Why It Matters

Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Martin Copenhaver
Sunday, April 29, 2018

What Kind of Peace?

Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
Sunday, April 8, 2018

Scripture: John 20:19-31

In recent weeks, hundreds of refugees from Central America, many of them Hondurans, have been traveling through Mexico in a caravan. Being in a large group helps to keep them safe from thieves and violent gangs. They are fleeing civil war, organized crime and unrelenting violence in their home countries.  Many members of the caravan are children. They are in search of a better life, the kind we all long for: a life free from fear.

In response, the president of the United States has ordered the National Guard to reinforce the Mexican/American border, convinced that the approaching refugees pose a threat to national security.  I read the stories of those who are on the road, I see the faces of these women and men whose precarious lives I can barely fathom, and I wonder, what are we afraid of?

Fear is such a pernicious thing.  I live with it all the time: fear that I’m using the wrong parenting strategy on any given day; fear that someone I love will get sick or injured; fear that I will fail my call to serve God’s Church: that I will stay silent when I ought to speak, or sedentary when I ought to act; fear that I don’t have what it takes to do everything I feel called to do.  Of course, most of those fears are triggered not by real threats, but by my own inner Worry Wort. They are nothing compared to the fears of those who live in an actual war zone.

They are nothing, compared to the fear faced by our friends at St. Matthew’s Baptist Church in Bridgeport, who know that on any given day, they could be pulled over by the police just for driving through a primarily white neighborhood, because they are black and look as though they don’t ‘belong’; or the fear of my friends who mother black boys, and who live daily with the terror that their beloved sons might get caught in the wrong place, falsely accused, shot and killed merely because they fit the description of “a black male perpetrator.”

Those mothers look at the carnage in our country, at one dead son after another, and wonder, What is everyone afraid of?

Fear is a pernicious thing… a reaction to threats real or imagined, it short-circuits our ability to think and act creatively. The disciples were paralyzed by fear. Their leader, the man called Jesus, had confronted the Roman Empire, had publicly suggested that God’s vision for the world – God’s kingdom – was superior to Cesar’s kingdom; he preached justice for the poor and dignity for the outcast.  And it all sounded so good at the time, inspiring – but it had cost him his life.

Now the future looked bleak; all the disciples could do was imagine what brutal fate awaited them, should they be recognized by the Jewish authorities or the Romans as Jesus’ followers. So they hid. I probably would have hidden, too.

They were discovered by the one person they least expected to breach their hideout. The one person they thought they had lost forever. On the evening of the day that they had heard and ignored the unbelievable account told to them by Mary Magdalene when the doors of the house were locked for fear of the Jewish authorities, Jesus came and stood among the disciples and said, “Peace be with you.”

Peace be with you. Not: “Relax., it’s going to be ok.” Not, “I’m here to take care of you.” not even that classic line, “Don’t be afraid.”  No: Jesus said, “Peace be with you.” And right after that, he breathed on them, Holy Spirit breath; divine, life-empowering-breath, and said:  “As the Father sent me, now I send you. Be filled with the Holy Spirit.”

The disciples were still registering the fact that Mary Magdalene hadn’t been soft in the head after all; that Jesus who’d been executed by the state was somehow alive again and standing in the room with them.  They were still trying to make sense of what they were seeing when Jesus moved on past the pleasantries and gave them a job to do – a job that required them to leave that locked-up room.  All of which makes me think that when Jesus said, “peace,” he wasn’t talking about “a peaceful evening at home by the fire, or peace of mind, or even absence of conflict.”

I think Jesus was offering the kind of peace that would help the disciples to get over their fear, or to face it.  It was peace, as in, “Have courage.” Peace, as in, “Trust me. Trust God.” Peace, as in: “You’ve got work to do. And it won’t be easy.  But you won’t be alone. I am filling you with Holy Spirit power, like a booster shot of divine inspiration.  You’re gonna need it, so peace be with you.”

The Hebrew word for peace is shalom, a word that implies more than the absence of war.  It means wholeness, peace with justice. To greet someone by saying ‘shalom’ is to say something like, “May you be full of well-being.” To speak of God’s shalom is to conjure a world that has been mended of its brokenness and a people reconciled of their divisions, the place where that lion and lamb hang out together; and enemies break bread at the same table.  In short: the world Jesus came to inaugurate.  The disciples assumed that the mission had failed when Jesus was crucified. But they were wrong. The mission had just begun.  And the disciples were about to graduate.

