Free to Share Life

Jeremiah 31 & John 8

Here is Jeremiah’s vision of God’s relationship with people one day…

I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people… they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.

And in contrast, we over-hear this uncomfortable conversation between Jesus and some of his own people who believed in him—when Jesus dared to tell them to continue on this path, following his word and witness and that the truth could set them free…

It becomes uncomfortable because instead of acknowledging that not one of us has the whole truth, they say, “How dare you imply… no, actually say, that we’re not already free?”

They say they have never been slaves to anyone…

Forgot about Joseph and his brothers, forgot about Moses, the Passover, and the journey away from Egypt, forgot about 40 years wandering in the wilderness and the Babylonian captivity… forgot that even right now, they were a small minority pressed down under the authority of the Roman Empire.

But before our mouths drop open in surprise at those people and their forgetting of their own story… 

We take a deep breath & remember…

When someone comes critiquing—or even if we just hear it that way—we can get just as defensive.
We can come on big when we’re feeling small.  

We can get just as confused about our identity and priorities… we can forget that our identity is not based on our country of birth or our present citizenship or even the most powerful stories that have shaped our lives so far… we, too, just as easily can forget that it is actually in God that we live and move and have our being.

So we live our life somewhere between Jeremiah’s vision—where we are so interconnected to God that we know God deep within—and our real-life struggle to become free, free enough to share life in community from the least to the greatest.

In the gospel of John, Jesus wants to abide with us.

It’s all about relationships.

It’s not about assenting to doctrine, it’s not about certainty.

It’s coming together to learn to be in the world in a new, renewed, hope-filled way.

Everyone is bound to something… the things that hold you back or hold you down… everyone needs to be freed.

This week, ISAIAH gathered pastors and imams—Christian leaders and Muslim leaders—from all over the state of Minnesota and talked about what is at stake if we as people of faith are quiet and passive in this time when there is such a need to organize for change for the common good. When white supremacy and homophobia are growing in strength, when places of prayer have been bombed, when people of faith are terrorized, when water protectors are burned out and humiliated, where parents and children are purposefully separated, when immigrants are treated as those without rights & human dignity, when lies are spoken as if they are truth… it is not only our nation’s identity and our personal and collective freedoms that appear to be at stake but much more globally, the health and wellbeing of the whole earth and all its creatures.

So, one faith leader rose to his feet and said… “It is a risk to be involved, to work together in an organized way for justice and the common good, but it is a good risk. And we may well find that doing nothing (or not enough) poses a far greater risk.”

The cost is too great if we give allegiance to the wrong gods… 

And so Jesus longs to free us.

Jesus wonders, “Who do you want to belong to?”

And hopes and prays that our response might be—to you, Jesus. I belong with you. We belong with you.

Karoline Lewis writes, “Loving God and loving your neighbor could very well be the freedom you desperately need -- a freedom from your own self-absorption, loneliness and disconnection. A freedom from self-sufficiency and self-reliance. A freedom from the pain of not belonging and not being known… The words of John remind us that we are indeed bound and shackled… loving God or neighbor is rarely at the forefront of what we do and what we say.[1]How do we become free enough to embrace truth?

Today, we get to witness the Confirmation day of Abby, Gabe and Leo… and it has been my joy to meet with them over these past weeks and listen to their thoughts about faith right now as new high school students. You’ll hear from them directly in just a few minutes and you’ll get to hear for yourselves… but let me say now how grateful I am to hear about those you look to in faith—

a Sunday school teacher passionate about digging in to God’s word, a grandmother who is a model of presence & serving and another grandmother who is not just a servant of God (as you described) but a partner with God, who delights in co-creating together with God.

Today, we recognize together that God made promises to you in baptism that we all reaffirm with you again now at this milestone.

Together, we will renounce all that keeps us from relationship with God.

We’ll speak the Apostles Creed—but again, not as an exercise in assenting to doctrine—but as an invitation to a relationship of trust with God – Parent/Creator; Jesus who lived and died among us and was raised from the dead; and the Holy Spirit that breathes into us the power to live within this community of promises.

These are the kinds of conversations we can have in church. Conversations about how a life with God shapes our actions, opportunities to come together and decide how to act more powerfully for good. We find out here how to know God’s truth so that we can be free from paralyzing fears and inability to act and instead moved by the truths that we coming to know and we have been learning for years together…

Here are the stories that Leo and Abby and Gabe shared that are important to them - 

How Jesus multiples the small gifts we have to share to feed a whole community… 

How God has a plan that is already in motion and we can partner in it….

How God has given us the gift of this community to love us just as we are and keep loving us into who we are becoming.

All this season as we meditate on the opportunity to Share Lifetogether, your witness today reminds us that God keeps re-forming us, keeps inviting us to the freedom found in life with Jesus, keeps inviting us to remember that we belong to each other in God. Today, you will share your hopes, your words of faith with us. Today, you will receive our blessing. Truth: it is a risk to be involved… but it is a good risk.
We are grateful for your life and witness, for your courage and this day’s reminder of how very good it is to share life with you.

