Did you ever wonder if the
Hokey Pokey is what it’s all about? Yes, you put your right arm in, but pay attention to the big climax of the
song:
You put your whole self in….you take your whole self
out….you put your whole self in….
I think it just might be what
it’s all about---all least what this Christian living is all about….you put
your whole self in…and then you second guess and you take your whole self
out….but then you get realigned and you put your whole self in….
That’s what it’s all about. Putting
our whole self in. Researcher and storyteller Brene Brown calls this
whole-heartedness. Brown has been doing
research by listening to stories of people who have been able to remain whole
in the midst of the tragedies and struggles of this life. People who don’t lose their joy or hope or
laughter---even when the reality of life is bone-crushingly difficult, sad, or
just plain indifferent.
Brown says that whole-hearted
people--- people who demonstrate resilience, redemption, and
restoration---these whole-hearted people share three traits: courage,
compassion, and connection.
We see an example of this
kind of person in today’s Gospel. That
woman. Only known by her gender and her
label: a sinner. This whole-hearted
person of God sees the Jesus in front of her, and even though the voices in the
room whisper Sinner; she steps
forward, kneels at the feet of the One whom she loves, and she tends to
Jesus.
With boldness, she proclaims
God’s truth of love and forgiveness by washing the feet of Jesus with her tears
of thanksgiving. She wipes his tired,
dusty feet with her hair—ministering God’s justice with compassion---and then
she anoints this Chosen One, this Jesus, with expensive oil. Probably costing her all that she has---and
she kisses him. She kisses his feet. The
healing of human touch. Courage, Compassion, Connection.
Your faith has saved you; go in peace. Her
faith---her belief and trust in Jesus put into action---saves her.
And this is what saves you,
what saves me---putting our belief and our trust in Jesus into action by
tending the Jesus we see before us. When we live our faith, we are freed from
our prisons of self-centeredness and restored to our true nature as one made in
the image of God, as one who lives in community. Earlier we prayed: “that through
your grace, we may proclaim your truth with boldness and minister your justice
with compassion.” This is our calling as
the church—we are to proclaim God’s truth with boldness and minister God’s
justice with compassion.
And frankly, beloved, after
considering the events of just the past two weeks when I have been away, God’s
truth and God’s justice often seem hard to come by in our society.
When people seeking national
positions of power speak words of racism and many around them continue to show
support because the candidate’s other viewpoints work in their favor…….this, my
friends, is not God’s truth nor God’s justice.
I am not preaching politics. Not
election politics anyway. I am talking
about politics in the true definition of the word: a discourse on the common
good of all people. This is what the word politics actually means—discussing
and considering what to do, how to be, how to govern for the common good of all
people. Jesus is all about politics
---Jesus is always political—always pointing us to what to do, how to be, how
to govern and live together for the common good of all people. That’s Gospel. No, I’m not preaching election politics---I’m
talking Gospel here. As the church, we
are to proclaim God’s Truth that racism: racist words, beliefs, systems, and
privileges—have nothing to do with God’s Kingdom or how we are called to live.
At the conference I attended,
I was sitting next to a woman whose son is attending UCLA when we learned about
the shootings there. Praise be, he was not hurt. But, haven’t we had
enough? Aren’t we beyond tired of
hearing about more shootings, more death, more gun violence? If we as the church will not proclaim God’s
truth and minister God’s justice, who will?
In these situations, it is hard to know what to do as a disciple, but we
can proclaim and minister by tending to the wounded and the grieving, by
refusing to support a system that allows for this escalation of violence, by
carefully choosing our words in conversation and in social media, by deciding
who and what we support with the Gospel in mind. Because somehow, as God’s people, we must
WITH BOLDNESS declare that God’s truth and God’s justice is no where to be
found in gun violence. The book of
Genesis tells us the story of Cain killing Abel and the LORD declares to Cain: the earth cries out with your brother’s
blood. Beloved, the earth is still
crying out with our sisters’ and brothers’ blood. It is time to proclaim; it is time to
minister God’s justice.
And at another prominent
school, Stanford, we hear of the young man who finds an unconscious woman and
rapes her. And we hear those who say,
“She was drunk; she should have known better; she put herself in harm’s way.” The only one to blame for rape is the rapist. Never the victim. Yes, foolish choices, stupid actions---but no
person, no action, no foolish choice deserves the violence of rape.
And because we believe
Genesis 1:31: God saw all of Creation and
declared it very good.----then to minister God’s justice with compassion
means we are called to demand rehabilitation and restoration for both the
victim and the rapist. We are called to
demand a justice system whose prisons and jails actually do the work of
rehabilitating and seeking to mend the brokenness of those behind their
walls. God’s justice isn’t about
punishment for punishment’s sake; it’s about restoration and rehabilitation. We
dare not find ourselves simply wanting to punish this young man; we are called
to seek his rehabilitation and reconciliation. When we seek to punish solely
from man’s sense of justice instead of God’s sense of justice, we find
ourselves perfectly happy with treating human beings like animals instead of
like God’s created. When we treat human
beings like animals, we get what we created----not what God intended.
We see this warning in the
Old Testament story. Ahab and Jezebel
are not seeking the common good of all people.
They do not seem to know God’s truth or God’s justice; they know their
truth and their justice: I can take what
I want when I want it, no matter the cost to anyone else. I can make decisions purely for the
self-preservation of my power, my privilege, my position. This is the opposite of God’s truth and God’s
justice. And the moral of this Old
Testament story isn’t that God’s going to get ya….the moral is that when we act
for our own self-preservation instead of living for the common good of all
people---there are disastrous results in our relationship with God and
disastrous results for ourselves. In the
end, it will destroy a person---even if he is a King and she is a Queen.
We are an apostolic
community. Every Sunday we pray: We
believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church. To be apostolic means to be sent. To be sent out. To take church outside these walls and into
our everyday lives. Being the church by the words we choose, by the time we
take to listen, by connecting a need of someone to a resource we know or have,
by using God’s truth and justice to determine our actions and choices, by
stopping to see the Jesus right in front of us. Being apostolic means we are
never not the church; we are called to put our whole selves in.
Being the Church cannot be
relegated to a building. Being the
Church cannot be relegated to Sunday mornings.
Being the Church cannot be relegated to our private lives. Being the Church is our primary task in this
world—our main identity: we are agents of God’s Kingdom 24/7.
Recently I read a novel
called The Eagle Tree. The main
character is a young man with autism, and he is obsessed with trees: climbing
them, learning about them, reading about them.
He talks about Aspen groves and how all the trees in the grove are
connected underground. So, if a tree on one side of the grove isn’t getting
enough water, then it effects a tree on the complete other side of the
grove.
Beloved, we are an aspen grove. If a part of God’s creation or one of God’s
creatures is wounded, is broken, is hungry, is thirsty, is condemned, is
outcast, is oppressed….then so are we all.
Our future---our wholeness---depends on the health and well-being of
every single other person. No
exceptions. We are one another’s business.
Even when our good, Midwestern sensibilities tell us otherwise: we are
each other’s business.
This week, remember this woman
in today’s Gospel. This whole-hearted
woman condemned by society’s standards and yet her faith, her belief and trust
in Jesus put into action, saves her, brings her peace. Keep in your mind that image of how she gives
all she has to tend the Jesus in front of her; tattoo it on your heart.
We are the Church. It is time
to proclaim God’s truth and minister God’s justice with Courage. Compassion.
Connection. That’s what it’s all about.
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