What will you do?

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
April 4th 2010
Easter Meditation
Communion Sunday
Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
Isaiah 65:17-25; Mark 16:1-8
“What Will You Do?”

This is a story that we know well. Jesus lived, Jesus died, and Jesus lived again. It is pretty simple and a bit too familiar. Our familiarity with this story is probably more of a hindrance than a help. We know it; there is no need to dwell on it, so let us focus on where we will have our Easter meal. After all, if the whole affair is settled, the only thing left to talk about is the other stuff of the holiday.
One of the things we often focus on is the right way to celebrate. But I must admit that I am not interested in the cultural concerns about Easter. The questions like what does the Bunny have to do with this holiday? Or, what does chocolate, and decorated eggs have to do with the resurrection? There is even a movement afoot to get Christians to stop calling this holiday Easter and refer to it instead as Resurrection Sunday. I believe the conversations around the “cultural war” issues and even the type of food served for dinner is about on the same level of ultimate importance. When God overcame death, I believe we can and should be attentive to that which has ultimate impact.
On that first Easter Sunday, the woman went to the tomb. They expected to find Jesus dead. But, before they did that, they observed the Sabbath. Despite their entire world collapsing, they still observed the Sabbath. When everything was gone they still believe that God could be trusted. It was a supreme act of trust. But despite trusting God, despite having spent three years learning from Jesus, they could not believe what they found. These women were part of the community of faith. They knew the stories of the New Heaven and New Earth. They were raised, and raised others, on the vision of the wolf and the lamb. They knew that one day God would bring about this reality. But I wonder if their familiarity with the story that it had lost its’ power to transform. Were they thinking about the afternoon meal which would follow their early morning visit to the tomb? On that first Easter, their neatly ordered world of faith came apart. Despite being with Jesus for three years, and more, they just did not expect to find anything other than death. Hearing about the resurrection and the new day dawning had not prepared them to see an empty tomb. When the knowledge of faith came face to faith with experience, these first witnesses to the Resurrection the respond in terror. Terror is the first response to Easter. And we sing Alleluia.
The Gospel of Mark was the first written Gospel. In the oldest versions of this Gospel it ends when the women run away in terror. The story ends in terror and silence. The do not tell anyone. It is an odd way to end the gospel. After all, if they did not really tell anyone, we would not be here this morning. So why did it end that way? It is rather disturbing. It is so disturbing that later Christians thought it necessary to add more information. But, in adding to this strange ending, we miss something powerful.
If the story ends with the woman saying nothing and yet we have obvious proof that they told at least one person, there is something deeper at work. If we know how the story goes and we know they told others, what possibly are we to take from this? I believe the ending of the gospel in this way, invites us into the story. More than just knowing the details and being able to say: “He is risen!” The truth is that until we are able to get in touch with the terror, the implications of the empty tomb, our alleluias will lack vigor and possibly authenticity.
The empty tomb should cause us terror. Or at least before we sing alleluia we should ask ourselves, what reason we would have to be terrified at the empty tomb. Today is the forty-second anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I think this anniversary brings home the reality of what can happen to people who stand up for the love and peace of God. The vision of a world where all children would join hands – black and white – slave and free – is the vision of the Wolf and Lamb feeding together. And when we hear it we all want to say yes. But, when the vision meets the hard work of implementation, we start to get nervous. Terror arises with the realization that an assassins’’ bullet or a cross might be the end result. It is then when we can begin to grasp the terror facing those women.
The women run in fear because they knew that from now own they did not need to live in fear. However, this way of living might very well cost them their lives and that is the root of the terror. But despite fear, they do speak. After realizing that death no longer had the last word the terror subsided and faith took root. Where are the places of your fear? As you sit down to eat with family and friends on this day, take a moment and remember. Remember that we have so much more for which to be thankful, but it is not always what we expect. So we have come, we have seen the empty tomb, there is just one thing left to say: “What will you do, now that you know? Amen.

What is Your Price?

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
April 1st 2010
Maundy Thursday Meditation
Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
Luke 11:1-6
“What is Your Price?”


