Face to Face

Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton

Sunday, September 29, 2019

Scripture: Genesis 32:22-30 (NRSV)

Let me catch you up. Abraham and Sarah were called by God to leave their home and travel to a land that God promised to show them.  Already advanced in years, they doubted they could ever have a baby, even though God had promised to make them the parents of a great nation. Then, at the age of 100, Sarah conceived and gave birth to a baby boy whom they named Isaac. 

There’s plenty to tell about Isaac, but suffice it to say that he grew up and married Rebecca. They had twin sons:  Esau and Jacob. Esau was born first; Jacob came next, holding onto Esau’s heel. Esau was big and strapping and loved to hunt with his dad. Jacob preferred to hang out at home with his mother. When the time came for Isaac to confer his blessing on his first born son, Jacob pretended to be Esau and tricked his very near-sighted dad into blessing Jacob instead. (with me so far?)

Aware that stealing the family blessing would not go over well with his big brother, Jacob hightailed it out of town. He settled in another region, got a job with his maternal uncle, and over the course of twenty years accumulated wives, children and cattle (that’s a whole nother story!) until one day God spoke to Jacob and told him it was time to go home.

That’s where we pick up the story. Jacob is on the road, within spitting distance of his hometown, where Esau still lives. Esau has had several years to stew over Jacob’s deception and to work up a fierce resentment. It’s easy to believe that Jacob may have been feeling a bit apprehensive about that reunion.  

So when they get to the river, Jacob has his family cross over with his possessions, but he holds back and spends the night alone, “wrestling with a man…” who turns out to be an angel of God, or maybe even God Godself. Although Jacob’s wrestling partner declines to give a name, it seems Jacob knows enough to demand a blessing (again) and then to name the place “Penuel,” which means “Face of God,” “for I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved,” he says.

Face to face.  Tell me: What have you wrestled with in the wee hours of the pre-dawn? What worries have you confronted in the dark of night, when the rest of the world is sound asleep? Have you ever argued with God, or the universe, or your self about what you should do when the sun comes up, or railed against something that is being asked of you? Remember, it was God who told Jacob to go home in the first place. This wasn’t really Jacob’s idea. So you can imagine how ambiguous Jacob may have been feeling, on the eve of that fraternal confrontation: how he might have wrestled with fear, resentment, worry, or with the idea that he might have to be the one to make the first move toward reconciliation with his brother.

I’m talking about the kind of wrestling we do when we know we have something hard to do: not physical labor, but heart work – like reaching out to an estranged family member, or admitting that we’ve made a mistake, owning the harm we have caused, or being the first to say “I’m sorry.”

We might know in our heart that forgiveness would be better for everyone, and yet. In the middle of the night, when the rest of the world has gone dark, we come face to face with the forces that hold us back: our own discomfort or self-interest or the mixed motives that show up in bold relief, like a pumped up angel glowing in the full moon and ready to rumble. 

I think this is God showing up, not as an adversary, but as a kind of sparring partner, there to help me work something through, to hold the punching bag or go a few rounds to help get the worry out of my system, to beat back those forces that keep me from taking the risks I need to take, to strengthen and open my heart, so that I can be a little more brave when the sun finally rises. These nighttime confrontations are a holy reminder that we can do the hard work, if we just hold on and ask God to bless us on the way…

I’m sure you can think of relationships in your life that need mending. Friendships that have gone off the rails; family dynamics that make you crazy; neighbors with whom you no longer speak because you can’t see eye to eye.  Perhaps you can admit, at least to yourself, that you have played a part in the brokenness, by action or inaction. It’s also possible that you are the Esau in this story, that you know the deep hurt of being betrayed by a person or a community that you have loved.

Either way, you already know that the path to healing can be a long one… That repairing hurt and transforming broken relationships requires time and intentionality and not letting go of the possibility that there could be a blessing at the end of the long night.  That’s even more true, when the harm that’s been done has been passed down over generations, and concerns not just a personal conflict but damage inflicted on an entire people. Sometimes our wrestling has to do with confronting and coming to terms with our own history.

One afternoon during our mission trip to Black Mesa, Arizona, I was balanced halfway up a ladder, helping one of our youth install siding on a house, when the pastor of our host church arrived. I climbed down and went to greet him, only to be invited inside by the homeowner Al (who, it turns out, is the pastor’s son). He seated the pastor, JR and me on a couch out of the heat of the afternoon sun, handed us each a cold drink, then headed back outside to work with our youth. The pastor and I began to talk. I asked him several questions about life on the reservation, his own work and the challenges of pastoring a church when members are scattered across miles of desert, often without easy transportation.

Then he asked me to tell him about my church. What is it called? Saugatuck Church, I said.  “That’s an Indian name,” he observed. He said it casually, with easy familiarity, maybe even with a trace of humor, but not, I think, with any intended irony. And yet, in that moment, I came face to face with a gut-wrenching truth: that the church I serve bears a name borrowed from a people whom our ancestors displaced from this land. We sit on property that was once occupied by tribes I could not name. I couldn’t tell their story.  I didn’t know what happened to them, not precisely. I didn’t even know the meaning of the word Saugatuck, or from which native language it originated. Although we moved on to other topics, I could not shake the sense that God had looked me in the eye and told me there was work to do back home.

During our last circle time on the mission trip, we asked ourselves, “What now?” What will we take from this week? What steps can we take, in response to what we have witnessed here? Among my answers was a commitment to learn more about the indigenous history of our corner of CT.

