Tag Archives: sermons

May 17, 2013

Monster Friday Link Love: Link Love’s Out for Summer!

Yes… I’ve decided to take a break from Friday Link Love through the summer, at least. I will still link to stuff at Twitter and Facebook, and will probably drop a link here and there occasionally. But this summer is too squirrelly to commit to a regular posting schedule, so I’m hanging out my Gone Fishin’ sign on this feature.

But we’re going out with a bang! TON of stuff today. A couple of gleanings from social media and some other random stuff. Away we go:

Here We Are Now Entertain Us — Running Chicken

This week Jan blogged about TED Talks, the Moth, and sermons and said, “one of these is not like the other”. Why are sermons viewed as boring? she asks. How can we sharpen our proclamation by listening to these other forms of communication? As a huge fan of The Moth, and a semi fan of TED, this is a great question and one to explore. Good discussion in the comments of her blog.

But I am also compelled by this post, which questions the rise of edutainment:

Most importantly, is the central claim [by Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, in a recent interview] that the test of education is whether or not it’s entertaining. Wales asks, “why wouldn’t you have the most entertaining professor, the one with the proven track record of getting knowledge into people’s heads?” Is there evidence that the most entertaining lecture is the one that gets “knowledge into people’s heads”? Again, I’m not suggesting that a boring lecture is going to do the trick, but I’m arguing that entertaining students doesn’t necessarily equate with teaching them something.

When I lecture on Kant, I don’t think I’m really entertaining my students. In my opinion, Kant’s Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals doesn’t lend itself to entertainment; it’s a dense text that needs some serious explication. Now, I don’t speak in a monotone and I try to find relevant examples to help them make sense of the material, but I’m not standing in front of the class hoping that they’ll all have a great time; I’m standing there with the express purpose of teaching them about Kant.

At the risk of a “get off my lawn” moment… Yes.

I read a New Yorker profile about TED not long ago and came away a bit soured. TED talks are very formulaic—not necessarily a bad thing, I’ll admit—but the organizers work with presenters to make their content fit their rigorous. This includes dumbing down some material. Do we really want to go down that road?

Why Rituals Work — Scientific American

Recent research suggests that rituals may be more rational than they appear. Why? Because even simple rituals can be extremely effective. Rituals performed after experiencing losses – from loved ones to lotteries – do alleviate grief, and rituals performed before high-pressure tasks – like singing in public – do in fact reduce anxiety and increase people’s confidence. What’s more, rituals appear to benefit even people who claim not to believe that rituals work.

A nice argument for living “as if.” Which is what I see in a lot of church work.

…We found that people who wrote about engaging in a ritual reported feeling less grief than did those who only wrote about the loss.

Arts and Faith — Loyola Press

This site is just getting going but looks very promising: “Explore stories about musicians, crafters, dancers, painters, and more, who demonstrate the many inspiring (and surprising) ways art can deepen your relationship with God.”

Orchestra Hidden Camera Prank — YouTube

Somebody asked me recently where I get all my links for FLL. The fun thing is that people have started sending me stuff. Here’s one example. Pretty cute:

Keep Your ‘Someday’ List from Being Clutter — David Caolo, Unclutterer

A little bit of Getting Things Done jiu jitsu—this is good advice even if you’re not a disciple of David Allen as I am:

In GTD, “visit Japan” is not a task, it’s a project. Fortunately, my old job helped me get good at breaking complex behaviors (or in this case, projects) down into very small, observable, concrete actions. Perhaps “discuss life in Japan with uncle who used to live there” is a doable first step. Maybe “research seasonal weather in Japan” or “find a well-written book on Japanese customs or food” could be other first steps. In breaking down the project, two things happen.

First, I feel like I’m making progress on this huge task, rather than letting it stagnate. Second, I’ll get a true measure of my willingness to go through with completing the project completely. If my interest wanes, I can safely remove it from the list as Merlin suggested. If I have an increase in interest that will suggest motivation, and I’ll continue to devise small steps that move me closer to completing the project.

Photo Series of a Young Girl Dressed Up as Great Women Throughout History — Peta Pixel

A photographer wanted to commemorate her daughter’s fifth birthday:

My daughter wasn’t born into royalty, but she was born into a country where she can now vote, become a doctor, a pilot, an astronaut, or even President if she wants and that’s what REALLY matters.

The resulting photo series has Emma dressed and posed as five influential women from the history books, with a presidential photo thrown in at the end. My favorite:

H/t Facebook friend Jeanny House.

While we’re on photography:

The Art of Being at the Right Place at the Right Time — Colossal

If you’ve seen Dewitt Jones’s now-classic DVD, Everyday Creativity, you know he talks about putting yourself in the place of most potential. This photographer has clearly done that—as Christopher notes on Colossal, she must never be without a camera, because she’s able to capture things like this:

Much more at the link.

