Sermon: Grief is not the end of the story (Aug. 9, 2015)

Pentecost 11B

August 9, 2015

1 Kings 19:4-8

Psalm 34

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, the Bread from Heaven. Amen.

Be honest with me: how many of you know the story of Elijah? I admit, I’m not too familiar with him, besides the bit with the flaming chariot, so I did a little research. To get the full effect of the story we heard from our Old Testament reading, we need some backstory, so here it is: Elijah is a prophet, someone who speaks God’s often tough message to God’s people. He was sent by God to Israel to cleanse them of their worship of false idols – ba’als, those false gods of fertility, agriculture, and other things that so often fascinated the people of Israel. He swept through Israel enacting a spiritual revival, slaughtering many of God’s more ardent enemies, cleansing and restoring Solomon’s Temple and the worship of the one true God.

But unfortunately, in doing so, Elijah upset some pretty powerful people, namely King Ahab and his foreign wife, Jezebel. Jezebel’s religion was the very one that Elijah was destroying in the name of the one true God of Israel, so she was understandably not too happy with Elijah. In her feisty fury, she vowed to hunt him down and have him killed within a day. Elijah was no fool – he took off running! He ran well into the wilderness, where he finally collapsed under a

broom tree in despair. And that is where we find him in our first lesson.

We might not be able to relate much to Elijah before this point. Not many of us have spearheaded religious revivals, at least not that I’m aware of! Not many of us have slaughtered God’s enemies, nor even had direct conversation with God like Elijah did. The prophets led remarkable lives that are not always easy for us to relate to now. But this part of the story, what we hear today, we can relate to. Elijah is tired. He is distraught. He has upset people. He’s been trying to do the work that God called him to do, but it has not ended up well. He’s being hunted, for goodness sake! This was not what he had in mind when he answered God’s call. He’s frustrated, and feels he has failed. Elijah also feels the pain of isolation, under that solitary broom tree. He feels depressed – he’s lost interest in former activities, he’s thinking about death, he feels hopeless, burnt-out, distressed, dismayed, and disillusioned.

Any of those feelings sound families? I know I have felt a lot of those things. I’ve talked to a lot of people lately who are going through a major loss, whether the loss of a loved one or the anniversary of that loss, the loss of a relationship, or of their health, or something else. All are cause for grief, and grief is certainly something that can bring out many of those emotions Elijah was probably feeling, and often when you least expect it. Even several months or years later, grief could cause us to pray the same prayer Elijah offers God: “It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life.” I want to be with my loved one. Or at least I want to have relief from dealing with

Elijah in the Desert Under a Broom Tree

all this loss and distress.

A few years back, pastor friend of mine posted in his blog about a series of “cracks” that he had had in his life. It began with three significant deaths in his congregation, interspersed with several joyous events like weddings and baptisms. Because of the backs and forths, he wasn’t able to grieve properly for those he’d lost. So he stuffed his emotions. He was also taking swimming lessons, which was causing him a lot of anxiety. Then he had a couple difficult conversations with people close to him. All of this added up to him having a significant breakdown. His depression flared up, and one Sunday, in front of his congregation, he lost it.

Yes, grief can do that. Emotional stress of any kind can do that. We may prefer to hide our pain, because emotional distress is so personal, and easier to hide than physical distress. It would be hard for me to hide a broken arm from you, but with a broken heart, I can probably put on my happy face and keep that brokenness from you if I wanted to… at least I could for a while. But at some point we, like Elijah, go running into the wilderness, slump under a solitary broom tree, and pray that God would make the pain, the distress, the confusion and frustration, all just go away.

Thankfully, this isn’t the end of the story. It’s not the end for Elijah, nor for my pastor friend, nor for any of us. It’s not the end of today’s lesson, and it’s not the end of the story of our faith.

Elijah, after his desperate prayer, goes to sleep. After a while, he is awakened by the touch of an angel, who offers him food. He eats and drinks, then goes back to sleep and again is touched by the angel of the Lord and told, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.”

