December 24, 2007 - Peace - Elizabeth Gibbs Zehnder

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger." Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests." When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about." So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

So what does the peace that the angels are singing about, what does this peace look like? Is it like a Christmas Card?

On the Christmas cards that I get, it all looks pretty nice, stars unfurled in the balmy night sky, angels soaring and proclaiming the glad tidings. We can be easily misled into thinking that God’s peace comes when all is right with the world, children are well fed, workers earn a fair wage, all war has ceased, when all is well, then the angels will unfurl their wings and take to the heavens and our hearts will soar as we resonate with the good news that God’s peace has come….

But when I read the gospels, the peace that Jesus brings has a different tone. Yes, it resonates with my core, yes, it clearly comes from God, but it is so contrary to convention and expectation that it is difficult to recognize it.

To the woman who had been working in the sex industry, who scandalized the host of a fancy dinner party when she came in and kissed Jesus’ feet and poured out perfume on him while the grilled salmon was served – to her Jesus said “your sins are forgiven, your faith has saved you, go in peace.” (Luke 7:50)

To the woman who had been cast out for 12 years because her bleeding made her ritually unclean, when she joined the crowd and dared to reach out for Jesus’ coat. The instant her fingers touched the hem – she felt the bleeding stop, Jesus felt the power go out from him. He called her out from the crowd and assured “daughter, your faith has healed you, Go in peace.” (Luke 8:48)

To the disciples who had fled into hiding, huddled in grief, bewildered by Jesus’ arrest, terrified by his brutal death on the cross, Jesus came and stood among them and said “feel my wounds, - peace be with you” (Luke 24:36)

That’s how peace comes in the Gospels. It comes in the middle of difficulty. It comes in the middle of excruciating hope and longing, it comes when things are as far from being perfect as we can imagine. Thank God.

Thank God that we don’t have to wait for perfection for God’s peace to break into our world.

So tonight, in the glow of the candles, As we celebrate the birth of Jesus, As we carry our hope for his speedy return, let us seek out the peace that the Gospel describes.

Let us join the angels in their joyful chorus and sing the good news in the most unlikely of places:

sing to the woman whose pastor refused to bury her life partner;
sing to the day laborer waiting in the rain for work;
sing to the mother holding her feverish child in the ER;

let us find ways to sing the good news with the whole of our lives—what we say, what we do, where we spend our money—let the angels song fill our hearts:

“Glory to God in the highest, and peace to all people on earth”

24 de diciembre de 2007 - La justicia - Samuel Chu

Lucas 2:46-55

“María dijo:
Mi alma proclama tu grandesa, O, Dios,
Y mi espiritú se recogisa en tí, mi Salvador.
Porque has reconocido
A tu pobre servidora,
Y desde este día en adelante
Todas las generaciones me llamaran bendita.
Porque tú, el Todopoderoso, has hecho grandes cosas por mi,
Y bendito es tu Nombre.
Tu merced se extiende de epoca a epoca
Para los que te temen.
Has demostrado fuerza con tu brazo,
Has derrumbado a los soberbios en su vanidad,
Has deponido a los poderosos de sus tronos
Y levantado los bajos a lugares altos.
Has llenado a los ambrientos con cosas buenas,
Mientras que mandas lejos a los ricos sin nada.
Has venido a la ayuda de Israel, tu sirviente,
Conciente de tu merced –
La promesa que le hiciste a tus antepasados –
A Sara y Abraham
Y sus decendientes para siempre.”

Cada quien tiene su propia canción – Naciones tienen himnos nacionales, los amantes tienen baladas, niños tienen canciones de cuna. Tenemos canciones especiales para bodas, cumpleaños en toda cultura. Cuando estas deprimido, felíz, cuando quieres protestar algo, tienes una canción. Esa es una razón porque los IPods son regalos populares. Nos da el poder de hacer una banda sonora y ponerala a tocar con nuestras vidas, y nos estimula nuestras imaginaciones para la vida.

Hay una gente de Africa que tiene la creencia de que nosotros los seres humanos se nos crea con una melodia única, una música que es solo para nosotros. Su tradición es de “honrar esa canción cantándola porque es bienvenida cuando nace una criatura, es consuelo cuando la criatura esta enferma, para celebrar cuando la criatura se casa, y en afirmación y en amor cuando la muerte llega.”

Nos toma tiempo para averiguar cual es nuestra canción, y distinguirla de la canción que otros quieren que cantemos. Imaginate tener una canción que es solo para nosotros; una canción que vive dentro de nosotros que nos describe al mundo; una canción que a veces oimos que no la canta de regreso el mundo; una canción que siempre esta ahí, no importa si sea día o noche, lista para consolarnos, para celebrar, sostener y guiarnos. Imaginate eso y preguntate, ¿cuál es mi canción?