It turns out, this is not easy.  Our history idealizes early american colonies and portrays the European settlers as the protagonists in a story that sees the decimation of Native Americans as a regrettable but unavoidable chapter in the noble conquest of a place ‘destined’ to become the land of the free and home of the brave. The pastors who helped found Westport and Fairfield are described as model citizens, as were the Bankside farmers who first purchased land from local tribes (land that those tribes thought of like the air, as something that cannot be permanently possessed by anyone).  

I re-read Woody Klein’s history of Westport but found very little detail about the particular tribes that roamed this land. I did learn that “Saugatuck” means something like, “Mouth of the river,” and that many of the tribes in these parts belonged to the Paugusett Nation lived. And I read this: “Bankside Farmers [who first settled the land that would become Fairfield and Westport] were reaping valuable crops … they…owned slaves and had benefit of cheap Indian labor…”

I did a google search to learn more about the Paugussett Nation but found only this: “Due to heavy population losses and aggressive colonial expansion, the Native American tribes of Connecticut were scattered, merged, and assimilated to such a degree that they lost their languages and much of their individual tribal character.”[1]

The challenge with this particular broken relationship is that it’s hard to know where to go to seek reconciliation. Jacob knew that his brother Esau waited for him beyond the river, for better or worse.

But it turns out that many of the tribes who lived in what is now western Connecticut have perished, along with their languages. So it took God in the eyes of a Navajo pastor to call me to account. And it will take a good deal more reflecting on our part, perhaps even a fair bit of wrestling, to consider what it means to make amends. To be clear, we do have Native American neighbors in Connecticut, including two nationally recognized tribes;  Mashantucket Pequot Nation and the Mohegan Nation. We might start there…

I also learned, after returning home, that the Historical Society (just renamed the Westport Museum for History and Culture) plans a major exhibit on Native American history in 2020.

In case you’re wondering, here’s what happened the day after Jacob wrestled with the divine. He did meet Esau, and Esau welcomed him home with open arms.  Who knows why it worked out that way. Whether Esau had long since done his own wrestling, so that he was free to welcome his brother without bitterness, or whether he sized up his little brother as Jacob approached. Maybe he saw the limp and recognized it for what it was: a new humility, an honest wrestling with his transgressions and a realization that we are ALL in need of forgiveness.

  It doesn’t always go down that way; not all relationships can be renewed, but I am struck by the assurance embedded in this story. That when we do our own work, our own wrestling, when we come face to face with the ways we have caused harm, we also come face to face with the God of reunions. And then we may look in the eyes of those whom we have regarded as adversaries, and finally see them as family instead.

Amen.

[1] womenhistoryblog.com/2008/02/native-americans-in-connecticut.html

Set Free

Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
Sunday, August 25, 2019

Scripture: Luke 13:10-17

She stood up straight.  Like a green sprout unfurling in a time-lapse video, an unnamed woman straightened her spine, vertebra by vertebra, raised her head, took a full-bodied breath and filled her lungs with air (all the way to the top!) for the first time in 18 years… like a fledgling breaking out of the shell and extending its still-damp wings, or maybe more like a prisoner stepping out of her too-small cell and into broad daylight, eyes blinking, face upturned… She stood up straight.  

This is a text I can feel in my body. Maybe you can, too. I read it, and instinctively roll back my shoulders, raise my chin, breathe more deeply… It makes me feel a little more brave, like every movie I’ve watched in which the hero, utterly beaten, finds the strength to plant her feet in the dust and rise up one more time to face down the enemy, whether that enemy is a fierce opponent, or her own inner demons, or both. 

We don’t know what kind of ‘spirit’ crippled that woman, not really. Whether her bondage was physical, psychological or social…All we know is that Jesus saw her, the way he saw so many of those who lived on the margins, the ones who were overlooked by everyone else. He saw her, and without hesitation, interrupting his own teaching, he summoned her to his side, commanded her to stand up, and laid his hands on her. 

Imagine how it must have felt for her to be touched, this woman whose affliction would have made her untouchable according to Jewish law; she who had lived a life disregarded. To feel the warmth of another person’s skin on her face or on her arms – dry, firm, tender – must have been a singular experience, (so that) maybe, without even thinking, she raised her head to meet the gaze of this person rash enough to make physical contact with a strange, crippled woman on the Sabbath. Just that touch may have felt as miraculous to her as her body’s sudden ability to stand erect… 

Maybe the details of this episode feel so visceral, because we all know what it’s like to be bound in one way or another, and what it means to long to be set free.

We may feel trapped inside a body that restricts our movements; or trapped inside a system that restricts our freedom. We may be crippled by fear or shame or systemic oppression. What is it, in your life, that has the power to leave you perpetually bent over? What keeps you from standing tall?  

One of my early mentors in ministry was the Rev. Susan Lyons, a brilliant, funny, joy-filled woman who lived with rheumatoid arthritis. The disease crippled her joints, so that her neck and wrists curled in on themselves. By the time I met her, she had also lost her sight, the result of a bad prescription, so she could not have seen me, even if she could have looked up.  