What a word of utterly practical, and also profoundly spiritual advice. Elijah’s state and his prayer are so genuine, and so very human. He wants his life as he knows it to end. He can’t do this anymore, God’s plan or not. He doesn’t pray at that point, “God, help me get through this.” He doesn’t even want to get through it! In God’s great compassion, God doesn’t just pat him on the shoulder and say, “There, there, Elijah, it’ll be all right.” God also doesn’t say, “Yeah, you’re right, life isn’t worth living anymore for you. I will take your life.”

Elijah is fed by an angel

God does give Elijah exactly what he needs: the sympathetic touch of an angel, and a bit of food to eat to give him strength, as if to say, “You’re right, you can’t go on like this, all alone and without any food. But here, let me help you. Let me provide for you what you need: companionship, and some bread to strengthen you. Because I still have some plans for you, some work I need you to do. I’m not done with you yet.”

I mentioned that God’s response was not only practical, but also profoundly spiritual. “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you,” the angel says to Elijah. A couple weeks ago we talked about how tending to our needs is a part of God’s M.O. We saw this trait in the feeding of the 5000, and with the Israelites being fed by manna in the wilderness. But, we also observed, God isn’t only about providing for our basic, physical needs here and now. Elijah did need that cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He was hungry – hungry in the same way the crowd was who was fed by five loaves and two fishes. Hungry in the way people get hungry. But Elijah’s hunger was also deeper than that. His hunger was one that many of us have felt before – the hunger caused by loss, by heartache, or doubt, by fatigue. The hunger caused by having just done something you felt God had called you to do, only to find at the other end horrendous consequences. The hunger of vulnerability.

And to this, God tells us, with Elijah, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.” I will feed your hunger, God says. God knows our need. God, in the person of Jesus Christ, has felt that need, has known that hunger. And in that same Jesus Christ, God feeds us, gives us the strength and the companionship we need to complete our journey. …

A prophet, after completing a spiritual revival, is a hunted man, and runs to the wilderness, where he sits alone under a broom tree, and asks for God to take his life. In response, God sends him an angel and some bread, and tells him to eat so he has strength for the journey.

A pastor, after suffering an emotional breakdown in front of his congregation, finds a space to pray. Holding a candle, he faces the baptismal font and sees the light of Christ reflect back at him. He leaves the sanctuary, ready to walk a new path toward wholeness.

What if those stories had stopped before their life-giving resolutions? Would we be able to respond with Psalm 34 as we did today: “I will bless the Lord at all times”?  I would have trouble uttering these words if the story ended in death under a broom tree, in failure before a congregation, or in a dark tomb on Good Friday. But, dear friends, the story doesn’t end there. God does feed us. The tomb is empty! God does give us what we need. God does call us to life! God does give us so many reasons to “taste and see that the Lord is good.” Happy are we who trust in God!

Let us pray… Compassionate God, we sometimes find ourselves, like Elijah, in despair, and wonder how we will go on. Help us to seek the life you give, the hope you offer, the goodness you provide, so that we will have strength for our journey. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Loving a body that is scarred by life

Someone recently asked me if I had any stretch marks and I said no, not really. She said, "Lucky!"

It struck me as a very strange (though not offensive) comment to offer me. No, I don't have stretch marks, but I have other weird brown marks all over my back that look like I leaned against something wrinkled, which appeared after my chemo treatments when I was 15. The doctor said they would go away in a few months, but they never did. They were the bane of my later teenage years, and they embarrassed me so much that I looked high and low for a prom dress with a closed back (not an easy task, I'll tell you!) so that they wouldn't be seen on that night I was supposed to look and feel beautiful. But I guess I'm "lucky."

No, I don't have stretch marks, but I have five large, visible scars on my chest and neck - one lymph node biopsy, one port-a-cath, one lumpectomy (the other is no longer visible), and of course two large mastectomy scars, about four inches each, still redish-brown in color, plus a couple other small scars dotting my sides where once drain tubes protruded following surgery. But I guess I'm "lucky" that at least I don't have stretch marks.