Maria estallo con tremenda canción. La conocemos como “Magnificat”. Es una canción de celebración y justicia. Desafía que veamos el mundo al revés. Canta de la caida de los soberbios, los poderosos, los ricos, y de la subida del bajo y ambriento sirviente. Es una canción tan revolucionaria que te podrian meter a la carcel o hasta matarte. Y por eso ha durado tanto esta canción.

En este mundo sordo en que vivimos, madres no casadas y pobres, que no tienen oportunidades; a los extraños no se les da la bienvenida; la distancia entre los ricos y pobres crece más. En el lejano, el cielo se queda oscuro y silencioso. No hay angeles, ni trompetas, ni una estrella para guiarse, nada de buenas noticias, solamente los hechos frios de la vida real.

Pero con la canción de María nuestras imaginaciones sordas son asaltadas y empujadas a sus límites por imágenes, letras, e ideas peligrosas de lo que puede y no puede ser. Nos estimula nuestras imaginaciones para imaginar un nuevo y justo mundo. Y no puede haber justica hasta que se imaginen un mundo justo. La Magnifcat es el tipo de canción arriesgada y atrevida que hace la justicia posible y permisible.

El poeta hindú, Rabindrinath Tagore dice, “He pasado mis días encordando mi instrumento mientras que la canción que vine a cantar permanece sin cantar.” Consumidos por tareas, paralisados por hechos, esperando por mas datos… dejamos nuestra canción sin cantar. Hay una razón por que la gente canta cuando marcha. Los estimula, corta por los datos y hechos y despierta el valor para actuar como ningún dato puede.

En la luz de las letras subversivas de la canción de María, que yo pienso son apropiados para que dejemos que Emma Goldman, la conocida anarquista, tenga las últimas palabras. Emma le encataba bailar. Una noche un hombre la tomo al lado, y con una cara muy seria le susurro que no le parecia bien que una anarquista estuviera bailando, y menos con tanto abandono. No era digno de una persona que ser convertiría en una fuerza del movimiento anarquista.

Emma estaba furiosa y le dijo que no fuera un metiche. Estaba cansada de siempre pensar en la causa. Ella no creía que una causa, que representaba un ideal bello, de liberación de la convención social y los prejuicios, debería demandar la negación de la vida y felicidad. La Causa no podría esperar que ella se convirtiera en monja y que el movimiento no se volveria en un claustro.

"Quiero la libertad, el derecho de la expresión propia, el derecho de todos a las cosas bellas y radiantes." Ella escribio, “El Anarquismo era lo que significaba para mi, y yo viviriá a pesar de todo el mundo — las prisiones, persecuciones, todo. Si, a pesar de la condenación de mis compañeros mas cercanos, yo viviriá mi bello ideal. Si no puedo bailar, no quiero su revolución.”

¿Escuchan la música? ¿Han respondido a su llamamiento y se han unido al coro? Nacido para nosotros este día es un mundo nuevo y justo. Canta, baila y ser parte de la revolución.

December 24, 2007 - Justice - Samuel Chu

Luke 2:46-55

“Mary said:
My soul proclaims your greatness, O, God,
And my spirit rejoices in you, my Savior.
For you have looked with favor
Upon your lowly servant,
And from this day forward
All generations will call me blessed.
For you, the Almighty, have done great things for me,
And holy is your Name.
Your mercy reaches from age to age
For those who fear you.
You have shown strength with your arm,
You have scattered the proud in their conceit,
You have deposed the mighty from their thrones
And raised the lowly to high places.
You have filled the hungry with good things,
While you have sent the rich away empty.
You have come to the aid of Israel your servant,
Mindful of your mercy –
The promise you made to our ancestors –
To Sarah and Abraham
And their descendants forever.”

Everybody has a song - Nations have anthems, lovers have ballads, children have lullabies. We’ve special songs for weddings, birthdays in every culture. When you are depressed, happy, when you want to protest, when you are in the shower, you’ve got a song. That’s one reason why IPods are such popular gifts. It gives us the power to put our life to its own song track and it fuels our imaginations for life.

There is a people in Africa who believe that we humans are each created having a unique melody, some music that is our own. Their tradition “is to honor that song by singing it as welcome when a child is born, as comfort when the child is ill, in celebration when the child marries, and in affirmation and love when death comes.”

It takes a while to figure out our song, and to distinguish it from the song that others want us to sing. Imagine having a tune that is just our own; a song living in us that describes us to the world; a song that we sometimes hear the world sing back to us; a song that is there, no matter it be day or night, ready to comfort, celebrate, sustain and guide us. Imagine that and ask yourself, what’s your song?

