It was time for a change, so Saying Graces has moved. Come on over to www.SayingGraces.com
Peace,
Ben
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
"Theirs is the Kingdom" - Matthew 5:1-12
Sermon on January 30, 2011
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
I have more books than I know what to do with. Last weekend during the overnight retreat for our confirmation class, we took the confirmands into my office and into Amy’s office, simply to say that they were welcome there - welcome to come and visit, to chat, to say what’s on their minds… I have hundreds of books in my office on the shelves. Some are neatly categorized according to subject matter, and quite a few more are just stuck somewhere. I told the confirmation class, “If you ever want to read an interesting book about God, I’ve probably got one here for you. And if you ever want to read a book that will bore you to absolute tears, I’ve unfortunately got a few of those too.”
There are a few books on my office shelves that have been with me for more than twelve years, but not many. It was about twelve years ago now that I applied to be a student at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, and thus began a book collection that my reading will likely struggle to keep up with for the rest of my life. But I have a few theological books, just a few, that predate any notion I ever had of seminary. Not long ago I became curious about those books - just personally curious about how they might have influenced me before I even considered being a pastor.
One of those books is called Theirs is the Kingdom: Celebrating the Gospel in Urban America, by Robert D. Lupton. I received that book when I was 19 years old. During my sophomore and junior years of college, I spent my spring breaks working with an organization called the Chicago Urban Project. Located in the Austin neighborhood of Chicago’s west side, the Urban Project works to empower families struggling in the midst of poverty. Theirs is the Kingdom was given to me by a man named John Hochevar, who was the project’s director.
John was a pretty amazing guy. He’s been ministering on the streets of the west side of Chicago for the better part of three decades now, reaching out to the poor, the homeless, the addicted, the lost… John was the first person I ever met who so clearly helped me understand the connection between our physical and spiritual salvations. God wants goodness and wholeness to be ours for all eternity, yes. But God also wants goodness and wholeness in our lives today, right now.
John was full of stories. Of course, working in a community where gangs ruled the streets and prostitutes strolled back and forth right in front of your church, you’d have to be full of stories, wouldn’t you? Once he told me about a time he got robbed. It was after dark, and he and one of his staff interns were coming home late from a meeting. They were driving through a horrible section of the neighborhood - a place known for continual violence and crime. In the middle of that neighborhood, the car broke down. Just sputtered to a stop. John coasted to the side of the road, put the car in park, and looked at his intern. “We’re in trouble,” he said, “so let’s pray.”
John and this intern began to pray, but not for long. A few men who had noticed the car dying surrounded the car, forced them out, and took everything they had, including their shoes. At one point, John said that he was frantically trying to pull his wedding band off of his finger because the robbers said that they would cut it off if he couldn’t. And they would have.
The robbers left, and there they were. No money, no shoes, (no cell phones, mind you, this was the 1980’s), stranded in the dark streets of this violent Chicago neighborhood. What would you do? I suppose instinct would tell you to get back in that car and hide. Maybe peek out from time to time and hope that a squad car came by. But John must have had Matthew 5:12 in his head: “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven,” because instead of hiding in the car, he climbed right up on top of it. He sat himself up there on the roof of his car and began singing. “A Mighty Fortress is Our God,” “Amazing Grace,” at the top of his lungs, hymn after hymn after hymn, until help finally came. “They might think I’m crazy,” he said, “but at least they’ll see I’ve already been robbed, and they’ll also know why I’m here.”
As a young college kid from the safe suburbs, I was amazed by John’s commitment to God and to the city. So maybe it’s no surprise that I’m here, twenty-one years later with you in this city. I saw God’s heart for the city long before I ever saw myself in ministry.
It was just three years ago now that I began to have some conversation with others and a few of you about the possibility of ministry here at First Presbyterian in Racine. So many moments in that story confirmed that yes, this was where we needed to be, but I can remember one thing early on that drew me to you and to this church. I read in the material that the search committee had compiled that this congregation had made a conscious decision to remain here, in the city. On coming to Racine and seeing this building for the first time, I thought to myself, “Yes. This is where a church needs to be! In the city. Right next to downtown. Coffee shops and bars, the courthouse and a few abandoned storefronts. A neighborhood struggling with poverty. If you asked me where I’d put a church if I could, it would be here.” From the beginning I’ve been drawn to the fact that First Presbyterian Church is a church in the city.
During Jesus’ first sermon in Matthew’s gospel, he blesses so many of those who we see living in our cities.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven…
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted…
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth…
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…
Cities have a way of amplifying human brokenness. A church that would choose to situate itself in a city must be a church that is willing to confront that brokenness and, like Jesus, bless those who are meek, those who are poor in spirit, those who hunger and thirst…
Today after worship, this congregation will hold its 172nd annual congregational meeting. During the past 172 years, the city around us has changed quite a bit, hasn’t it? At one time, we were pretty much on the edge of town. Now we’re in the middle of it. This church has seen the surrounding blocks go through change after change after change. Property values rising and falling. Businesses coming and going. People and families changing…
I’m glad we’re here. And when I say that, I don’t mean to just say that I’m glad we’re alive and awake. I mean that I’m glad we’re sitting here on the corner of 7th and College, here in this city where the need is great and where churches willing to face that need have an opportunity to embody God’s love in a unique way.