On the other hand, I do feel lucky - and not just because back in 8th grade, when the school had some high school girls who had gotten pregnant come talk to the middle school girls about safe sex, one of them showed us her stretch marks and I thought it was horrifying and something definitely to avoid. (Like having a baby in high school wasn't enough to avoid? Funny what makes a lasting impact.)

I do feel lucky because all in all, this has been a very easy pregnancy for me, with hardly any impact on my body's functioning. At 38 weeks, I'm still pretty compact (but baby is growing normally, don't worry!), none of my organs have been all that disrupted in their functioning, I'm not in a lot of pain, I sleep well, I'm not swelling, and I've hardly gained any weight. I've gotten off very easy during this pregnancy, and I do feel lucky for that.

But the comment did spur some reflection on the story of my body. When we first started trying to get pregnant, I confessed to Michael that as much as I wanted to have children, and as ready as I was, there was also some sadness and fear about what it would do to my body. (I know, probably most women have that concern.) I had spent most of my earlier years knowing that while I wasn't fat, I also wasn't skinny. I had an "athletic" build (that's what I told myself), and had a list of parts of my body I wished I could change. It was only really when I met Michael that I started to feel really comfortable in my body. I finally felt, not "too much" this and "not enough" that, but just right. And that comfort was so refreshing!

And then I got cancer, a cancer that required cutting off the part of me that society tells me makes me look feminine, and, incidentally, one part of me that was never on my wish-to-change list. It was traumatic, as you know if you were reading this blog. It required learning again how to love this body I was given, this body that had grown cancer three times, that is covered in scars and medical tattoos, that caused me embarrassment and disappointment, that I had only just learned to love and appreciate. And I was afraid that, after having to learn to love my body twice before, getting pregnant was going to wreck havoc on it yet again, and even though the cause of the havoc was something about which I was so joyful, I would be left with something I'd once again have to learn how to love.

I haven't yet seen my postpartum body, of course. I know that, because I have been so "lucky," it likely won't be as difficult to love as I feared. But more importantly, I just don't care. I can feel life moving around in there. I grew a person for goodness' sake! This body that caused me embarrassment and tried my self esteem and then grew a whole bunch of cancer... it grew a life. And I find I don't care anymore how it looks after. Sure, I'd like to be able to wear my cute, fitted dresses again. I'd like to stay as fit and healthy as possible. But when it all comes down to it, my body has totally rocked this. My body totally beat cancer - three times - and now it is growing a person, and if I can't love a body that has done all that, well, then I need a serious reality check.

So yeah, I guess I am lucky. I am lucky that I have a strong body that has been able to endure a lot of challenges from the game of life. I am lucky that I have the scars to prove that I have won each time. I am lucky that I have people in my life who love me so much for reasons that have nothing to do with my scarred, imperfect body. I am lucky that I realize that my worth does not come from how my body looks or behaves, anyway, but from the love it receives and shares and the love of the God who created it.

And yeah, I guess I am also lucky that I haven't gotten any stretch marks.

Sermon: Saying "thank you" before "gimme" (Aug 2, 2015)

Pentecost 10B
August 2, 2015
Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15

John 6:24-35

            Maybe it’s because it is summer, which is the most glorious time to live in Rochester… or maybe it’s because I just enjoyed a wonderful visit from both my mom and my mother-in-law… or maybe it’s because as my due date draws nearer (3 weeks!) I can feel the movements in my belly more strongly and frequently… Whatever the case, I have been thinking a lot lately about gratitude. I’ve been thinking about how good gratitude feels, how readily it brings smiles to faces. I’ve been thinking about how much gratitude I have in my life right now.

            But I have also been thinking about how elusive gratitude can be. What I mean is that, as nice and feel-good as gratitude can be, it is often much easier and much more our natural tendency to slip into a state not of gratitude for what we already have, but into a state of dwelling on what we don’t

have. This may happen in our prayer life (more on that later), or it may happen just in regular conversations with friends or co-workers – offering up our needs and our complaints before we take the time to recognize what it is that we already have for which we are grateful. The consequence of this is that it puts us in a position only to know want, and never to know and appreciate all the wonderful gifts we have.

