In the Eye of the Storm Published - The Metropolitan Messenger, e-Newsletter of Exodus MCC 04 Septebmer 2008
O afflicted one, storm-tossed, and not comforted, I am about to set your stones in antimony, and lay your foundations with sapphires. I will make your pinnacles of rubies, your gates of jewels, and all your wall of precious stones. All your children shall be taught by the LORD, and great shall be the prosperity of your children. In righteousness you shall be established; you shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear; and from terror, for it shall not come near you. If anyone stirs up strife, it is not from me; whoever stirs up strife with you shall fall because of you. Isaiah 54:11-15
I've kept a close eye tracking the paths of hurricanes Gustov, Hanna and Ike this week. As Gustov approached New Orleans, the foreboading of "another Katrina" rang through my ears in one news report after another. Now that Gustov has proven to be less destructive than originally anticipated, my prayers to those enduring Hanna and Ike - still heavily threatening storms headed to cities and towns along US coasts.
In addition to the MUCH improved response from aid organizations, one thing I've noticed in media is the curious absence of religious dogma about these storms. Surely you remember the horrible edicts against the conduct, the morals, the people of New Orleans by devout church leaders following Katrina?
Perhaps I should simply count us all fortunate to have foregone such missives which attract our soundbyte-hungry media and move on. Yet, I can't help but realize that there are thousands of people who watched this evacuation and this storm with the tangible memory of rising waters, roaring winds, lost loved ones and defamed identities. I believe it is important to remember that storms likened to Katrina are now raging against the same city and affecting some of the same people.
Katrina is not "over" - many are still in our own city, exiled from New Orleans because their neighborhoods were completely destroyed. Now, we have Gustov and Hanna, and possibly Ike. All three have pounded Cuba and the Bahamas - countries with far less resources than ours. Even in our own prosperous country, we have thousands of people displaced, some now homeless.
I read perhaps the most poignant assertion from our sister church, The Big Easy MCC in New Orleans. The Big Easy MCC consists of our siblings living in New Orleans, directly effected by Gustov (and possibly Katrina). Instead of bemoaning the strength of the storm or losses of homes and jobs, in the NOLA News (their newsletter) this week was an article titled Exiled and Grateful. In it was written..."Christianity contains the strange paradox that nothing, not life, death, storm, fear, disapproval, prejudice, divorce, disease, or any other thing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus; all our life turns on this assurance - that all can be taken away from us and we can still have everything we need."
I want us to all shout this message from the rafters of our jobs, our schools, restaurants, gas stations and our church! This is a message which will not receive popular media play...it doesn't have enough 'byte. Yet this message speaks the truth, the gospel, which was deserved by every person who endured the winds of Katrina and who will endure the winds of any storm on its way now and forever.
God promises everlasting love. God promises righteousness and freedom, the type of prosperity we can only imagine. Won't you take a moment and share this with someone in your life today?
People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. 14 But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, "Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. 15 Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." (Mark 10:13-15)
I have a secret... This week, Exodus MCC's Vacation Bible School week, is my very first VBS - ever! And I must admit, I have stopped to wonder where all the opportunities to spread goo across foreheads and walk in muck in the name of Bible stories have been all my life! What amazing fun!
You know, when Jesus said to come to the realm of God like a little child, I have readily kept the image of a meek child in mind. I'm sure that comes from the stained glass picture in my mind of the little children gathered around Jesus, timidly, and scattered among pure white little lambs. Whatever!
Sure, children have such moments. Yet, more often children have awesome energy, excitement and a desire to learn and learn and learn...and learn. Children approach stories, crafts and experiences with open minds awaiting the new with great expectation of fun.
The story in Mark (and Matthew and Luke) says that the disciples "spoke sternly" to those who brought children up to Jesus. I wonder if their hesitation to let children approach Jesus was because of the children's rambunctious energy. Could the children have been leading their parents and guardians? Could the children have been pushing past the guarded disciples? Perhaps the children's determination to reach Jesus - maybe as much as our children's determination to reach the snack station - is what made the disciples pause.