The Threat of Literalism — Ken Kovacs

A friend and colleague pens this:

James Hollis, Jungian analyst and writer, suggests that literalism is actually a form of religious blasphemy because it seeks to concretize (nail down, define) and absolutize the core experience of the Holy, of God – a God, if God, who cannot be controlled or defined; a God, as theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968) insisted, who was Wholly Other, a God who remains ultimately a mystery. And a mystery is not the same thing as a puzzle (which can be solved); a mystery is always enigmatic and is therefore inherently unknowable. The German theologian Gerhard Tersteegen (1697-1769) reminded us, “A God comprehended is no God.”

How about closing with two links from my alma mater, Rice University?

Neil deGrasse Tyson to Grads: Future of Exploration in Your Hands – Rice.edu

HOW LUCKY IS THE CLASS OF 2013 TO GET NdGT AS COMMENCEMENT SPEAKER?!?

We got Elizabeth Dole, which… eh.

Tyson, whose wife, Alice Young, is a Rice alumna, challenged the new graduates to become part of the new drive to discover. “There is no solution to a problem that does not embrace all we have created as a species,” he said. “The original seeds of the space program were planted right here on this campus, and I can tell you that in the years since we have landed on the moon, America has lost its exploratory compass.

Also: some straight talk about what motivates humanity to explore:

War, money and the praise of royalty and deity. He noted Kennedy’s speech at Rice that laid out the plan to go to the moon followed one a year earlier to Congress that first proposed the adventure.

“We haven’t been honest with ourselves about that,” he said, reciting the part of JFK’s 1962 speech to Congress that appears in a monument at the Kennedy Space Center. What’s missing, he said, is a reference to the war driver: in this case, Yuri Gagarin’s orbital mission for the Soviet Union six weeks earlier.

“No one has ever spent big money just to explore,” he said. “No one has ever done that. I wish they did, but they don’t. We went to the moon on a war driver.”

(And in case you missed it, here’s a bonus link that had a lot of social media buzz: John Green’s commencement speech to Butler. Top-notch.

Shimmering Chain-link Fence Installation by Soo Sunny Park – Colossal

How exciting to see the Rice Art Gallery featured on Colossal! Wish I could see this in person. Plexi-glass and chain link:

Peace be with you, friends.

May 13, 2013

The Hour Has Come: A Sermon for NEXT Church

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Cross-posted at the NEXT Church website.

By MaryAnn McKibben Dana

I was honored to preach at the Presbytery of Sheppards and Lapsley at their stated meeting on May 9, 2013. It was a bit of an introduction to NEXT Church. I share it here in hopes that others will find it a helpful taste of what we’re about:

The Hour Has Come

John 2:1-11

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it.

When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

Many preachers I know have a love-hate relationship with the gospel of John. The Jesus in John is just so muscular. I don’t mean that in the sense of brawny, I mean… he’s so capable. Confident. Free of angst. Every move he makes is deliberate. There is no sweating blood in the garden in John, no cry of anguish on the cross, no “My God my God why have you forsaken me?” (Yes, he does say “I’m thirsty,” but John is quick to assure us: He didn’t really need a drink; he just said that to fulfill the scriptures.)

This is a man who knows what he’s doing at every moment. And that’s a comforting thing. But it’s also what makes John’s Jesus really hard to relate to. Jesus is never, ever caught off guard.

Except… here. Here, in this story, we get a little bit of a different picture than the Jesus we meet in most of John. He seems caught a bit off guard. Plus, this is Jesus’ first sign, and it feels different from the others. There are seven in all, and in case you need a review, here they are in no particular order:

- Walking on water.

- Three healings.

- Feeding 5,000 people with the contents of a child’s picnic.

- Raising a guy from the dead.

- And… restocking the bar at a wedding.

One of these signs is not like the other.

* * *

Jesus’ mother comes to him: “They have no more wine.” It’s a statement… that’s really a question. A request. And Jesus gets that, because he responds to what remains unsaid: No mother, that is not my concern. This is not mine to do.

Mary is saying to him, Look… here is an opportunity.

And Jesus responds: Really? Beverage service? For my inaugural sign? I don’t think so. Anyway, my hour has not yet come.

And she turns toward everyone else: Do what he tells you. And again there is a subtext: Yes, your hour has come. You are needed, right now, right here.

I love that Jesus’ first sign is one he never intended to make.

Jesus, it seems, had a plan. He had something in mind for his first sign. I’m not sure what he hoped his first sign would be, but water into wine wasn’t it. I bet it was something great. Maybe he was planning to heal an entire household in one fell swoop. Maybe a nice juicy exorcism. Later he would walk on water; maybe he was going to kick things off by flying through the air like Superman.

