September 3rd, 2023

One of the last classes that I took back in seminary was Greek Exegesis.  During the class we sat at a big table and would go around the circle and would have to read from the Greek New Testament and translate on the fly.  Where ever the professor stopped the student before you that is where you had to take up.  It was hard to prepare for.  You just really had to know your stuff.  I can report that I did okay with it.  I think I even got an A in the class.  Who says miracles don’t happen anymore?  However, I also remember that a couple of months later that I came across a banner in a church at a Presbytery meeting that had a Bible verse in Greek printed on it, and not only could I not translate the verse, I couldn’t even recall the sound that one of the letters made. Somehow my brain had said, “Well, I’ll never use this again,” and just dumped it.  Completely gone.  Clearly languages are not my forte. 

That said; I really like language.  I like how words are used, and woven together.  I like how ingeniously words can express ideas, and how authors and orators use wordplay and puns.  Even stupid little things like, “Did you hear about the guy whose entire left side was cut off?  He’s all right now,” or “About the girl who was built upside down.  Her feet smelled and her nose ran.”  This is one of the things that will always stick with me about this story of Moses and the burning bush.  It’s a classic in Biblical wordplay.  It’s not a funny one, but the text uses this device in Hebrew that is really quite clever.  Aeie ashr aeie.  I am who I am.  But the way that this is written holds a lot of ambiguity.  It could be I am who I will be, I will be who I will be, I am who I was, I was who I will be, or any variation there in.  And in this wordplay there is a lot said about who God is.  It portrays a God who is sovereign; a God who is eternal; a God who is steadfast.

And put it in the context of this passage it speaks volumes of who the authors of this text saw God to be, and some insights into humankind as well.  Who is God?  Who is this I AM?  Well, God is one who cares.  “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters.” God is one who is with us.  “Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them.”  And God is one who sends. “I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” And who are people?  Well, we suffer.  (Interestingly, this observation is quite common across faiths.  In fact, it is the first of Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths – there is suffering.)  But more than this we are a people who are to be in relationship to each other.  We are a people who are both called and sent, and in that a people who are to be God’s presence for one another.

I remember years ago I was driving home from the church to Del Norte.  There was a older man on the side of the highway looking for a ride.  He had about six big trash bags full of his possessions with him.  He looked beat; worn down and disheartened.  I pulled over and told him I could get him twenty miles down the road, and so we loaded up all his stuff and started on our way.  In the car, he told me a bit of his story.  He had had a job with the Six Flags Amusement Park, but had lost it several years back.  If I had to guess it probably had something to do with some minor mental health issues.  After he lost his job, he couldn’t afford his apartment and pretty soon found himself in a shelter.  And from then on he’d been on the road.  Staying in one shelter for a few days, and then getting moved on.  He said police would often even offer him a ride on to the next town, to a different shelter, where he would stay until he had to move on again. He told me that he had been through this area three times on a circuit that took him all the way from Missouri to Utah.  His story, the way he moved – broken and sore, it was heartbreaking.  But the message today, the message from I AM, is that God was with this fellow.

Pedro Arrupe was born in 1907.  In his youth he began to pursue a career as a doctor but then felt a call to ministry and was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1936.  He was sent to Japan as a missionary.  In 1945 he was working in the suburbs of Hiroshima when the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on that city.  He converted the Jesuit monastery to a makeshift hospital and used his medical knowhow to treat the wounded. Arrupe recalled, “The chapel, half destroyed, was overflowing with the wounded, who were lying on the floor very near to one another, suffering terribly, twisted with pain.”  He also spent some time in Latin America.  Once, after serving the Eucharist in a suburban slum, a man came up to him.  The man was so grateful that he had come to the slum.  He said he wanted to thank him, but he had nothing to give him.  So the man invited him to his home to share the only thing he could think of that he had.  The two of them sat and watched the sun setting together. Father Arrupe reflected, “He gave me his hand. As I was leaving, I thought: ‘I have met very few hearts that are so kind.’”  Arrupe’s experiences with the wounded, with those who suffered abject poverty shaped his theology, and he became a major theological voice in the 60s and 70s - especially for the Jesuits. He famously noted that God had a “preferential option for the poor,” and the oppressed.  

And indeed as we look at history, as we study scripture, we too get a glimpse of this.  From the passage we read today, where God takes such deep interest in the plight of the Israelites in bondage in Egypt; to the Psalmists who sing, “’Because the poor are despoiled, because the needy groan, I will now rise up,’ says the Lord;” to the prophets who cry out, “Seek justice! Rescue the oppressed.  Defend the orphan.  Plead for the Widow;” to Jesus who came to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and to let the oppressed go free.  And on and on from there throughout history, God, in being God, in being who God was, is, and will be has been with the poor and oppressed.  So if we desire to find God, to be with God, we will be with the poor.  If we want to hear God we will listen to the oppressed.

