sunny spirituality and a fear of the dark: a sermon about jesus healing a man born visually impaired.

Maggie Falenschek

John 9:1-41, Lent 4, Year A

3-30-14

            If I were to imagine this story being told in a more modern context, this is how I expect it might go:  As Jesus and the disciples walked along, they spotted a woman without a home packing up her belongings from staying the night at a local Synagogue Community center?  Amongst themselves, the disciples stared and began to whisper, “Rabbi, who made such bad decisions that left this woman without a home, was it her or her parents?”  Jesus replied, “You’re asking the wrong question, you’re looking for someone to blame. Homelessness is not a sin.  Instead, look how God’s works might be revealed through those who have housed her and cared for her.  We need to be energetically at work for the One who sent me here, working to care for God’s children on earth.  For as long as I am in the world, there is plenty of light. I am the world’s Light.”  Shortly after, Jesus told the woman that her housing voucher had been received and approved.  “Go to the resource center,” he said, “soon you will be housed.” Quickly, the town was buzzing.  People wondered where the woman went, how she had received housing.  Some were even mad that she had accepted a handout from this mysterious man and didn’t work to earn it.  Others refused to believe it. 

            Aside from seeing Jesus, the Son of God, offering a woman housing, I have seen this situation play out time and time again.   Although most people no longer believe that blindness is a result of sin, in many ways, retribution remains one of our world’s most dominant theologies.  Surely, if someone works hard enough, if someone takes all the right steps, if someone has healthy parents, or gets an education, or pulls themselves up by their bootstraps---they will not be homeless. And, well, if someone is homeless—they probably did something to deserve it.  They’re lazy, have addictions, mental illness--- I don’t have list the stereotypes for us to remember at a deeper level that they exist and we hear them.  I could take guesses at why this sort of stigmatization or retribution theology exists but in doing so I would be just like the disciples, and the villagers, and the Pharisees in this story.  It could be either comforting or disconcerting to know that early Christian communities were struggling with the same thing.  Jesus’ words tell us that we are asking all the wrong questions.  It’s not about pointing fingers or discerning who is or is not to blame.

            The more I read this story about the blind man in John, the more I feel that this story is less about healing literal blindness, and more about confronting a failure of seeing.  The story is less about the transformation of the blind man himself, he seems to “get it” just fine, and more about a transformation for those who surround him.  Perhaps this is why the actual healing of the blind man takes up only one verse at the very beginning of a sixty-verse discourse.  When we make this story simply about the healing of a blind man, then we fail to acknowledge all of the ways in which we too are in need of healing.  When we make the story all about healing actual blindness, then we continue to perpetuate a theology that states that Jesus is just a magic, fixer-uper who heals stigmatized conditions but fails to address a prevailing darkness that does not discriminate.

            The biggest problem with focusing just on the healing of the blind man is that it frees the Pharisees, the villagers, and ourselves from having to acknowledge the darkness in our own lives.  Sometimes it’s a lot easier to point out the perceived darkness in someone else’s life, like blindness or homelessness, and to believe that it doesn’t pertain to you.  It’s scary to admit that we all experience darkness and that we are all in need of healing.  In a lot of ways, it appears as though us humans are very afraid of the dark. 

            Themes of light and dark are prevalent in Christianity, especially in the Gospel of John.  Right from the beginning of the Gospel, the author proclaims creation and the Word as light.  In total, this theme of light is mentioned in 15 verses throughout the entire book, in nearly every chapter.  In many ways, understanding Jesus in terms of a light that has come into darkness can be very helpful and illustrative of God’s relationship with all of creation.  All too often, however, darkness is understood as a condition that some have, synonymous with all of the negative things that happen in our lives.  In this sense, the Pharisees and the villagers in today’s gospel believed the man’s blindness as a manifestation of his own darkness, something that they did not possess.  Further more, they believed the man’s darkness was a direct result            of his own sin or that of his parents.  The villagers and the Pharisees in this story want to make darkness all about deficiency, a deficiency of sight that points to a deficiency in God. 

          

Are we people of light who avoid darkness?  