Mary burst out with quite a song. We know it as the “Magnificat”. It is a song of jubilee and justice. It dares to see the world upside down. It sings of the fall of the proud, the powerful, the rich and the rising of the lowly, the hungry, the servant. It is the kind of revolutionary tune might get you imprisoned or even killed. And that’s why it is such an enduring song.

In the muted world we live, poor, unmarried mothers and their babies don’t stand a chance; strangers are not welcomed; the gap between rich and poor is widening rather than reversing. Out there, the sky stays dark and silent. No angels, no trumpets, no guiding star, no good news, just the cold hard facts of life.

But with Mary’s song our muted imaginations get assaulted and pushed to the limits by images, lyrics, and dangerous ideas about what can and can’t be. They fuel our imagination for a new and just world. And you can’t do justice until you can imagine a world that’s just. The Magnifcat is the kind of risky, daring song that makes justice possible and permissible.

The Hindu poet, Rabindrinath Tagore says, “I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument while the song I came to sing remains unsung.” Consumed by tasks, paralyzed by facts, waiting for more data… we leave our song unsung. There is a reason why people sing when they march. It fuels them, it cuts through the cold hard facts, and it awakens the courage to act like no data can.

In light of Mary’s subversive lyrics, I think it’s fitting we let Emma Goldman, the noted anarchist, have the last words. Emma loved to dance. One evening a boy took her aside, and with a grave face whispered to her that it did not behoove an agitator to dance, certainly not with such reckless abandon anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to become a force in the anarchist movement.

Emma was furious and told him to mind his own business. She was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into her face. She didn’t believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. The Cause could not expect her to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister.

"I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things." She wrote, “Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world — prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own closest comrades I would live my beautiful ideal. If I can’t dance, I don’t want your revolution.”

Do you hear the music? Have you answer its call and join the chorus? Born to us this day is a new and just world. Sing, Dance and be a part of the revolution.

23 de diciembre de 2007 - Con el Espíritu: Si, se puede - Frank Alton

Audio solamente.



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December 23, 2007 - The Spirit Against All Odds - Frank Alton

Matthew 1:18-25



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“The birth of Jesus took place in this way. When Jesus’ mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.” From the beginning of the story we’re given this huge clue about what is going on: Mary is pregnant by the Holy Spirit. Even before the story tells us what happens, before we know what will change, we know that this fact changes everything.

But Joseph doesn’t know. His initial actions are based on how it looks from the outside, namely that she’s bearing some other guy’s child. Here's his society’s rule about that: both the woman and the mans whose child it is get death by stoning -- assuming you know the identity of the father, and that the woman is seized in an area in which someone could have heard her screams if she cried out. Under those terms, Joseph’s response to news of Mary’s pregnancy is as humane as a first century Jewish man could be. The rule for his part was that he had to divorce her in order to show that his love for God was stronger than his love for Mary – there were simply no other options available to him as a faithful Jew. It was not his prerogative to forgive her and act out that forgiveness by consummating the marriage.

But even before having a dream, Joseph took one further step – he determined to divorce Mary secretly, so as not to cause her public humiliation. Joseph’s righteousness is clearly as much a matter of compassion as it is of strict obedience to the law. (Paul Nancarrow) Matthew sets up at the beginning of his Gospel an understanding that to be righteous means to do God’s will as understood in the new circumstances created by Jesus’ origin. In fact, the genealogy that comes right before this story shows us it’s not new. It’s the way God has always acted. Among the 42 fathers from Abraham to Jesus, Matthew inserts 5 mothers including Mary. All five – Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba & Mary - have in common; some seemingly sexual impropriety in connection with them or the conceptions of the sons in the line of David. The story of Jesus' birth follows as the story of Mary’s seemingly improper conception. Mary is found to be with child before she and Joseph are married.

So here’s the deal: we need rules, & we need to stretch rules. Rules make life predictable; to make meaning, we need things to be at least somewhat predictable. Rules are how we know what's what – especially with respect to really important matters. In some ways, you can tell what's really important in a culture by where it most sticks to rules -- things you do because that's how it's done.