I know of churches in the suburbs and churches in rural areas that are struggling to figure out how they might reach out and care for others. But you and I - we can walk out any door of this church or look through any window and see the need around us.
Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which begins with our passage today, is a sermon to people who, like us, live and worship in the midst of a broken world. Jesus speaks to people who are perhaps tired of the way the world around them has defined what it means to “be blessed.”
To a world that says you’re blessed if you have a six-figure income, Jesus says you’re blessed if you’re poor in spirit. To a world that says you’re blessed if you’re happy, Jesus says you’re blessed even when you mourn. To a world that says you’re blessed if secure in your finances and insulated against a bad economy, Jesus says you’re blessed if you’re simply meek, and that the inheritance of the earth is yours.
Why is it important that we are a church in a city? For one thing, it’s in the city where we come face to face every day with those for whom Jesus says the kingdom awaits. “Blessed are they,” Jesus says, “for theirs is the Kingdom.”
This book that my friend John Hochevar gave me, Theirs is the Kingdom, still sits on my shelf. Its author, Robert Lupton, lived a life much like John’s. Lupton was a white, middle-class guy who cared for God’s people living in poverty, and so he moved into a high-crime area of Atlanta - right into a ghetto of that city - and there he began a ministry of outreach and love.
His book is just a collection of his stories and observations about that ministry. I want to close today by sharing just one of them with you. It’s a story about one cold January morning when Lupton walked out to his car to find a homeless man sleeping there. As you listen, may God soften your heart for our neighbors in this city, and may we find ourselves as a family of faith called more deeply into God’s love and service.
I hit the button on my alarm at 6:00 a.m. The whistling at the windows told me it was another cold January day. I’d slept restlessly: the thermostat was slightly high and I’d fluctuated between being too warm with two blankets and too cold with only one. No matter now. The hot steamy shower woke me up, and my thoughts turned ahead to a day of meetings and projects.
At 6:29 I walked out the front door, bundled in scarf and coat against the chill, thinking of my first meeting. As I opened the car door, my heart froze. A man sat behind the wheel.
I reacted instantly, defensively. No knowing whether the man was dead or dangerous, I drew my fist back to strike him before he recovered from his surprise. He slowly turned to meet my angry, startled face.
“What are you doing in my car?” I blurted out, my fist still clenched.
“I’m not in your car, sir,” the man slurred in a frightened, thick-tongued voice. “I’m not in your car, sir,” he buttered again and again as he slowly maneuvered his body out of my car and teetered off across the front lawn.
M heart was still pounding as I drove past him on the street. It wasn’t until I turned onto the expressway that my mind slowed down enough for me to reflect on what just had happened.
I remembered my thoughts in the shower about the thermostat. I had been glad our house was tight and well insulated. There were worse things than sleeping too warm. I remembered also how good it felt to shave and slip into freshly pressed clothes. And then I remembered how terribly frightened I was, how violated I felt that this stranger had intruded where he had no right to be.
I began to wonder where the man was headed. His dark silhouette stumbling down the street was vivid in my mind. I hoped that his dull mind was directing him to his home. I tried to avoid thoughts that he might have no home, that perhaps the temporary lodging in my car was all the home he possessed.
Why? Why should it be, I wondered, that I am so concerned about sleeping too warm when another human being equally loved by the Creator barely survives in a cold car outside my door? Why is it that I have a secure place to rest and be restored, when this man, and so many others like him, has no place to lay his head in peace?
The Christ, the despised one, the one from who we hid our faces, spoke softly, deeply in my spirit. It was the voice of one who himself claimed to have no place to lay his head. I began to weep. I remembered my clenched fist and my compassionless expulsion of this stranger from my life. I cried in sorrow for a broken man whom I had sent off into the cold—unshowered, unfed. And I sorrowed for the one whose heart is not yet sufficiently broken, whose heart hardens too quickly against the call of the Lord among the least of these.
“I am sorry, Lord, for turning you out into the cold. Thank you for using my car.”
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
I have more books than I know what to do with. Last weekend during the overnight retreat for our confirmation class, we took the confirmands into my office and into Amy’s office, simply to say that they were welcome there - welcome to come and visit, to chat, to say what’s on their minds… I have hundreds of books in my office on the shelves. Some are neatly categorized according to subject matter, and quite a few more are just stuck somewhere. I told the confirmation class, “If you ever want to read an interesting book about God, I’ve probably got one here for you. And if you ever want to read a book that will bore you to absolute tears, I’ve unfortunately got a few of those too.”
There are a few books on my office shelves that have been with me for more than twelve years, but not many. It was about twelve years ago now that I applied to be a student at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, and thus began a book collection that my reading will likely struggle to keep up with for the rest of my life. But I have a few theological books, just a few, that predate any notion I ever had of seminary. Not long ago I became curious about those books - just personally curious about how they might have influenced me before I even considered being a pastor.