There is a problem in this thinking that affords light for some and darkness for others who deserve it.  This type of thinking places God only in the light, the good things that happen in our lives—making Christianity a religion only for the happy, creating a faith that is only relevant when things are going well.  Not only does this type of theology place God firmly in all that is “light” but then consequently removes God from all that is “dark”, the very places and times that we need God the most.  The rhetoric then becomes, that if you have enough God in your life, if you just have enough faith, then your life will be perfect—and if your life isn’t perfect, then you must have some deficiency of God.  The rhetoric works great as long as we can keep denying darkness exists for everybody or that, oftentimes in our world, bad things do happen to really good people.  But when we finally acknowledge that darkness can and does exist for everyone, we are left feeling alone, devoid of a God to proclaim otherwise.  That’s not good news.  That’s not gospel. 

            Through scripture and the life of Jesus a different gospel is presented to us.  Truly good news that shows us that God is with us in all of our shortcomings, all of our suffering, all of it, and that we do not need to be afraid of the darkness.  When Nicodemus was questioning the meaning of his life, Jesus was there.  When the woman at the well showed up at the well at noon, expecting to remain forgotten and isolated, Jesus was there.  When the blind man was driven out of town by his own community because they just couldn’t believe his healing, Jesus went out and searched until he found him.  The stories are endless. 

            The gospel, the good news, is that our faith is not at risk nor is it dependent on the darkness of our lives—regardless of what that darkness looks like.  In contrast with the “solar-spirituality” of the world, theologian Barbara Brown Taylor instead describes her faith as a “lunar-spirituality” defined in darkness.  Imagine the light from the moon, revealed in the darkness of night.  The moon wanes and waxes, sometimes the light a mere flicker, other times the light is bright and bold in the sky.  Sometimes it seems as though the moon disappears all together and that the light no longer exists but somehow, despite our seeing, it is still there. 

            May God revealed through Christ be ever present in your life.  When darkness inevitably comes and it becomes harder and harder to see any sign of light, may the promise of new life and waxing light become your rest and your hope.  May we, together, not be afraid of the dark but search for ways to support one another, to sit with one another, until the darkness fades.  And may we experience a faith that is not dependent on the theologies of this world, but on a God who so loves the world. 

           

           

  

broken relationships and overcoming church propagated violence: a sermon for valentine's day

Matthew 5:21-37

2-16-14

            Ahhhhh, Valentine’s Day!  This week is the week in which our society appropriates one day to celebrate our love for those in our lives, or maybe just succumb to the social pressure to tell people we love them even though we really may not, ala 2^nd grade Valentine’s Day parties! Sometimes it’s all just in good fun—Nikoli and I did participate this year by getting each other the romantic gift of new running socks—but sometimes the idea that love is all about fancy chocolates and pink and red glitter just seems so contrary to the lived human experience.  I’m all about celebrating love, but sometimes our lives and our relationships aren’t very lovely. Sometimes we break promises, hurt one another, seek revenge, board anger, and take advantage of one another. 

            Up to seventy percent of people experience violence in their lives.  And while violence crosses all boarders of gender, race, and socio-economic status, the percent of women who are abused is disproportionately high.  One in every three women will be raped or beaten in their lifetime and more times than not, this abuser is someone they know and have loved.  I bring this up for two reasons: 1) There is a stigma in our society that tells us that this is not something that should be talked about, especially in places like church, perpetuating a painful cycle of violence and it needs to stop, and 2) the Gospel text for today has often been used to keep individuals in abusive relationships and this, too, needs to stop.  I once attended a church that was taking up this text in their adult study after worship one particular Sunday.  The pastor, red in the face, was shaking his fist and talking about how the bible prohibits divorce and how it should never be tolerated by the church--- using the same text we read today.  In the midst of his rage, a meek woman bravely raised her hand and asked “But what if you are in a relationship that is abusive and violent, then you should leave the marriage right?”  The pastor replied fervently with “the bible clearly states that a woman should never ever leave her husband, for any reason.”  I glanced over at the woman—she had wilted into her seat, tears falling on the bible that she held so tightly in her hand.  This cannot happen. 

            The messages, the stigmas, in our world that perpetuate cycles of violence are so contrary to the God that we proclaim in Christ—A God of love and mercy, justice and peace.  If there is ever a passage in the bible that when first read, seems to point me to violence instead of love and reconciliation, it’s safe to assume that I probably don’t yet understand that passage and that I should seek to understand it within it’s historical and cultural context and then get back to what I do know—That God’s plan for the world, revealed again and again, is one of love, mercy, justice, and peace. 

