Reflections on the nation....

7/3/16

We gather for worship on the day before July 4^th.

So there’s our American flag.

It’s always been involved in controversy. It was removed from the sanctuary in ‘70’s. The question was raised as to whether there should ever be any presence of the American flag at all in a church? We brought the flag back on the Sunday after 9/11, which was September 16^th. Andre came in wearing an American flag shirt. He brought along a friend who was a Muslim to play the flute. To show we would not give in to the hysteria. (That still is with us…) This was one of the times I was most proud of what we were doing. We wanted to express love for our country and people and at the same time make clear that our grief was not a call for vengeance. The flag remained  for several years. I can’t say why or when it came down again. 

I think of Abraham Joshua Heschel. Who said the inspiration of a prophet must be Love. A prophet musty come from a people and speak to that  people. Always owning identity with that people.

Today our bulletin cover features Katherine Lee Bates. 

She was a professor at Wellesley. For 25 years she lived with Katherine Coman. Though Katherine has been claimed as an lgbtq hero, there has been an ongoing academic  debate. Over that issue with much discussion of the topic of  “Boston Marriage”… One friend recently cleared this up by saying well, she may or may not be lesbian, but she sure was QUEER.

I remember Seeing our flag raised in Managua, Nicaragua, celebrating our revolution. And having Bill Coffin lift up these words: 

Oh, beautiful for pilgrim feet,

Whose stern, impassioned stress

A thoroughfare of freedom beat

Across the wilderness!

America! America!

God mend thine ev'ry flaw,

Confirm thy soul in self-control,

Thy liberty in law.

They seem to have special meanings we stood on the brink of an invasion.  That was the first time I felt the critical power in that song...

Our texts today have much top say about “De-privileging” and hospitality. There is the story of Naaman. He was a serious Syrian with all  the accouterments of power.  And a case of leprosy that won’t go away. It’s a captured slave girl who tells him about Elisha. He goes to the king. And by doing so scares him to death. Then he is directed to  Elijah. He expects big dramatic demands and actions from this famous prophet. Waving hands and all. Dramatic magic. But Elijah only makes a simple request for washing. And Naaman comes out Clean “as a child”..(did he have a new child like point of view as well?) It was like Baptism. The metaphor here is that Naaman  has to give up all the trappings of power and privilege to be healed.

Likewise, in Luke, Jesus sends his workers out “stripped down” and vulnerable. (They are not even to wear sandals…so that their hosts will have to wash their feet…hospitality…) It’s about Inviting us into a new space of openness and vulnerability.

Paul in Galatians talks about  giving up privileges of “circumcision…..”

We should notice a couple of points…if we are not offered the peace of the house, we are to shake off the dust from our feet and move on…there is no command to keep beating your head against the wall….

The disciples come back boasting of their accomplishments. Jesus, says, yeah well I saw Satan fall from heaven….all that is important is that your names are written in heaven…

We spend some time talking about these passages together and then we celebrate communion.  This is Russ’ first time to be serving  communion as an ordained elder.

And we finish the service by singing I’m gonna live so God can use me…

Our conversation on these issues has only just begun…

A month of Sundays part 3: The 4th of July weekend

7/6

It’s the 4^th of July weekend. Which means it will be quiet. Still we have our remnant there, including little 4 year old Xavier, Stephen S’s son. Full of energy. And he waits anxiously every Sunday for when we form our circle and sing Amen. He gets upset if he misses it.

We’ve got the story where Isaac gets his wife Rebekah. (Genesis 24: 35-38). His servant is sent to find a wife from his kindred. The story is one of those that is rich for those who speak of the Biblical model of marriage. We do note these things:

* It takes place at a well, which in the Bible is where romance begins. Jacob meets Rachel at a well. And Moses and Zipporah. All this helps explain the background of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well and why the disciples would be shocked, Expecting romance would be implied.

* Even in this arranged marriage, at least Rebekah is asked if she will go with this man.(58)

* There’s a gold nose ring involved. Wonder what it looked like compared to what is worn today. Perhaps we should reinstitute engagement (nose) rings.