I read a definition of the word scapegoat that said the word “has come to mean a person, often innocent, who is blamed and punished for the sins, crimes, or sufferings of others, generally as a way of distracting attention from the real causes.” It seems to fit with what I am seeing at work these days. People are hungry. People are losing their houses. There appears to be money for Wall Street and not for Main Street. And there are plenty of people who seek to profit in dollars and power from this anger. The Tea Party movement has tapped into white middle and working class anxiety. But instead of pointing out that there are many people in the same boat it is easier to blame: The government, Obama-Pelosi-Reid, Socialists, Progressives, Immigrants, Black folk, Gay and Lesbian Folk, Divorce, Drugs, and the list can go on. There is a lot of scapegoating going on. But, this is not a new story. And tonight, we are about to see this ancient story at work. It is my hope that it will teach us something for just such a time as this.
In ancient Jerusalem, Jesus worked as a scapegoat for the religious and political leaders. The people have been stirred up all week. The people are angry at life under the Roman occupation. The people are angry at their religious and political leaders who seem more interested in power and privilege than the concerns on main street Jerusalem. So tomorrow they will exact revenge for their humiliation. But, as all of that rage and anger is directed toward Jesus, at the end of the day the current arrangements do not really change. But, for a while, the crowds will be satisfied. But the crowds are not the only ones who participate in the ancient social ritual.
I have come to believe that we good religious folk have been using our own spiritual scapegoat. Judas is our scapegoat. Think about this for a moment. No matter what we do in our lives we can sit back and say: “Well, at least I am not Judas.” Judas provides us with the luxury of sitting back with air of contempt and an air of self righteousness. When he dies in the field there is a part of each one of us that secretly cheers for the death of the traitor. Even if we fear naming that place in ourselves, it is there. But, unless we name it we will continue to scapegoat Judas.
But if we take an honest inventory of this story, Judas is not the only traitor. By the time Jesus is hanging on the cross everyone either stands at a distance or turns their back on the savior. No other disciple hangs on a cross next to Jesus. Not one. And, as New Testament scholar Gail O’Day says, let’s not canonize the female disciples because they only stood at a distance. I believe this should keep us from using Judas and ignoring the ways in which we betray Jesus. Yes, I really just said that.
I think the Gospel story is one that tells us that the life of a disciple is one where we will find ourselves standing at a distance. No one is willing to be crucified with Jesus. In other words, just like Judas, everyone has a price. Each one of us has something that stands between us and the cross. If we want to stop using Judas as a scapegoat and get deeper and more authentic in our lives we have to be honest. We have to be able to name what stands in our way. What is your price?
I promise there is good news in this. And it begins when we can name with certainty our inability to be crucified with Jesus. Once we come face to face with that reality we find out something powerful. We do not have to put ourselves on the cross. Jesus does not need more crucifixions, scapegoats and human sacrifice, despite news to the contrary. Jesus was the last sacrifice. It is no longer necessary to find someone to be our scapegoat. We can stand up to those who prey on anger and frustration, and suffering and say: “Enough.” Tell your friends there is another story. Tell people that God is not bloodthirsty and out to get us. Tell the world that we will all get it wrong. We will all fail; we will all fall short of the perfection we seek. So tonight, we hear once again that we can stop clinging to the illusion. We can put down our façades and get honest. May this be the story you hear and tell others as we stand in the shadow of the cross tonight. Amen?

Tell them to Stop!

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
March 28th 2010
Palm Sunday
Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 19:28-40
“Tell them to Stop!”