“It’s on you now,” Jesus said.

This episode tends to be invoked to shame people who express doubt.  To be called a Doubting Thomas is rarely meant as a compliment.  To insist on proof is considered a failure of faith.  If you’ve ever had doubts, then come back next Sunday; we’re going to take a closer look at those claims, and consider whether doubt – all the queries and the questions we have – may actually be evidence of faith, not its opposite.).

For now, I want to suggest that focusing on a Doubting Thomas (or any Doubting Disciple) misses the point of this episode.  It’s not what concerned Jesus.  He didn’t scold any of the disciples for their lack of belief – even though every one of them (not just Thomas) needed to see Jesus in the flesh before they were convinced that he had really risen.

No, Jesus had another agenda.  Jesus wanted to stir up those disciples (and all of us) who were paralyzed by fear. He wanted them (and us!) to go out and start something, to spread God’s peace, not to keep it – and ourselves – hidden away.

So here we are, two thousand years later, living in a world that is still full of death-dealing forces – where refugee families and black boys are labeled as hostile; where real wars continue to rage; where poverty persists and racism retains its grip on our communities … and what are WE to do? Read the daily news – all those stories about displaced people and reinforced borders is enough to drive any of us into a securely locked room.  Surely, we don’t have what it takes to resolve the world’s problems.

When you feel paralyzed by fear; overwhelmed by the world’s brokenness, what do you do? I’ve been thinking about this, about the alternative to paralysis.  Because my fear, my paralysis, doesn’t help me or anyone else.  So I googled it.  And found “7 ways to move forward” at www.powerofpositivity.com.   Actually, it’s a pretty good list. Here are my four favorites tips, tips that Jesus might have liked, too:

#1.  Breathe.  As in, take a deep and spirit-filled breath, the same kind that Jesus breathed on the disciples in that locked up room. There’s nothing like a deep breath to clear the head, ground the feet, free up the imagination and give us time to consider the possibilities…

#2. Do what scares you. This is brilliant. To heck with fear. As Brené Brown would say: Lean in. Not ready to unlock the door?  Well then, open a window.  But do something to unleash your courage and see how it feels.

#3. Give up an ‘all or nothing’ mentality.  None of us is called to do all the work.  So let that go. Choose something. One thing.  Do that.  See where that takes you.

#4. Replace “I can’ts” with “I cans.” What can you do, to contribute to greater justice and mercy?  To cultivate shalom? What can you do to change the conversation, ease suffering, or diffuse fear (your own, or someone else’s)?  Who could you invite to sit at your dinner table? Where could you go, beyond the safety of your own living room? What letter could you write?  Whose story could you learn? We can all be faithful disciples, one ‘yes’ at a time.

So what ARE we afraid of?  Losing. Fear is fundamentally about losing something – a way of living, our safety and security, love and belonging, dignity or our very lives.  So, we cling to what we have. We hunker down in locked rooms, where no one can make demands on us.  We reinforce the borders, so no one new can come in; we shoot from the hip at the first sign of trouble… convinced that we are preserving the peace.

But the Risen Christ will have none of that. He didn’t defeat death just to see us hunker down in locked-up rooms. He did it, to demonstrate once and for all that fear may be a pernicious thing, but it is not the most powerful thing. On the other side of fear is healing; lambs confronting lions; families living together in safety; black boys growing up to be young men with gifts to share and their own children to raise; communities with more bridges than walls… on the other side of fear is shalom, and the only way to get there is to take a deep and spirit-filled breath and walk out that door, together.

May it be so. Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Scripture


John 20:19-31 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

19 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

24 But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

26 A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” 28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31 But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

April Fools

Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
Easter Sunday, April 1, 2018

Scripture: Mark 16:1-8

The story leaves us hanging. The Writer of Mark’s Gospel says the women didn’t tell anyone.  That they went away afraid.  But here we are. Gathered in this flower-festooned sanctuary to proclaim again the Good News of the Resurrection.  Which means someone must have told…

It makes me wonder whether Mark left out the second half of the scene. The one where Jesus pokes his head out from the dark corner of the tomb where he’s been hiding blinks his eyes in the morning sun, and calls after the fleeing women:  “Mary! Salome!  Look again:  I’m HERE!  April Fool’s!”