            This tendency is not a new phenomenon. We see this condition in two of our readings today. First, in our reading from Exodus: the Israelites have just been freed from Egypt, where they have been slaves for many grueling years. And now, having been freed in dramatic fashion, they are wandering in the wilderness with Moses, and they are hungry. Do you think they are still buzzing away with gratitude over God’s strong arm freeing them from slavery? Not likely. They are complaining about food, and their lack of it. Granted, a reasonable concern. But they don’t just complain about hunger. They go so far as to say, “We wish we had died back in Egypt, where at least we had plenty to eat!” Their current need doesn’t only make them forget God’s previous miraculous act (one might have hoped that such an act would cause them to trust God to satisfy their needs once again). It actually pushes them so far as to wish that miraculous act had never happened, that they had died instead. Pretty extreme! It makes me think of a quote I saw this week on a Facebook meme. It’s a quote from the Greek philosopher, Epicurus. He writes: “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once

among the things you only hoped for.” And here are the Israelites, free after years of longing for that freedom, but spoiling it because they are longing for what they used to have. Ain’t that the way of it.

            We also see this lack of gratitude in our Gospel lesson. Last week, remember, we heard the story of the feeding of the 5000, in which Jesus miraculously provides food for multitudes with only five loaves and two fishes, and there was even some left over. A sign of God’s abundance to be grateful for, certainly! And yet, what do we see from the disciples? Well first, their curiosity perks. They follow Jesus and start asking questions about eternal life and whatnot. Jesus tells them all they have to do is believe in him. And what do they ask? “Well, what sign are you going to do to prove to us that you really are who you say you are, that you’re really worth following, that you will really provide for all our needs?” Uh, hello guys?! Do you remember what just happened? That whole bit with the miraculous feeding of 5000 people? How quickly we forget our blessings! How quickly we turn to look for more, more, more!

            And I think the constant desire for more is one of our biggest barriers to genuine gratitude. Or said another way, gratitude is one of the best ways to overcome our desire for more. I’m struck by the disciples’ plea, following Jesus declaring himself as the bread of life, which gives life to the world. They say, “Lord, give us this bread always.” Gimme, gimme, gimme. Their whole exchange with Jesus is about what they do not have, what they still need, what Jesus needs to provide for them. And while knowing your needs and trusting Jesus enough to be able to ask him is a good thing, I can’t help but notice what an utter lack of gratitude there is in this whole exchange.

            I find this tendency often creeps into our prayer lives, at least mine. Sometimes I am good and follow a pattern of first offering praise and thanksgiving, then confessions, and then finally my petitions, or needs. This is a good order for prayer. But I admit that my more spontaneous prayers, the ones that pop into my head while I’m driving, for instance, are almost always prayers in which I tell God something that I need from Him. “Help me get through this.” “Give strength to my friend who’s going through a tough time.” “Be with my family member in need.” All demands. It is much easier to be occupied, like the disciples, with what is needed, instead of what has already been graciously given.

This summer, our prayer group at Bethlehem has been doing a service of Morning Prayer out in the garden on Wednesdays. The liturgy is based on the Morning Prayer liturgy in our hymnal. The way the time of open prayer is set up is that the first thing we do is offer up our gratitude. We give thanks for several specific things, and then leave space for people to offer their own particular thanksgivings. Only after we have done this do we move to our prayers of concerns, our prayers in which we reflect with God about what we still need. I love this order! I find that if I spend a good amount of time on recognizing my blessings and the many things I have to be thankful for, I get on a

roll, and then even when we get to the part where we name things we need, I find things within them to be thankful for. “Bring healing to my friend… and also thank you for the doctors who are helping her to find it!” Even a silly prayer like the weather: “Please let it be sunny for this important event… but also, thank you that we don’t have the drought here that so many are suffering from around the country!” If I’ve gotten myself in the right frame of mind by giving intentional thanks, I can almost always find a thanksgiving in the midst of need.

Last week I had the chance to bring communion to someone on hospice, someone in her last days. Before I left, I asked her what prayers she had this day. Her answer still stuns me. She said, “I’m just glad for all the prayers God has answered for me so far for health.” Here she was, knowing her life was near the end, and she didn’t offer one last ditch prayer effort for recovery, she didn’t pray for just a little more time… she was thankful for the abundance of gifts she has received throughout her long life. Oh that this would be our prayer!

