Time to Tear it Apart

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
February 27, 2012
First Sunday in Lent
Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
Mark 1:9-15; I Peter 3:18-22
“Time to tear it apart”

It may come as some surprise, but when I was a child, I hated to read. I would read three pages and have no idea what I had read. It took so much effort that even reading CliffsNotes, or what is today called SparkNotes, was a chore. This all changed one day when I found a story that captured my imagination. And what was it that brought me to a love of reading? Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka!

For those of you who know the story this probably explains a great deal about me. But for those who have not had the pleasure let me recap the story. Greogor Sampsa is a travelling salesman doing a job he does not like. One morning he wakes up to find he has become a hideous bug. The rest of the narrative tells the story of the havoc that is unleashed with his family and his own life. While Metamorphosis is like most of Kafka’s works expressing futility, it is also a story of what happens when our perceptions and views change, when our lives change. When we change our practices or when people around us treat us differently our perception changes. And when our perception changes whole new possibilities open up before us. How is that for putting a positive spin on a fatalistic story?!

At many of the baptisms which have occurred in the church, even the recent adult baptisms, they have been joyous celebrations. However, it is something that should give us pause. When Paul talks about our baptism into Jesus he says, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” I do not know about you, but this does not sound like good news. Welcome to the sacrament of baptism, welcome to the community of believers; know your sins are forgiven and be at peace. Oh, and by the way, you get a death on the cross like Jesus. It sounds like we are confronted with another fatalistic story that has to be twisted a bit to find the good news.

This story is only fatalistic if Jesus had no choice and if there was no possibility of transformation. Jesus did not have to die because God said so. God is not an angry child abuser who requires the sacrifice of his son so that what he created, that turned out to be imperfect, could be saved. But this is the kind of thing we do not often like to talk about. However, the good news in what sounds like a bad news story, is that it did not have to happen that way. Jesus invites people to join in following him. Participating in his baptism is to do just that. But it does have consequences.

The world in which we live does not take kindly to change. The powers of the world, our selfish desires backed up with military and political power have and will continue to wreak havoc around the globe. Those powers will not be given up easily and do not like to be challenged. So in this way, we say that Jesus’ death was inevitable. What keeps it from being just another tragic story is that the tomb was empty. In the end, we are not left to our own devices. Love wins! The power of love will overcome even death. But the road there might be a bit bumpy to say the least.

The scene at the Jordan has been depicted in many ways. Most of them look serene and holy. All the people can see the heavens open up, the dove descending upon Jesus and God speaking from the sky. However, that is not what happens. It is only Jesus who hears the voice, and sees the heavens and the dove. As he comes up out of the water, Jesus is the only one who knows that everything has changed. And, as we read the story, we, too, are shown that everything has changed.

When the heavens open up it is a tearing of the heavens. It is a sign that the world will never be the same. However, no one knows it yet. That is how all revolutions begin. By the time it makes it to CNN, things have been happening for a while. The tearing of the heavens becomes a sign to Jesus that he must now live this new reality for all to see. And so he heals, and teaches, and feeds, and calls us to do the same. The very beginning of our faith is a radical tearing apart of the current arrangement which ought to give us pause. And it ought to keep us mindful of the need to open our eyes and look for signs of God’s activity all around us.

In the movie Dead Poets Society, Robyn Williams is committed to helping a group of very privileged boarding school boys see the world in new ways. In one scene he invites the students to come to the front of the classroom, stand on his desk and repeat a line of poetry from Walt Whitman. He is inviting them to hear the poetry in new ways. Some of the boys treated it as a joke but others could see the heavens torn apart and a new world begun.