But Jesus stopped the disciples' warnings. Jesus turned the tables on those maintaining decorum, as he was prone to do, and set a goal for us all. We are to receive the realm of God like the children do, with openness, with exuberance, with faith and trust, and with expectation...or we will miss the opportunity to enter altogether. For, like the disciples, when we pay too much attention to decorum, what we actually do is create a barrier to approaching God.
Vacation Bible School is an opportunity for us adult leaders to provide an experience of the Bible for our children. Each evening, the realm of God receives the attention of "little children" and, if we are willing, the little children in us adults. I hope we are able to find ways to remember our childhood exuberance when we are next aware of the realm of God around us. Perhaps it's time we adults found a way to have Vacation Bible School for ourselves. The goo awaits!
Blessings,
-Mel
P.S. Thanks SO much to Phyllis for coordinating, planning and facilitating Vacation Bible School! And to all of our parent, teacher and youth/young adult leaders!
Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. (Genesis 32:24-31)
You know, I’ve always been the youngest in my crowd. Well, probably not always, but I’ve certainly experienced the weight of being the “kid” or the one who’s experiences were lightened with the phrase “Oh honey, you’re just a child! Wait ‘till you get to be my age!” I suppose, as I get a little older, that a good portion of the population, if not everyone, remembers a time or place in which their identity rested in someone else’s assessment of their experience, their race, their gender, or their age. In fact, the more time I spend in the transgender communities, the more I realize that few of us are exempt from the limits placed upon us by others.
One of my favorite Bible stories that speaks to such limits is the relationship between Jacob and his brother Esau (Genesis 32:3-31). In this excerpt of their story, Jacob is on his way to meet his brother, Esau, from whom he is estranged. After years of living in the shadow of deceitful behavior including personifying his brother to steal Esau’s inheritance (“blessing”) and running away to escape Esau’s murderous intentions, Jacob finally moves to make amends. He reconnects (tremblingly) with Esau, making a grand peace offering. He’s terrified because he doesn’t know what he’ll find when he meets his kin face to face. Though Jacob has certainly changed over the years, he has no guarantee that Esau has!
It was on his way back to Esau, Jacob’s origins, that he encounters the angel. Following a brilliant plan to soften Esau’s heart, Jacob stops behind his servants who are delivering his gifts ahead of him. But during the night, Jacob ends up wrestling with an angel until the angel blesses him...with a new name – Israel.
The angel, presumably God’s servant/representative – or Godself, represents for me the many things each of us wrestle with as we come into our own. Like Jacob, we move from acting on the instructions of others toward acting of our own conscience, desires and hope. Our task toward whole identity and spiritual health lay with determining, in no uncertain terms, our identity apart from the appraisal of others, but within and in relationship to our life with God. In our own ways, all of us must come into our name, our identity or personhood, and reside within such knowledge in comfortable anxiety as the years allow us to grow. We’re forever wrestlers with angels as God invites us to become that which God calls each of us to be.
Blessings,
-Mel
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What would you wish for if you could have anything you wanted? How would you feel if you got it?
Dan Millman, in his work The Way of the Peaceful Warrior, wrote: "If you don’t get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don’t want, you suffer; even if you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can’t hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. But change is law, and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.....Wake up! If you knew for certain you had a terminal illness - if you had little time left to live - you would waste precious little of it! Well, I’m telling you, you do have a terminal illness: it’s called birth. You don’t have more than a few years left. No one does! So be HAPPY NOW, without reason - or you will never be at all."
How very true that has been for me in time past. The deeper my depression, the more I thought I wanted or needed to pacify that depression. And the more I got, the more I suffered for I could not find the inner peace I truly sought. My loneliness was my friend for I knew no other and had never known another. It had been with me for years and I thought I would not know how to behave were it to leave me. For it was all I had. And all I have ever had from the time I stood in that kindergarten school yard and stared out that chain link fence into a world of adults who frightened me by their loudness and their cruelty. That is, until now!