* The whole camel caravan is a good visual

*As soon as she sees Isaac, she veils herself. (Recently in my neighborhood I’ve seen more veiled women with only their eyes showing.)

* And he loves her.(67) And was….. comforted after his mother’s death.

It’s easy to think of Isaac as having been traumatized by his earlier experience with his father. He’s very passive in this story. Clearly was very close to his mother. And Rebekah’s primary purpose, here, was to comfort him.  Love can grow, even out of arranged marriages.

Our Song of  Solomon passage, 2: 8-13, is a paean to romantic, sensual love. It was only allowed into the Bible because scholars argued it was a metaphor for the love of Christ for his church. (Seriously) In the days of arranged marriage, this is a pretty scandalous book. You’ve got a woman expressing passion and desire for a lover, young and athletic who leaps and bounds over hills like a gazelle or stag. Like a Baryshnikov. Or maybe Neymar.  And he’s at her window, ala a Shakespeare character, asking her to come out.  No waiting for dowries here.  This is a Biblical book that is a celebration of erotic love. And maybe that’s why we need it.

As for Paul in Romans 7: 15-25,  we’re back to guilt and anguish again.
¹⁵I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ¹⁶Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.

 ⁸For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. ¹⁹For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. ²⁰Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. (…Wait, Paul. It is you who does it, not some alien entity called sin that came in. You have to claim that.)

²¹So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. (Indeed true. And sometimes hard to tell the difference.. Sometimes very close together. )

 ²²For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, ²³but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. ²⁴Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? ²⁵Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

I remember the 1928 Anglican prayer book:

And there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders.

I could never say those words. People in this city spend thousands of dollars a year on therapy to not feel like there is no health in us. Or that they are wretched. Being able to love oneself is the single most difficult thing to do. And it doesn’t help to say that the only thing good about you is that Jesus loves you even though you don’t deserve it. So this is one of those times when I say, Paul, you are wrong. (It would have been great, if Paul, like St. Augustine, had shared with us what he struggled with.)

Finally, the Gospel. (Matthew 11: 16-19, 23-24). Early on, Jesus seems to have a damned if you do, damned if you don’t thing  going on.

¹⁸For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He has a demon; ¹⁹the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners! Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.

But you do see Jesus eating and drinking, enjoying life with others. His first miracle (John 2: 1-11) was turning water into wine for a wedding celebration (here we are circling elliptically back through our other passages..)

The real point of the gospel is it’s conclusion:

²⁸Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.³⁰For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

The word yoke was a traditional way of referring to studying the Torah, the Law, the Teaching. Jesus is saying that study is important, but not as a heavy burden. As a freeing experience of life to be lived. I used this passage for the last verse of the song I wrote for Teddy’s memorial service:

Come you who are weary and so heavy laden and lay your burden down

For my yoke it is easy and my burden is light and you can trade your cross for a crown

And you can rest  awhile, rest awhile, come away and rest awhile.

                                                                      * * * *

Last week, Pride Sunday, we were also blessed by another visit from our friend Brian Taylor. Our bicoastal member. Voice actor. Company repping. And Binky the Clown.  But most of all faithfully coming by every time he’s in town to see what he can do…

                                                                          ****

All this on a 4^th of July weekend where I’m pondering the good people of Murietta, California turning  away immigrant children (Bus them to DC!) and bankrupt Detroit shutting off the water of thousands and we ponder going back to Iraq….

We end by singing America the Beautiful by Katherine Lynn  Bates. (Music by Presbyterian  choirmaster Samuel A. Ward.) And one more Pride note: this much beloved patriotic anthem was written by a woman who lived (and loved) faithfully for 25 years with another woman Katharine Coman.

But as I learned from William Sloane Coffin, Jr. when he had us sing these words in Managua, Nicaragua in 1983, after a witness on the border with Honduras during the contra war,  they have an edge as well….

America! America!

God mend thine every flaw,

Confirm thy soul in self-control,

Thy liberty in law!