Mother’s Day Angst

I never feel happy about Mother's Day. It always leaves me feeling burdened with ghosts of the past. But this year is way worse than usual. I recognize that it is in part to do with my mom's recent death but I can't find the words to explain or safe harbor to explore how bad it feels. Maybe it's because it snuck up on me. I've been so busy. Maybe there just aren't good opportunities to explore this on other days. Regardless, I'm making my situation worse and I don't know what proactive steps I need to take to move forward in healthy ways.

I'm also realizing as I sit with this that my extra pain is also about my brother. In many ways, I've had a mother role with him and I'm in the God forsaken place of watching him languish in depression, anxiety, and addiction. Worst if all, I'm powerless to do much to help. So I definitely don't feel like celebrating my role as a mother to him because I'm too busy trying to hold my fears of his down slide at bay. There are other layers of sorrow for him as well that I can’t begin to write out at this time but they are profound and deeply burdening.

Do you know the poem “The Invitation” by Oriah? She goes through this litany where she says she doesn't care about what position you hold or how much money you make or the like. What she wants to know is about your inner integrity, passion, and trust. I sort of feel that way about Mother's Day. I don't want to know how many children you have and what you do to celebrate on this one day. I want to know if you wake up and do what needs to be done as a parent day in and day out. I want to know if you can look your mom in the eye and risk disappointment for the sake of becoming the creation God called you to be. I don't want to be celebrated on this one day as a mother. I want to witness the fruits of your blossoming as my child and dance gratitude, sorrow, hope, pain and love every day and not feel alone in that dance.

I acknowledge I'm cynical about holidays in general because they often reflect consumerism and idolatry more than true celebration. Yet, I am not feeling cynical today. I'm sad and hurting.

Powerlessness of Love

“There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.

I keep finding myself needing to write but unable to put words to page unless it is for something I have to do like a recent grant proposal. As badly as I need the outlet personally and professionally I just can’t seem to make myself do it.  I ask myself why.  A lot of it is because of the emotional strain I’ve been under due some touchy matters (don’t worry, my wife and child are just fine). I feel hamstrung to talk about what is really bothering me because it would either violate someone else’s confidentiality or draw attention to someone that is already deeply vulnerable.  This runs contrary to the lesson I learned years and years ago which is secrets and silence will kill me.  So, I’ve been managing as well as I can in the midst of this silence where I’ve been cut off from my primary supports.

It’s not been pretty but by and large I’ve done pretty well. I’m still experiencing the longest sustained period of my adult life of not being depressed (Yea!!!). This is saying a lot because I’ve weathered some pretty significant strains in the last few years, among them are my mother’s decline and death and a vocational rejection that still has me searching for direction. Nevertheless, I persist… and I’m not just surviving, I’m actually thriving for the most part.

But this damn silence is about to kill me. Talking to my wife and therapist just isn’t enough to save my soul from the darkness that secrets and isolation breed. All this is climaxing in a way that something has got to give soon.  I’ve been going downhill for the past month or so and I need that to stop NOW. 

Maybe the answer is to focus on my particular struggles within all of this. As I consider that angle, I see where a primary agony for me is my feeling of powerlessness to help someone I love not hurt more or outright self-destruct.  Powerlessness is a difficult experience no matter how self-aware one is.

I am powerless to fix the situation and I have to be careful how much responsibility I take for helping because of some very complicated risks. Those two factors collide in ways that leave me feeling agitated and downright angry… well, really I feel fear and sorrow but for now they are manifesting as anger.

As I’ve looked for outlets and understanding I’ve remembered that the Psalmist knew much about powerlessness and for now I find comfort in those cries. I look to the One who knows all of us because we are fearfully and wonderfully made… so beautiful and so precious that it evokes our deepest fears and our most profound awe.

May this journey through powerlessness lead me to a deeper understanding of all who love and need love’s healing. 