For example, weddings are important in our culture. Women who are responsible for many others as heads of organizations, companies, or families often choose on their wedding day to be "given away" by their fathers -- not because they belong to their fathers to be given to another man, but just because "that's how it's done." Men who are already living and sharing household expenses with the woman they love go to incredible lengths to squirrel away enough to buy a diamond ring (& for a woman who doesn't wear jewelry) when they propose marriage because, well, "that's how it's done." (Sarah Dylan’s Blog)

Imagine that amped up about ten thousand times, and you have some idea of how serious Joseph’s culture was about what he needed to do. But Joseph understood righteousness to be as much a matter of compassion as it is of strict obedience to the law. And that was before he had the dream in which the angel told him that the child is of the Holy Spirit. Don’t miss that little detail: Joseph received the information in a dream. We the readers are told it as a fact. Of course we still have the choice to believe it or not. But we have history to help us make our decision. Joseph only had a dream. This was a defining moment for him. If he believed the dream that the child was of the Holy Spirit against all odds, he knew it would change every thing. He hadn’t awakened that day thinking he was facing a defining moment, but he was. He didn’t wake up thinking his life was about to change, but it was. His already stretched idea of righteousness that had made him decide to protect Mary from public humiliation was about to expand further. Going ahead with the marriage would expose both Mary & him to public scandal. To marry under those circumstances meant acting contrary to societal expectations; that certainly would be misunderstood & evaluated as shameful.

Have you ever faced a defining moment? Robert Coles, the child psychologist who wrote many books, including The Moral Life of Children, shares an interview with a fourteen-year-old boy, the first white youth to speak to a black youth in one of Atlanta's desegregated schools half a century ago. "I didn't want any part of them here. They belong with their own, and we belong with our own - that's what we all said. Then those two kids came here, and they had a tough time. They were all by themselves. The school had to get police protection for them. We didn't want them, and they knew it. We told them so, in case they were slow to get the message. I didn't hold back, no more than anyone else. But after a few weeks, I began to see a kid - a guy who knew how to smile when it was rough going, and who walked straight and tall, and was polite. I told my parents, 'It's a real shame that someone like him has to pay for the trouble caused by all those federal judges.'

"Then it happened. I saw a few people cuss at him. Soon they were pushing him in a corner, and it looked like trouble, bad trouble. I went over and broke it up. I said, 'Hey, cut it out.' They all looked at me as if I was crazy. But my buddies stopped, and the kid left. Before he left, though, I spoke to him. I didn't mean to, actually! It just came out of my mouth. I was surprised to hear the words myself: 'I'm sorry.' As soon as he was gone, my friend gave it to me: 'What do you mean, "I'm sorry"!' I didn't know what to say. After a few minutes, we all went to basketball practice. That was the strangest moment of my life."(pp. 27 - 28) Later on he confided to Robert Coles: "Something in me just drew the line, and something in me began to change, I think." (John Purdy, The Human Face of God)

It’s always risky to draw the line. It can go either way. You could be ostracized & have to start your life all over again. You could be tolerated as people allow the memory of what you did begin to fade. Or you could gain people’s respect for standing up for something. Joseph drew the line when he decided to go ahead with the marriage. The angel knew he had to be afraid as he made that decision. The “be not afraid” was dead on:“Fear not Joseph, son of David, You fear disgrace. You fear embarrassment and shame for yourself and for Mary. You fear public scandal. You fear that your reputation will suffer, but it will not happen. For out of this fear comes an opportunity that neither you nor your worthy ancestors could have imagined: you will become the guardian of God. You will be the protector of the Savior of the world. You, Joseph, will become the Stepfather to hope." Rev Craig Shirley quotes Peter Gomes, Harvard University’s Memorial Church.

When did something in you draw a line? Or is something calling you to do that now? What have you feared doing because of what it might bring to you? Is there some conviction you hold privately that you need to go public with in order to be a witness to God’s reign of peace, justice & healing? Is there some truth about yourself that you need to reveal to someone in order to become the one through whom God’s opportunity comes? Is there some act of forgiveness or compassion that you feel deeply called to carry out, but whose implementation could bring embarrassment and shame? Is there some relationship that needs reconciliation in which you could intervene, though you know that things could either get better or worse through your mediation?

The Bible tells us story after story in which the Spirit of God acts against the odds so that we might believe it enough to act in spite of our fears when the odds are not in our favor. But it’s different to be the reader & to be the actor. Joseph received the same information we did. As readers we can sit in our pews, hear the story for the umpteenth time, and applaud his courage. Joseph didn’t have that luxury. He needed to act that very day. How he acted depended in some sense on the degree to which over the years he had allowed his own spirit to be shaped by those same stories of God’s Spirit acting against the odds and against the dominant culture.

The reason we tell good stories over and over again is that they need to wrap themselves around our bones and our tendons; they need to take up residence in the synapses of our brains where the decisions are made about how we will act. That doesn’t usually happen through a single telling. The church tells the same stories every few years because we need to get those stories inside us in order to find what Paul Tillich called “the courage to be.”

But we still need to move from reader & hearer to actor. Joseph didn’t only have whatever Bible stories he had managed to get inside. He had a dream. We all have dreams. Some of them are pretty crazy. We’ve learned that dreams are a mechanism of our psyche that somehow processes our experiences but does not give us literal truth. We don’t usually look to them for life-changing messages. So why did Joseph?