So back to the fellow I picked up on the highway so many years ago.  I remember that as chatted with him on our ride together, I was amazed.  Here in the midst of what seemed to me real hardship, was deep deep gratitude.  He was so thankful for the ride, so thankful that he had managed to get a tarp to cover himself and his stuff up when it rained, so thankful that he had a pretty warm sleeping bag now that nights were getting chilly, he was thankful for libraries and magazines about birds, and birds themselves and their songs and their colors.  Paradoxically, at the same time I saw the story of a society that was not nearly as gracious.  A culture that had pressed this man into a life of constant stress, of total instability, of continual travel so that he and those in his circumstances wouldn’t stay too long in their back yards. 

Christ says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”  But I don’t believe that this is about us suffering.  I don’t think Jesus is saying our lives should full of affliction.  Quite the contrary, as I have proclaimed again and again, I believe the life Christ offers, the life that Christ desires for us, is one of abundance.  But this is intended for everyone, and we need to see our interconnectedness.  I have a friend who likes posting pictures of juxtaposing images to drive this point home.  Pictures like an old man hunched over a puddle in the road, getting what little he can to drink from it, next to someone floating around in a pool with an iced drink in their hand, or multimillion dollar mansions with shacks hobbled together from whatever scrap material can be found just outside their walls. 

These two very different realities are connected, and really it’s pretty disgusting.  Truly, I believe that this is the message of I AM.   And if we listened to what I AM is saying and has been saying from the beginning of time we wouldn’t have either of these realities, abject poverty or gross wealth.  It just takes picking up our cross. And like I said this picking up our cross and denying ourselves isn’t about suffering.  It, like the poor man I picked up showed, is about being thankful for rides and sleeping bags and birds, and it is about doing what we can to ensure others have things like these and that they aren’t pushed further and further down for having little else.  Carrying the cross is being aware of our neighbors, and showing them a little agape love.  I AM hears the cries of the people.  I AM sends each of us out to respond.

I close with this prayer.  You might know it.  It was penned by a seven-year-old, and used to hang in the bathroom at Milagro’s Coffee Shop.  And perhaps we might even hear the voice of I AM calling and sending us here.  “God, please help the poor people get rich and the rich get poor so they know what it feels like.  And then, God, let everyone switch back to medium and let everyone have the same amount of food and money.  Amen.

August 13, 2023

Donald Hanna

Back when we lived I Minneapolis, we lived right off a couple of the main streets in the Uptown area.  With that it was not unusual to have random people knocking on our door.  There was the guy that didn’t even knock, but just walked in and asked for some soup.  There were the canvasers - name your social cause they came a knocking.  And then there was the regular visits from the folks coming to hand out their religious tracts, and try to get me to go to their church.  It was a little weird.  They were very regular, and they knew that I was a pastor a different church, but still they came asking.  I kind of feel that they just knew I wasn’t going to be mean to them, so they kept coming.

Anyway I remember them showing up one day with their magazine and the cover was this drawing of a vaguely apocalyptic cityscape.  On one side there was darkness and Satan watching over the city.  On the other side was a blue sky with a rainbow and some white God hands coming out of the sky.  Now I have to confess that I never read her magazine after she gave it to me.  But I remember her saying something like,“Can I ask you a question, who do you think is in control of the world.”  She went on to narrow it down for me, “Do you think it is God, people, or someone else.”

Every conversation I ever had with her was a little uncomfortable.   And I remember in her question my defenses going up a little, and yet, at the same time I didn’t want to be rude to her.  I said something about not really liking the question.  I don’t really see control, as we would typically think about it working, as being at work in totality in the world.  There are our own personal agendas.  There are systemic and historic dynamics.  There is the created order and physical laws.  There is love.  There is fear.  There is greed.  There are so many things at play.  Well, you probably aren’t surprised that apparently the pamphlet she hadheld the answer to the question.  And from what she told me, it turns out that Satan is in control of the world, and that there are three Bible verses that will tell you that.

Now I don’t mean to belittle this woman’s efforts or theology, but I really don’t believe that this kind of evangelism is very appropriate.  It tends to gloss over really complex issues in an attempt to real folks in.  It doesn’t really take account of who the persons are who being proselytized to and where they are in their life.  And worst of all it probably turns far more people away from the church, than it will ever gain.  There are people whose sole experience of the church is this kind of uncomfortable encounter, and so would never think about walking into a church building anywhere, anytime, anyhow.