One of those books is called Theirs is the Kingdom: Celebrating the Gospel in Urban America, by Robert D. Lupton. I received that book when I was 19 years old. During my sophomore and junior years of college, I spent my spring breaks working with an organization called the Chicago Urban Project. Located in the Austin neighborhood of Chicago’s west side, the Urban Project works to empower families struggling in the midst of poverty. Theirs is the Kingdom was given to me by a man named John Hochevar, who was the project’s director.
John was a pretty amazing guy. He’s been ministering on the streets of the west side of Chicago for the better part of three decades now, reaching out to the poor, the homeless, the addicted, the lost… John was the first person I ever met who so clearly helped me understand the connection between our physical and spiritual salvations. God wants goodness and wholeness to be ours for all eternity, yes. But God also wants goodness and wholeness in our lives today, right now.
John was full of stories. Of course, working in a community where gangs ruled the streets and prostitutes strolled back and forth right in front of your church, you’d have to be full of stories, wouldn’t you? Once he told me about a time he got robbed. It was after dark, and he and one of his staff interns were coming home late from a meeting. They were driving through a horrible section of the neighborhood - a place known for continual violence and crime. In the middle of that neighborhood, the car broke down. Just sputtered to a stop. John coasted to the side of the road, put the car in park, and looked at his intern. “We’re in trouble,” he said, “so let’s pray.”
John and this intern began to pray, but not for long. A few men who had noticed the car dying surrounded the car, forced them out, and took everything they had, including their shoes. At one point, John said that he was frantically trying to pull his wedding band off of his finger because the robbers said that they would cut it off if he couldn’t. And they would have.
The robbers left, and there they were. No money, no shoes, (no cell phones, mind you, this was the 1980’s), stranded in the dark streets of this violent Chicago neighborhood. What would you do? I suppose instinct would tell you to get back in that car and hide. Maybe peek out from time to time and hope that a squad car came by. But John must have had Matthew 5:12 in his head: “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven,” because instead of hiding in the car, he climbed right up on top of it. He sat himself up there on the roof of his car and began singing. “A Mighty Fortress is Our God,” “Amazing Grace,” at the top of his lungs, hymn after hymn after hymn, until help finally came. “They might think I’m crazy,” he said, “but at least they’ll see I’ve already been robbed, and they’ll also know why I’m here.”
As a young college kid from the safe suburbs, I was amazed by John’s commitment to God and to the city. So maybe it’s no surprise that I’m here, twenty-one years later with you in this city. I saw God’s heart for the city long before I ever saw myself in ministry.
It was just three years ago now that I began to have some conversation with others and a few of you about the possibility of ministry here at First Presbyterian in Racine. So many moments in that story confirmed that yes, this was where we needed to be, but I can remember one thing early on that drew me to you and to this church. I read in the material that the search committee had compiled that this congregation had made a conscious decision to remain here, in the city. On coming to Racine and seeing this building for the first time, I thought to myself, “Yes. This is where a church needs to be! In the city. Right next to downtown. Coffee shops and bars, the courthouse and a few abandoned storefronts. A neighborhood struggling with poverty. If you asked me where I’d put a church if I could, it would be here.” From the beginning I’ve been drawn to the fact that First Presbyterian Church is a church in the city.
During Jesus’ first sermon in Matthew’s gospel, he blesses so many of those who we see living in our cities.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven…
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted…
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth…
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…
Cities have a way of amplifying human brokenness. A church that would choose to situate itself in a city must be a church that is willing to confront that brokenness and, like Jesus, bless those who are meek, those who are poor in spirit, those who hunger and thirst…
Today after worship, this congregation will hold its 172nd annual congregational meeting. During the past 172 years, the city around us has changed quite a bit, hasn’t it? At one time, we were pretty much on the edge of town. Now we’re in the middle of it. This church has seen the surrounding blocks go through change after change after change. Property values rising and falling. Businesses coming and going. People and families changing…
I’m glad we’re here. And when I say that, I don’t mean to just say that I’m glad we’re alive and awake. I mean that I’m glad we’re sitting here on the corner of 7th and College, here in this city where the need is great and where churches willing to face that need have an opportunity to embody God’s love in a unique way.
I know of churches in the suburbs and churches in rural areas that are struggling to figure out how they might reach out and care for others. But you and I - we can walk out any door of this church or look through any window and see the need around us.
Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which begins with our passage today, is a sermon to people who, like us, live and worship in the midst of a broken world. Jesus speaks to people who are perhaps tired of the way the world around them has defined what it means to “be blessed.”
To a world that says you’re blessed if you have a six-figure income, Jesus says you’re blessed if you’re poor in spirit. To a world that says you’re blessed if you’re happy, Jesus says you’re blessed even when you mourn. To a world that says you’re blessed if secure in your finances and insulated against a bad economy, Jesus says you’re blessed if you’re simply meek, and that the inheritance of the earth is yours.