But instead he realizes that when it comes to sign #1… mother does know best. And of course, it’s not just about the wine—it’s about hospitality, it’s about providing something amazing for a whole village of people. It’s about God’s abundance. So yes, he’s in.

He looks around: What’s here that I can use? He scopes out his provisions like some kind of Palestinian MacGyver, and he finds 6 water jars.

Uh-oh. Six.

You remember the number 7 as a holy number in scripture. It is a number of perfection, completion. The seven days of creation. Seventh day as the day of rest. Seven signs in the gospel of John, seven churches in the book of Revelation.

But there are only 6 jars. Not good. In the ancient world, 6 was not a holy number. Far from it. Six was seen as a deficient number, imperfect, lacking. So we can see why Jesus would be reluctant to act—wine from seven jars would be a fabulously meaningful sign, dripping with significance. But the tools aren’t right. Things aren’t quite right. Six jars is somehow not enough.

I serve a small congregation in Northern Virginia that has grown from about 70 to about 85 in the last few years. We rejoice at this growth. And we are grateful to have a number of things going for us. We own our building; it’s not too big for us, not too overwhelming for the budget. We have a small endowment. We have great people and an excitement about the future.

And yet… and yet… even with all of those gifts, it is still hard to move forward.
It’s difficult to find the money to do what we want and need to do.
It’s tough to find the people power to move forward on projects and ministries that we feel passionate about.
It’s nearly impossible to figure out how to cut through the noise of the DC area so that our neighbors will know who we are and what we believe and why we’d like them to be a part of it.

It feels sometimes like a six jar situation.

And I wonder if you, too, look around your congregation, or your presbytery, and see six jars.
If we could just catch a break,
if we could just finish that camp,
if we could just get a few more young people to join our church,
if we could just hire a pastor—then, then, we could be the sign that we really want to be, the sign we’ve always dreamed of being.

Maybe you, like Jesus, feel like the timing is off. Jesus says his hour has not come, but for many of us, we feel like our hour is past. The statistics about membership decline in the PC(USA) are repeated so often that they have become a cliché. So many churches, here and around the country, are doing faithful ministry but without the means to call a pastor. Our buildings need maintenance. Meanwhile, a recent Barna survey of pastors and found that 90% of pastors said the ministry was completely different than what they thought it would be like before they entered the ministry. And an astounding 70% say they have a lower self-image now than when they first started.

We’re discouraged.

We’re a day late and a jar short.

Unless.
Unless it’s not up to us to perform a sign, but simply to be the sign.
Unless we worship a God of possibility.
Unless John’s Jesus, our Jesus, can take our jars and look at the clock on the wall and say, “Forget what time it is. I can work with this.”

For the last couple of years I’ve been honored to be a part of the leadership of the NEXT Church. This is a movement within the Presbyterian Church (USA) that has been working to celebrate the places of health in the church and to support those places and help them propagate. The premise of NEXT Church is that the church is not dying. The church is changing, and changing quickly. And we are capable of change, but we can’t wait for Louisville or presbytery or our pastors to do it for us. We are the church.

Last year we hosted half a dozen regional events around the country where ruling elders and teaching elders came together not to transact business or kvetch about presbytery, or argue about ordination standards or gay marriage. They came together to share resources and inspiration. They formed relationships and partnerships.

NEXT Church recently had our national gathering in Charlotte, and we heard about churches that were on life support who turned their worship life around through improv and storytelling. We heard about a large church partnering with a small church through an adminstrative commission. We heard about congregations coming together through community organizing to transform entire neighborhoods.

You can hear these stories and many more on our website. What’s interesting is that many of these folks were reluctant to speak at the conference because they felt like what they had to offer wasn’t all that radical. I’m no expert, they would shrug. They might as well have said, “Eh, I’ve only got six jars.” But their testimonies set the place on fire.

When we offer up those jars… when we fill them to the brim, like those servants did… well, that’s when the good wine starts to flow.

* * *

We’ll never know what Jesus had in mind for his inaugural sign. But it’s significant to me that his first sign wasn’t a healing… it wasn’t an exorcism or a sermon or feeding 5,000 people. It wasn’t a life or death situation at all. The first sign of Jesus helped the hosts of the wedding save face, but otherwise it had very little utility. It was just an act of pure beauty. The party needs to go on, says Jesus. The love and fellowship should continue.

Water into wine is such a small sign. But maybe this sign is just the sign we need. Jean Varnier, founder of the L’Arche Community, reminds us: “A community is only being created when its members accept that they are not going to achieve great things, that they are not going to be heroes. Community is only being created when they have recognized that the greatness of man is to accept his insignificance, his human condition and his earth, and to thank God for having put in a finite body the seeds of eternity which are visible in small and daily gestures of love and forgiveness.”