But though her body was constrained, though she stood bent over and shuffled when she walked, her imagination soared, her mind explored and her speech took flight.  She preached freely and often about God’s liberating purpose, and about the Christian imperative to set free those who have been bound by our culture: women, people of color, those who are differently abled.  Repeatedly, she called out the systems that keep people in chains, including the systems that govern the Church. When do our laws (written or implied), our language or practices favor men over women, white over brown and black, temporarily abled-bodied over those who are differently abled?  (she asked).

Susan couldn’t open a door because it had been designed for hands that can grab and turn a door knob; women have struggled for leadership in church and society because God and leaders are so often portrayed as male; African-Americans continue to grapple with the vagaries of racism because our culture assumes that whiteness is the norm. 

I only knew Susan for a short time before her untimely death (the year I entered seminary), but I learned this from her: Crippling spirits take many forms.  And sometimes, it is the system itselfthat is crippled.  When it is designed to accommodate some but not others; when it denies the full power and dignity of all God’s people, when it fails to take account of the full range of humanity, then the system itself is a distortion of the life that God intends for God’s beloved community.

This month marks the 400th anniversary of what many have argued is the true birth of the United States – not the declaration of independence, but an event that preceded that occasion by over 150 years.  In the year 1619, sometime in August, the first ship carrying a human cargo docked near Jamestown, Virginia, where English colonists had settled just 12 years prior. Colonists purchased 20-30 enslaved Africans, kidnapped from lands that are part of modern day Angola. That purchase marks the beginning of a slave trade that fundamentally shaped this nation. Free, forced labor by hundreds of thousands of enslaved women, men and children allowed the colonies to accumulate wealth that made independence conceivable. Our country was quite literally built on the backs of brown and black Americans, its basic economic and political structure designed to preserve and defend slavery – for 250 years.

If you’ve not already done so, I urge you to read the articles published as part of the 1619 Project, launched this week by the New York Times.[1] You’ll find a special insert on the history of slavery and several pieces in the August 18 issue of New York times Magazine (in print and on line). The content is rich, expansive, devastating, truth-telling. It exposes parts of our history that have too long been omitted from the picture we tell ourselves about this freedom-loving nation.  

I would argue that it is also essential reading for any community devoted to a God who promises to set the captives free. Though the chains of literal, legal slavery may have been broken, the legacy of slavery remains with us; it continues to shape our culture and cripple countless lives and spirits in more ways than we can name.

Surely, there is no more devastating example of bondage, than chattel slavery. Surely, there are none more in need to be set free, than those who continue to suffer the vagaries of racism. These are shackles that need to be loosed.  People who deserve to be seen. But when I re-visit the history of slavery and confront its continuing impact, when I hear Susan’s voice, behind Jesus’ voice, when I hear his command to stand up straight, I am reminded that dismantling racism is not about sorting out who among us is racist.  It’s the system – a system in which we all participate, by which we are all impacted – that is most profoundly crippled, a system that needs straightening out, so that all of us can finally stand tall.  

In that scene in Luke, the synagogue official scolded Jesus for breaking the law of the Sabbath, but it seems to me that Jesus’ act fulfilled Sabbath law. The book of Deuteronomy advises the people to honor the Sabbath and keep it holy.  “Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.

The Sabbath was designed to honor a God of liberation. A God determined to see all God’s people standing tall and breathing free.  Jesus found the one act that could make the day most holy: found a woman weighed down by affliction and set her free. This is what it means to honor the Sabbath, he declared. It means unbinding the afflicted and setting the captives free.

The synagogue was busy doing what it had always done, so when Jesus entered the scene, the leader’s response was predictable: “Stop that. That’s not how we honor the Sabbath. We’ve never done it that way before…”

“But you could.”  Jesus said. “You could. Church, you could free yourself from the bonds you have forged; you could be a church committed – not to preservation, but to liberation, transformation…”

We could be a people concerned with the physical and spiritual well-being of all those who have suffered the crippling effects of racism, sexism, ableism… which is all of us. We could be a church both liberated and liberating.  We could be a people with imaginations that soar, minds that explore, speech and actions that take flight… We could empower one another to stand up straight.

It’s a grand image, and one that may seem utterly out of reach. Who but Jesus can command that we stand tall?  Who but Jesus can lay hands on a crippled person or a crippled system and call forth new breath, new life? And yet: we call ourselves followers of that one. It is the breath of Christ that animates our own bodies, and the love of Christ that promises to free every one of us from whatever binds us. 

Beloved, this is the Good News. it is news that I need to hear!  There are days when the thing that binds me is my own fear – fear that I will get it wrong, fear of being scolded by some official somewhere, fear that my actions might put me at odds with the community I love, fear that I won’t be good enough, brave enough…

If you know that fear, or if you can name the shackles that keep you from participating in the liberation of all God’s people (including yourself!), then perhaps it’s time to put yourself in the shoes of the unnamed woman: imagine the touch of Jesus – warm, firm, tender; hear his command; then stand up straight, vertebra by vertebra, until you can breathe deeply and look that fear, those systems, that crippling spirit right in the eye…

And then praise the liberating God with your whole body, your whole heart. May it be so. Amen.


[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html

The One Thing

Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
Sunday, July 21, 2019

Scripture: Luke 10:38-42

Stay inside or go to the beach?  Call your mother or read a book? Say yes, or say no? Our days are full of choices, most of them mundane, some of them life-defining. The challenge is knowing which is which.  Me, I tend to assume that every choice may be critical, that there is always one right and (by extension) one wrong choice, and heaven-forbid I choose wrong… This is true whether I’m discerning a professional direction or picking out a dress for my next beach party. Should I get the blue or the green? “They both look great,” says my husband (for which I thank him!).  But still I hem and haw.