You’d be so pretty if…

I grew up hearing the phrase “You’d be so pretty if…” followed by a myriad of pointers on how I should look, act, think, and be.  My mother and grandmother were the primary users of this expression but I occasionally heard it from others too.  They truly believed themselves to be offering loving advice that would make me happy and better liked by others.  But in reality, this utterance deepened existing wounds and reinforced a message that I was not okay as is.

 

Later, I would spend years of my adulthood working through the wake of sorrow caused by repeatedly hearing “you’d be so pretty if… you weren’t so fat… you walked like a lady… you didn’t play in the dirt… you weren’t so heavy… you’re smile wasn’t crooked… you wore makeup… you wore more flattering clothes… you didn’t look so manish…”.  My family didn’t realize that I was at times barely hanging onto life because of depression and shame that dogged me so badly that suicidal thoughts were the norm for me.  Even if they had of realized what I was going through, there still is not a world in which saying “you’d be so pretty if…” is a healthy way to raise a child.

 

Lest you misunderstand my point, I’m not launching into this to rail against my family.  I deeply loved my grandmother and still miss her even though she died almost 12 years ago.  And my mom is currently dying which has led to a very interesting path for her and me to feel reconciled in a positive way to the legacy of our complicated relationship.  When it comes down to it, I believe my family did the best they could to love me and I harbor no resentment over the things that damaged me as I believe it revealed deeper wounds within my family for which we all needed healing.

 

Nevertheless, I was dismayed to have this phrase rehashed this past year as I was helping my mom with some things around her house.  I was immediately transplanted to my childhood and all the shame and pain rushed back to me when my mom looked at me with all sincerity and said, “you’d be so pretty if you just weren’t so fat.”  I managed to cope with that moment in relatively good fashion by telling my mom “the only people I care about think I’m beautiful.”  Later in the evening I turned to my wife and social media for support to process it.

 

The outcome of processing it is what I am primarily interested in writing about today.  I have spent time thinking about who I would be if I had taken all those pieces of advice.  I’ve considered what my life would be like if I had looked, acted, and thought the way they believed would make me pretty.

 

What I’ve decided is that I would not be me.  I would not even be real.  I’d be a shadow of an image that bears no resemblance to the gifts I’ve been given or the experiences I’ve had.  In fact, part of me believes that following that advice would have led to my eventual suicide because the things that have kept me alive in the darkest times are my abilities to eat pain, dress and appear in ways that kept me out of competition within the social conventions of women, and use my strong, broad, “manish” body to hold the weight of crushing sorrow.

 

When I look at who that person would be, I don’t see pretty.  I see sad, empty, and lonely because I would not have known how to be that person.  I am exactly who I was created to be.  I may never be able to see myself as pretty but I know that I am strong, intelligent, resilient, charming, cute, playful, and much more.  When I hold all that I am, what I’ve been able to survive and accomplish, and who encircles me with love, I figure I’m about as beautiful as I’ll ever be.

A Body Of...

A quote from Margaret Cho:

“If you are a woman, if you're a person of colour, if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, if you are a person of size, if you are a person od intelligence, if you are a person of integrity, then you are considered a minority in this world.

 

...And it's going to be really hard to find messages of self-love and support anywhere. Especially women's and gay men's culture. It's all about how you have to look a certain way or else you're worthless. You know when you look in the mirror and you think 'oh, I'm so fat, I'm so old, I'm so ugly', don't you know, that's not your authentic self? But that is billions upon billions of dollars of advertising, magazines, movies, billboards, all geared to make you feel shitty about yourself so that you will take your hard earned money and spend it at the mall on some turn-around creme that doesn't turn around shit.

 

When you don't have self-esteem you will hesitate before you do anything in your life. You will hesitate to go for the job you really wanna go for, you will hesitate to ask for a raise, you will hesitate to call yourself an American, you will hesitate to report a rape, you will hesitate to defend yourself when you are discriminated against because of your race, your sexuality, your size, your gender. You will hesitate to vote, you will hesitate to dream. For us to have self-esteem is truly an act of revolution and our revolution is long overdue.”