            The gospel text for today is tricky.  It’s multifaceted.  The historical and cultural layers are demanding and complicated.  But it should not and cannot promote violence.  If we begin to peel back some of the layers in this text, we might begin to find that the text has more to say about how we treat one another and relate to one another than it does about the ethics of divorce. 

            Marriage in 1^st Century Israel was viewed much differently than it commonly is today.    Marriage at this time was commonly seen as a property transaction between families, the woman being the property or transferred goods.  In this relationship, men were the only ones who could issue a divorce and quite often did not need to have good reason to do so.  Divorce was socially and economically disastrous for a woman at this time.  A divorce meant that she was discarded like damaged goods that could no longer have any use.  The woman would be left to survive with little means to support herself and, because of the shame associated with divorce, could not seek the help of her family.  The possibility of remarriage was extremely rare and without the support of any male figure, a woman would be stuck in a cycle of injustice. 

            Jesus’ teaching on adultery and divorce in this passage dares to speak of women as something other than property and begins to challenge male privilege.  Jesus’ forbidding of divorce, told his followers that women are not to be used and then discarded whenever one pleased and that the most powerful in society should not be taking advantage of the most vulnerable.   Not only does this text address the specific power dynamics that have become steeped within gender, the text also has a lot to say about how we live in relationship to one another.

            The pericope, or particular passage, of this week’s gospel text is found within the larger segment of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount—a sermon directed at Jesus’ followers.  Right before this passage, Jesus is talking to his disciples about what the Kingdom of God is all about, setting up this passage contrasting current practices of this world, with a new restored vision of God.  Jesus sets up this section by saying “You have heard it said… but I tell you this” – It’s like he is saying, “This is how the world currently operates, but here is a better way, God’s way.”  He contrasts the kingdom of our world, the systems, the cycles, with a new kingdom, one of God.  This new kingdom demands that we look a one another differently;   In this world, when someone wrongs you, you are told to seek revenge--- but in this new world, this new kingdom, we are called to work it out, to seek reconciliation and forgiveness.  This new kingdom, this new vision, doesn’t see people as property or something to be used and abused, it sees people as individuals who should be treated properly and cared for.  In the old kingdom, you were called to do whatever you could to get ahead in the world but in this new kingdom, it would be better for you to lose one of your own limbs that to carelessly hurt another human being.  The old kingdom was about the self, the Kingdom of God is about community. 

            This new thing that God is doing in the world is about relationship, forgiveness, reconciliation, and love for one another.  When we care for one another, when we place value on those who are marginalized, when we seek reconciliation instead of revenge, when we speak about issues that are stigmatized and quieted, when we cry out for justice in our world, we are taking part in bringing about God’s Kingdom, this new vision, on earth.  Let us be bold and brave advocates for human dignity.  And may compassion be our compass as we navigate the relationships of our world.  

a messy story for a messy world: a homily on Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve

Year A, 12/24/13

University Lutheran Church- Palo Alto, CA

            In the darkness we have stumbled.  Walking through the hallways of our lives at night we fumble, searching for a light switch or maybe a simple night light.  We run into end tables and stub our toes on doorposts.  Again, we search for any sight of light.  The darkness is messy, it’s painful, it’s lonely.  Our world is messy, it’s painful, it’s lonely.

            The Christmas story doesn’t make any sense.  It’s not rational.  It’s a story of how God comes into a world that looks suspiciously like our own world—and why would a God ever do that?!  It’s a story about a poor, pregnant and unwed teenage girl.  It’s a story about the girl’s fiancé, who is not the father—and there have been rumors, off-handed comments, and judgmental stares.  The story takes this disheveled couple on an 80 mile journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem.  The terrain is rough, emotions are tense, and the girl is 9 months pregnant.  And not only is the girl pregnant, but she’s in labor.  And there is nowhere to go.  They are outsiders and not welcome.  So the Christmas story continues in a barn.  And it smells, and the animal feed is itchy, and oh no, the girl’s fiancé just stepped in something.  Unable to escape the reality of their situation, the girl gives birth.  And as if the situation needed any more of the extraordinary, the child of whom the girl gives birth is said to be the Son of God, the savior of the world.  Really? God comes to the world in this situation?! The Christmas story just doesn’t make sense.