It’s silly, and here’s what I’ve learned about myself over time: worrying over my choices, too often keeps me from making any decision at all. Instead, I get stuck in place, spinning my wheels.

Maybe you know the feeling? Of not knowing what to choose? Keep working or take a break? Wash the dishes or join the conversation?

Mary and Martha are sisters, friends of Jesus, two women who open their home to him and some untold number of his followers one afternoon when they pass through town. The sisters may have been traveling as part of the group, or they may have been waiting to welcome Jesus when he arrived on their doorstep. Either way, it is clear that these two women were close to Jesus. Martha calls him Lord. Mary sits at his feet. And when conflict emerges, Martha appeals to Jesus to arbitrate between them.

So our first impulse may be to read this episode as a stand-off between Mary and Martha, between the one who labors and the one who listens. So we turn this scene into a kind of allegory, where each woman represents a different way of moving through the world: service or contemplation.  We choose up sides (or lean in to see what side Jesus will take). Is it better to serve? Or better to sit? Some of us choose the ‘Martha’ jersey and some the “Mary (jersey)…” And the Martha’s among us? We bristle as we watch the match play out: 

“Why doesn’t Jesus pick up a dish cloth, hmm? Would it kill him to dry a few glasses?  How dare he suggest that Mary is doing something noble, something better, when none of them would have eaten if it wasn’t for Martha?” And it’s a fair point.

But here’s the thing: I don’t think we need to pit Mary against Martha. Both of them are remarkable, faithful women. And both of them are highly regarded by Jesus. How do I know?  Go back to the beginning of chapter 10 and re-read the verses that precede this scene. In the days leading up to this dinner party in Bethany, Jesus talks again and again about what? Welcoming and being welcomed. “Stay with the person who welcomes you. Learn to welcome the stranger. Your neighbor is the one who looks after you, not the one who crosses by on the other side…” 

It seems highly UNlikely that Jesus would say that Mary’s choice to hang out in the living room is better than Martha’s choice to prepare the meal. Because as far as Jesus is concerned, there is no more faithful role than that of host.  Those who open their doors, extend hospitality, welcome strangers… these are the people that Jesus lifts up again and again.

And what about Mary? The text says that she ‘sat at Jesus’ feet.’ It turns out, that’s a very specific phrase used to describe students in Jewish tradition – a student sits at the feet of his rabbi. At the time, those students would all have been men and boys. Women were not permitted to study with a rabbi. And yet, there’s Mary, taking up a place, right along side the other disciples, defying cultural norms in order to follow Jesus. And Jesus does not turn her away. On the contrary, he tells Martha that Mary has chosen well.

One other note about Martha: The house where they gather is described as Martha’s home, and she is introduced by her own name – not as anyone’s wife. As rare as this is in the gospels, and contrary to ancient near eastern norms, it seems that Martha is the head of her household. 

Read these verses closely, and the picture that starts to emerge is of two women who are both faithful, both well regarded by Jesus and both defying expectations, each in her own way. 

Maybe you know what it feels like to live according to other people’s expectations, or according to your own self-imposed rules or limits. To feel trapped in a role assigned by someone else… Do you also know what it’s like to break free? To be the person you feel called to be or to pursue a purpose with singular passion? Do you know what it’s like to break the mold?

That’s what Mary was doing, when she sat at Jesus’ feet and what Martha had been doing… until she was overcome by worry.

And there’s the rub. No: this episode isn’t about choosing between Martha and Mary; it’s about choosing between too many things, and the one good thing.

“Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things…” Jesus said. And I can’t help but wonder what it was that tormented her. Was she worried about what others would think of her sister? Or of her? Distracted by the voices in her own head, the ones that insisted that she had to get it right? Was she worried about being disregarded or ridiculed or judged? Whatever the case, it seems Martha’s anxiousness kept her from doing anything well – either hosting or sitting. 

Could she have left the dishes and gone to join the listening disciples? Absolutely. Could she have continued in her role as host? Yes. The point wasn’t that one of those choices was better than the other. The point was that Martha couldn’t do either well, as long as she was distracted by too many anxious thoughts.  Pulled in multiple directions, she just kept spinning her wheels.

“Where is your heart?” asks biblical scholar Beth Laneel Tanner. If you feel called to lead a household, then do so. If you are called to study at the rabbi’s feet, then do that. Live out your purpose, give it your full and undivided attention, and don’t let worry get in your way.

Which is, let’s be honest, way easier to say then to do. 

Sometimes we really are torn between something we want to do and something we need to do (or think we need to do); pulled between competing obligations, or between the life in which we feel trapped and the one to which we aspire. It’s one thing to say: find your one thing. It’s another to pursue it, especially when it means breaking the cultural mold.

  • Because what if your one thing is living a life free of addiction in a culture that encourages us to self-medicate…
  • or living unencumbered by debt in a culture that rewards consumption? 
  • What if claiming your one thing means walking away from a steady job to pursue a whole new vocation? 
  • Or publicly claiming your true gender identity in the face of still-rigid stereotypes about women and men? 

Then you will surely have set-backs, days when that one thing feels way out of reach. Days when people and circumstances seem to conspire against you. And days when you and your worries will invariably get in your own way. At least I know I have days like that.