The joke is on them.  On all the disciples.  And on the Roman soldiers. On Pilate and Herod and everyone who mocked him, derided or dismissed him. The joke is on everyone who thought that Jesus’ light could be extinguished – those who wanted it out and those who dreaded the thought of losing him.  Because as often as Jesus said it: “Look: Here’s what’s going to happen:  I’m going to be arrested.  And suffer. And die. And then I’m going to rise again.”  It just didn’t compute. Not even with those who loved him most; who normally hung on his every word.

Really: who can blame Jesus’ followers for that particular failure of the imagination?  It is, after all, a crazy idea. That there is anything more powerful than death. That death is anything less than final… So, if Jesus popped out of the tomb on that first Easter morning, I can only imagine how the women’s hearts would have skipped several beats.  How their faces would have betrayed their shock and confusion, and how Jesus, newly alive, sunshine warming his face, might have laughed out loud at his own joke and at the look on their faces. Might even have laughed ‘til his sides hurt, may have laughed long enough to allow the women to recover their bearings, to move from shocked to miffed to just the slightest bit amused … until something unlocked in their chests, and they whooped right out loud with Jesus, until tears of joy streamed down their cheeks – and they guffawed at the outrageousness of it all.

That’s the way a good joke works. It plays off the unexpected, pokes fun at pain until the cause of that pain is exposed and laughter diffuses the hurt… Which is also how a good resurrection works: turning tears into laughter; mocking those death-dealing forces and upending all our expectations:

So you get a jubilant tangle of sunflowers and tomato vines, where once there was nothing but an abandoned lot; or a booming recycling center on top of what once was the neighborhood trash heap; you find a thriving, whole-hearted woman, where once there was a ravaged victim of domestic violence; or a civil servant and elected leader where once there was an ostracized transgender man; you get a teacher, an artist, an entrepreneur, a community leader where once there was an incapacitated alcoholic…

THAT’S Resurrection!  Resurrection laughs in the face of death:   April Fools! You thought you had the upper hand – but look again:  There is yet more light and life to burst forth from this tomb.

OK: maybe Jesus didn’t jump out at the women and surprise them, as fun as that is to imagine. Maybe the gospel of Mark tells it more or less like it was, and the women really did remain speechless and terrified all the way to Galilee – only to encounter a beaming Jesus Christ on his old turf.

But this we do know: that they didn’t stay speechless and terrified (no matter what Mark says).  Sooner or later, the women found their tongues, and courage enough to tell their foolish-sounding tale to someone, who told someone else, who told someone else… until two thousand years later, someone told us…and we showed up here:

Why? To hear that crazy punch line one more time – or maybe for the very first time.  To hear it repeated, in the face of the gut-wrenching pain of Good Friday, or the pain we encounter on any ordinary Tuesday; in the face of all that daily breaks our hearts and dehydrates our souls; in the face of the hurt that confronts us in our own homes or in the world around us… We come to hear it proclaimed that God STILL has the power to “pull life out of death”; we come to hear it proclaimed that Christ – the storyteller, bread-breaker, wound-healer, peacemaker, justice-seeker, joke-maker – is alive among us, between us, and in us.

Does it still sound outlandish? Like pie in the sky?  Would you have to be a fool to believe it?

Then count me in. This Easter, I want to be an April Fool!  Foolish enough to trust that after the fear comes laughter.  Foolish enough to trust that after death (all kinds of death) – comes new life.  Foolish enough to believe in empty tombs and YES a God who has a sense of humor outrageous enough to topple the fiercest opponents – and then to transform their hearts …and mine.

I want to BE an April Fool.  I am prepared to admit, right along with the Mary’s, Salome and the other disciples, that at first, new life can be terrifying. But I want to learn to laugh in the face of that terror, to laugh at myself and my own fumbling attempts to follow the living Christ. Like the White Queen in Alice Through the Looking Glass (Lewis Carroll), I want to practice “believing as many as 6 impossible things before breakfast”; I want to be foolish enough to trust:

That stories have the power to heal;

That teachers can change the whole world;

That teenagers can be stronger than guns;

That our prayers CAN summon the prophets we need;

That a conversation over dinner can turn enemies into friends;

That I can become more courageous, more loving…

I want to be foolish enough to trust in the presence of the living Christ, and brave enough to declare it!