Some spiritual traditions speak of something called discernment – an examination of one's internal reactions to God in prayer. There are different kinds, but one kind occurs when grace is so gently strong that the person praying has an inner assurance that the experience did not come from imagination but from God. Somehow it is impossible to doubt it. Now many of us could convince ourselves that God or an Angel spoke to us this morning. We need to “discern” which experiences are from God and which are not. Are they quiet? Do they lead toward God or away? What is the long-term result?

Joseph's dream may have been a movement of this kind. It contained a quiet certainty of the presence of God. It was like the face of mother to a child, like the voice of a close friend. This is where hearing the stories over and over impacts discernment. Joseph already had a storehouse of trust in God's love. He didn’t experience the storehouse as broken into, shattered or pulled to pieces by the dream. Instead the message fit right into the design of his life. And so he followed.

How does the message of the Christmas story fit into your life? Is God’s birth an impossible tale reserved for children? Or do you find the roots of trust within yourself as Joseph did? What is at stake is not whether or not we believe a 2000 year old tale. What is at stake is whether we will be able to overcome the fears that keep us from acting whenever life calls us to face the little deaths that keep confronting us. If the Spirit is alive in us it means that we are growing; and in almost every case, in order to grow, some part of us has to die – our rules, our reputation, our comfort, our security, our self image, etc. Unless we are willing to risk those parts of ourselves, we cannot grow to embrace more and more of life. Joseph’s experience encourages us to keep listening to the stories, to attend to the Spirit who acts against all odds; & to be open to the surprise of waking up on any given day to discover that we have to draw the line some where, when we had been expecting no such thing.

December 16, 2007 - Healing - Frank Alton

Isaiah 35:1-10; Matthew 11:2-11



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We continue looking at the signs of God’s coming – justice and peace last week; healing this week. I surprised myself at how theological I got last week as I spoke about peace & justice. I find the same thing happening this week as I approach the subject of healing. I’m not sure people are always ready for a heavy dose of theology on Sunday morning. But what I’m noticing is that the theology many of us learned growing up – or even as adults – actually blocks us from recognizing God’s coming rather than helping us to notice God’s presence. We need to rework our theology in order to open ourselves to what God brings to us.

I see Isaiah and Mathew’s Jesus making some new and challenging connections with healing. They connect healing and salvation in new ways. They relate healing and holiness differently. And Isaiah includes the healing of creation is a necessary part of the enterprise of redemption. First, there is a new connection between healing and salvation.

I spent yesterday morning listening to people who are preparing for ordained ministry in the Presbyterian Church share their statements of faith, motivation & service. I was impressed by the quality of the candidates in this particular group. They were people who seemed deeply centered & who had strong relational skills. They gave me hope for the future of the church. At the same time I was disturbed by a discrepancy that I noticed between their statements of faith and their understanding of ministry. One preached a sermon with some moving stories of ministries of compassion. He spoke eloquently about an experience of visiting a very poor community in Africa where people were dying of AIDS, and where many children were being orphaned. He seemed to understand that serving in such contexts was a necessary and natural outgrowth of the Gospel. But when a committee member asked how he understood the ministry he had witnessed in Africa, he could only see the compassionate part of the ministry as motivation for people finding eternal spiritual salvation. His theology placed a hierarchy over the difference between eternal salvation and temporal healing.

Over the years I have come to see a more central place for healing – in the world, in other people, and mostly in my own life. That, in turn, has led me to explore the role of healing in the Scriptures. I have discovered that over the centuries the church lost touch with major parts of Jesus’ ministry by focusing too much on one part. Almost everything else was shoved aside in favor of an emphasis on humanity’s need for legal salvation in which God the judge sends Jesus to die so that people can avoid the punishment of eternal damnation for their sins and be granted eternal life. We miss so much of the beauty of what God is about in the world by insisting that everything pass through that filter.

Let me offer a different view – one that emerges clearly from the two texts we read this morning. Remember that Advent is the season in which we prepare for God’s coming. We have said that God keeps coming to us, and that a major part of preparing is learning to notice what it’s like when God is around. Isaiah and Jesus offer the same list of signs of God’s coming – though Isaiah offers some important additional ones. Isaiah writes: “Here is your God… God will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.” Later, when John asks if Jesus is really the one who is to come and reveal God, Jesus answered: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” The only difference is the verb tense. For Isaiah everything is future. For Jesus everything is present.