So what if we think of that one thing, not just in terms of a particular goal or role, but as the thread that runs through everything we do – like the warp on a loom, through which all the other threads are woven.  And what if that thread is what connects us to God – to holy hope, joy, love – no matter what we do? What if pursuing one thing means figuring out how to tap into that hope, joy, love; how to say “yes!” to God every time we make a choice, and so to trust that God will be present with us however events unfold? Perhaps then, we could learn to shed our worry, abandon distractions, break the mold, live whole-hearted lives… and so be set free.

This is my prayer – for me, for you, for us. May it be so.  Amen.

Neighbors

Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
© Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
July 14, 2019

Scripture: Luke 10:26-37

Maybe this is Part II. Just last week, I suggested that hospitality is a fundamental value in God’s Kin-dom – a core characteristic of the Divine, and so a principle we should all practice. We are called to extend an expansive welcome to those in need – the iconic widows, orphans and wayfarers of the Old Testament – and to accept the hospitality of those we meet along the way. 

I shared examples from both sides of this coin last week: stories about being warmly welcomed by our Navajo hosts in Black Mesa, Arizona, during our youth mission trip; and of witnessing the efforts of over 1,000 volunteers who are working together in Tucson, Arizona to support and accompany asylum seekers on our southern border. That was last Sunday. 

On Monday, I realized that this week’s scripture text is the story of the Good Samaritan. So we continue the conversation – maybe dig a little deeper – as we ask that most pressing question, “Who IS my neighbor?”

Let’s be honest: the scholar who first asked that question may well have been hoping that Jesus would draw some line in the sand, might make it clear which people meritted his attention and who, by extension, were NOT his responsibility. 

However genuine – or disingenuous – Jesus rose to the occasion, responding to the question with … another question. And when the scholar pressed his point, Jesus did what he so often does:  he told a story. A story with a twist, because the hero of this particular parable was a Samaritan. And while the term “Good Samaritan” has made its way into our popular vernacular, Samaritans were nothing like good, in the eyes of the Israelites. The people of Samaria were religious adversaries; the ones who read the same ancient texts as the Israelites, but came to different conclusions; the ones who worshipped on a different mountain, and shunned the ways of the Israelites.

Why on earth would Jesus choose a Samaritan as the hero?

Here’s a reminder that it’s always helpful to read these stories in context. Back up a few verses to chapter 9 (vs 51-56), and you’ll see that just before sending the 70 followers out on their first mission, Jesus had his own encounter with Samaritans. He had decided that it was time to turn toward Jerusalem. Traveling to Jerusalem meant passing through a Samaritan village, so Jesus sent a couple disciples ahead to arrange a place for him to stay. But when the Samaritans heard that Jesus was headed to the temple in Jerusalem, they refused to host him (It was a kind of “this man bats for the wrong team…” response). James and John fumed, suggesting in their anger that someone ought to smite the village (Specifically, “shall we reign down fire on them?”).

They were undoubtedly speaking in hyperbole. There’s no reference anywhere in the gospels to Jesus calling down fire and brimstone on his adversaries.  Ever. That just was not his M.O. But there is a well-known example of this kind of divine destruction in the Hebrew Bible, back in the book of Genesis chapter 19. It concerns the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. In response to the wickedness of the towns’ inhabitants, the story goes, God “rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire…” (Gen 19:24)

Perhaps you were taught, somewhere along the way, that the egregious sin of Sodom was homosexuality – a contemporary interpretation that has caused all kinds of damage to our lesbian, gay and bisexual siblings.  In fact, the behavior that so enraged God was the abusive treatment of strangers. Sodom and Gomorrah failed to extend appropriate hospitality to two wayfarers (who, in the story, turn out to be angels in disguise).  Instead, residents threaten to rape the visitors.

Here again is evidence that for the God of Israel, hospitality is the very heart of the matter. So appalled was God by the town’s poor treatment of  outsiders, that even Abraham’s appeals for mercy on behalf of the city could not finally dissuade God from destroying the whole place.

To be clear: this is not a literal, historical event.  The stories of Genesis belong to what we call ‘pre-history.’ They are powerful myths meant to lay the foundation for our relationship with the Divine. Who is the Creator, and who, by extension, are we? What matters to God and so what should matter to us?  The purpose of Genesis is to contemplate these questions.

So the story of Sodom and Gomorrah makes clear: ours is a God who places high priority on welcoming the stranger. we are not to turn our backs on those in need; in fact, we have a holy obligation to those beyond our own tribe.  

James and John surely knew they were invoking that earlier story when they offered to ‘rain fire on the Samaritans.’ and whether they expected Jesus to mirror their outrage or to share a conspiratorial laugh at the Samaritans’ expense, they likely did NOT anticipate that Jesus would just… let it go.  

But that’s what Jesus did.  He moved on. And his message was clear enough: we do not condemn – not even our enemies.  And in case they had failed to absorb this point, Jesus wrapped back around to it, the first opportunity he got. When one of his followers asked, “Who IS my neighbor?” he wove a tale that located one of those troublesome Samaritans at the very center of events.

“WHO is your neighbor? Your neighbor is the Samaritan. The Adversary. The despised.  The one you would scarcely expect to give you the time of day, much less rescue you in your hour of need… That one might just surprise you, might one day give you the provisions from his pack, the money from his purse, his own mule to ride when you need it most. 

“Go and do likewise.” 