Our egos try to convince us that if we only had more (just listen to television/radio/etc. to see) then we would be the happiest of happy people in the world. But really, what we truly need is to become aware that we are already connected to an unlimited Source of All-Good--which we call God. Jesus, in speaking upon this thought, said of God that all we have to do is to "ask and ye shall receive."
Did he lie to us? No, I don't believe he did. I believe he told us the truth and it is we who lie to ourselves--thinking we never have enough or cannot get what we think we need to survive. When we become aware of our unlimited Source, which is God, we move into an acceptance that we have enough to meet our daily needs. "Give us this day our daily needs..." we often say in quoting the Lord's Prayer. But do we believe it? I think it is time we begin to swallow it, as we do a delicious meal, into every fiber of our soul and believe what we speak. We gain our inner treasure when it is in accord with the Divine Harmony and Perfect Love of God.
Affirm this week: With my attention focused upon God as the True Source of all my good I now live a generous and abundant life. I have all I need and I AM happy with that which I AM given by God. My cup runneth over and I have abundance to share. For God is the Source of my all. Yea, all I have seen teaches me to Trust the Creator for all I have not seen. My life is Beautiful. I AM beautiful. I AM that, I AM!
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That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables....Then the disciples came and asked him, "Why do you speak to them in parables?" He answered, "To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. The reason I speak to them in parables is that 'seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.'" (Matt. 13:1-3a, 10-13)
I had the honor of speaking with a young man this week who asked some challenging questions – the sort of questions which rarely have clear right or wrong answers. As we spoke, we stumbled upon a truth regarding the very impact that one person can make on an entire community. Either by message, example, or action an individual can come to represent or teach something beyond themselves, regardless of their intention. For instance, a resident of Abilene can come to represent all Abilene-ians, a certain “acting-out” teenager can come to represent all “teens”…a homeless drug addict can come to represent all people addicted to substances, a terrorist who professes a certain religion can come to represent all people of that religion. In fact, in a time when mass media utilizes cultural and religious stereotypes to heighten newspaper and magazine sales, as well as TV ratings, the epitomization of the “idea” of what something is becomes, for many, the reality of what something is.
In the first century, Jesus struggled with the issue of stereotypes in a different way. He didn't meet expectations. The expected Messiah, as he and his followers had surely been taught from childhood, was a social and political figure, a king, intended to bring about the liberation of Israel from oppression. As throngs of people followed him, instead of leading the great uprising against Rome and religious oppression, Jesus surprised the masses by preaching liberation in an altogether different way. He even confounded his disciples by teaching parables in need of explanation in order to understand. In all, Jesus did not fit the bill of the “Messiah.”
Yet, his message carried.
In first century terms, our scriptures reflect a ministry which reached a wide breadth of the populations in Galilee and Judea. The three years of recorded ministry found in the gospels covers land and water less than 1/7 of the area of Texas. If Jesus were ministering, say, from Amarillo to Abilene, gathering crowds at Lake Fort Phantom and telling stories even his own disciples didn’t understand, what might your expectations of such a Messiah be in today’s time? Of course, no one would argue that Jesus’ impact on the world has been outstanding. Yet, just how many people did this one man, divine though he was, attend to in only three years?
Our own history reminds us that we have a particular place in the furthering of Jesus’ message. The disciples asked Jesus why he spoke to the masses in parables (though Jesus explained the parables to the disciples). His response is that the masses just weren’t prepared to hear it. Jesus himself planted a seed of the hope in life everlasting in his followers and taught them to do the same for others in order for the season of growth to begin and harvest to come. Considering the brevity of his ministry, such a seed has surely sprouted deep and lasting roots…in each one of us.
If we are destined to live as potential representatives of our identities, our livelihoods and our faith, I hope we can remember to do so with fervor. There’s a good chance that we stand in proud contrast to a cultural or religious stereotype, just like Jesus did. There’s an even better chance that we will reach as many people and more in our lifetimes as Jesus reached in his. Our finest testimony to the gifts Jesus gives us rests in our sharing the gospel as we understand it and planting the seed of hope in life everlasting for others.