With all the joy and excitement of the day it is easy to forget that Palm Sunday was highly organized and was intended to send a clear message. Palm Sunday is a day where the ethos of God and the ethos of empire come into direct conflict. In other words, it’s a fight, a clash of ideals and ideology. And, the values being expressed in the parade may not be of this world, we are expected to live them in this world.
Picking up the palms means we are saying yes to the ways of humility over hubris. We are saying no to hubris, pride, and arrogance. Picking up the Palms means we are saying yes to the ways of honesty and no to the ways of deceptive or misleading speak. It means we are saying yes to the ways of love and no to the ways of domination, violence and even rhetoric that leads to violence.
It has been quite a scary week if you are a legislator in this country, particularly if you are a Democrat who supported the passage of healthcare. Here are a few examples of the rage that is erupting. A gas line was severed at the home of the brother of a representative from Virginia. Windows have been smashed and graffiti was painted in congressional offices. Pictures of nooses were sent to white and black legislators by fax, white powder was sent to another with threatening messages inside. Threatening phone calls have been made and the death threats are piling up. A man was a victim of road rage in Nashville because of his Obama/Biden bumper sticker, and here Saint Louis a coffin was placed out front of Russ Carnahan’s home after he voted in favor of the health care bill. There is clearly something going on around us that is getting out of control.
What began as an angry response to myth and misinformation fed by the flames of a bad economy is now threatening to swallow up even the people who fanned those flames. Over the last week and weekend some of the rhetoric that found voice came from other legislators. Leaders of the opposition party said: "America has just witnessed an unconscionable abuse of power." They also said that what happened was the beginning of Armageddon and that the speaker of the house should get “ready for the firing line this November.” Missouri’s own Todd Akin did his part to fan the flames by saying: Today Americans are reacquainted with the danger of an arrogant all powerful government, a deadly enemy within, a clear and present danger in Washington.” I am sure no coffin showed up on his lawn. And two other congress people have called for revolution saying it was time to water the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots. And a former governor said now is not the time to “Reload.”
It is easy for these legislators to claim they are not inciting violence. Their rhetoric is just that, words. But, as people of the book, we know that words matter. Words have the power to shape reality. And despite the saying, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me,” we all know that is not true. Today we celebrate the king who taught us that if we have hatred in our hearts for others, that we are responsible for murder. So to our brothers and sisters who are legislators, it is time we call them out, on the right and the left. But even more importantly, we must own the anger that resides in our own hearts. Today is just the day to do it. By picking up the palms and shouting our Hosannas we are recommitting ourselves to the way of the king who would not resort to violence.
It was the celebration of Passover. And by way of refreshing your memory, Passover is the Jewish commemoration of the release from the slavery of the Egyptian Empire by God. Deuteronomy 6:20-22 sums it up quite nicely:
When your children ask you in time to come, “What is the meaning of the decrees and the statutes and the ordinances that the LORD our God has commanded you?” then you shall say to your children, “We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt, but the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. The LORD displayed before our eyes great and awesome signs and wonders against Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his household.
It is a celebration of the event and a claiming of that event in ones current setting. It is about aligning ones life to the story of faith which begins with freedom from slavery and ends with a life meant for serving God alone.
In first century Judea, the Passover celebration was always a cause for concern among the religious and political leadership. It was not good for the security of the Empire for the people to gather and celebrate freedom from oppression. As a result, each year during the Passover celebration an entire Roman Legion was ordered to “keep the peace” in Jerusalem. Their job was to prevent any riots or uprisings from occurring and to brutally end them if they did. That is how the ‘Peace of Empires’ is always maintained. So, it was into this religious and political powder keg that Jesus enters Jerusalem.
When the religious leadership comes to Jesus and orders him to quiet the crowd they are fearful of the crowd and of those brought in for crowd control. They know too well that once a crowd is stirred up only blood will satisfy. Once the people are stirred into a frenzy someone is going to have to die. If Jesus will not bring this crowd down then they will make sure he will pay. And at the end of the week Jesus will pay with his life.
Jesus will pay with his life because he will not play by the rules of the religious authorities. Neither does Jesus bend to the will of the crowd. Instead, he offers everyone a different way of acting and living in the world. To the religious leaders he demands authenticity and integrity. To the political leadership he shows the way of real power. And to the crowd he offers liberation and hope. But for all, he exposes that which each group does not want to face. He does not exploit the anger of the people. He does not use his faith to gain power, and he will not play by the rules of Rome. On this Palm Sunday, as we give all glory laud and honor to King Jesus we are saying no to the rhetoric which leads to violence and to all other claims upon our life. The question that remains for us is as chilling is it liberating: “Will our hosannas lead us to embrace the cross, or will we finally feed our own desire for justice and retribution and blood thirst that resides in every human heart?”

Free Food!!!