Jesus turned his own bitter experience into an object lesson. He engaged in a little creative projection:  What if it was a Samaritan that showed up on that dangerous road and embodied extravagant hospitality, when our ‘own people’ walked by? What if hewas the one who offered first aid, delayed his own travels long enough to get the wounded man to safety; dug into his own purse, to cover the cost of that Isrealite’s care… without respect for their differences?  Smite all your adversaries, and you eliminate the chance for a future encounter that may just turn your assumptions on their head.

The Samaritan is your neighbor.  End of lesson.

This parable is so provocative, that we’ve been telling it, and mulling it over, for two thousand years. For much of that time, we’ve allowed it’s edges to be dulled and it’s message to be muted, concluding that it’s primary point is that we should be charitable to those in need.

And yes, we should.  That is the bare minimum, the low bar. When we have two shirts, it is good to give one to the person without any. When we have a home, it is good to attend to the one with no shelter. When a person arrives at our borders wearing shoes worn to shreds because they have walked untold miles to escape psyche-destroying violence, it is good to give that person a new pair of shoes, food to eat and a safe place to rest.

But there’s something more here.  Something deeper. There’s a tendency to regard charity as something we do for strangers. Giving charity allows us to keep our distance, stay on top. We are the helpers. They, the receivers.

But Jesus and the scholar talk about neighbors.  Think about it:  We help our literal neighbors – the ones who live on our street – with a cup of sugar, or an emergency blanket; a hot dish or an offer to shovel the sidewalk. Why? Because we feel some sense of kinship, some connection – personal or merely geographic – because our children go to school together, or because we run into each other every time we go out to retrieve the mail, AND because one day, we might need the help ourselves. The relationship between neighbors is reciprocal, cultivated by proximity and rooted in our shared humanity.

THAT’s the bottom line. To the question, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus responds, “Whoever shows up at your door.  Whomever you meet on the road.” Whoever you encounter deserves the same care and dignity that you hope to receive, when you are the one in the ditch. 

It is not tribe, or language, or country of origin, or political bent or legal status that determines whether a person is my neighbor. It is not even whether they would welcome me in return. It is not whether they have earned my respect; whether they have made ‘good’ or ‘bad’ choices, or whether their need is justified in my eyes.  It is the fact that they are knocking.  It is the fact that they, like I, are children of the one God.  

In the end, ‘Neighbor’ is a category divinely assigned, a lens through which God instructs us to gaze, an attitude we are called to cultivate with everyone we meet. 

We learn to be neighbors, by spending time in close proximity – physically or emotionally. This is the opposite of closing our doors or walking by on the other side.

  • When a woman and child are abducted and extorted for thousands of dollars while fleeing north to the US border;
  • When a family who arrives at the border dripping wet, after being nearly swept away while crossing  the river; 
  • When vigilantes harass and endanger asylum seekers, 
  • When  involuntary migrants risk their lives by hopping trains, because the buses are so often stopped and searched by border patrol;
  • When our practices, official and unofficial, deny the legal right to approach our border and ask for help…  

We can refuse to turn away. We can listen to the stories. We can pour out our own provisions. We can fiercely defend their dignity, tend wounds, offer sanctuary.  We can ask the question: What has caused my neighbor such distress? We can look beyond the borders, to the tumult that causes involuntary migration in the first place?  Why is the road so dangerous? 

This is what it means to be neighbors. It means living as though we were all residents of the same community of God.  Because we are.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

An “A” in Church

Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Written & Directed by Michael Hendricks
Sunday, June 9, 2019

Dear Church,

Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
Sunday, May 12, 2019

Scripture: Romans 1:1-17New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Dear Church,

From Alison, servant of Christ Jesus, called to preach the Good News that God is alive and at work among us – ever faithful, ever laboring with fierce compassion to mend hearts, gather the people and restore creation.  Being persuaded that Christ was sent to launch a movement to pursue God’s holy project, calling us all to live the love and justice of Jesus.

To the members and friends of Saugatuck Church, who are dearly loved by God and called to be God’s people: Grace and Peace to you,

First of all, I want you to know that I give thanks, every day, for your unfolding faith.  The news of your faithfulness has spread all around town. In my travels, I hear Westporters speak about the church that opens its doors to 12 step programs that save lives. They say this is the church that hosts memorials for any grieving family; blesses animals, welcomes community groups  and makes space for all kinds of people. I hear it told that Saugatuck Church has a big heart and a generous spirit.

Beloved, I don’t know whether you think of yourselves as faithful, individually.  I have heard many of you say: “So and So is much more faithful than I am; I’m not really a religious person; I have so many questions.”  I want you to know, that when I hear you say that, I think:

Thank God.  Thank God that you are here,  willing to confess your doubts; ask your urgent questions; sit in the room even when you’re not sure where you fit into this Christian Church we inherit.  

Thank God that you have been bold enough to show up, for the first time, or week after week – when you are feeling upbeat or optimistic, and maybe even when the world around you looks bleak, and your own spirit is weighed down.

I thank God that you have opened your arms to each new person who has walked through that door, that you have served each other coffee, greeted the children, washed the dishes, and exchanged the ordinary details of your lives with each other, time and again.

To be sure, that is not all that God calls us to do together, but if you have any doubt that faithfulness begins with showing up, I ask you to consider Dan Long.