What about you? What foolish things would YOU entertain? Today is the day to consider them all, to lay them all out like so many Easter eggs discovered in the grass…

Let your imagination soar; let your heart swell; let your ideas for healing and hope be wild, expansive, and outrageous enough to unlock something in your chest until you and everyone around you is laughing right out loud!

Then, embrace the foolishness; live that vision…  Be courageous April Fools:

The faithful fools among us know that we don’t do it alone. This is no joke and it’s the very best joke: So spread the word and don’t hold back:

The tomb IS empty.

Death IS undone.

Love is at large.

Christ is risen; Christ is risen indeed!

Amen.

Scripture

Mark 16:1-8 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

16 When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3 They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” 4 When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6 But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” 8 So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

 

Lost and Found

Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
February 18, 2018

Scripture: Mark 8:31-38

Jesus, it is clear to Peter, needs a new marketing pitch. Exactly how many followers does Jesus expect to win with all that talk about suffering and death? It sounds like he is throwing in the towel, giving in to the dominant Roman Empire before he’s even begun – and expecting others to do the same. “The Human One must suffer and die…” and Peter, ever devoted, ever anxious, pulls him aside.  “Teacher, stop!  (as in) You’re scaring the children!” “The children, and the other disciples, and me.”

Only moments ago, Peter has identified Jesus as the Messiah, the first to do so in Mark’s gospel. And it seems, for that moment, that Peter has lept to the front of his class – gold star for seeing what so many have missed: That Jesus is no ordinary rabbi. That he is the One for whom they have waited. That Jesus will surely change everything!

Jesus doesn’t deny it. So it’s all the more confusing when, moments later, Jesus chastises Peter for failing to understand.  “Go to the back of the class, Peter. You’ve still got a lot to learn.”

I find it easy to sympathize with earnest, fearful Peter.  He has been swept up in the movement; captivated by this charismatic man who has the courage to speak truth to power; who heals and casts out demons in the name of God and seems to spit in the eye of the Empire even as he is announcing the advent of a brand new kingdom, a better kingdom:  the Kingdom of God.  Isn’t that exactly what the Messiah should do? Topple the empire? The word ‘Messiah’ means ‘anointed one.’ The Messiah is supposed to be the next great king, the one who follows in the footsteps of King David, unifying the Jewish people and restoring the temple to its former glory… right?

Only, Jesus seems to have a different working definition of Messiah, one for which there is no precedent, so who can blame Peter for being confused? Jesus has just thrown a wicked curveball:

“Then he began to teach them that the Human One must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.”

What kind of Messiah is that?

Perhaps some of you have read the novel, (or seen the movie) Life of Pi. Author Yann Martel weaves a fascinating tale about a boy and a Bengal tiger who share a lifeboat after a shipwreck. It’s the bit about the tiger and the boat that we all remember. But before Pi ever sets foot on that fated ship, the author spends 100 pages describing the “16-year-old son of a zookeeper, who … practices not only his native Hinduism but also Christianity and Islam” [from the back cover].  The first time Pi ventures into a Catholic Church, he ends up having a conversation with Father Martin, in which he peppers the priest with questions about this Christian God, whom Pi judges to be weak and ineffectual.

Pi admires Hindu gods, like Vishnu and Rama, gods “with shine and power and might.  Such as can rescue and save and put down evil.”  The scene continues with this reflection by Pi:

“This Son, on the other hand, who goes hungry, who suffers from thirst, who gets tired, who is sad, who is anxious, who is heckled and harassed, who has to put up with followers who don’t get it and opponents who don’t respect Him – what kind of a god is that? It’s a god on too human a scale, that’s what. There are miracles, yes, mostly of a medical nature, a few to satisfy hungry stomachs; at best a storm is tempered, water is briefly walked upon. If that is magic, it is minor magic, on the order of card tricks. Any Hindu god can do a hundred times better. This Son is a god who spent most of His time telling stories, talking. This Son is a god who walked, a pedestrian god – and in a hot place, at that – with a stride like a human stride, the sandal reaching just above the rocks along the way; and when he splurged for transportation, it was a regular donkey. This Son is a god who died in three hours, with moans, gasps and laments. What kind of a god is that? What is there to inspire in this Son?”