I’ve been trying to write about the complicated relationship I (and many people) have with body image, self-love, healing, and transformation.  You see, if there is anything I profess as a Christian, it is that Christ offers deliverance from bondage and transformation into new life.  Yet this is something I have struggled to embrace all my life.

 

My awareness of this has never waned but it has been heightened in the past few years because I’ve watched my wife lose about 100 pounds and experience a transformation from carrying body fat as a shield to loving every ounce of herself as an expression of her life.  I envy her experience.  I wish I too could experience that. (I do not want to oversimplify her experience as I know she still struggles every day.  Nevertheless, she has accomplished a great deal of growth and transformation.)

 

Another reason my struggle to embrace my body and experience healing has been especially obvious as of late is that I’ve grown increasingly defensive for my wife.  As she lost weight, people would walk up to her and in all good nature tell her, “you look so good” and “you look beautiful.”  While I recognize that they mean to be encouraging and supportive, the unspoken message of “you weren’t beautiful of good enough before” remains. 

 

My blood boils for her, me, and all who struggle with body image when this happens.  The common experience that my wife and I share is that of using our bodies as a shield of protection.  In similar ways, we have dieted for acceptance, eaten to push away pain, and loathed our bodies for all they pain and struggle they represent.  I still do. 

 

But she doesn’t.  She has finally found the combination of space, support, and love to look at her body one ounce at a time and love the way it has been a protector for her, grieve the past, and transform it into a new creation.  It’s been so beautiful to watch.  Truly, there aren’t words for how life filled and hope giving her journey has been and it’s not over yet.  I am grateful and honored to be a witness and sharer in this journey.

 

But where does all this leave me?  I still find myself in the despair of pain from a childhood that should have destroyed me, depression that won’t stop haunting me, and a body so full of scars seen and unseen that I can barely stand to look at it on most days.  I want what my wife has.  I want that deliverance and transformation that I so deeply believe Christ offers.  Yet, I’ve never experienced that combination of emotional space, physical energy, and external support that it takes to sustain such a life changing, transformation.  Will I ever?  I don’t know but I hope so.

Fighting isn't Really Living

At the risk of rubbing some people the wrong way, I need to say that I am deeply frustrated and angered at the culture of shame that makes people feel like they have to “fight” cancer.  Yes, I’ve lived through cancer 3 times and that involved fighting but that’s not all it took and that’s not what it’s all about.  It’s about life and love.

As I watch my mother decline and try to “fight” cancer even though the doctors keep telling her it’s incurable, advanced, and medically futile, I am enraged at her friend who had the gall to call me and tell me I wasn’t loving enough because I thought mom should choose palliative care. I’m pained to know my mom is in the hospital because of symptoms of chemo rather than at home enjoying time with friends.  And most overwhelmingly, I feel powerless to overcome the chorus of voices in my mother’s life who continue to shame her into fighting cancer instead of enjoying a few good months of friendship and love.

I know that the people mean well when they push her and I'm not questioning the motives behind that. I also know my mom is very scared and doesn't want to miss her next grandchild's birth. I just wish we could join together in a chorus of holding right now instead of disparate voices of mixed messages.

Tears of Hope

I’ve spent most of today crying.  This isn’t really surprising if you look at the current circumstances of my life.  My mother has terminal cancer, my work has some difficult pieces of conflict that will not have resolution for some time, and I have other family circumstances that I’m not free to discuss publically but worry me to literal sickness and fill me with dread.  But it’s not those things per se that have left me crying today.

Today, I’m crying because of a wonderfully whole yet complicated sense of vulnerability.  Last night at work, I sat with a family who discussed their child’s illness and I was struck in a different way by their experience of fear and dread.  I heard it in a way I had never fully understood emotionally even though I did intellectually and academically.  I heard their fear of death and it struck me in a deeply personal way. 