In the Gospel, healing is the major sign of God’s coming. It is as if the Gospel is saying, “When you see a lot of healing going on, be aware that God is present in that place.” It’s no accident that we have missed that insight. A theologian named Martin Kähler years ago described Matthew’s Gospel as a Passion story with an extended introduction. In other words, the main part of the story is the part about Jesus dying; the healing stories are just filler. That view held sway for many years. The real Gospel story is Jesus’ sacrificial death for our sin. But Jesus spoke very negatively about sacrifice.

When the religious leaders criticized Jesus for eating with sinners, he used healing imagery to contrast sacrifice: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’” (9:13) Later he was criticized for allowing his disciples to satisfy their hunger by plucking heads of grain on the Sabbath he responded, “If you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.” (12:7) Isn’t it odd, then, that the Gospel would be summarized as Jesus’ self sacrifice when Jesus himself spoke so negatively about sacrifice? Today some are coming to see now that the healing stories are actually a central part of the overall story. I have mentioned that sozo, the Greek word for salvation, also means healing. Sometimes it is translated salvation, and sometimes healing. That ambiguity has to elevate the importance of healing against the backdrop of a view of salvation that is only legal: Jesus died for our sins to pay the price that would satisfy the demands of God, the judge.

Who wouldn’t want healing? Well, it turns out that not everyone does. That brings us to the second new connection that Isaiah and Jesus brought to the picture: the connection between healing and holiness. Jesus did not fare well for healing all kinds of people of their diseases. The great offense that led to his death was that he bucked the system by offering healing and forgiveness to those whom the system kept safely on the margins of “decent society.” They called it blasphemy, and concluded that it was “better that one man die for the sake of the people” (John 11:49) than the whole national system of achieving salvation be destroyed.

Again, both Isaiah and Jesus introduced a different relationship between healing and holiness. Isaiah uses the image of “The Holy Way.” In the orthodoxy of his day the holy way was reserved for those who were ritually clean. Isaiah writes that the unclean shall not pass it by; it shall be for them. (35:8 footnote NRSV) Whether that means that the unclean shall be cleansed, or that the definition of holiness no longer requires separation from those who are ritually unclean, Isaiah is speaking Gospel into a very oppressive situation.

Jesus was more implicit in his treatment of holiness but the message is the same. He knew that the religious leaders would take offense at his inclusiveness toward the infirm. So he said, “blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” Then he went on to talk about John the Baptist as one who offended many because he didn’t follow the rules of the system about where holy people hang out and what they look like.

We still wrestle with the relationship between healing and holiness. At Immanuel I have seen this over and over. People are attracted to something different about the way people relate at Immanuel. It is different from other churches. And it is different from what they experience at work, in their neighborhoods, in school and other settings of their lives. There is an acceptance of people just as they are – especially people who don’t find broad acceptance elsewhere. Even people who are generally accepted socially are attracted to a community like that, because all of us have parts of ourselves that we don’t find acceptable. To find a community that might accept that part of me meets a very deep longing.

But sometimes the belief system we learned in church growing up doesn’t match that acceptance. I can’t believe it’s true that God accepts those parts of me or of another that I don’t find acceptable to myself. So Immanuel must be wrong to be so inclusive, even though I wish it were right. Now I also know that there are things about the way people relate at Immanuel that are very unattractive. When we blame, shame and attack each other it makes people want to flee from us. For me, however, that just proves the point. We respond to others by blaming, shaming and attacking because that is how adults responded to the parts of us that were unattractive or unacceptable. We are a community of wounded human beings, so we will never be fully consistent in the way we treat each other. But in the midst of our imperfections, there is something beautiful that comes from a view of God that is rooted in grace and compassion rather than judgment and punishment. As we discover that we will treat each other more and more with that same grace and compassion rather than blame, shame and attack. It turns out that the Gospel offers good news about how holy a person has to be in order to be healed.

Finally, the Gospel offers a new connection between healing and creation. Isaiah helps us see that the healing isn’t just human healing. Creation itself is healed: “Waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water.” Our generation needs this dimension of healing like never before. This past week the United Nations Conference on Global Warming taking place in Bali, Indonesia was front and center in the news. The crisis of global warming forces us to face the truth that it is impossible to save some without saving all. The Africans have known this all along. It is the meaning of their word “Ubuntu.” Archbishop Desmond Tutu said: “A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.” We need to say the same about entire societies and about all of creation. The United States cannot save its economy at the expense of the global environment. Even though it is expected that developing countries will suffer the effects of global warming first and worst, every nation will be severely impacted by it.

At one level we are already experiencing in our personal lives the impact of failing to attend to the healing of the planet. The other night a few of us were talking about all the new things to be concerned about with little babies. From lead in toys to pesticides in food, it would be easy to say, “We grew up with them and it didn’t kill us.” But what we realized is that many of us grew up in a world where those may have been the only contaminants we consumed. Today we all breathe, drink, eat, touch, and are simply exposed to, pollution on every front. The Gospel offers healing to a polluted creation, not just to the people who are poisoned by the very elements they have poisoned.