We get mixed up sometimes. We want to save the church. We want to save the world! But maybe it’s enough to keep the feast going for as long as we can—not cautiously, not fearfully, but brimming over with hope and trust that the wine will flow as long as God means it to.

Maybe God is preparing us for something really, really—small:

Beauty, joy, community, friendship, hospitality.

I will drink to that. How about you?

MaryAnn McKibben is co-chair of NEXT Church. She is a frequent speaker and workshop leader and author of Sabbath in the Suburbs: A Family’s Experiment with Holy Time. She blogs at The Blue Room.

photo credit: Paco CT via photopin cc

Apr 21, 2013

Answer Me These Questions Three: A Sermon Post-Boston

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I’m off-sync from most of you in terms of lectionary… but here’s what I preached Sunday morning:

MaryAnn McKibben Dana
Idylwood Presbyterian Church
April 21, 2013
John 21:1-19
Fourth Sunday of Easter

Answer Me These Questions Three

After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. ²Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin,^* Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples.³Simon Peter said to them, ‘I am going fishing.’ They said to him, ‘We will go with you.’ They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

4 Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. ⁵Jesus said to them, ‘Children, you have no fish, have you?’ They answered him, ‘No.’ ⁶He said to them, ‘Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.’ So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish.⁷That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, ‘It is the Lord!’ When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the lake. ⁸But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards^* off.

9 When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. ¹⁰Jesus said to them, ‘Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.’ ¹¹So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. ¹²Jesus said to them, ‘Come and have breakfast.’ Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they knew it was the Lord. ¹³Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. ¹⁴This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my lambs.’ ¹⁶A second time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Tend my sheep.’ ¹⁷He said to him the third time, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ And he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep. ¹⁸Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.’ ¹⁹(He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, ‘Follow me.’

The headline appeared over an article in The Guardian newspaper (online) this week:

News is bad for you – giving up reading it will make you happier

The subtitle elaborates: News is bad for your health. It leads to fear and aggression, and hinders your creativity and ability to think deeply. The solution? Stop consuming it altogether.

The article goes on and lists a few of the reasons:

News can mislead. It highlights events in a sensational way to the point that we are convinced that things are much worse than they are
News activates the fearful, reactive side of us.
Panicky stories release cortisol, which impacts our immune system and makes us function poorly.
News stories make us feel passive, because so many of them are about things that are beyond our control.

There were many other reason listed, with a blunt conclusion: don’t consume news:

Society needs journalism, but in a different way. Investigative journalism is always relevant. We need reporting that polices our institutions and uncovers truth. But important findings don’t have to arrive in the form of news.

Don’t consume news, the article concludes; consume long-form articles and books instead.[1]

I don’t see our 24/7 culture taking hold of that message and putting CNN and Fox News out of business anytime soon. But if any week could possibly convince us, it was this one. It was a terrible, heavy, tragic week. It got to the point, round about the time of the Senate’s vote on universal background checks for gun purchases, that I was clicking on Facebook and news sites with one hand over my eyes. And by the time a fertilizer plant exploded in the sweet little town of West, Texas, and by the time the Des Plaines River had overflowed its banks in Chicago after torrential rains, I had my hands over my proverbial ears singing Lalalala I can’t hear you.

Add to that the chronic sadness that hums around us all the time—in the form of illnesses, family strife, poverty, the everyday tugs and squabbles and griefs, and it feels like too much. Just way, way too much.

It may not be much consolation, but Jesus’ friends were also dealing with too much—way, way, too much—though admittedly, a different kind of too-much. Jesus, their friend and teacher, the one they had pledged to follow has died and apparently, been raised. I say “apparently” because yes, he’s appeared to them, two strange and fleeting visits in the house where they’re staying, but nothing lasting, no lengthy teachings or long road trips, nothing permanent they can hold onto. He just pops up when they least expect it, like some holy Jack in the Box. From that first resurrection moment in the garden when Mary Magdalene grabs hold of Jesus and he says “Don’t hang on to me,” Jesus seems intent on giving them just a little glimpse and then—gone.

It’s all very disorienting. Is he out there or not? Is he raised or not? Is it true or just their imaginations? Who can say? It’s all very heavy, man.

So what do they do? They go fishing.

There’s a saying in family systems thinking: “When we don’t know what to do, we do what we know.” The emotions of the week prior have stunned them, and Peter most of all. He’s always been the one who’s wanted to get it right.

Don’t wash my feet, Jesus. Oh, you’re supposed to? Then wash my whole body.
Deny you three times? Not only will I never deny you, I will die alongside you!

Peter is that guy that makes grand promises and really means it, but just can’t deliver. So the events of the last couple of weeks aren’t just disorienting. They have held up a mirror to Peter’s every weakness, every good intention gone awry, every last failure.