See, I’ve spent most of my life outrunning a legacy of abuse, crushing depression, and illness that have left me feeling as though my death would be a welcome thing.  In spite of my desire for my suffering in this world to end, I’ve pushed forward and lived what others would consider a full life.  I’ve cultivated a family, friendships, and pastoral relationships in a way that reflect my faith that every moment matters in spite of my desire for my suffering to end.

But a funny thing has happened over the past few years.  I’ve experienced healing in ways I didn’t imagine and I hope isn’t done yet.  I’ve moved into and through the suffering to a place of peace with most of it.  Some of it will always be there but I have a growing sense that I am not just my suffering.  Maybe a better way to say it is that I am now living more and more because I love life and not in spite of suffering.

Oh sure, I still have bad days and I suspect my predilection toward suicidal thoughts will always be there but it isn’t all I am.  Yet I’ve had to ask the question “who am I if I’m not suffering?” because so much of my identity has been built around my deep understanding of that experience.  Some would tell you that one of the reasons I’m such a good friend and chaplain is that people sense I truly understand their sorrow and I’m not afraid to go to the dark places with them.  In part, I believe that’s true. Nevertheless, I have a growing suspicion that it’s not the whole story.

All of this brings me to my tears of today.  Since listening last night to that family’s fears of their child dying, I keep flashing on my own precious life and all the things I don’t want to lose or leave behind.  I keep thinking of my wife, daughter, brother, and others who I love so deeply that their loss would break my heart into a thousand pieces.  I keep thinking about my own tenuous health and how desperately I don’t want to leave those things behind.

For the first time in my life, I love more than I hurt and so I want to cling to every precious second I have with those people.  Before, their loss would have been more shattering to an already pulverized soul.  Now, love lives so much larger that the thought of losing them or leaving them fills me with vulnerability and brings tears to my eyes in an ironically hopeful way.  I say ironically hopeful because it has taken finally outrunning my longing for death to realize that my new fear of death reflects healing and restoration.

I don’t know what all this will mean for my work as a chaplain.  I can’t imagine that it’ll have a negative impact.  But that’s not really today’s concern.  For now, I’m crying.  I’m crying for fear, for hope, for love.  And these tears are sacred.  Amen.

Post Election Blues... For Everyone

I always have such a difficult time explaining why I, as an Appalachian-lesbian-mother-chaplain-lover of people, struggle to be energized by presidential elections. People look at me with the "how can you not love Obama" look. I like him. I voted for him. Yet somehow I feel like this whole election missed the point. The constitution places the President primarily in charge of foreign policy. But what really effects most of our lives (clearly since we are at war this is not true for everyone) is local & state politics. Do you know who your alderman is? I do. Do you know where most of your tax dollars go? I do. And the bulk of the political impact on my life comes from the state & local level rather than the Feds. So why are people so excited/disappointed about the presidential election when most of the things that effect our education, economy, & security are close to home?

Please don't misunderstand me. I know what is at stake on a federal level. Nevertheless, I believe that more people are effected by what is happening close to home. What good does it do anyone to have a president who is pro gay marriage if they are living in a food desert or can't hope for a future because their schools are so bad?

National Coming Out Day... Again

Tomorrow is National Coming Out Day and it always puts me in a pensive mood. I think back on the years of my life when coming out was a constant strain due to fear of actual and perceived discrimination and violence. I also reflect on the privilege that I have now as I work for a company that has progressive policies and live in a city where being a lesbian makes me just one in a crowd of… well… all...

kinds of people. Most especially I find myself reflecting on those who still struggle to find safety, acceptance, and love in a world that can be hostile to someone who is struggling to find their way.