(Life of Pie, p. 55-56)

Pi found himself both bothered and captivated by this Son, this Jesus, “I couldn’t get Him out of my head.  I still can’t. I spent three solid days thinking about Him. The more He bothered me, the less I could forget Him. And the more I learned about Him, the less I wanted to leave Him.”  (Life of Pi, p. 57)

Peter was as bothered by Jesus as Pi was – and just as captivated. What kind of messiah is this? The kind that embodies a scandalous contradiction, the mother of all paradox: he will be known not by his power but by his weakness; he will suffer at the hands of the very powers he challenged; and he’ll tell – no he will show – his followers that the only way to save your life is to lose it.

I agree with Peter:  it seems an odd strategy for a Messiah. And yet, like Peter, like Pi, countless people in those crowds found something irresistible about Jesus.  They flocked to him – and we still do. Why?

You could argue that they didn’t know what they were getting into (and that neither do we). Mark depicts the disciples as missing the point again and again. You could argue that most of us are only lukewarm disciples, content to read the words of comfort and encouragement, sing the songs and do a few good deeds while dodging the real demands of discipleship. We humans have a tremendous capacity for self-deception and avoidance, for insisting that we are good people, well-intentioned, defending our actions (or inactions) even as they cause immeasurable harm – to the land or to the oceans, to our neighbors here or in faraway places.

You could make the case that many, maybe even most of us who claim to follow Jesus actually want nothing to do with that bit about losing our lives.

Then again, maybe we DO know what we’re getting into.  Maybe there really is something so compelling about Jesus’ invitation that we can’t resist it. Though it may be uncomfortable to name, maybe we resonate with Jesus’ words, can feel the truth of them deep in our gut: that there’s got to be a death before new life can take root; that there’s no being found unless you lose yourself first.

Sometimes death is thrust upon us: when a marriage unravels or you lose your job; when you realize that you’re gay, or that the body you inhabit doesn’t match your spirit’s gender [Molly Baskett, Still Speaking 2/25/18].  When an unexpected twist in your life strips you of the things you thought you knew about yourself… and your sense of identity begins to erode…when you are left wondering who you are and which way to turn…then those words about losing your life to save it may actually sound like a promise, a road map out of the wilderness.

Then there are the other moments, when we know that something in us needs to die… a way of life, a habit, an addiction, a privilege. When the impulse to drink is destroying lives – including our own; when our reliance on technology diminishes our ability to connect with each other in an embodied way; when our overconsumption depletes communities in faraway places or our way of living does damage to the earth; when our financial or professional success is achieved only at the expense of others who are denied the same access or education … then something’s gotta give; something’s gotta die. We know it: the question is, where do we find the capacity, the courage, to do it?

The more I think about it, the more obvious it seems:  We can’t go around.  Not around grief.  Not around recovery. We can’t declare ourselves a culture free of racism or commit to caring for the earth and avoid the work it will take to get us there. There IS no way around.  Only through. Through the valley of the shadow of death. Through the pain of confession that comes before forgiveness.  Through the wilderness that leads to the promised land.  Through.

Once we realize that, then why wouldn’t we be drawn to a Messiah who’s already done it: faced into the suffering, leaned into the struggle, turned his face to Jerusalem and never looked back.  What could be more compelling than a Messiah who knows how to lead us all the way through because he’s been there – and come out the other side?

Yes, losing a life can be a terrifying prospect – unless the life we are living already feels – incomplete, less than authentic, soul-depleting, destructive to ourselves or to others. In which case, Jesus’ words become the best news ever. “You who lose your life for my sake, or for the sake of the gospel, shall save it.”

All of a sudden, it seems Jesus might actually have a brilliant marketing strategy:  Here is the one person who gets it, the one person with enough courage to forge ahead, into the storm, knowing that there is no way around death to get to new life.  Knowing, too, that there IS life on the other side.  And he has offered to lead us there.

Why wouldn’t you want to follow that kind of Messiah?

Amen.

Scripture

Mark 8:31-38 – New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), adapted

31 Then he began to teach them that the Human One must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

34 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 36 For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37 Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38 Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Human One  will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”