December 9, 2007 - Justice and Peace - Frank Alton

Text only.

Isaiah 11:1-10

A friend and colleague of mine told me a story a few months ago that has really stuck with me. The church he pastors is going to engage in a building project that will displace a childcare center that has served families in the area for many years. The church obviously had concerns about how to break the news to the preschool without alienating those involved. Some time after notification had been given, one of the Board members of the childcare center asked permission to come to a meeting of the church’s governing body to present their case. To people’s surprise he gave a slide presentation that showed imaginative plans for the growth and renewal of the childcare center. There was no anger or resentment in the person’s voice; only creative imagination and relational power. It was so striking and attractive that someone asked how he could take the loss of the space so casually. He basically replied that the nature of leadership involves precisely that kind of response. What he actually said was, “when people say ‘I’ll believe it when I see it,’ the leader responds, “I believe it because I see it.” The leadership of the childcare center saw a future vision beyond and through the loss.

The 11th chapter of Isaiah describes a future leader who will see in the way that board member described leaders. And the picture Isaiah sees that future leader bringing into focus is one of justice and of peace – two pieces of Immanuel’s core vision, and two consistent themes of the Advent season year after year. The church has understood that future leader as the promised Messiah, whom Christians see as Jesus. That’s why we always read these texts during Advent. But we must acknowledge that Isaiah was contemplating a leader closer at hand – a king at the horizon of the eighth century BCE. The two visions come together when we realize that the text is not to serve as a prediction but as a way of linking Jewish expectation and the compelling reality of Jesus. The point of the vision at both horizons is to introduce a new way of seeing rather than a particular seer.

The final verse we read paints a picture of people everywhere inquiring of that leader. The 12th chapter goes on to show the people bearing grateful witness to that new way of seeing. What, then, is the new way of seeing? How is it that we come to see things before they are visible to the eye? Isaiah describes it as seeing “with” rather than seeing “what.” In the first half of the passage it is about seeing with justice. In the second half it is about seeing peace with imagination – a vision that comes from inside rather than a perception of what is outside as viewed through the senses.

What does it mean to judge “with” rather than “what?” Isaiah describes justice more as a lens than an object. “The root of Jesse shall not judge by what the eye sees, or what the ear hears; but will judge the poor with righteousness, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.” Isaiah writes in Hebrew poetry and uses the words righteousness and equity as two words for the same value – the value of justice. There was a deep and primal conviction throughout the ancient Near East generally and in Israel particularly, that the royal government is the equalizer, to intervene on behalf of the poor and the vulnerable (widows and orphans) who are unable to supply their own social leverage. And insofar as this text illuminates Jesus’ ministry, it is a reminder that Jesus was received, celebrated, & eventually crucified precisely for his embodiment and practice of this vision of social possibility.

Walter Breuggemann connects this vision to our own reality: “It is impossible to overstate the cruciality of this vision of justice for the coming ideal king, the importance of which is evident in a society like ours, wherein governmental power is largely in the hands of the wealthy & powerful and is operated almost exclusively to their own advantage and benefit. Such an arrangement of public power is a complete contradiction of the biblical vision of government.” Breuggemann, Isaiah 1-39 Westminster Bible Commentary p 101

But for Isaiah, while justice is acted out in the here and now, it is not rooted in what is out there – what can be seen and heard & perceived with the senses. Justice is rooted inside, at the spiritual center of our lives. That means that justice doesn’t depend as much on a careful review of the merits of individual cases as on seeing the world through God’s eyes. It is not a question of, “Does this particular poor person deserve compensation? Does this particular powerless person warrant a favorable ruling?” Justice comes from a right judging; and right judging is judging “with” the eyes of God rather than “what” the physical eye might perceive.

In the second half of the text Isaiah switches to imagining peace, though it appears as a switch to the animal kingdom. There will be conciliation and peaceableness among these species that have been at war with each other since the beginning of time. All things will be new in creation when God fully authorizes the right human agents. The distortion of human relationships is at the root of all distortions in creation. Peace is rooted in justice, and justice must issue in a reign of peace. Isaiah reveals that peace requires seeing with imagination, which once again involves a vision coming from inside rather than a perception of what is outside as viewed through the senses.