Why is it important that we are a church in a city? For one thing, it’s in the city where we come face to face every day with those for whom Jesus says the kingdom awaits. “Blessed are they,” Jesus says, “for theirs is the Kingdom.”
This book that my friend John Hochevar gave me, Theirs is the Kingdom, still sits on my shelf. Its author, Robert Lupton, lived a life much like John’s. Lupton was a white, middle-class guy who cared for God’s people living in poverty, and so he moved into a high-crime area of Atlanta - right into a ghetto of that city - and there he began a ministry of outreach and love.
His book is just a collection of his stories and observations about that ministry. I want to close today by sharing just one of them with you. It’s a story about one cold January morning when Lupton walked out to his car to find a homeless man sleeping there. As you listen, may God soften your heart for our neighbors in this city, and may we find ourselves as a family of faith called more deeply into God’s love and service.
I hit the button on my alarm at 6:00 a.m. The whistling at the windows told me it was another cold January day. I’d slept restlessly: the thermostat was slightly high and I’d fluctuated between being too warm with two blankets and too cold with only one. No matter now. The hot steamy shower woke me up, and my thoughts turned ahead to a day of meetings and projects.
At 6:29 I walked out the front door, bundled in scarf and coat against the chill, thinking of my first meeting. As I opened the car door, my heart froze. A man sat behind the wheel.
I reacted instantly, defensively. No knowing whether the man was dead or dangerous, I drew my fist back to strike him before he recovered from his surprise. He slowly turned to meet my angry, startled face.
“What are you doing in my car?” I blurted out, my fist still clenched.
“I’m not in your car, sir,” the man slurred in a frightened, thick-tongued voice. “I’m not in your car, sir,” he buttered again and again as he slowly maneuvered his body out of my car and teetered off across the front lawn.
M heart was still pounding as I drove past him on the street. It wasn’t until I turned onto the expressway that my mind slowed down enough for me to reflect on what just had happened.
I remembered my thoughts in the shower about the thermostat. I had been glad our house was tight and well insulated. There were worse things than sleeping too warm. I remembered also how good it felt to shave and slip into freshly pressed clothes. And then I remembered how terribly frightened I was, how violated I felt that this stranger had intruded where he had no right to be.
I began to wonder where the man was headed. His dark silhouette stumbling down the street was vivid in my mind. I hoped that his dull mind was directing him to his home. I tried to avoid thoughts that he might have no home, that perhaps the temporary lodging in my car was all the home he possessed.
Why? Why should it be, I wondered, that I am so concerned about sleeping too warm when another human being equally loved by the Creator barely survives in a cold car outside my door? Why is it that I have a secure place to rest and be restored, when this man, and so many others like him, has no place to lay his head in peace?
The Christ, the despised one, the one from who we hid our faces, spoke softly, deeply in my spirit. It was the voice of one who himself claimed to have no place to lay his head. I began to weep. I remembered my clenched fist and my compassionless expulsion of this stranger from my life. I cried in sorrow for a broken man whom I had sent off into the cold—unshowered, unfed. And I sorrowed for the one whose heart is not yet sufficiently broken, whose heart hardens too quickly against the call of the Lord among the least of these.
“I am sorry, Lord, for turning you out into the cold. Thank you for using my car.”
Monday, January 24, 2011
"Born Again?" - Exodus 1:8-2:10
Sermon on Sunday, January 23, 2011
The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.” But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?” 19The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” (Exodus 1:15-19)
Well, this morning, I know what most of you are probably thinking. In spite of everything I say up here today — in spite of all the questions I might raise and in spite of all the insights we might contemplate this morning, I won’t pretend to ignore perhaps the most compelling and pressing question of the day today: “Who’s going to come out on top? The Steelers or the Jets?” Right? Oh, I’m sorry. Is there another game on today? I hadn’t realized…
According to Google Maps there are 211 miles between Lambeau Field and Soldier Field. And we in Racine are somewhere south of the half-way point. I think I can speak for all of us when I say that the Packers and the Bears are two really fine teams and it’s simply nice to know that one of them is sure to be in the Super Bowl in two weeks, right? Just trying to make a little peace up here.
It’s funny, exciting, and sometimes a little strange to see how football can manage to ignite our passions so vividly. This past week, Sports Illustrated has run a series online featuring Bear fans making fun of Packer fans and Packer fans making fun of Bear fans. Mainly, these articles feature pictures of the most ridiculously dressed on each side — people who come to the game in costume, dressed as bears or as giant blocks of cheese; shirtless men in sub-zero temperatures with their chests painted green and gold or blue and orange…
For some, there’s a religious zeal in their love for football. And I’m often amazed that while extreme displays of crazed loyalty seem accepted and even encouraged in our culture, we tend to be less accepting of other, more commonly held displays of public affection. Take our sermon title this morning. “Born Again.” That’s a phrase that makes some of us Christians a little uncomfortable.
Most of you know that before my family and I came here to Racine, I served as a campus pastor at a Presbyterian Church next to the University of Texas in Austin. Our church was right behind the university’s co-op bookstore, which was directly across the street from the student union, so it was a busy place to be.