So he goes fishing.
He doesn’t know what to do, so he does what he knows.

And so do we, yes? Perhaps that’s why couples have the same arguments over and over. Or why some companies cling to outdated business models when faced with an uncertain new future. Or why churches look at a changing landscape of decline and instead of saying, “Let’s be open to something radically new,” we say, “Let’s keep doing what we’re doing, just more so.”

“Doing what we know” also explains much of the rhetoric of the past week. There’s never been a week exactly like April 14-20, 2013, and yet the public discourse seems sadly familiar. When we don’t know what to do, we do what we know. We retreat to our camps and our talking points:

This is about Muslims coming to get us.
This is about needing to keep immigrants out.
Where did those two young men get all those guns and explosives? We need gun control!

It’s about the same old things it’s always about. And everyone’s susceptible to it.

And I wonder whether Jesus is… wherever Jesus is, taking all this in and saying, Stop making it about your own pet issues. You are missing the point.

There’s been a lot of speculation by preachers and commentators about this “Do you love me” business. Why “Do you love me?” What kind of person asks, “Do you love me?” An insecure person, sometimes. For some, “Do you love me” is right up there with “Does this outfit make me look fat?” But I don’t know. I don’t see the Lord of all creation as needing validation.

And why three times? Well, three is the number of completeness in scripture. It’s also a common narrative device. Three little pigs, three little bears, three questions from Jesus. But notice, each exchange is not exactly the same. Jesus changes it up a little, feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep… eh, that doesn’t feel like much, but Peter. Peter goes somewhere. The first couple of times he just… answers. “Yes Lord, you know that I love you.” Like a teenager: Yes Mom, curfew’s at 11. No Dad, I won’t do anything stupid.

But the third time… the third time Peter is hurt. The question finally pierces the armor and hits a tender place, and Peter is laid bare.

He feels hurt, that Jesus would keep questioning him.
He feels hurt…
He feels.

Last week one of you came out of the sanctuary and told me about an encounter you’d had with a homeless person. That’s such a hard one. Do you give money, do you not? If you don’t give money shouldn’t you at least look at the person rather than ignore? This is a human being, after all. And you know what? It’s supposed to be hard. That never gets easy, because love is not easy. It’s not an easy, perfunctory love that Jesus calls us to.

I’d like it to be easy.

…I am so tired of people killing each other. I’m sure you’re tired of it too. Maybe you want to just tune out and stop listening. These events seem to come at us so relentlessly that it’s easier to change the channel, keep it all at arms’ length, and retreat into our talking points. But we can’t.

Because when a bomb goes off in Boston or in Baghdad, Jesus asks us, “Do you love me?”
And every time a teenager is shot on the south side of Chicago, it’s Jesus again. “Do you love me?”
Whether it’s a family losing their homes in Washington, or an earthquake in China, or a town in Texas that lost some of its bravest fire fighters and emergency workers, the ones that ventured into the fire, there’s that question again. “Do you love me?”

And that doesn’t mean we are called to respond to every piece of bad news that we encounter. Not everything is ours to do. But we do have to confront that relentless question every time. Because that’s Jesus there, devasted in Boston and Baghdad, that’s Jesus, sorting through the rubble in China and in West Texas.

Jesus asked Peter because he needed to see evidence of it.
Do you love me? Prove it. Follow me.

Fred Craddock was the keynote speaker at a conference at Clemson University. Before his lecture a young woman was going to begin the program with a devotional. She was a plain, earnest young woman and as she approached the microphone he could see that she had a yellow legal pad that had a lot of writing on it. “Uh oh,” Craddock thought, “we’re here for the night.”

She spoke softly and in what he thought was a foreign language. Just a short burst of words. And then another language. What was she saying?

And then another one, and on and on it went. It was relentless… like a question they couldn’t answer. Thirty times. Forty times. Fifty, sixty, seventy.

When she got to German and Spanish and French, Fred Craddock finally began to recognize it. The last time, it was English.

“Mommy, I’m hungry.”
And then she sat down.

Tend my lambs. Feed my sheep.

They won’t know we are Christians by our flag, they won’t know we are Christians by our friends, they won’t know we are Christians by our incredible potlucks, or our doctrine, or our political party. They’ll only know we are Christians by our love.

Nothing more. Nothing less. [2]

[1] Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-rolf-dobelli

[2] Elements of this sermon, including the concluding story, are taken from Becca Gillespie Messman’s paper for The Well preaching group, and subsequent discussion.

Mar 31, 2013

An Idol of the Idle—Easter 2013

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Easter at Tiny began with the Ode to Joy flash mob:

(Thanks to Marci Glass for the tip.) Then for the choral benediction the choir sang verse 3 of “Christ is Risen” (tune: Ode to Joy). That was a spur-of-the-moment decision before the service started—awesome.

