Calling the Disciples: We Practice Truth & Equity

Mark 1: 21-28

When people heard Jesus speak, when they experienced Jesus in person, people sensed a unique authority or maybe we would say authenticity in Jesus’ actions and words. In the welcome words today, we heard this “We encounter that authority in God’s word, around which we gather, the word that prevails over any lesser spirit that would claim power over us, freeing us to follow Jesus.”

 

What are the words—in daily life, on Sunday mornings—what are the words that are God’s word to you? What are the words that sustain you in times of difficulty, that keep you from caving in to terrible fear? What are the words and actions that help you to come back to yourself at the end of the day?

 

As I have been preparing for the Lenten season that’s coming soon—in just over two short weeks—I have been reading a powerful book that Mike Peterson recommended to me and plans to lead us in conversation around this Lent. It’s called We Survived the End of the World: Lessons from Native America on Apocalypse and Hope. The author is Steven Charleston, who is a Choctaw elder, public figure, who has been Episcopal Bishop of Alaska, president and dean of the Episcopal Divinity School, and professor of systematic theology at Luther Seminary. He writes with incredible insight and clarity about how people have survived catastrophe. He writes about how important spiritual community is when things fall apart, as things change all around us, and I’m looking forward to these stories and insights each Wednesday this Lent.

 

Steven Charleston writes about surviving apocalypse. What is apocalypse? It’s used to describe catastrophes or even the end of the world, but that’s only part of the meaning. In Greek, the world means “uncover” or “reveal.” So, it might be a vision of the future, imagining what is to come.  This is the same kind of writing that Mark uses to tell us about Jesus. According to David Schnasa Jacobsen, Jesus’ baptism happens after the heavens are ripped open. Then, the Spirit drives Jesus out into the wilderness to contend with Satan, hunger, beast and angels. Then, Jesus preaches that God’s kingdom is here and calls disciples out of their fishing boats immediately. Then, today Jesus is casting out demons. Everything in Mark is urgent.

 

What does all this mean for us, especially if “the things that threaten our world are not so much demons and ripped-open heavens but broken or [evil] systems of human construction?” Jacobsen quotes another teacher, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, who says we are called to “steadfast resistance.”

And then Jacobsen invites us to pay attention to our bodies as we hear God’s word—this gospel of God’s work in Jesus is capable of sustaining steadfast, embodied resistance. Put another way, it’s to give us deep hope and allow us to practice even deeper love in steadfast resistance to any fear that might come our way.

Up ahead in Mark’s story is the fact that Jesus dies on a cross. And in Mark, the meaning of Jesus’ cross is not about Jesus dying for people’s sins. It is about calling a thing what it is. Jesus chose the way of weakness (not dominance) and suffering (not having it all together). This version of Jesus’ story is not about escape, but naming the world, its pain and its promise.

Jesus is not going for power and popularity but silences demons when they speak of his identity. He is humble even as his reputation grows. Jesus doesn’t dominate people but practices self-awareness.[1]

Jacobsen says, “This little scene from Mark 1… set in a synagogue on the Sabbath, is a sign of God’s reign for the real bodies in the room. It is… spoken by a Jesus who wants nothing to do with dominance schemes and good publicity. He aims with urgency to enlist disciples, and anyone else with ears to hear, in their own local practice of apocalyptic struggle.”

 

Finding our own local practices of steadfast resistance, of apocalyptic struggle, of inner purpose within spiritual community… this is, I think, the call of the Holy Spirit to us in 2024.

 

After all, we have so much evidence that things are changing all around us. On Thursday this week, half of our new Vitality Team met to do a prayer drive around our neighborhood. We were asked to watch for moments of desolation—sorrow, brokenness, fear, anxiety…

And moments of consolation—hope, healing, courage, peace…

 

We drove down Charles Street where we know that Kathy Harris lived for years until it finally got just too dangerous to stay. And we also reflected on neighbors who live in the historic small homes on Charles Street—and who have in fact purchased multiple houses—to live in and strategically build meaningful community. We saw the boarded-up businesses and the lack of family-owned restaurants that we remember once being here… we also saw the brand new Frogtown Community Center and the Hmongtown Market. Focus is a caring ministry of sharing meals, clothing and services with the most vulnerable, surrounded by non-profits, advocacy agencies and government buildings that are trying to influence matters throughout the whole state. This neighborhood is built to support the Minnesota State Capitol but so many people live here, too, and Ann shared that her mother described it this way, “Things might look sad in this neighborhood but people-in-need have always gathered in the shadow of the Capitol because they hope that they will be protected (it happens in every state, even in D.C.).” If this insight is true, I wonder how God is calling us to practice truth and equity alongside these neighbors gathering for protection. How do we share their hopes and question with them how our state government might better serve and protect these neighbors?