I applaud and honor all those who stand with courage to claim their sexuality today and every day. All of us who have and will come out find hope in one another. But trust me when I tell you that I want you to be more to me than the “gay couple down the street” or the “straight ally upstairs.” And I hope I’m more to you. As Pollyanna as it may seem, I still long for a day when I can just be Lavender rather than “the lesbian chaplain” or “the dyke next door.” The fact of the matter is that my sexuality has always felt like an exaggerated element of my life because I had to work so hard to protect it from others. It became a larger detail than what I do for a living or how I treat people. I understand that we are people of labels and categories. We’ve been at it since the day God commissioned Adam to name the animals. Nevertheless, I wish my label was related to the content of my character rather than my sexuality, race, gender, class, education, or age.

On this National Coming Out Day, I pay tribute to all those who stand up for who they are. I also grieve for those who still struggle. And most especially I hope for a day when the quality of our love is of greater importance than who we love.

Feast of Life

Ordinary 20B – sermon based upon John 6:51-58

 

When I sat down to read all four of the lectionary texts at the beginning of the week, I was struck by how they all pointed to choices we had to make.  It was as if God was saying, My love, My work, My grace are here and now you must choose how you want to participate in it.  And none of the texts highlight that as much as this passage in the Gospel of John.  But there’s more going on here than just an early sneak peek at a ritual we call communion.  Jesus is pushing back hard and we should ask ourselves why. 

To start off, we should look at what’s going on here.  But to do that, we need to put our minds in a different place.  Pretend for a moment that you don’t know what communion is.  Pretend that you live in a culture that is very faithful about observing right and proper ways of handling food as a way of showing thanks to God for the blessing.  Pretend for a moment you live in a time where superstitious groups outside your culture thought there was something mystical about blood and practiced odd sacrifices and sometimes even drank human blood in search of eternal life.  Imagine how scary that must be.  Imagine how much safer you feel holding tight to your rituals.  Are you there yet?  If you are, then you are thinking like a 1^st century Jew. 

 

Now that you’re thinking like that you’re ready to hear just how jarring and bizarre Jesus’ words sound.  So, what was going on in this passage?

 

Well, in typical fashion, Jesus has drawn a crowd.  He’s already been talking to a group of people, probably religious leaders, in a synagogue and sharing wisdom and answering their questions.  While talking to them, he gets the crowd stirred up and anxious because he uses some imagery that appalls them.  He starts talking about eating his flesh.  Even before our passage from today’s lectionary, he says in verse 35, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”  So, he’s already rolled out this language.  And they’re getting uncomfortable.

 

Next, in verse 41 it says, “the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, ‘I am the bread that came down from heaven.’ They said, ‘Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?’”  So, they’re just trying to make sense of this.  Has Jesus, the son of Joseph and Marry whom they’ve seen running around since he was knee high to a grasshopper, converted to some pagan religion?  Who is he to claim the power of God?  It would be like one of the young adults from this congregation going off to college and coming back to say, “I’m the son of God and if you want to get closer to God, you need to believe in me and eat what I give you.”  If that happened, you’d think the kid has gone and joined a cult!

 

So, when we break into the lectionary passage for today at verse 51, it’s no wonder the folks are uncomfortable and grumbling.  Jesus is freaking them out.  And in verse 52 when it says “The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’” what’s really going on is not just a argument.  The Greek verb is indicates a certain level of anger and violence on their part.

 

And what does Jesus do?  He pushes back even harder.  He says “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”  You may think this is just a restatement but it’s not.  In verses 49-51, Jesus had spoken about “eating” the bread from heaven, using the Greek verb “esthio.” But in verse 53 he starts using a much different verb, “trogo.”  This word is not just to eat.  It means to gnaw audibly.  And the nuance of it indicates gnawing and eating with urgency. It is eating as though life depends on it.

 

Now remember, we’ve imagined ourselves in that day and time.  We have no idea what communion is and we’re very afraid of people who drink blood so hearing this is bizarre and frightening.  Are you disturbed yet?  Do you have a good image of what was going on?  I hope so.

 

Oh, and one more piece of context we should probably know is that the book of John is a Gnostic Gospel.  If you want to know more about that, ask me later.  But for today’s purposes, what we need to know is that more than any other Gospel, when we read something in John, there are always multiple layers of truth.  John uses more metaphor, poetic imagery, and symbolism than any other Gospel. 