And here’s the sermon. You can listen to it here, but fair warning that my voice is raggedy. And the sweet baby we baptized had lots to say as well.

MaryAnn McKibben Dana
Idylwood Presbyterian Church
March 31, 2013
Luke 24:1-12
Easter Sunday

An Idol of the Idle

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, the women came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb,but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

It was five days before Christmas, 1943. Franz Stigler, a pilot for the German air force, had an American B-17 bomber in his sights and was moving in for the kill.

Stigler was a gifted pilot. He only needed to shoot down one more plane to receive The Knight’s Cross, Germany’s highest award for valor. And he was motivated too—his own brother had been killed earlier in the war. It was Americans who’d been bombing his home country and killing his comrades. It was revenge that drove him, not glory.

The B-17 had already been badly damaged by enemy fire. Stigler could see entire areas of the fusilage that had been blasted away. Engine two was gone, engine four badly damaged. Several of the crew were clearly injured, or worse. It would be an easy shot.

Stigler pulled up alongside the aircraft, close enough to see the co-pilot and the pilot, Charles Brown, a 21 year old from West Virginia. He saw terror, desperation on their faces. And… he didn’t shoot. He nodded. He gestured for them to land so that their wounds could be treated in Germany, or Sweden. When it became clear that Brown wasn’t going to land—in fact Brown couldn’t figure out what was going on, why wasn’t this German shooting them down? was it a trick?—Stigler escorted the plane as far as he could and then finally left it somewhere over the North Sea. He saluted the Americans, and turned back toward Germany. (source)

Something stopped Franz Stigler from shooting down the plane. But what?

* * *

It’s been said that people come to church on Sunday morning with one question on their minds: Is it true? And at no time is that question more intense than on an Easter morning. Of all the incomprehensible, improbable stories in this book—parables and proverbs and poetry—this is the story that confounds us the most.

The women come to perform the ritual of burial for their friend, only to find the tomb empty of a body and cluttered with angels.

They come carrying the spices for death, and they leave clutching a story of life, a story that their dearest friends will not believe.

…Is it true?

I think about the woman I know who has been battling a crippling mental illness for years. It’s hard for her to get out of bed. She can’t care for her child. Basic tasks like cooking take every ounce of focused concentration she can muster. She needs to know if the resurrection is true.

I think about twenty sets of parents in Connecticut, and the fact that there’s someone missing at their Easter Egg Hunts and Passover Seders this week. They need to know if new life is possible.

I think about this crazy world of ours: a madman in North Korea, a warming climate, a bickering Congress, a billion hungry people. Is it too late for hope? Are we too far gone?

Is it true? I don’t know. I don’t know.

I don’t understand how a heart can start pumping again after being still for three days. I don’t understand how a body, broken through the torture of a cross, can stand again, walk around, greet his friends, breathe out peace.

When Jesus’ friends hear the women’s story, they dismiss it as an “idle tale.” It’s a funny word, idle. The Greek here means “showy… but useless.” Useless. Imagine that.

We have no use for this story, the men tell the women. They blow off the tale as idle, a trifle, a silly wishful imagining that doesn’t mean anything and doesn’t demand anything.

Is the women’s story useless? Is it idle? That’s the harder question for me than “Is it true.” That’s the more convicting question than “Is it true.”

If the story’s an idle tale, then we can go home, take off our Easter bonnets, sit down to our honey ham and forget everything we said and did and heard this morning.

But if the living Christ is loose in the world, then everything is different!

Resurrection changes everything!

Hope changes everything!

* * *

And hope shows up in unlikely places.

That’s what Charles Brown and his crew discovered as a German pilot escorted them to safety, sparing their lives at considerable risk to himself. Because if it ever got out what he’d done, he could be executed.

But Stigler, you see, had studied to be a priest at one point. When he saw that crippled airplane in the sky, it was rosary beads he fingered, not the trigger on his plane. And when he left the B-17 to make its limping flight back to England, he said, “You all are in God’s hands now.”

Franz Stigler looked at that shell of a plane and instead of seeing a tomb, saw a little bit of life left in it. Call it whatever you want: honor, chivalry, a kind of holy restraint… hope goes by many aliases. But whatever you choose to call it, it’s costly. It’s demanding. And it is not an idle tale.

* * *

But oh, it is so hard to find that hope sometimes! Charles Brown and Franz Stigler both survived World War II; in fact they met, decades later, and became best friends and soul brothers. But that same war claimed so many millions of lives, cut short by hate and violence.

It was 45 years ago this week that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on the balcony of his Memphis hotel room. And so many others, peaceful and peacemaking, have lost their lives too. So what are we to do?