 

Let me end for now by inviting us to this season of accompaniment, with the quote that Steven Charleston uses at the beginning of his book, a quote from Joseph Campbell: 

The mystical theme of the space age is this: the world as we know it is coming to an end. The world as the center of the universe, the world divided from the heavens, the world bound by horizons in which love is reserved for members of the in-group: that is the world that is passing away. Apocalypse does not point to a fiery Armageddon but to the fact that our ignorance and our complacency are coming to an end. –Joseph Campbell

Many people who live beyond the city of Saint Paul never drive in to our part of the city… any of us might have the cloudy view of seeing only desolation… but with God’s help, we have a new and different view. We are invited by Jesus, through the power of God’s Holy Spirit, to see things as they are… to notice both the places of desolation where Jesus is very present… and the places of consolation where God is bringing new life into being. This is the journey that we are being invited into this Epiphany, and the way of the cross we’ll go deeper into this Lent. This is how God is calling us and it’s my hope that you will join in this rich and deep, story-filled season, as we gather around God’s Holy Spirit, the stories of ancestors and our own selves--who will all work together to transform us and move us into the new reality that God is creating within and around us.

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[1] David Schnasa Jacobsen, workingpreacher.org

How does a weary world rejoice? We trust our belovedness

 

Luke 3:21-22                                                                Image from A Sanctified Art

Last week we remember the ritual of Jesus’ dedication at the temple, the story we meditated on last week, where Simeon and Anna praised God for Jesus when he was just eight days old and spoke to everyone about his identity as the Messiah. Between that time and this, there are many unspoken parts of the story of Jesus’ life. We have to jump to Matthew to learn a story of a terrible ruler—Herod—who threatens the community so much that the Holy Family has to escape to Egypt for an unknown number of years. In Luke, we just read about the Holy Family’s yearly trips to the temple in Jerusalem with their community, and how one year when he was 12, Jesus got accidentally left behind and was sharing wisdom with the teachers at the temple. we read only that Jesus grew in wisdom and statue and in favor with God and people. Years go by and we read about a fiery preacher named John who is baptizing everyone but is preaching such a powerful and world-changing message that he has already been thrown in prison by the time Jesus’ baptism is mentioned. 

 

“Now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.’ Jesus was about thirty years old when he began his work.”

 

On the bulletin you see an image of Jesus’ baptism where he is submerged in the water. The artist describes her process of trying to imagine a different moment than so many others pictured throughout time. We usually see images of Jesus coming up out of the water, into a scene of deep affirmation as Jesus’ steps into his mission. Here, though is another moment. Jesus is underwater. The artist—Lauren Wright Pittman—describes Jesus as “completely suspended, embraced and upheld by the waters of baptism. The water’s surface is choppy. The future is unknown and precarious. The path is a lonely and formidable one, eventually leading to his suffering and death.” 

Then she writes, “Despite what is to come, Jesus reaches toward the surface. Two fish are drawn to the light [around his head], foreshadowing his companionship with fishers and his miraculous feeding of the [thousands]. All of creation is leaning into [this] call.”

“This is what trusting your belovedness feels like—muscles and bones relieved of gravity’s burden, serenity, weightlessness, oneness with creation, and the warmth of God’s love permeating every cell of your body and every [part] of your soul.”

 

All week, I’ve been sharing and hearing stories from people who are moving slowly into 2024. Maybe the Christmas tree has been taken down, maybe not. On our fifty degree Christmas Eve, we were holding our breath, watching and waiting for this weekend—a snowy, deeply cold one that balances out our fragile ecosystem again. Right here at 105 University, we’ve been waiting and watching as the historic building next door, scheduled for demolition, has experienced delays. But this week, our staff and I faced the challenge of the internet being cut on Monday and not restored on Friday. So, all the work we needed to do this week was slower and more creatively accomplished than we expected. So many of us have had to pause, in so many ways—suspended, embraced, upheld—looking at the choppy surface.

 

This weekend, in so many places throughout Saint Paul, we have the opportunity to honor and remember the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., another young man who traveled a lonely and formidable path, one that eventually led to his suffering and death. Part of my family was present at Luther Seminary on Friday and had the opportunity to hear ________ preach, and he described this weekend as a megaphone for the dreams of MLK… dreams that cannot die if they live on in us. The dreams live on in us as we recognize how they represent our own values, values in which every person is beloved to God. If we believe that every person is beloved to God, we stand with sanitation workers who need access to a bathroom, a place to change their clothes, a living wage. We stand against unjust wars. We stand with those of different religions, different cultures, those who are struggling to be seen as those with human dignity. We hold fast to this dream of God—that everyone is beloved and deserves to be treated that way—even when it seems like an impossible vision.

 

God—who speaks from the heavens, who appears in the form of a bird, who speaks in the night calling our name—calls us to do the bravest thing we can do. As Rev. Sarah Speed puts it—

 

Trust your belovedness.

Let it be a protest, an act of resistance, a song of celebration.

Trust your belovedness in a world that is rarely satisfied.

Wear it like a badge of honor.

Speak it as confidently as your last name.

Tattoo it to your heart.

When outside forces chip away at your sense of self,

When like ask you to hand over the keys,

Remember the water.                        Remember creation.