 

Now zoom forward to today.  We know the outcome of Jesus’ life.  We hear the words of institution regularly.  We are probably still afraid of cults that drink blood but it’s not part of our everyday life.  So from here, let’s ask ourselves, why would Jesus push at them so hard? What was Jesus trying to do by making them so uncomfortable?

 

Well, I’m no scholar but from what I’ve read and understand, I think it comes down to two things: relationship and participation.  Jesus knew that the people he was talking to needed something jarring to make them have a different relationship with God and their faith.  Remember most of them are likely religious leaders who are not just set in their ways but also a bit arrogant about their faith.  They are sure they know the will and mind of God.  They know what steps to take day in and day out to be faithful.  They live by conforming to rules rather than being compelled by a hunger for deeper knowledge of God.  So, it seems to me that Jesus is trying to jar them into seeking God more fully because they are not just hungry but famished.  He’s trying to tell them that they can participate in the love and creation of God here and now… relationship and participation.

 

A word of caution:  I’m not in any way calling the Jews a people of flat faith.  As the first people of covenant with God, they hold a richness and history of incredible faith that has overcome struggle that would make most of us crumble.  I am only referring to the particular folks Jesus is talking to in this synagogue in Capernaum.  Just like I do standing here, Jesus always tailored his message to the listener so this is not a condemnation of the Jewish faith.  It is a condemnation of living a faith without hunger and passion.

 

Now, why did we just go through that entire context explanation?  Well, first of all, if we just read it without the context, we’re likely to think this is just about communion and it’s not.  But more importantly, just like people then, we need our faith challenged and jarred from time to time to remind us of why we come here and what our calling is.

 

Remember I said two words, relationship and participation.  How often does our faith feel like it gets flattened out into “do this and don’t do that so God will be happy with us.”?  I suspect more than we would like to admit.  Yet, the language of Jesus calls us to be unrestrained and unleash our hunger for God in ravenous, gnawing, messy, satisfying, and mysterious ways.  We are invited to gulp until quenched like never before.  A restrained faith is a faith that has not fully responded to a relationship with God and has not yet claimed full participation in the ongoing revelation of God with us. 

 

And what is our reward for living like this?  Why would we let the wildly whirling Spirit of God fill us?  Because Christ tells promises us eternal fullness when we gnaw at the trough of divine food.  He tells us “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.”  It’s about relationship and participation.

 

So what do we do with all this?  Well, I’m going to suggest some steps that might help jar us out of the flat places in our faith. 

1.    Get really honest about the empty places in our lives.  Where are we hungry, even starved for fullness that lasts?  Where have we been drinking yet still remain thirsty?  Where have we tried to fill those holes with flat rules rather than abundant love?

2.    Listen for God’s guidance.  In what ways is God leading us to be filled?  What experiences have we already had of getting a taste of the true divine food?  What can we do to dive deeper into the banquet of love God calls us to?

3.    Make the relationship grow by being open to God’s outpouring to us.  Who can teach us something we didn’t understand before?  Where have we missed God in our presence?  How can we remain open to God even when it’s scary?

4.    Make the participation grow by sharing the passion and feeding other’s hunger.  Who else can we join with in growing our faith?  Who can we share abundant love with?  Who has been unwelcome or afraid to come to this table that we can reach to?

 

Sisters and brothers, we are not called to be the frozen chosen.  We are called to abundant life.  Jesus uses jarring language and images to remind us of the deep hunger that lives in each of us.  He invites us to eat and drink as if our lives depend on it.  We are invited into relationship with God because God sent love to us first.  We are invited into participation with God through the body of Christ.  And we are invited to a feast that will fill us in ways that gives life abundant and eternal.  Amen.