However, this said, I do not want to give the impression that I don’t think we should participate in evangelism. I think that it is very important.  In Romans, Paul says that Christ is good news.  Knowing Jesus gives us peace.  Christ liberates us from so many idols and lies that the world holds up.  Christ teaches us the goodness and the abundance that God gives in creation.  Christ offers salvation.  Given all this, why wouldn’t’ we want to share the Gospel. I think its important to understand our story as being part of God’s story, in part so that we might bear witness to others. But if haranguing people at the gas pump, or street corner, or interrupting their dinner is not the way to go about it, what is?

Back when I was in India, I met with a man who had this story to share.  He said he arrived in the village where were twenty-six years prior.  When he got there the village chief came and knocked on his door the first week he was there.  “Are you a Christian,” he asked.  “Yes,” he replied.  “Please go away.  We don’t want you here,” the village chief said.  He went on to explain that over and over and over again through the years Christian missionaries had come to the village.  They had given away Bibles and offered families free meals or other gifts if people would join their church, and then just as quickly as they had arrived they would disappear, back to America.  He said that it always caused such trouble, chaos, and heartache in the village, and that they didn’t want to go through it again.

Well the man said he was not there to proselytize.  He was there because he wanted to build a school and that he could offer some assistance with getting wells established.  They agreed that he could stay provided that he didn’t try convert folks.  However, the village chief did consent that if people had questions about the man’s faith that he was free to share about it.

The man told me that the year before I met him the village had gotten together for a big celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the school. At the party the village chief recounted that initial encounter and the agreement that they had made. He told the crowd gathered that the man had very much lived up to his promise of only sharing about his faith if people asked him about it.   But then went on to say that through the constant love and care that he had showed the community over the years he had won far more converts to Christianity than all of the missionaries put together that had come to proselytize over the years.

There was a book that the Presbytery had me read a few years ago by the author, Author Michel Frost, called The Five Habits of Highly Missional People.  He lays out five things that Christians with a missional mindset incorporate into their lives.  He says that they bless.   They look for places in other people’s lives where they can offer words of affirmation, where they can share an act of kindness, or where they can provide some physical gift; food, money, shelter, or supply some other need.  Missional people eat with others.  They practice hospitality.  Whether this is meeting someone for coffee and conversation or having someone over for a full on dining table sit-down, there is just something sacramental about sharing food together.  They listen to God.  They set time aside for prayer, intentionally shutting out outside distractions.  They really work at hearing what God has to say to them in their lives, and then follow those promptings.  Missional people learn.  They study the Bible and the Gospels in particular.  They read books and watch movies about Jesus.  They study theology. They work at immersing themselves in Christ. And the final habit of missional people is that they see themselves as sent.  In their lives they try to exhibit the reconciliation, justice, beauty, and wholeness that God desires for all creation because God calls each of us to that life and sends out towards those ends.  Bless, Eat, Listen, Learn, and Sent.  Put together it forms the acronym B.E.L.L.S.  And put together it forms what Frost calls a questionable life – that is a life that will cause others to wonder just what is up.  Why does that person live that way?  Why would this person come to our village and open a school for us?

Back in seminary we said that this kind of life was praying with your feet.  It is trying to live according to the agape love that Jesus lived out in his life.  And there is something about it that truly does inspire.  It really makes people take notice.  It really does get people asking questions.

The Gospel lesson today, although not about evangelism, provides some analogy to what can happen when we live this kind of life.  Jesus and Peter have a relationship.  Peter sees Jesus out walking on the water.  Jesus is living in a way that has Peter asking questions.  He is curious. So Peter wants to know more.  He wants to be with Jesus.  He wants to walk out onto the water with Jesus.  And Jesus invites him to do so.  He takes some steps out of the boat but then begins to sink.  But Jesus is there to help him with this happens.

To me there is a great correlation between this story and what our evangelism efforts should be like.  We should work at forming relationships with others.  Not because we secretly want to convert them, but because that is how God calls us to live.  We should work at blessing others.  We should invite folks to eat with us and really try to get to know them in that.  We should listen to where God is directing us in relationships.  And then as seems appropriate share the richness of our lives, and even how faith has played into our lives.  And then if they have further questions or struggles with it, we already have a relationship with them, and can be there to help as we can.

As our lives become more agape oriented, as we work at developing and deepening relationships, as we live so that we are praying with our feet, people will take notice.  People will ask questions, and then we can share our own story. It’s what friends do. I don’t know who is in control of the world, but maybe we can take what control we have ourselves and use it to help make the world a little brighter of a place. Amen.