Remember how it was good, so very good.

Let that truth hum through your veins.

Sing it so loud

That it drowns out the weariness of the world,

For the bravest thing we can ever do

Is trust that we belong here.

 

In this baptism scene as described by Luke, a detail I appreciate is that Jesus is praying. Maybe you read in our devotional booklet this week the reflection by Rev. Cecelia D. Armstrong. She described how when she was young, her mother woke her up each morning with the song, “Hey, good lookin’ what you got cookin’? How ‘bout cookin’ something up with me?”

She still feels the affirmation of her mother who was interested in her plans each day. Like that, Jesus is praying, connecting with God—and Jesus receives this deep affirmation.

In baptism, we too have this opportunity to remember—we are created in the image of God, we’re invited into the practices of God… and we’re invited to “cook up somethin’” with God as co-creators in a world that longs to rejoice (words and images of Rev. Cecelia D. Armstrong).

 

When we trust our belovedness, we can live and give fully—we treat ourselves, others and all of creation with tenderness and care. When we trust our belovedness, we have endless reasons to rejoice. [1]

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[1] Writings from A Sanctified Art liturgy and devotional resources.

How Does a Weary World Rejoice? We Root Ourselves in Ritual

 

Jesus’ Dedication & Epiphany                                        Image from A Sanctified Art

It was just a over a week since Jesus was born and his parents were moving through the first week with their tiny infant, moving through their cultural rituals, infused with meaning and belonging. They were taking Jesus to the temple so he could be circumcised and officially named. His name would be Jesus, just as the angel Gabriel said. But the visit to the temple became even more than they expected… because while they were there, a Spirit-filled elder named Simeon, who recognized baby Jesus as the Messiah. 

 

He took the baby in his arms and praised God… calling this child the people’s “salvation,” calling him a light for all the nations… just like we heard in Isaiah.

 

Simeon blessed Mary and Joseph, too… and told them that being parents to this One was going to be quite a ride. There would be major highs and major lows… 

A sword would pierce her soul.

 

And then there was more, from the prophet Anna. With all the wisdom of a woman who has lived most of her life a widow, fasting and praying night and day, she praised God and spoke about the child to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.

 

Wonderful and terrible things had been happening all around them—and both wonderful and terrible things were to come—but in the midst of it all, here was a very warm and bright moment. It was a moment when wise ones, Spirit-filled ones, reminded Mary and Joseph and the whole gathering that God was with them.

It was a moment of ritual, following all the usual practices in all the usual ways—but in that ritual, there was space for an Epiphany—when God’s real presence was clearer than usual.

 

That’s why we gather, too… so that we can practice rituals full of meaning and belonging. At first, we might enter into the practices of church with low expectations, but then, there are moments where someone surprises us. Someone praises God, offers some word or gesture that helps us remember to praise God, helps us remember that God is present right here… 

God is loving us, redeeming us, saving us. 

 

In her poem Muscle Memory by Rev. Sarah Speed, she describes it this way for us– 

 

When the world falls apart around me…

…Take me to the table.

Tell me how people have fed each other.

Tell me how they’ve torn the bread with wrinkled hands and children’s hands.

Tell me how they’ve said, This love is for you,

as they looked you in the eye.

 

Then take me to the font…

Tell me to leave my burdens there.

Then take me to the front doors.

Remind me how we throw them open.

 

Take me to the creaky pews,

Pews that have held the straightened spines and silent prayers of so many.

 

Take me to the church.

Move me through the rituals.

Tell me why it matters, so that next time, when someone else’s world falls apart,

I will have the muscle memory to share.

 

When I was old enough to question the value of rituals, I remember my Mom saying something like this to the question of why I had to go to church—“You don’t always go because you get something out of it. Sometimes, you go because someone else needs to see you there.” 

How does that shift in perspective sound to you? –That someone else needs to see you here.

That you are someone’s Simeon, someone’s Anna. Someone needs to see you. Someone needs to see and hear your child to recognize that God is in our midst.

 

As we mark this doorway with a blessing—as we receive a new word to ponder through the new year—we add to so many ancient practices some that may be new… and that’s just to keep things fresh, to keep awakening to the loving presence of God.

 

Today, two days after our 12 days of Christmas have come to an end (except if we’re Ethiopian, and then, we’ve just begun!). Today, the day after the Feast of the Epiphany, we come together for a season of watching for glimpses of God revealing who God is—this week, as prophets name Jesus as the fulfillment of God’s age-old promises.

 

Next week, we’ll gather again to celebrate Jesus’ baptism—another moment of God’s voice speaking to us the love and belonging we need to hear.

 

All through this season, we ask God to meet us in the greetings, words, song and prayers, meal and font, rituals that anchor us and speak a word of hope.

 

Just imagine that in this season after Epiphany, we have the opportunity to see and be radiant, for our hearts to thrill and rejoice… as Jesus meets us in work and play and rest, as winter days are infused with the dawn.