That is the story of our faith. It is the story of Lent to which we now move. We, who know the stories, or assume we know the stories so well, must look for ways to hear the voice of God and see the heavens torn apart. The journey of Lent is meant to help us break with the past and break out of familiar patterns. Some of the opportunities for change may come from external sources. People may see when we turn into hideous bugs. Other times we will be forced by teachers to change our perspective. But the most lasting changes we will face are the ones where God invites us to recognize the tears in the fabric of the status quo. And when that happens, when it happens deep down in us, then we will be able to face the brokenness in the world and continue on knowing that the broken places may just be the places of new life. Amen.

Living Baptized

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
February 22, 2012
Ash Wednesday Meditation
Rev. Mark R. Miller
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
“Living Baptized”

Live your baptism.  When Martin Luther was asked to explain the basis for Lent and Lenten practices he taught these three simple words, Live your Baptism.  It is a great slogan that would fit nicely on a bumper sticker.  But it does beg the question, what does that mean?  A little less simply put, Lent is a time when we seek to go back to the basics of our faith and focus on the essentials.  Lent is intended to be a time where practices, routines, and or even abstentions help us do just that.

This has been done in a lot of different ways.  When it comes to Lent I have been known to make grand plans.  I will give up this, and read the bible for two hours a day and pray for three.  And much like New Year’s resolutions, these commitments were revealed not to be commitments after all.  I think my failure to live up to these grand commitments has something to do with choosing the wrong practices in the wrong amount.  But it also has as much, if not more, to do with a clear lack of why I would do them anyway.  In other words, what are the basics to which I hope to return?  Instead of thinking what we might do, not do, or practice in Lent, we should ask, why bother. 

In the early church the period before Easter was a time of preparation for baptism for new adult members and their families.  This period became the basis for Lenten practice.  But the time of preparation was not simply for the new members.  The entire community would join in the preparation for reaffirming the promises made in baptism.  But this does not answer the question, why bother?

Living our baptism means following in the way of Jesus that is marked by three main values, hospitality, generosity, and no vengeance.  We live in a time that marked by different values.  Our identity in our culture can be boiled down to how much we can and cannot participate in the economic arena.  Any way of living which does not bring a profit is not valued.  Living as people who practice generosity, hospitality, and no vengeance cannot be done alone and it cannot be done without practicing these values.  Lent provides the perfect opportunity to come face to face with the conflicting values of our faith.  

The heart of Lenten spirituality is not dependent upon whether we use ashes for a sign of the cross, or whether we use water.  The practices we use and the commitment we make serve only to help us live the values of hospitality, generosity, and no vengeance.  Maybe that means giving up chocolate, maybe that means not watching your favorite television show.  Or maybe it means a deeper investment in how we are trapped by the conflicting values of our culture.  That is not something I could pretend to answer tonight.  However, each one of us is being invited into a Lenten practice.

The day he baptized his son Carson, Stan Saunders preached a sermon called, A Death in the Family.  In that sermon he shared that on that day Carson was dying to the values of the world and bring brought into new life in a community that would teach him so much more than he and Brenda could on their own.  And speaking to the gathered community he told them that that they would have to teach him the essential values of the faith:  hospitality, generosity, and no vengeance.  He expressed this with these words:
Teach him how to lend his intelligence, his influence, his hands and voice and body to the mass of humanity that has no hands and no influence. And teach him the arts of mercy and forgiveness and how to hold on to hope in the midst of adversity and suffering.

So this is what we begin again on this night.  It is my hope and prayer that you will find an answer to the question, why bother with Lent anyway so that you will be able to live your baptism with a renewed joy.  Amen.

The Demons of Our Past

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
February 5, 2012
Communion Meditation
Rev. Mark R. Miller
I Corinthians 9:16-23; Mark 1:29-39
“The Demons of our Past”

            Emergency rooms are full of people who do not have insurance.  And for those who do have insurance, concerns about copays and deductibles have them second guessing the wisdom of actually using their health benefits.  Not only is the safety net broken, but so is the insurance system that is supposed to help protect what is left of the middle class.  Getting sick today is not simply about our individual health.  It is abundantly clear that health and wholeness have socio-economic and political dimensions.  Health and wholeness is a luxury for those who have the means.  This is a system that was all too familiar to those living in the Galilee region.