The image of the peaceable kingdom is a familiar one to many – the wolf living with the lamb, a little child leading them. The reign of peace initiated by the Heir will transform the entire created order; not only will nations cease from warfare, but even natural enemies, predators and prey, will not hurt or destroy. Cows and bears, lions and oxen, snakes and human children will coexist without injury or harm. It is the fullness of Peace—the Harmony of harmonies, reconciling intensities in mutual richness of life; shalom, wholeness, completeness, shared well-being. All this will happen because the earth—not just the human population, but the entire world-fabric itself—“will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” The vision proposes that real human societies can strive to embody in the greatest degree possible to them the coordinated aims of God for creation. While no actual earthly society—no human community and no ecosystem—may be able to achieve the fullness of Peace under the conditions of this world, the vision serves as an ideal against which any society – say ours – can be measured. It invites the question, “What signs of this fullness of Peace can we see emerging in our own difficult time?” And, “What concrete actions might we take to further embody the divine ideals Isaiah reveals to us here?”

Yet, in the same way that the practice of justice is rooted in our spiritual center, so the vision of peace starts on the inside. In both cases the question that really matters to us during Advent as a season of spiritual practice is, “What is the path to seeing? How do we come to see like that?” Here we have to go back to the previous chapter in Isaiah. The reason there was only a stump of Jesse at the beginning of chapter 11 is that all the tallest trees had been cut down, and the thickets of the forest had been hacked down with an ax. (10:33-34) Chapter 11 opens with a picture of a dry tree stump lying alone in what used to be a forest. But out of the dry stump a shoot had begun to emerge. Since to the Hebrew mind the Spirit is the one whose presence or absence signaled life or death, it is natural for Isaiah to immediately begin talking about the Spirit: “The spirit of the Lord shall rest on that one, the spirit of wisdom & understanding, counsel & might, knowledge and the fear of God” (11:2). That is the precursor to judging with rather than what.

What is happening here? Isaiah is pointing out that in order to follow in God’s way of seeing and judging, a person must develop the openness to experience loss as both good and bad, rather than as merely bad. Do you recognize this? It is precisely the quality that the member of the childcare center’s board demonstrated. The loss had not devastated him. Instead, it became the vehicle for a new vision.

This perspective is rooted in a rereading of the creation story. Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden. Were they being punished, or were they being taught? Did our archetypes of the human race, succeed or fail? Joan Chittester shares the story of her own movement from the view she was taught by the nuns as a child, that when Adam and Eve were expelled it was a punishment for the mess they had made of things. She discovered a different answer when she realized that Adam and Eve were not quasi-divine beings who utterly failed in their vocation, such that God has had to clean up their mess ever since. They were human; “the eating of the fruit was the most humanizing thing they did. What if the real message in the Garden story is that it is of the essence of humanity to stumble from apple tree to apple tree, trying to get it right, searching for ‘the difference between good and evil’ but able to learn it only the hard way? Then the lesson was not that God was angry that Adam and Eve were not gods, but that God knew it was necessary for them to learn that they were human, that life would not be easy, that there would be pitfalls aplenty, and that they could survive them one after the other after the other.” (Chittester, There is a Season, p. 25-26)

Under that view, the text from Isaiah invites us to a cycle of life that involves being open to loss, such that loss leads to wisdom. The wisdom creates space to welcome the poor and the meek into a realm of justice. Some who are so welcomed will become open themselves, such that rights are transformed into gifts and failures into necessary and redemptive mistakes. That transformation creates the space in them to carry forward the work for justice with others.
How do we cultivate life on that path? The spiritual guides of many generations answer in the same way: we cultivate that through the practice of contemplation. Contemplation is a long, loving look at the real. We open ourselves to the silence and solitude of being dry stumps in what others falsely perceive to be a living forest. “The contemplative is the one among us in whom prayer, deep reflection on the presence and activity of God in the self and the world, has come little by little to extinguish the illusions of autonomy and the enthronement of the self that make little kingdoms of us all. The contemplative goes beyond the self, and all its delusions, to the boundlessness of life and the consuming presence of God here and now.” (Chittester)

This is challenging in our world. Our worlds have become so filled with noise and stimulation from the outside that we can no longer even know how to cultivate the rich life of the soul. Ipods and muzak make sure we never know silence. Cellular telephones guarantee that we are never be alone. Wireless internet on our computers allows us to bring the world into every nook and cranny of our lives.

How is this related to peace and justice? “It is what we lack in ourselves that agitates us. What we do not have in our own hearts we will always look for someplace else. What we do not cultivate within ourselves we will always demand from others. If we have not learned how to live a rich inner life, we will want the tinsel and glitter of the world around us and someone else’s money to get it. If we have not set ourselves to the task of self-development, we will want without end someone else’s skills, someone else’s gifts, someone else’s advantages. If we are insecure, we will demand the control of others. If we have not come to peace with our own life, we will make combat with the people around us. If we have not learned to listen to our own struggles, we will never have compassion on the struggles of others.” (Chittester, Time, p. 108).