            One of the easiest places, I find, to be thankful is when we are talking about food. So it’s no wonder that this whole conversation about gratitude – both the Israelites in the wilderness and Jesus with the disciples – is happening in the context of a conversation about bread. This is true also for us and for the Church: when we are in the midst of a conversation about bread – in our case, Holy Communion – gratitude becomes absolutely central. For it is here at this table is where we remember

the most profound gifts God through Christ has given us: forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. It is here where we hear those words, “given for you.” (To which we respond, “Thanks be to God!”) It is here where we are reminded the length to which God has gone for us, to show us these gifts, so that we would be able to live lives not of need and lack, but of gratitude and abundance. Here, in the body and blood of Christ, given for you. Let us live into that gratitude, thankful for the life and salvation we are offered again and again by our loving God, our bread of life, who continues to provide for us and for all our needs so that we might live not in want, but in gratefulness.

            Let us pray… Gracious God, you have given us much – so much that we could never offer enough gratitude in return! Help us to recognize those things we are grateful for before we notice our lack, so that we would always know, in whatever situation we face, that you are a God of grace. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon: Freedom from the fear of scarcity (July 26, 2015)

Pentecost 9B

July 26, 2015

John 6:1-21

            Here’s some Bible trivia for you: Of all the miracles we attribute to Jesus, would you believe that this well-known miracle, the Feeding of the Multitude, is the only one that appears in all four Gospels? In fact, a similar story appears twice in two of them, for a grand total of six times! Another Bible factoid: while the Gospel of Luke omits the other well-known story we hear today, the one about Jesus walking on water, Matthew, Mark and John all include it, and in all three cases, it appears directly following the feeding of the 5000. Famous as both of those stories are, I had never noticed that they always appear right next to each other like that. It got me wondering: why? If you’ve ever read straight through the Gospels, one after another, you may have noticed that the four accounts of Jesus’ life on earth do not all follow the same order. John, in particular, seems to have a mind of his

By Jesus Mafa

own as far as how and in what order things happened. (The reason for this, if you wondered, is that John’s interest is more in the meaning of things than in what is historically accurate). And yet this order, the miraculous feeding and the walking on water, is maintained for everyone. Why?

            As I have reflected on that question this week, I have noticed that a lot can be gleaned from looking at the reactions of the people involved. John’s Gospel is so wonderful at giving us insight into the emotions of those involved. And in both stories, one emotion I notice is fear. In the walking on water story, it’s obvious – John tells us that the disciples were terrified. And wouldn’t you be, if you saw your friend walking toward your boat, right on top of the water?!

            In the feeding story, the fear is a bit more subtle. They are afraid they won’t have enough food to feed all those people. They are afraid of their scarcity. Philip immediately looks at their budget and sees this will not work – “Six months wages wouldn’t be enough!” Numbers don’t lie; there is not enough. Andrew tries to think out of the box a little bit, looking at what other resources they have beyond money – maybe someone here has something to share? And someone does: a young boy, willing to share his lunch with Jesus and the crowd. But still, it is clearly not enough. And whenever we get in that mindset of “not enough,” there is, underlying it, that pesky emotion: fear.

            Fear of not enough – it is such an ordinary fear, really. It is not usually debilitating, like what the disciples must have felt seeing Jesus walk on water, but it is a fear we still regularly face, sometimes on a daily basis. For middle class folks, it’s not usually about lack of food like in the story, but it often rears its head in financial matters: Will I have enough money to retire when I want to? Will I have enough to send my kids to college? Do I have enough to risk being generous with my giving? We look at the numbers, like Philip, and make what we discern to be savvy decisions, in hopes that we will have enough.