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
March 7th 2010
Third Sunday in Lent /Communion Meditation
Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
Psalm 63:1-8; Isaiah 55:1-9
“Free Food”

This text from Isaiah sounds like a fairy tale. While living in Exile, the people of Israel are told that everything is going to be alright. God is going to take care of it. The good guys win. If we are honest, these stories have the ring of ones we read to our children but do not really believe ourselves. The message of the prophet simply does not look like the world in which we live. And the truth is that we are often afraid to say this out loud. Well, today I am saying it out loud.
How can this not be a fantasy? After all, water, food, wine, milk without a price? For free? In our world bottled water and milk both cost more than a gallon of gasoline. And when was the last time you saw food being handed out for free, when it wasn’t a holiday? Instead of wrestling with this incongruity, we either ignoring these scriptures or simply, and quickly, turn them into metaphor.
By talking about this text as metaphor we can talk more freely and with more confidence. This allows us to ask important questions like: Where are the places in your life you are faced with hunger? This is an important question because we live in a culture which says we should never be hunger. In fact, we may be so hungry for so much that we do not even know how to name those hungers. It is not wrong to ask these questions. This scripture does point us in that direction with the words: “that which is not bread.” So it would be faithful to talk about naming the places of our hunger and then finding healthy ways to feed them. But, I do not believe this passage is really about metaphorical hunger.
When the prophet speaks the words of God:
(E)veryone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come; buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. (Isaiah 55:1-2)
In a closer examination it turns out that nowhere in this passage does this prophetic poetry point to anything other than real food, water, wine, milk and rich food! In fact, it is clear that the problem has to do with a misallocation of resources. Money is being spent that which is not real food. While I believe the metaphor and the reality are connected, today I want to focus on real food.
Food plays an important role in the bible. When the people of God are in the wilderness and real hunger arises, God provides real food. When a widow in ancient Israel is on the verge of starvation, God provides real food through the prophet Elijah. And when Jesus is surrounded by people facing real hunger he takes five loaves and two fishes, real food, and feeds thousands. And, in the early church, when they celebrated communion it was with enough food to feed everyone to satisfaction.
If you have always had enough food to eat or enough money to get food whenever you wish, this focus on real food can seem strange. So the best approach is to slip into metaphor. But, if we can suspend that impulse I believe we will find out surprising and disturbing things. If this passage is about God’s plan is that people have enough to eat, we have to pay attention to real food. Who has access to it, how it is produced, how is it grown, and its nutritional value.
When we talk about real food we have talk about the epidemic of obesity. This epidemic is not due to an overabundance of real food. In fact, we live in a culture that is awash in that which is not real food. Chemicals, flavoring, fillers, and the food science industry has so confused us that we put too much into our bodies that does not satisfy, makes us fat, and is killing us. Cheep food is available but too often it does nothing to feed us and may even harm us. So is this an issue of faith? I believe the scriptures do have something to say to us about real food.
I am no expert on these issues but do believe we, as a people of faith, need to educate ourselves. There are many places we can learn about the problems with our food. I am a particular fan of Michael Pollan who has written numerous books on the issue. It is no overstatement to say that we have a crisis in our food system. But the good news is that we do not need feel overwhelmed and there is much we can do. Some of these things are quite simple. The call is not to suffer with the newest and latest fad or spend hours getting exercise. I suggest that the first thing we do is, when possible, do not eat alone. At the heart of our faith is a communal meal. Eating with others can raise our spirits and usually means we eat healthier. When we give food to those without enough, like with the Give-a-Meal a month program, buy food that you would actually eat or choose the healthier choice. Or, if you are able, grow your own produce. I learned the joy of a carrot fresh out of the ground and have been ruined ever since. If you do not have a place to grow food at home, you can grow food right here in the community which will get us exercise, and give back to the community. And finally, buy food that is locally grown and in season. This does not mean going to the most expensive grocery story. Instead, there are growing numbers of local farmers who do not expect to take your Whole Paycheck. Not only is it healthy, but it turns out, the food actually tastes better. This is not a political rant or the voice of one avid gardener. Instead, it is a call for spiritual wholeness which begins with real food.
Real food was so important to the early church that the first symbol of the church was fish and bread. Jesus could talk about being the bread of life because people understood that real bread could sustain real life. Until we understand the real in food and hunger, the metaphorical has no place. When we gather around this table seeking God’s sustenance, it is no fairy tale. Let us never forget that food and hunger in the bible are indeed about larger issues in life, but they are never detached from real food and real hunger. The faith we share has much to say about life right now. So let us gather at this table and remember when we leave here that the creator of us all wants us to choose those things that bring life, especially with what we put in our mouths.
Amen? Amen!