On most days during the school year, one particular group of Christians stationed themselves right in front of the union building, and they took it upon themselves to see to the spiritual health of the college students, passing out brochures and confronting people passers-by with religiously-charged questions. I was stopped once and asked, “Are you a Christian?” Hoping to keep things brief, I simply said, “Yes.” But then this man, standing there in the hot, scorching sun under his wide-brimmed hat with his Bible and a stack of leaflets said, “Are you born again?”
What about you? Are you born again? I’m not sure how you feel about that question precisely. As Christians we have lots of ways of describing ourselves. Saying that you’re “born again” might not be one of them. Maybe you feel like you were born ok the first time. Maybe you’d describe yourself as “spiritually hungry but institutionally suspicious,” so you're not sure you’d adopt that particular religious language. Maybe you’re not comfortable being categorized by other Christians. Maybe you’d prefer to simply call yourself a Christian, a follower of Jesus, and leave it at that.
The man was still looking at me, waiting for an answer. “Are you born again?” “Yup,” I said. He seemed satisfied, I suppose, and I made my way along. The thought has occurred to me, though: “What if I had said more?”
The story that comes to us today from Exodus is a story about threat. Listen again to Pharaoh’s first two lines: "Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land."
Can you sense his fear? Can you feel how Pharaoh has been threatened? Can you imagine a history of events that has brought Pharaoh to this moment in time
After all, what are we to picture here? Are we to think that Pharaoh, upon being appointed as king, took a stroll around his palace and while doing so happened to look out a large palace window when suddenly, to his great shock, he realized, "There are a lot of Israelites out there!" Are we to believe that this scenario of a growing Israelite population is one that neither Pharaoh nor his political advisors could have possibly foreseen, that the whole thing just sort of took Egypt completely by surprise?
No. Pharaoh is speaking here about something he's known about for a long, long time. Most likely, he has been raised in a culture that has received the immigration of Israelites into Egyptian lands. He and his people are more than aware of this rising tide of Israelites in their midst.
In fact, maybe we can imagine some of the things that were being said on the streets and in the marketplaces, in homes and in chatrooms: “The Israelites - there are too many of them! They’re taking our jobs. They're using all the water. They're sucking our resources dry. They're making our family lines impure. They've brought their own God with them. They're ruining Egyptian culture. Something needs to be done.”
Pharaoh has grown up in a climate of tense fear. Dogging him through his rise to power has been the threat of the growing Israelite population and what they might do. Is Pharaoh now coming up with a revolutionary plan - a way to deal with the rising Israelite population once and for all? Are his ideas really new? Or are they as much a part of him and his culture as anything else? And do they not flow from heart of his culture—from the core of a society struggling with what it does not understand - a culture diversified with the growing presence of out-of-towners - a culture that is threatened?
Pharaoh isn't just speaking from his own heart, but rather from the heart of a people living in fear for its cultural identity and sense of nationalism. "Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land."
And the people said, "Yes! That's what it is!" They listened to Pharaoh and they followed him. They became taskmasters of their Israelite neighbors; they oppressed them with forced labor. And I wonder about Pharaoh's "in the event of war" line. "In the event of war," he tells the people, what to stop these Israelites form jumping ship and joining the other side? Nothing! Why, they're probably just waiting for the right time to take over! Pharaoh looks at his people and says, “Is that what you want? Is that the kind of fear you'll agree to live under?” And I can just picture Pharaoh's people listening to every word. In their hearts they've got their doubts about the Israelites, they carry the racism that's inherent in their culture. Now they hear their leader – who chooses his words ever so carefully: Those Israelites want to take us over! That's what they want! We can't let that happen! This spells doom for the society we've worked so hard to create!
And so the Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites. Ruthless: without compassion, without pity, without grief—ruthless. And of course, it's easier to behave ruthlessly when you believe that the people you're mistreating aren't really people at all.
Enter the story two people - the two most unlikely of characters: Shiphrah and Puah. Two Hebrew midwives. Pharaoh calls them in and instructs them, “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.” If it is a boy... If it is one who might grow up and resist Egypt, if it could become a soldier one day, if it has the power to carry Israelite names and Israelite blood to future generations, if it is a threat, kill it.
It’s ironic, though, that Pharaoh lets the girls live, isn’t it? “If it is a girl, let it live,” he says, completely unaware that the Hebrew women are strong and the Hebrew women who become midwives apparently know a thing or two about civil disobedience. Once Pharaoh realizes that plenty of healthy Hebrew boys are being born, he again summons Shiphrah and Puah and says, “What’s going on? Why are you letting these boys live?” I can just see Shiphrah and Puah exchanging a quick glance. They’re prepared for this: “You see, Pharaoh,” they respond, “the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.”
And who knows how long this has been going on? Really, how long? Days? Weeks? Months? Who knows how many births these midwives have seen? Birth after birth after birth, again and again and again…
Born again to a Hebrew family, an infant, a boy who will grow longing for a better way of life.
Born again to a Hebrew mother and father, a girl who, throughout her childhood, will hear stories of Shiphrah and Puah, stories that will inspire resistance and courage.