You may have seen the video recently, produced by the Anti-Defamation League for their 100^th anniversary. It honors Dr. King, and Anne Frank, and many others, but more than that, it asks, “What if?” What if the outcome of their stories had been different?

It asks us to imagine:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3KyvlMJefR4

It’s important to stand up against bigotry. But I see a much deeper message than that in this video. I see a call, not to give in to the idle tale. I see a call to live a resurrection story, a hopeful story. The work is not done. But if the Easter story means anything, it means that the outcome is ultimately assured. It means that the last word for Anne Frank and James Byrd and Mathew Shepard and Harvey Milk is not death, but life.

Because all of these people died, we must take up their fight for justice, freedom and peace.

And because Jesus was raised, we are able to do so…
The resurrection is not an idle tale. It is our master story.
It is our courage and our strength.

* * *

It all started a few weeks ago, when red curtains parted and a man walked out on the balcony wearing a simple white robe and cross, and gave a humble wave. No long speeches, no grand gestures. He asked the people to pray for him. The Pope asked the people for a blessing.

The next morning, he insisted on returning to the hotel where he had stayed before his election… because he wanted to pay the bill himself, as an example for other priests. He took a small apartment in the Vatican and opted not to use the fancy bullet-proof automobile for his first public appearance.

He has shared that during the conclave he sat next to Cardinal Cláudio Hummes of Brazil, whom he called “a great friend.” After the voting, Cardinal Hummes “hugged me, he kissed me and he said, ‘Don’t forget the poor!’ And that word entered here,” the pope said, pointing to his heart.

This week, he broke with tradition by celebrating Maundy Thursday services, not in the ornately decorated St. John Lateran’s Basilica with all its pomp and finery, but at a youth prison. Normally the Pope washes the feet of other priests, but on Thursday he washed the feet of inmates at the youth prison: the forgotten, the forsaken, the condemned. Among them were two young women. It is the first time the pope has ever washed the feet of women.

“This is a symbol, it is a sign,” he told them. “Washing your feet means I am at your service.”

We would expect nothing less from a man who worked as a priest and a bishop among the poor of Argentina, a man who has spent his ministry speaking up for the “least of these,” and who named himself after Francis of Assisi, a man beloved by people of all faiths the world over, a man known for his deep humility and faith, a man who wrote, “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.”

Shane Claiborne has written that Christianity spreads not through force, but through fascination. It’s fair to say that many many people have been fascinated by this pope.

Here is the head of the Catholic Church and its one billion followers, with access to incredible power and influence and yes, wealth, reaching out to the least of these, embracing a life of humility as much as he is able.

It’s almost as if he takes the teachings of Jesus seriously.
It’s almost as if the resurrection of Jesus is not just an idle tale.
It’s almost as if the resurrection of Jesus is a story worth staking one’s entire life on.

Imagine that.

Imagine.

Dec 16, 2012

A Holy ‘No’

15 Replies

I’ll share if you will:

MaryAnn McKibben Dana
Idylwood Presbyterian Church
December 16, 2012
Luke 1:39-45, (46-55)

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country,
where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

Some years ago I taught a class during Advent on the mother of Jesus, called “There’s Something about Mary.” (I may need to reprise that sometime here at IPC!) During the class we looked at how Mary has been portrayed in art and in music:

“Gentle Mary meekly bowed her head,” according to one hymn.
“Gentle Mary” laid her child in a manger, says another.
“In the Bleak Midwinter” speaks of the “maiden’s bliss.”
“Mary was that mother mild,” we sing in “Once in Royal David’s City.”

Ah, gentle Mary—mild, meek, the handmaiden of the Lord, head bowed in reverence. Can’t you see her there on so many paintings, stained glass windows, icons and Christmas cards?

There’s certainly scriptural support for this view of a demure mother of Jesus. When Mary asks, “How will it be that this child will come to me?” the angel answers, “the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” It’s that word, overshadow. Gentle Mary, meek and mild, will be diminished even further by God’s power, who will overshadow her.

But then… there’s this song.

It’s an improvisation of the song Hannah sings in the Old Testament after the birth of her son Samuel. But it is not a sweet lullaby. It is a battle cry, bold and defiant.

God has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.

Does that sound meek and mild to you?

* * *

My friend and colleague Michael Kirby tells me that several years ago, someone began stealing the baby Jesuses from outdoor manger scenes in his Chicago neighborhood. It turned out to be a prank, and the figurines were later found in a woman’s yard, 32 of them, sorted by size and type. Unfortunately, many people coming to claim their figures tried to walk away with a “nicer” Jesus than the one they’d had. “They were trading up,” he said. “Everybody wanted the freshly painted, unfaded baby.”