Beloved Church, in these days since Dan’s heartbreaking and untimely death, my inbox has been flooded with emails from many of you, notes expressing your shock, grief, and admiration for Dan – long time member, deacon, artist, and current vice moderator. Like many of you, I am crushed by this loss.

I have had the privilege of witnessing Dan’s spiritual journey over the last seven years.  I know that he had plenty of his own questions about faith.

But what has become clear this week, is how many of you were touched by Dan. Collectively, you have borne witness to his faithfulness. Yes, Dan was a fun, curious, creative, friendly guy.  It is tempting to say that connecting came naturally for him.

But make no mistake, Beloved: his showing up was a choice, an intentional effort to reach out to and deepen relationship with members and friends of this congregation.  This I know: He did it, not just for your sake, or for his, or for mine, but for the sake of this entire community, because Dan believed that we have the power to do something meaningful and important together, on God’s behalf.  

Dan had faith in this congregation. Faith that we can live the love and justice of Jesus, that together we are resilient, creative, and resourceful.

This is what I mean when I say that we are better together than we are alone.  To paraphrase Paul’s words, we can be encouraged by the faithfulness we find in each other, both Dan’s faithfulness, and yours and mine.

I know, some days are harder than others. I want you to know, Beloved, that I am continually praying for you and for this church. Sometimes, my tears are my prayer. Sometimes, I make lists, in order to pay attention  to each of the struggles you’ve shared with me over the course of the week. I remember those who are in need of comfort or healing (Jane Mangold, Austen Doolittle, Bill Laughlin), and the people who tend to them (David Mangold, Kathy Griffin, David and Andrea Cross…). I think of those of you who are looking for courage or wisdom, and call on the name of God to send God’s Spirit to empower you.

When the deacons gather each month, we pray together, reading your names out loud.  Last Tuesday, we lifted up the members and friends whose last names begin with H through L… From Hallas to Long and everyone in between.

In all my prayers, I am always giving thanks and asking God to bear us up, to stitch together the torn-apart places, to strengthen and equip us to be the church that God needs and to show us the way.  I do it, because I believe that God listens, and God remains faithful, even when the world seems to shift off its axis.

It can be hard to trust that, in the midst of personal or collective turmoil. I confess, I have wrestled with the Holy One this week, because Dan’s death has robbed us, not only of a devoted friend,  husband, father and grandfather, but also of a leader, one whose faithfulness I greatly valued; so many of us did. But then I read your notes and listen to your testimonies and my own faith and gratitude are restored.  

Beloved Church, this is why I preach the gospel. Because I look around and remember:  When we show up, so does God, every time.

That’s all I’ve got.  Today, that’s enough.  

May the fierce, tender, tenacious, unending love of God bless you this day and every day.

Yours faithfully,

Pastor Alison

Invited

 

Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
Sunday, May 5, 2019

Scripture: Acts 10:1-17; 34-35 – New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

We are what we eat. That’s what they say, right?  And it’s true, biologically: The food we consume is broken down into the sugars and proteins that power our systems and build our cells. So we become what we consume.

It’s also true that we are what we eat, culturally speaking. We all have foods that we associate with our family, home town, region or country of origin. One familiar aroma – cinnamon and nutmeg; smoky barbeque; cumin or salty pickles – has the power to stir up vivid memories of grandparents’ kitchen, or a family gathering, or that favorite deli around the corner from your childhood home.

We’ve been fortunate that so many of you have shared your favorite foods with Saugatuck Church, as we gather around these tables for fellowship hour, every Sunday:

  • Martin Van Breems brings his meat balls
  • On Easter, Sumi and Arvind brought homemade curry, made with curry powder  hand-ground by Sumi’s mother in India
  • During Advent, Stephan taught the children how to make Grittibanz – person-shaped-bread
  • And earlier this spring, Mia Costanza introduced us to her friend Emily, who helped the children make Chinese dumplings.
  • If you come to a deacons’ meeting, you are likely to be treated to some some sweet or savory snack made by AeRhee Lee – ginger crisps, or homemade donuts

The food we eat is also wrapped up in the faith we practice. Today, we will gather around the communion table, as we do on the first Sunday of every month.  We’ll recount the details of the last supper that Jesus shared with his friends and followers. And we’ll remind each other that at the very heart of Christian practice is a meal.  At the communion table, we practicing Christians become what we eat:  Body of Christ. Love. Grace.

For Peter, too, food meant more than filling an empty stomach. As a devout Jew, Peter would have prepared and eaten food according to the rules laid out in the Torah… God’s law, given to Moses and delivered to Peter’s Israelite ancestors while they were still in the wilderness.  “I am your God and you are my people. THIS is how you will eat…” As much as any other practice, keeping kosher was a mark of Jewish identity.

So the vision Peter had that day must have thrown him for a loop.  There he was, up on his rooftop, praying while the midday meal was being prepared downstairs…  Perhaps the mingled smells of lentils, onions and garlic, and baking barley bread wafted up the stairs and made his mouth water and his stomach grumble; he try to focus on his prayers but suddenly he had a vision of a sheet lowered down from the sky.

“Take and eat,” said a voice. But the sheet was filled with all manner of animal: hogs, shiny green lizards and sharp-taloned raptors – all those creatures Peter was forbidden to eat.  “Surely,” he would have thought, “this is a test, a temptation I am supposed to resist…”

Three times, the voice urged him on, saying, “What I have made clean you must not call profane.”   But only once Peter was startled from his revere by a knock at his front door, only once he opened that door to find Gentiles, non-Jews, inviting him to dine at the home of a Gentile, (non-Jew) Roman soldier, only then did it begin to sink in. Perhaps that vision wasn’t a test at all. Perhaps, God was doing something NEW.