Born again to a Hebrew mother, a boy, whose name will be Moses, who will rise up in Pharaoh’s very own house and lead the Israelites away from Egypt, away from oppression, away from bondage to freedom.
Born again and again and again. Threat to Pharaoh. Threat to Egypt. Threat to a culture whose national identity has been offended by the presence of outsiders. Born again: a threat that change is about to take place.
Born again and again and again… Are you born again? Are we born again? What do we do with threat? What do we do when our lives, pregnant with possibilities for change, for growth in new directions, for understanding God in a new way, pose a threat to us?
When working with integrity means changing jobs,
When a difficult conversation threatens to change a relationship,
When being healthy means admitting we need help,
When living an honest lifestyle threatens to isolate us from our friends and family,
When answering God’s call threatens to undo our sense of security,
When honest doubts threaten to change the way we understand our faith…
There is a bit of Pharaoh in us, I think. There’s a bit of that spirit that yells, “STOP!” every time our lives reach the birthing stage - every time when that which could be born to us represents a threat - a theological, political, action-oriented, relational, truth-telling threat… And in so many ways, we put that threat to death.
Yet there is a spirit of Christ in us too, isn’t there? That Spirit present with us when, like Shiphrah and Puah, we act as midwives for each other, present at the birthstools of life’s challenges and difficult choices - that Spirit that breathes life into our living and speaks to us in a myriad of ways, saying, “Life is too precious to spend it all on that which is non-threatening! Be born! Again and again! Be born!”
And so we are church. And so we gather. And so we are all pregnant, and so we are all one another’s midwives. And so we create safe community and say to one another and to the world:
“Be born!”
“Live into change!”
“Come out!”
“Go forth!”
“Live.”
And of course, we cannot help but wonder... If the Church is born again, what does it look like? What do we as a Church begin to look like when, despite the threats, we live in rebirth day after day after day? What happens when reborn people in a reborn Church long for a reborn world? What happens if they do it again and again and again?
Are we born again?
The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.” But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?” 19The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” (Exodus 1:15-19)
Well, this morning, I know what most of you are probably thinking. In spite of everything I say up here today — in spite of all the questions I might raise and in spite of all the insights we might contemplate this morning, I won’t pretend to ignore perhaps the most compelling and pressing question of the day today: “Who’s going to come out on top? The Steelers or the Jets?” Right? Oh, I’m sorry. Is there another game on today? I hadn’t realized…
According to Google Maps there are 211 miles between Lambeau Field and Soldier Field. And we in Racine are somewhere south of the half-way point. I think I can speak for all of us when I say that the Packers and the Bears are two really fine teams and it’s simply nice to know that one of them is sure to be in the Super Bowl in two weeks, right? Just trying to make a little peace up here.
It’s funny, exciting, and sometimes a little strange to see how football can manage to ignite our passions so vividly. This past week, Sports Illustrated has run a series online featuring Bear fans making fun of Packer fans and Packer fans making fun of Bear fans. Mainly, these articles feature pictures of the most ridiculously dressed on each side — people who come to the game in costume, dressed as bears or as giant blocks of cheese; shirtless men in sub-zero temperatures with their chests painted green and gold or blue and orange…
For some, there’s a religious zeal in their love for football. And I’m often amazed that while extreme displays of crazed loyalty seem accepted and even encouraged in our culture, we tend to be less accepting of other, more commonly held displays of public affection. Take our sermon title this morning. “Born Again.” That’s a phrase that makes some of us Christians a little uncomfortable.
Most of you know that before my family and I came here to Racine, I served as a campus pastor at a Presbyterian Church next to the University of Texas in Austin. Our church was right behind the university’s co-op bookstore, which was directly across the street from the student union, so it was a busy place to be.
On most days during the school year, one particular group of Christians stationed themselves right in front of the union building, and they took it upon themselves to see to the spiritual health of the college students, passing out brochures and confronting people passers-by with religiously-charged questions. I was stopped once and asked, “Are you a Christian?” Hoping to keep things brief, I simply said, “Yes.” But then this man, standing there in the hot, scorching sun under his wide-brimmed hat with his Bible and a stack of leaflets said, “Are you born again?”
What about you? Are you born again? I’m not sure how you feel about that question precisely. As Christians we have lots of ways of describing ourselves. Saying that you’re “born again” might not be one of them. Maybe you feel like you were born ok the first time. Maybe you’d describe yourself as “spiritually hungry but institutionally suspicious,” so you're not sure you’d adopt that particular religious language. Maybe you’re not comfortable being categorized by other Christians. Maybe you’d prefer to simply call yourself a Christian, a follower of Jesus, and leave it at that.
The man was still looking at me, waiting for an answer. “Are you born again?” “Yup,” I said. He seemed satisfied, I suppose, and I made my way along. The thought has occurred to me, though: “What if I had said more?”
The story that comes to us today from Exodus is a story about threat. Listen again to Pharaoh’s first two lines: "Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land."