 

Christian and Human

Ordinary 19B – sermon based upon Psalm 130 & Ephesians 4:25-5:2

 

Good morning.  It’s wonderful to be with you this today and I’ll be with you next week as well.  So, I hope to catch up on some of the happenings in your lives and chat during coffee hour and such.  Regardless, I want you to know that you’ve remained in my heart and prayers.

 

Well, I’m sure you won’t find this surprising but I’m enthralled by today’s scripture passages.  They have so much to offer.  Both of them tell us so much about what a lived faith looks like… full of faults and yet hopeful.

 

In fact, on Monday when I submitted my part of the worship planning, including the sermon title, what stuck out to me was this notion of being so deeply flawed yet so full of faith and hope in God’s love, grace, and forgiveness.  From that I submitted the title in your bulletin of “Christian and Human.”  But if I was titling what this sermon has evolved into as I completed it, I might have titled it, “A Guide to Christian Dialog.” 

 

In this passage we get a glimpse into the early church and how they related.  All the Pastoral letters in the New Testament are quite wonderful in that way.  They show us a way of talking with and relating to people that is concerned primarily with the relationship between people instead of drawing lines between them.

 

In just the first few lines of this passage, we find out that lots of people’s flaws and sins are out there in the open for all to see.  So much so that the writer of the letter knows there to be thievery, dishonesty, resentfulness, and bitter backbiting in that church.  You see, the early church was made up as much or more so by people living on the edges of society like criminals as it was by people engaged in more respectable forms of theft like tax collectors.  And resentfulness… well, there isn’t a group or person on this planet that hasn’t been plagued by that one. 

 

So this young church in Ephesus needed guidance on how to live and the writer of this letter, being a good pastor, was offering them such help.  But we can learn a lot more from this than who was in the early church and how they were helped.  In this day and time, we don’t need someone to tell us that stealing is wrong.  We know.  And we don’t need to be reminded that anger chips away at our relationships if we don’t handle it appropriately because we’ve lived it for too long already.  And most of us know that bitterness destroys us, even if we have a hard time recognizing when we’re feeling or being that way.

 

So rather than a guided to do’s and don’ts, the lesson most of us need from this passage is a guide to being Christian together… to walk, and talk, and live together.  Whether it’s us that struggles with how to talk and deal with one another or if we’re on the receiving end other’s struggles, the fact remains that we all need help supporting our relationships with Christian sisters and brothers.

 

Now before you say to me, “But Pastor Lavender, the people I really struggle talking to are people of other faiths or no faith at all…” let me say that what this passage teaches is good for all relationships.  If you’d like to take the lessons out in the world, go right ahead. I’m sure Jesus would approve.  But because the writer of this letter focused on the Christian community I am too.  And it’s good to start close to home because if we as a church can’t figure out how to love and live with one another, then we have no witness for the world.

 

So let’s look at this passage.  We’re still the same resentful, dishonest people today as humanity was then.  But most people in the church today hide it better which makes us act even more indignant when one of our members gets caught for cheating on taxes, reneging on a promise, or treating another badly.  In some ways, we’ve gotten so good at hiding our faults that our biggest fear is being found out.  Deep on the inside, we think to ourselves, “if they really knew how much I struggle to be honest or faithful or generous, they wouldn’t like me very much.” 

 

So, the first big lesson this scripture reminds us of is that we are all deeply flawed.  Not a one of us isn’t constantly struggling with how to be more loving, generous, honest, nurturing, forgiving, and grace-filled.  We are all sinners and I don’t think I need to beat that one into the ground too much because I suspect that most of us beat ourselves over the head enough already.  But what does deserve a reminder is that forgiveness is a gift from God and also a gift we should extend to ourselves and others.  I suspect that we can start from a place of remembering how much we fear the judgment of others and struggle, then maybe our dealings with one another can be a bit more gentle and loving as well. 