            Most people worked as day laborers.  Health and wholeness was hard to come by and illness was the constant fear.  If you were sick you couldn’t work.  And if you couldn’t work you wouldn’t eat.  So when Jesus reaches out and brings healing and wholeness he is not simply dealing with the symptoms, but changing the economic situation.  I have come to believe that it may strike us as odd or even offensive that Jesus heals Simon’s mother-in-law so she can serve them, but that view might be the view of those with privilege.  In that culture Jesus brings healing and wholeness to someone that was soon to be seen as just another sick poor person.

            Jesus does not just heal people, but he deals with the demons.  If we ignore the deeper meanings of the demons, then we can ride off on flights of fancy about exorcisms, or we can simply dismiss it as the foolishness of ancient cultures.  Neither interpretation will do.  These passages always invite those who might to go deeper.  For people to hear and receive the message of good news, the old ways of thinking, believing, and acting must be discarded.  The resistance to change was strong in the established religious places.  But they were also deeply rooted in the people around Capernaum and elsewhere. 
            The demons always knew who Jesus was and always knew where new life was blooming.  And they could not have that.  New life, change, an altering of the way things are, will lead even the well-adjusted among us to act in strange and often inappropriate ways.  Until Jesus comes on the scene the places of resistance are less well known.  But, when Jesus begins to preach liberation from those who are captive, something in each of us seizes up and looks for ways to keep things as they are.  This resistance resides in each of us and probably even surprises us when we are required to confront that part of ourselves.  We know who you are Jesus; have you come to destroy us?
            When I was a seminary student I had the privilege of serving on the task force to combat racism in the Greater Atlanta Presbytery.  At one meeting I was listening to this group talk about the struggles they faced in congregations and elsewhere; to the message that diversity was a gift from God.  Another student asked where they found the greatest places of resistance.  The answer caught me off guard.  It wasn’t in the rural areas or in the conservative church.  The greatest places of resistance were in the white liberal churches.  Let me say that again, the places of greatest resistance were in the white liberal churches. 
            The trouble, I was told, is that too often they, or should I say many of us – myself included – believe that we have it all figured out.  We are not like the race baiting politicians.  We are not like those who get excited when one politician after another tries to “put the president in his place,” by interrupting state of the union addresses or pointing a finger in his face.  We are not like those people, so we really aren’t that bad.   But the truth is that the power of race in this country goes well beyond those who used to pander openly to those who wore white sheets – or veiled prophets. 
            The apostle Paul talks about the powers and principalities of this world and for our setting, our location, our country, race is one of those powers.  It goes well beyond good intentions or thoughts.  It is written into the fabric of our housing systems, our school systems, our public planning, and even our criminal justice and prison systems.  It impacts all the places of our lives even if we do not actually notice it.  Add to this the layers of provincialism in our own city that rears its head in all our communities and it makes for a rather pervasive problem about which we are often incapable of even having an honest conversation. 
            Paul also tells us that the calling on his life in Christ was to cross boundaries.  To be like those not like him.  When Paul talks about crossing these boundaries it is his intention to go and to learn and to truly understand so that the message of the gospel would be heard by all.  His goal was not for personal gain or to be down, or to out white the white folks, but so that the message of the gospel might truly be heard by all.  The calling for Christians and particularly followers of Jesus in this place is to find ways to break out of the Saint Louis racial script that keeps of separated and divided and bound. 
            The demons of our past aren’t even in the past.  They change and show up in new ways, but they are still here.  Delmar is no longer the dividing line it once was but its mythic power still holds sway over this town and even in our hearts.  Our calling is to cross the boundaries and to acknowledge the demons in our hearts so that we might find healing and wholeness.  That is the calling of our faith, our community, and our very lives.  The good news is that we are called to this work by the very one who can set us free from ourselves.  Amen!