Can you sense his fear? Can you feel how Pharaoh has been threatened? Can you imagine a history of events that has brought Pharaoh to this moment in time
After all, what are we to picture here? Are we to think that Pharaoh, upon being appointed as king, took a stroll around his palace and while doing so happened to look out a large palace window when suddenly, to his great shock, he realized, "There are a lot of Israelites out there!" Are we to believe that this scenario of a growing Israelite population is one that neither Pharaoh nor his political advisors could have possibly foreseen, that the whole thing just sort of took Egypt completely by surprise?
No. Pharaoh is speaking here about something he's known about for a long, long time. Most likely, he has been raised in a culture that has received the immigration of Israelites into Egyptian lands. He and his people are more than aware of this rising tide of Israelites in their midst.
In fact, maybe we can imagine some of the things that were being said on the streets and in the marketplaces, in homes and in chatrooms: “The Israelites - there are too many of them! They’re taking our jobs. They're using all the water. They're sucking our resources dry. They're making our family lines impure. They've brought their own God with them. They're ruining Egyptian culture. Something needs to be done.”
Pharaoh has grown up in a climate of tense fear. Dogging him through his rise to power has been the threat of the growing Israelite population and what they might do. Is Pharaoh now coming up with a revolutionary plan - a way to deal with the rising Israelite population once and for all? Are his ideas really new? Or are they as much a part of him and his culture as anything else? And do they not flow from heart of his culture—from the core of a society struggling with what it does not understand - a culture diversified with the growing presence of out-of-towners - a culture that is threatened?
Pharaoh isn't just speaking from his own heart, but rather from the heart of a people living in fear for its cultural identity and sense of nationalism. "Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land."
And the people said, "Yes! That's what it is!" They listened to Pharaoh and they followed him. They became taskmasters of their Israelite neighbors; they oppressed them with forced labor. And I wonder about Pharaoh's "in the event of war" line. "In the event of war," he tells the people, what to stop these Israelites form jumping ship and joining the other side? Nothing! Why, they're probably just waiting for the right time to take over! Pharaoh looks at his people and says, “Is that what you want? Is that the kind of fear you'll agree to live under?” And I can just picture Pharaoh's people listening to every word. In their hearts they've got their doubts about the Israelites, they carry the racism that's inherent in their culture. Now they hear their leader – who chooses his words ever so carefully: Those Israelites want to take us over! That's what they want! We can't let that happen! This spells doom for the society we've worked so hard to create!
And so the Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites. Ruthless: without compassion, without pity, without grief—ruthless. And of course, it's easier to behave ruthlessly when you believe that the people you're mistreating aren't really people at all.
Enter the story two people - the two most unlikely of characters: Shiphrah and Puah. Two Hebrew midwives. Pharaoh calls them in and instructs them, “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.” If it is a boy... If it is one who might grow up and resist Egypt, if it could become a soldier one day, if it has the power to carry Israelite names and Israelite blood to future generations, if it is a threat, kill it.
It’s ironic, though, that Pharaoh lets the girls live, isn’t it? “If it is a girl, let it live,” he says, completely unaware that the Hebrew women are strong and the Hebrew women who become midwives apparently know a thing or two about civil disobedience. Once Pharaoh realizes that plenty of healthy Hebrew boys are being born, he again summons Shiphrah and Puah and says, “What’s going on? Why are you letting these boys live?” I can just see Shiphrah and Puah exchanging a quick glance. They’re prepared for this: “You see, Pharaoh,” they respond, “the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.”
And who knows how long this has been going on? Really, how long? Days? Weeks? Months? Who knows how many births these midwives have seen? Birth after birth after birth, again and again and again…
Born again to a Hebrew family, an infant, a boy who will grow longing for a better way of life.
Born again to a Hebrew mother and father, a girl who, throughout her childhood, will hear stories of Shiphrah and Puah, stories that will inspire resistance and courage.
Born again to a Hebrew mother, a boy, whose name will be Moses, who will rise up in Pharaoh’s very own house and lead the Israelites away from Egypt, away from oppression, away from bondage to freedom.
Born again and again and again. Threat to Pharaoh. Threat to Egypt. Threat to a culture whose national identity has been offended by the presence of outsiders. Born again: a threat that change is about to take place.
Born again and again and again… Are you born again? Are we born again? What do we do with threat? What do we do when our lives, pregnant with possibilities for change, for growth in new directions, for understanding God in a new way, pose a threat to us?
When working with integrity means changing jobs,
When a difficult conversation threatens to change a relationship,
When being healthy means admitting we need help,
When living an honest lifestyle threatens to isolate us from our friends and family,
When answering God’s call threatens to undo our sense of security,
When honest doubts threaten to change the way we understand our faith…
There is a bit of Pharaoh in us, I think. There’s a bit of that spirit that yells, “STOP!” every time our lives reach the birthing stage - every time when that which could be born to us represents a threat - a theological, political, action-oriented, relational, truth-telling threat… And in so many ways, we put that threat to death.