 Let’s recap—God comes to earth in the form of a weak, vulnerable infant, born to a poor teenage mother under some really sketchy circumstances.  That’s not what Gods are supposed to do! There were a lot of people expecting a savior in Israel at this time, but I don’t think this is what they had in mind.  The savior of the world was supposed to be an authoritative warrior king; triumphing over enemies, crushing oppressors.  Instead, this God chooses to come into the world in the most innocent of ways and unattractive of circumstances. 

The Christmas story is not sterile.  It’s messy.  It is literally messy but it also emotionally messy, politically messy.  And it is in this messy situation that God comes into the world.  The Christmas story is a story of how God comes into a messy world that looks a little too much like our own messy world.  And what kind of God would want to get involved with that?  

For my Clinical Pastoral Education, I served as the chaplain of a shelter for women escaping domestic violence and chronic homelessness.  The situations that bring women to places like these are testaments to our world’s great darkness.  I worked with women who suffered in ways that humans should never have to suffer.  I heard stories that I wish no one would ever have to tell.  While I was working at the shelter, I got to know a woman who wanted to learn more about Christianity.  In particular, this woman wanted to read the bible so every other day we would meet and read stories about Jesus and his followers.  At one point in our time together, I was trying to explain how Jesus was both God and a human-- human just like us.  I was stumbling over my words, trying to explain something that I thought just didn’t make sense, when I noticed this woman’s eyes were welling up with tears. 

She looked at me, silent tears rolling down her cheeks, and said “So, if Jesus was both human and God, then that means God must know what it’s like to be me.  God knows what it’s like to suffer, because God was a human.”  This woman, who had lived in one of the most darkest and messiness of worlds, was overcome by the light of God’s love for her.  In an instance, she got it.   She got it so completely.  God knew what she had been through. God cared enough to come to earth and experience what is like to be human: to have a messy life, and to suffer, and to cry, and live through broken relationships, and to witness darkness first hand.  This woman who had walked in darkness, saw a great light in a God who cared enough about her to come to this messy earth. 

This is what is at stake in the Christmas story, Emmanuel—God with us.  At Christmas we celebrate a God who breaks into darkness.  A God who is not separate and distanced from the world, but active, and involved.  A God who was born as a human child and walked this earth and ministered in ways both ordinary and extraordinary.  A God who loves and cares for us so much that this God chooses to come into the messiest of our lives and dares to speak of hope, even when there seems to be none.  This is the God who reveals Godself in Jesus.  This is the God to whom you belong.  This is what we are celebrating. 

No, the story doesn’t really make sense.  We can’t use rationality to explain it.  This kind of love is beyond rationality.  It’s a kind of love that seeps into our brokenness and heals what was thought was beyond repair.  It’s a kind of love that risks everything to know relationship.  It’s a kind of love that is threatening to traditional structures of power.  It’s a love worth dying for.  It doesn’t make sense but this crazy, irrational love is worth putting our hope in.   

Tonight, we do not only celebrate the birth of a child; but tonight, this Christmas Eve, we celebrate that light has come into darkness; Bringing peace, orientation, and hope for a time when no one need stumble through darkness alone.  Living into this hope, may we set rationality aside.  May we live daringly in the hope that God dwells among us.  And, as people who have walked in darkness, may we experience the liberation that comes with the arrival of long expected light. 

a new thing: a sermon about weird magi and revealing God's unexpected presence.

Epiphany, Year A

January 5, 2014, University Lutheran Church- Stanford, CA

(Isaiah 60:1-6, Ephesians 3:1-12, Matthew 2:1-12)

            Growing up, I had a very distinct vision of how the story of the magi went.  My imagined story had a lot to do with popular culture and the song “We Three Kings.”  In my mind, I would always picture three powerful looking dudes.  They were dressed really classy and even wore crowns because, of course, they were kings.  And not only were these three dudes powerful kings, but they were also smart and wise--- Like Dumbledore! And so, for a long time, when I would read their story in the Bible, I would immediately imagine three Dumbledore Kings on steroids.  If only my childhood vision would be true.  Because the story would be a whole lot less confusing if those who discovered Jesus were powerful leader-kings, and not strange, outsiders. 