 

This brings me to the second lesson from this passage.  The writer is definitely naming right and wrong ways of being but he isn’t wagging his finger in any one person’s face.  His primary concern is with cultivating a relationship and being connected with other members of the body of Christ.  He knows judgment belongs to God.  His job is to love first and the guidance, nurture, and teachings will fall into place later.  Which is our second takeaway: We are to love each other first and foremost.  If something like an ideal or judgment stands in the way of loving someone else, it isn’t their sin that’s the problem.  And when others see us only as a circumstance in our lives or a problem we’re facing rather than as a beloved child of God, the problem isn’t with our situation.

 

This pastor knows as it says in verse 29 that when judgmental or harsh talk comes out of our mouths, relationships are destroyed.  He reminds us to say “only what is useful for building up… so that [our] words may give grace to those who hear.”  Even his own way of talking to them puts their wellbeing and relationship first above ideals and judgment.  And in later verses he reminds us to “Put away… all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander… and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven [us].”

 

When I was researching this sermon I read a commentary by Rev. Mary Ricketts that struck me in some pretty powerful ways.  She wrote, “We might think this is obvious since we believe that God is present in and a part of all of our relationships, but it is amazing how often we speak as though God is nowhere near us… I find it odd how often faith communities want to argue about ‘what the Bible says,’ while ignoring these types of texts that encourage straight talk, forgiveness and extravagant love. Perhaps we should care more about the words we said and how we said them than whether we agreed with one another.”

 

And if you think about that, isn’t it the truth?  How many of us have been sucked in by all the arguing and dialog around Chick-Fil-A lately?  I venture to guess most of us have at least had 1 conversation in the past 3 weeks about it.  But in case you missed it, here’s the rundown:  Chick-Fil-A president Dan Cathy said with the same consistency that the company has always held that they honor and uphold the “biblical definition of the family unit.”  We can discuss at another time what might be right or wrong or nuanced or complicated with that statement but what is more noteworthy is the vile social eruption this has created.  Of even greater note is the fact that some of the most hateful statements have been said by Christians on various sides of this issue.

 

This is exactly what the pastor writing this letter was talking about.  What we say and how we say it sometimes hurts more than what we believe.  And we can’t even get to the point of talking about what we believe when we’re too busy hurling stones or ducking from ones being hurled at us.

 

If you’ve been one of the handful of people that have actually had meaningful dialog as a result of this Chick-Fil-A brouhaha, I’m glad.  But I’ve been busy dodging the boulders being hurled as people I love say mean things about other people I love… Christian sisters and brothers putting belief about one particular issue ahead of loving each other first.  It’s been hard.

 

Look, y’all know me and know that I spend most of my time wondering how to get it right and if we got it right.  I rarely stand firmly and say that I know fully the will of God because God is just so much more than I can fully comprehend.  But this is one of those times that I will take such a stand.  I know with absolute certainty that the minute I let the ideas in my head stand in the way of loving you as a person is the minute I’m on the wrong side of God’s will.

 

And lest you think I’m judging harshly the folks who have been passionately debating this issue and even the ones who’ve hurled stones, I’m not.  I understand the conviction, earnest faith, and fears that underlie these types of debates gone wild.  In fact, it’s from a position of compassion for just how hard it is to be “imitators of God” like the scripture says that I bring it up.  And I only bring it up here with you because I know you and you know me so we have the relationship to talk about this without fearing the judgment of one another.  I would never mention such a controversy if I were preaching in a church unknown to me for fear of being misheard.

 

Which brings me to the final lesson for us to take from this passage.  This entire pastoral letter to the church in Ephesus would never have been written if people weren’t hungry to continue to grow in faith.  And that’s where we still are today.  No matter how we struggle with sin… no matter which people we struggle to love… no matter where we are in our faith journey as individuals or as a community, as long as we continue to be open to God’s outpouring of love, we will grow in faith.

 

Sisters and brothers, this is our calling: love God, love one another, love ourselves.  Gracious, extravagant, forgiving, nurturing, abundant love… if that’s what we’re seeking or if that’s our starting place with one another and God, then we can’t go wrong.  Amen.