---

[1]Karoline Lewis, “Freedom & Obligation,” Dear Working Preacher, Sunday, October 22, 2017

Mustard Seed Moments

Habakkuk 1-2 and Luke 17                                                                            

Habakkuk has been complaining to God… and for good reason, it seems like. Here are some of the words from chapter one that give context to the parts we read… 

O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you "Violence!" and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous— therefore judgment comes forth perverted.  – Habakkuk 1: 2-4

Not one but two people came to me this week with stories of people from their circles of family and friends who lit into them because they attempted to speak words of justice & mercy, love on behalf of the neighbor… and the speakers could not hold back their harsh & violent words of judgement. In both cases, the conversation had to be stopped by the listener… and the person had to seek safety. It is not easy in these times to speak up for our most vulnerable neighbors – the migrant, the poor, the trafficked…

Habakkuk cries out to God for help in making God’s vision crystal clear to people… a vision of God’s involvement with those who most need our neighborliness… a vision that even runners can read as they trod on in this marathon of life, and this vision is to NOT GIVE UP in God’s never-ending love, to not lose faith. Although the arc of the universe seems incredibly long, we can have faith that it bends toward mercy for all those pressed down. Oppression will cease!

Jesus speaks the same language in the gospel of Luke – although it can be hard to find it in this complicated little chunk of the story. Just before the part we read, Jesus is telling followers that there will always be plenty of ways to sin. So, when others ask for our forgiveness, we need to be ready to repeatedly forgive them.

That sounds so incredibly hard that the disciples say, “Increase our faith.” 

How often we worry that what we have is not sufficient!

Jesus responds with a couple of metaphors – the first is to say that we don’t need more faith. Faith doesn't work like that. You don’t think you have enough? You don’t think you’re capable? But this is God – God who creates out of nothing! The tiniest seed grows into a massive bushy tree… all you need is right here. You have within you the power to forgive… but maybe accessing that power, that faith is the biggest challenge.

Why? Well, maybe it’s because we have been so ingrained to work for the reward. I will give a certain amount of service and hopefully, hopefully that will add up to favor with God and people. We’ve earned the weekend. We’ve earned this vacation. We want to hear words of thanks (or we don’t…). We want to be congratulated in our accomplishments. We want to believe that we have earned all the good in our life…

(and worse, that others have earned the bad in their life)… 

Even though this is all myth, we can get caught up in it because it’s been around in the human family maybe since the very beginning. Our nation is built on it. Our church is not immune to it.

However, this spirit can block us from seeing the gifts Christ has given us. It can block us from extending grace and forgiveness toward others. It can make us judgmental, overtly saying our judgments out loud or passively holding judgement in our hearts toward others… that usually comes out… eventually.

In view of all this—the injustice of our history, the injustice all around, the inability to forgive that lies within us, the conscious or unconscious desire for rewards & punishments – we cry out to God with Habakkuk, “How long?” We cry out to Jesus with the disciples, “Give us more faith!”

God’s Holy Spirit, who lovingly surrounds and lives within us at all times – as close and as nourishing as the breath we need to live – reminds us how we have enough. All we need is here. The resources we need for life are present within and in community. There is enough for each and enough for all.

This is a very, very challenging word from God because we face a barrage of counter messages. We hear that we are not good enough, not smart enough, not rich enough, not capable enough, not working hard enough, not beautiful enough… and to this whole barrage, Jesus says, “No. You are enough.” Look at this tiny seed, notice your immediate judgement at how insignificant it is… but within it is potential life and growth that we actually have experienced...

We have seen how weak our faith has been, how close we have been to giving up, how we have failed, how fragile we are… and yet, how God has accomplished so much through and within and sometimes in spite of us. 

We are serving food & warm drinks to our neighbors as I speak!

We are beginning re-construction of the kitchen because together, we have raised funds we didn’t know were there already…  and because there is trust (however small) that God will provide through us for the work God wants to accomplish in and through this community… And God will keep providing as long as we have even a seed of faith, the seed that allows us to release what God has first given us—our time, our money, ourselves—in offering to God’s mission and vision here and now.

It is an incredible gift and challenge to be invited into Christian community, a group of people attempting to listen for God’s voice together, a group of people attempting to practice God’s ways, a community failing and forgiving, trying again and again to be re-oriented in the way that the Holy Spirit leads… and we are impatient, often, with God’s timing and how much waiting there is for God’s love and mercy and justice to fully appear. We pray for it and hope for it… and still, it is hard to wait. It is hard to grasp God’s way… we feel like all we’ve got is this little seed, but with this seed, Jesus promises to do amazing things. Watch for them—mustard seed moments—when you notice someone exercise great humility, compassion, faith, leadership. And watch for how within you, within us, this seed is ready to grow.