            See, when the first readers of Matthew’s gospel were hearing this story, they weren’t thinking of three powerful, clean-cut kings.   In the original language, the word that gets attributed to these people is that of wise men, in Greek, magi, but the text doesn’t really give any indication that these people are wise or even men.  Their behavior seems to hint that they may actually be a bit unwise.  After all, even though they are following a bright star that leads them straight to Bethlehem, they still get lost and have to make a pit stop in Jerusalem to ask for directions, and then they spill the beans to Herod!  And the gifts that they bring to Bethlehem are not very practical and, frankly, are a little creepy.  Really, who brings myrrh, something used for embalming, to a baby shower? (They should have just gotten a Target gift card!) And these people, they’ve come to worship Jesus, a baby, whom they call “King of the Jews.”  And they’re not even Jewish—why do they even care?!

Those who were reading or hearing this story in Matthew for the first time, most likely early Jewish followers of Jesus, probably would have not have thought this group of wise-people to be very wise.  They may have even been offended; if anything, confused.  Most people hearing this story when it was first written probably wouldn’t have used the adjective “wise” but instead, might have thought “weird.”  This story isn’t about three powerful, wise kings, but instead, about a strange gaggle of weirdos. Why would God choose them to reveal the birth of Jesus?  Why them?  Why weirdos?

We don’t have to read too far into the gospels to be reminded that the Bible is full of weirdos.  This Jesus character associates with a lot of strange people.  John the Baptist—wears camel hair clothing and eats bugs; the disciples—not very good at their jobs and smell like fish, all of the people whom Jesus heals—lepers, unclean women, dead people; Weirdos.  What was God thinking?

In Jesus, God did something new.  The story of Christmas is that God did a new thing in coming to earth as a vulnerable human baby—gods shouldn’t really do that. The story of Epiphany and the magi continues the theme.  God comes to earth as a baby and then the first people to recognize the importance of this God-child, the first group to name this child as he is, is a group of non-Jewish, transient outsiders.             

That certainly wasn’t expected, because if God did what was expected in this situation than the weird magi would have actually been Jewish, Dumbledore-like, wise and power kings.  But that wouldn’t be new—That’s a story we already know.  No, God is doing something new and this is clear already, in just the second chapter of the story.  These magi, they aren’t perfect, devout followers of Judaism—far from it, they practice magic and astrology—yet, God chooses to bring them into the story.  Suddenly, the birth of Christ becomes made known for everyone, not just the most acceptable of followers.  Everyone.  Suddenly, Christ is not just for the expected but also for even the most unexpected.  Everyone.  In Christ, God is doing something new.  In Christ, God is made accessible to all people, especially the weirdos. 

            But why them?  Why all the weirdos? 

Our world is full of stories about powerful kings.  Our folklore is full of wise Dumbledores.  The stories of success in our world are so often about working hard, denying whatever you can in the process, knowing the right people, and earning what you deserve.  The stories of our world have to do with good people getting good things and bad people getting what they deserve.  Our world’s stories are rich in narratives about a shallow happiness that comes from self-justification and how weirdos are weird for a reason.

 But, if Christianity is only for the non-weirdos, the perfect, happy people who have earned their best lives than God coming to earth as a human did nothing new.  If Christianity is only about how God favors the righteous, pious, most “right” religious people then Jesus’ stories blend right into the stories of our world.  It’s nothing new.  If Christianity is only for people who deserve it, or have earned it, then God might as well not have come to earth.  God coming to earth is not “business as usual.”  It’s about something else, something new. 

            The fact that God chooses to come to earth as a vulnerable child, and that God chooses to speak to weirdos says to us that we can never expect something “safe” or ordinary from God again.  The fact that God speaks to the dysfunctional and the broken and the hurting is proof enough that we can expect God to do the extraordinary.  In Jesus God did something so radically new that the world was set in a new direction.  How can we live into this new thing that God is doing?

            God isn’t done doing new things.  God continues to be present in ways unexpected.  God continues to reach forgotten corners, heals what is beyond repair, and brings life and light into darkness.  It’s still happening, do you perceive it? 

             Let us maintain high expectations for God to work in our world in ways beyond our comprehension.  Let us claim the extraordinary as a part of our shared story.  Let us allow ourselves to be absolutely blown away by God’s consistent and unexpected presence in our lives. 

            How might things change if we expected what was thought to be impossible?  What might we dare to hope for?  Through this child that the Magi visit, the lame walk, the blind see, justice is brought for the oppressed and people who were thought to be left out of the story are brought in.  Extraordinary, awesome things have happened and are still happening.  Let’s be a part of it.