            Of course the question of enough also comes to us in other forms, often in the form of self-esteem. When I applied to seminary, several people told me to apply to Yale, and my first thought of course was, “I’m not smart or accomplished enough to go to Yale.” Women, especially, are often plagued by the worry that their bodies are not enough: “I’m not skinny enough or curvy enough or tall enough to wear this outfit.” Some of us are shy to meet new people because we’re afraid we won’t be interesting enough, or clever enough, or good-looking enough to make a good impression.

            You see, everywhere we look we see the fear of “not enough” – just like the disciples. How often this perception of life deters us from gratitude for what we have, and also our preoccupation with “enough” often deters us from the opportunity to serve to others. I read a story from a woman who served as a pastor in Nairobi, Kenya. One day, three young men came into her office. They were ragged and dirty, but had smiles on their faces. They asked if they could sing for her. She said of

course, and they sang the most beautiful a cappella rendition of Amazing Grace, in their native language. She said it was like angel music, the kind that gives you goose bumps.

Then they shared with her their story. They were refugees from Rwanda. They had been university students, but when war broke out, they left the country with only the clothes on their backs and the song in their hearts. They didn’t know where their families were. They had often barely had enough to eat. They had learned to be grateful for their lives each day, and though they could never find the words for the prayer they wanted to offer to God, they could always sing Amazing Grace, and they knew God would understand their prayer. They had come that day seeking assistance – they had found a room for $8/month. They had no furniture, but would gladly sleep on the floor. Could the church help by paying the $8, plus a little extra for food - $12 a month?

            The pastor brought the opportunity to the church leaders. They were interested in the idea, until someone, looking at the numbers, said, “$12 doesn’t seem like a lot, until you multiply it by 12 months. $150 is a lot!” Someone else wondered if this would set a precedent – what if word got out that they were willing to pay people’s rent, and all the homeless refugees came to them?

            Soon enough, this opportunity to serve in a wonderful way turned into a litany of “not enoughs.” The pastor writes, “As I listened to my church leaders, I learned so much about the myth of limited resources. We often think there’s just enough for some of us. Some have to go without. We’re worried we’ll run out, but guess what? God’s world has enough for all of us. Someone has put it well, saying, ‘There is enough for all our needs, but there is not enough for all our greed.’”[1]

            A story from across the world, that hits so close to home. The fear of not enough pervades the hearts of people everywhere, I suppose, even across time. There’s another Old Testament story – we’ll hear part of it next week – about the Israelites wandering in the wilderness and God provides them manna from heaven, with the instruction only to take what they need for today. Of course, the people are afraid to take so little – what if the manna doesn’t appear tomorrow? So they take more than what they need… and the excess manna gets moldy. But it’s okay, because God promised they would always get enough manna, and so the next day, they get some more.

            It seems what we have here – in all three examples – is a lack of trust. Philip and his buddies, the Kenyan church, and the Israelites – none of them trusted that God would provide just exactly what they needed. That is the danger of fear – it leads us to a lack of trust, or perhaps, it leads us to

trust in scarcity instead of the promise of abundance.

            But it is the God who promises abundance in whom we need to put our trust. Remember what Luther writes in the Small Catechism? “God provides me with food and clothing, home and family, daily work, and all I need from day to day.” God provides all those things! We can worry and fear all we want, but in the end, God provides all we need from day to day.

            And in fact, God provides much more. Look at our second lesson, from Ephesians. The writer tries to capture just how generous and abundant God is in this phrase, “[God] is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine.” Or another translation puts it, “exceeding abundantly beyond everything.” God’s abundance is so abundant, it’s hard to capture it in words! All we know is that God gives us far more than we could ever imagine.

            And with that recognition comes freedom – freedom from worrying about whether there will be enough. Freedom from fretting about running out. Freedom to be more generous with our time, our money, and our love and care for others. Freedom to trust the one who gives us “food and clothing, home and family, daily work, and all we need from day to day.”

            “Therefore,” the catechism goes on, “we surely ought to thank and praise, serve and obey him. This is most certainly true.”

            Let us pray… Generous God, your providence exceeds abundantly beyond everything. Make us grateful for what you give, not fearful for what we don’t have, so that we would feel freedom to love and serve without fear. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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[1] http://day1.org/671-a_picnic_on_the_mountainside