for signs of the times. We are still awestruck to be one of the few generations to witness the turning of a millennium. We know ourselves to be living in a new age, an impressive time Filled with possibilities. In Jesus we preach the arrival of a new era. It's the church's task to synchronize these two timepieces.

Back in the Middle Ages, when the Western World did orient itself around the church calendar, the people who knew the seasons and festivals of the faith were also people who were frightened by many things. Sin, death and the devil were perhaps the top three. The observant were terrified of the night and its creatures. Much happened that they did not understand. Modern enlightened men and women have conquered many fears. We are well informed. Science and technology keep improving our living.

And yet as we begin this new century, some old fears have crept in to raise the hairs on our necks. For all we have, for all we now know, for all we have accomplished, our sinfulness seems to keep getting the better of us. How can it be that for all our progress we are more terrified of violence by children than ever before? Why is it we now believe there are no safe places? Advances in computer technology, programs to build self-esteem, scientific leaps forward do not ultimately win the war against sin, death and the devil -- just ask any teenager. It seems for all our power of positive thinking and self-help agendas, we cannot save ourselves or our world.

Jesus is baptized and calls us to follow him into the water to drown in it. When we were baptized into Chris Jesus, we were baptized into his death. We die to the old ways, the old ways that are not working and never have. Jesus shows us a still more excellent way.

People are desperately seeking such a way. My suburban community was stripped of its illusions of safety and harmonious diversity last summer when Benjamin Smith brought his World Church of the Creator hatred to nearby streets. We were shaken to our core by the murder of one of our well-known African-American residents and the nearby shootings of Orthodox Jews and Asians. In the months since, hate literature is still being distributed in our neighborhoods and the threat of violence hangs like a cloud. Citizens and people of faith have been eager to discover new ways of living together. We are responsive to any call that brings us together as Christians and Jews, African-Americans, Latinos and whites. We are anxious to die to the old ways that are not working. Though we boast that our city is ethnically diverse, simply living in the same zip-code does not create solidarity or peace.

When Jesus went down in the waters of the Jordan guided by John's rough hands, he did so in solidarity with sinners. Jesus' baptism was a demonstration of his obedience to God, a call he would soon be putting in the ear of all who wanted to follow him. This is the way it goes, Jesus said: Wash off the old dirt, shake the dust of sin from your feet. God has created a new day and a new way. Come walk with me out of darkness into the light of day. As a company of sinners went into the water, they fell in line behind Jesus and together walked toward Jerusalem. God looked at them and was very pleased.

Hospitality Theology (Gen. 18:1-10a; Col. 1:15-28; Lk. 10:38-42)

Southern women are great Marthas and proud of it. Having been raised in this culture, I know that supper in a southern kitchen is a wonder to behold. Those who have traditional southern hospitality refined to an art never sit. They hover. Plates are never allowed to go empty. Guests are continually asked if they need anything. In fact, many times the hostess will continue to cook all through the meal.

When does the hostess eat? This is one of the South’s mysteries. The hostess keeps working, huffing around the table, a trickle of perspiration running past the string of pearls on her neck. She misses all dinner conversation, all sharing of feelings and information, and gives herself totally to serving.

Also a wonder is the woman who greets the guests unflustered at the door with the table already set, the kitchen spotless. This hostess sits, talks, laughs and eats the appetizers with her guests. She excuses herself, goes to the kitchen, and returns with food that’s prepared and ready to eat. At dinner, she remains around the table, getting to know the guests, asking about their lives, sharing her own thoughts and feelings.

Hospitality is an art form. Along its spectrum we all fall somewhere between Martha Stewart and the person who has the pizza place listed on the speed dial. We might shrug off the matter of hospitality styles as an unimportant detail of life except that there appears to be a theology of hospitality at work in scripture. Prime examples of this theology are found in the narratives of two dinner parties: one by the oaks of Mamre and the other in the village of Bethany. Abraham and Sarah spontaneously entertain strangers who appear suddenly during their afternoon nap. Mary and Martha entertain their friend Jesus. They know that he is known as a personality, and even talk sometimes about whether or not their friend could be the Messiah promised to God’s people. He is a friend whose presence makes the hostess dust off the good china and polish the silver.

Theologically speaking, hospitality is vital. Not because of the food -- how much there is and what is served is inconsequential. A little unleavened bread and a cup of wine will do in most cases, because what truly brings us together is the word.

During the eating and the drinking al fresco at Mamre and around the table at Bethany, God’s word is shared. The strangers (who the reader knows are God and angels) come to dinner to deliver a message: God promises Abraham and Sarah that the barren will rejoice. At dinner, Jesus shares the promises of God with Mary that the lowly will be lifted up, the dead will be raised, the blind will see and the hopeless given hope.

Theologically speaking, the purpose of hospitality is to prepare a welcoming space for encounters with God’s word. It’s not that God’s word cannot be heard in barren, inhospitable places or circumstances. God is not so limited, but we are. God can speak in any situation, but we, frail creatures, cannot always hear. The Bible witnesses to the struggle of the Hebrews in the wilderness where they were so preoccupied with the lack of creature comforts that they constantly complained against God and Moses. To keep their attention, to keep them moving, to keep them faithful, God often found herself preparing dinners of manna and quail. Only then, when fed, could they hear the word. So it is with us.

Faith communities are rediscovering the theology of hospitality As congregations change, many have been forced to reclaim this wisdom as old as Abraham. The image on the lips of evangelists (and successful evangelists, I might add) is one of the local congregation as a mission outpost instead of a family chapel. These congregations no longer lukewarmly welcome visitors, but enthusiastically expect them. Instead of simply trying to fit them in, these congregations plan for the stranger.

If the theology of hospitality is to create a welcome environment where the word of God is more easily heard and understood, then we must always be attentive to what people need so that their eyes, ears, hearts and minds are open to the Spirit of God. Sometimes this is a hard sell to Christians who are resistant to the connections between welcome and word. They must address practical hospitality issues such as building accessibility, visitor-friendly bulletins, a fully staffed nursery, or parking. And these are theological hospitality issues. A congregation that traditionally sets the dinner table of the Eucharist only occasionally might, for hospitality reasons, institute the sharing of the meal at each service of the congregation. Along with having good historical, liturgical and theological reasons for doing so, a congregation should have hospitality concerns for the member who works every third Sunday and may not be present for "communion Sunday."

Gospel hospitality will not allow people to starve physically or spiritually. True welcoming is more interested in the needs of the guest than the preferences of the host. It’s something to keep in mind when entertaining those angels unawares.