Mary would not approve of such cheap attempts at an upgrade.

“[God] has lifted up the lowly,” she sings. God has looked with favor upon the dingy, the faded, the forlorn and discarded figures of this world.

…Because Mary’s song, at the heart of it, is a song of defiance, in the tradition of the old African-American spirituals and of protest songs. It is “We Shall Overcome”; it is “Where Have All the Flowers Gone.” It is a dissent against the way things are. It is a counter-testimony to the dysfunction that passes for normal in our world.

Mary sings this song, because her pregnancy itself is God’s act of dissent against worldly power. God did not choose a queen, a wealthy noblewoman to bear the Messiah. God chose an unmarried peasant girl. God assessed the demands of the world and expectations of a king that would come in strength and might and prestige and said, “No, I’d just as soon not.” And in her song Mary echoes this divine No:

No to the proud and their haughty ways.

No to hunger that goes unfed.

No to suffering unrelieved.

No, no, no.

We’ve had a lot of occasions to say no this past week. I shared last Sunday about a friend whose son took his life at the age of 14. The moderator of our denomination, Cindy Bolbach, died on Wednesday after a cruel and relentless cancer. And of course, there is Sandy Hook Elementary School. To each of these, especially the last, and to countless other injustices, atrocities and heartbreaks we say No. No. No. And we do not say it meek and mild. We say it with clenched fist. We say it in protest. We say it loud and with a catch in our voice.

No, by the way, to the idea that God let this madness happen because we no longer pray in school. Like clockwork, the political and religious pundits have suggested exactly that. Imagine what kind of a God that is. A narcissistic thug who would allow such carnage because we don’t pray in the time and place and manner that God specifies. No.

And if I were ever to find out that that’s the kind of being God is, I think I’d have to renounce my ordination and go sell insurance, because that God and I would be finished.

* * *

So say No we must. But it’s not enough to say No. Lament is not enough. Heartbreak is not enough. Mary didn’t stop with a song. She embodied her song in her devotion to God; she lived that song as a witness to the God who is surprising and surpassingly good. And so must we. Mary sings, “My soul magnifies the Lord,” and it did. And so our lives must magnify, enlarge, make clear, the goodness of our God.

Right now, it’s hard to see anything but the horror of what happened in Newtown, Connecticut. But slowly, slowly, the stories are coming out of ordinary heroism and great sacrifice. Stories of average people whose lives were magnifiers of love and peace. The teacher who lost her life shielding her students from harm. Or the teacher who piled her class into a restroom and told them to be very quiet… but who also took the time to say how much she loved each of them—so that if this was the end, at least they would hear words of love. Thankfully, they all survived.

There will be more stories like this, coming out of Newtown.

And there must be more stories like this, from Newtown and from Falls Church and from everywhere that good people curse the darkness and long for the light. Our laments are insufficient without action, what my friend Roy this week called “embodied prayer.” There is too much violence, too many guns making their way into the wrong hands. There are too many disturbed people slipping through the cracks rather than receiving the mental health care they need. Time and perspective will guide us into a faithful response. But respond we must.

* * *

If my Facebook feed is any indication, there were a lot of preachers who burned the midnight oil last night. What does one say? What can one say? The difficulty is compounded by the fact that this is “Joy” Sunday, a word that seems to taunt us, especially if we let ourselves imagine 26 families, and many more, who will never be the same again. And yet, as a friend reminded me last night, joy is not the same as happiness. There is always a touch of heartbreak in joy, because joy is hard-earned. C.S. Lewis, who “Joy is distinct… from pleasure. It must have the stab, the pang, the inconsolable longing.”

It’s that longing in the midst of joy that we hear from Mary’s lips. Mary sings for the weak and the lowly, the poor and the hungry. And there is a stubbornness to Mary. She’s no fool, after all. She must look around and see rich getting richer and poor getting poorer. Surely she must see the powerful comfortably on their thrones and the lowly begging for food. She is singing of a world that does not yet exist, but still could.

And Mary invites that same holy stubbornness to erupt from our own hearts and lives.

We must refuse to be defeated.

We must refuse to let the darkness win.

We must refuse to let Friday’s atrocities be the lasting legacy of our age.

Yesterday at Cindy Bolbach’s memorial service, we closed with a hymn. Not the Magnificat, but a similar protest song, a song of Martin Luther. We sang it defiantly, we sang it stubbornly, we sang it vigorously, we sang it in honor of our friend who loved it so, and we sang it for the children of Newtown, Connecticut.

The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
his rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure; one little word shall fell him.
That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth;
the Spirit and the gifts are ours, thru him who with us sideth.
Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
the body they may kill; God’s truth abideth still; his kingdom is forever.

–

Image: Tanner’s Annunciation

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