In a matter of minutes, everything shifted. Imagine how hard it must have been for Peter to change gears like that, to relinquish what had been a lifelong practice.  God, it seemed, had changed the rules, and with them, what it meant to be faithful.  And the earth tilted on its axis.

You see, this wasn’t just about the food. It was about identity -Jewish identity, yes – but more specifically, the identity of the emerging Christian community – its shape and character.  This was about whether everyone in that community had to journey by the same route, learn the same history, embrace the same practices in order to join the Jesus Movement…

Up until then, the Movement had taken shape in the context of first century Judaism. Everyone learned Torah, kept kosher, circumcised their newborn baby boys… After the resurrection, the followers of that extraordinary Jewish rabbi were sent out to share the Good News of God’s Love and Grace. And though the risen Christ sent them into ‘all the world,’ and though the Holy Spirit showed up on Pentecost and empowered the apostles to speak in multiple languages, so that Jews from every nation gathered in Jerusalem could understand them…Still, up until that day in Joppa, it was mostly Jews talking to Jews.

In all likelihood, the new community that Peter and the other apostles envisioned looked a lot like the community in which they had all grown up, but with a little Christ mixed in.  Surely they’d still celebrate Hanukkah, and eat unleavened bread on Passover. That’s what they knew, what they’d always done. “Eat pork? With Gentiles? But we’ve never done it that way before…”

This is the story of the church in every generation: the rules are set by one gathering of faithful people who believe they’ve got it right. But somewhere along the way, the rules no longer serve us well; they might even get in the way of building God’s Beloved Community; then the Holy Spirit shows up and rewrites the playbook.

To be clear:  It isn’t that keeping kosher is wrong: God had a covenant with the people Israel – one which I believe remains intact between God and our contemporary Jewish cousins. But that afternoon in Joppa, God declared a new rule for a new community. For those called to follow the Jesus Way, food would play a different role – to gather rather than to set apart a faithful people. Peter would need to learn to break bread with Gentiles.

All these generations later, the Holy Spirit is still at work among us, stirring up our convictions about how we ought to do things, challenging our expectations and upending our assumptions about what it means to be faithful.

So in or around 1965, the members of Saugatuck Church gathered for a congregational meeting, to discuss another earth-tilting rule change. Up until then, all deacons at Saugatuck Church had been men.  “There were no women at the Last Supper,” some of our members argued. “Women serving communion would create a distraction,” a few men claimed. Still, a new-old idea was taking hold in our midst; the realization that we needed to widen the circle. The congregation took a vote.  Shortly thereafter, the first two women were elected to Saugatuck’s board of deacons.

It happened again several decades later, when we asked ourselves whether we needed to extend a more intentional invitation to people who are Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered.  Confronting Christian claims that being gay is an aberration; that same gender love is somehow profane: We asked: have we gotten it wrong? Is there something we’ve missed? Again, the congregation responded with a resounding yes, and we became an Open and Affirming congregation.

Our ancestors could not have envisioned what Saugatuck Church would be like in 2019, how it would be transformed by the leadership of faithful women, and members of the LGBTQ community, and every one of you that makes up this congregation.  But it’s clear that we are better, richer, more faithful, because we responded when the Holy Spirit knocked on our door.

Beloved in Christ, that’s why it is vital that we remember those ground-shifting moments and remain open to the movement of the Holy Spirit in our midst. We need to remind ourselves that not everyone journeys by the same route or shares the same history… Some of us grew up in the church; some walked through the door for the first time the day before yesterday. Some were baptized as infants; some were dunked as adults.  Still others have not yet chosen to be baptized. We all bring our own stories, questions, struggles and insights to the table.

Which means that our Christian community will continue to change shape. The rules will keep changing.  Next week, we will welcome new members into our community. We will exchange covenant promises – to embody the love and justice of Jesus and to support each other on this journey of faith.

And I will remind all of us:  That we will become, in part, who they are. They will bring gifts to the table, gifts that we need.

Peter accepted the invitation that afternoon.  He went to the home of Cornelius, to share what he knew about the love of Christ and God’s promise of new life. His testimony inspired Cornelius to join the Jesus Movement.  But he was not the only one to be converted that day. Peter had a conversion, too. The moment he walked across that threshold, sat down at Cornelius’ table, and ate what he was served…

THIS is the lesson of the Holy Spirit:

It’s not just about moving over to make space in the same old pew.  Every time we accept an invitation; every time we who think we are insiders defer to people we have regarded as outsiders, every time we welcome someone new and join them at a table that they have helped to set… we are changed.

If all goes well:  if our hearts are sufficiently open, if we are brave enough to allow the old rules to fall away, if we are willing to pull up a chair and eat the food that has been laid out for us, well, then, we will be transformed.  Because we are what we eat: we are garlic and lentils, curry and cumin, nutmeg and cinnamon, salsa and guacamole. We are love and hospitality and comfort and pleasure and laughter and connection and justice and inclusion…

We ARE the Body of Christ…defined, finally, not by our boundaries but by our center:  This table. This meal. This host, persistently calling us widen the circle. May it be so.

Thanks be to God.