Yet there is a spirit of Christ in us too, isn’t there? That Spirit present with us when, like Shiphrah and Puah, we act as midwives for each other, present at the birthstools of life’s challenges and difficult choices - that Spirit that breathes life into our living and speaks to us in a myriad of ways, saying, “Life is too precious to spend it all on that which is non-threatening! Be born! Again and again! Be born!”
And so we are church. And so we gather. And so we are all pregnant, and so we are all one another’s midwives. And so we create safe community and say to one another and to the world:
“Be born!”
“Live into change!”
“Come out!”
“Go forth!”
“Live.”
And of course, we cannot help but wonder... If the Church is born again, what does it look like? What do we as a Church begin to look like when, despite the threats, we live in rebirth day after day after day? What happens when reborn people in a reborn Church long for a reborn world? What happens if they do it again and again and again?
Are we born again?
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Evotional - A Thermostat that Transforms
A Thermostat that Transforms
Still fresh in my mind is this past Sunday's wonderful worship service, when we invited Rev. Randy Bush back into the pulpit. Being Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, Randy reflected on Dr. King's life, among other things. Our affirmation of faith that followed was a piece that I wrote based on King's 1963 "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." Here's a bit of it:
Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world?
No. But so often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an arch-defender of the status quo. And far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent and often even vocal sanction of things as they are.
Rationally speaking, isn't there something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills?
Human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability.
What, then, shall we do?
We will not wait for a convenient season for justice. We will be a Church that is not merely a thermometer that records the ideas and principles of popular opinion, but a thermostat that transforms our culture and our world.
Those words continue to roll around in my mind as I think about our mission and purpose as a family of faith. What a prophetic, life-shaping task we have - to function as a thermostat in our culture, transforming out culture and our world. May Dr. King's words remind us of our calling as a church and may they compel us to courageous actions of transformation and love.
Peace,
Pastor Ben
Still fresh in my mind is this past Sunday's wonderful worship service, when we invited Rev. Randy Bush back into the pulpit. Being Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, Randy reflected on Dr. King's life, among other things. Our affirmation of faith that followed was a piece that I wrote based on King's 1963 "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." Here's a bit of it:
Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world?
No. But so often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an arch-defender of the status quo. And far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent and often even vocal sanction of things as they are.
Rationally speaking, isn't there something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills?
Human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability.
What, then, shall we do?
We will not wait for a convenient season for justice. We will be a Church that is not merely a thermometer that records the ideas and principles of popular opinion, but a thermostat that transforms our culture and our world.
Those words continue to roll around in my mind as I think about our mission and purpose as a family of faith. What a prophetic, life-shaping task we have - to function as a thermostat in our culture, transforming out culture and our world. May Dr. King's words remind us of our calling as a church and may they compel us to courageous actions of transformation and love.
Peace,
Pastor Ben
Monday, January 3, 2011
"The God in Striped Pajamas" - Psalms 139:1-12; John 1:1-18
Yesterday my friend and colleague Steve Fringer preached in worship. Steve serves First Presbyterian Church as our visitation pastor, but he is also an excellent crafter of sermons, so I'm excited to share his words here...
She climbed into her parents’ bed, whimpering. A bad dream. In five minutes she was asleep and her father carried her back into her bedroom, laying her in her own bed. She awoke as he pulled the blankets up. “Noooooo,” she whined. “You’ll be all right, sweetheart.” He knelt down beside the bed, his face close to hers in the dark. “I’ll put your night light on. It was only a dream.” “I know. I don’t like to be alone. I get scared.” “Well, mommy and daddy are just down the hall,” he said. “And you know God is always with you.” She was quiet, looking at him and then looking away. “I know, but…” The “but” hung in the dark quiet. “But what?” “Well,” she said, “I like somebody close to me with skin on.”
Our little theologian gives expression to what we all want at times, to what the evangelist says has happened: And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. Emmanuel—God with us. So, heaven kisses earth; enter Jesus. In the birth of Jesus we see that there is no length to which God will not go to prove that we are loved. To show that God’s love has no bottom, no top, no sides, no end. Yes, we may be afraid to be alone or afraid of the dark, or of the boogie man in the closet or under our bed, or the boogie man of foreclosure or job loss or the diagnosis we dreaded to hear, but since God in Jesus has stepped into our skin we have the reassurance that God knows intimately the depths of our fears, the risk in trusting others, the pain of betrayal, the agony of grief, as well as the dangnabbit feeling of a stubbed toe, the joy of a good laugh, the deep satisfaction of loving others and being loved.
But as our little theologian bemoans--we do at times lose a sense of God’s presence with us. It’s easy to imagine God’s presence and goodness when things are going well and we’re cartwheeling across the sunny mountaintops of our lives. But when we’re scared or alone, trudging through the dark valleys, or wandering in the wilderness, we often wonder, Where are you, God? Even Jesus, in his most painful skin moment, cries, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And history on more than one occasion has pointed an accusing finger at the faithful and asked, Where was God?
Bruno is a young boy in John Boyne’s novel, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. His father is a high ranking officer in the German army of WWII and at the beginning of the book the family is being transferred to, as Bruno understands, Out-With. In his new home he finds little to like and cannot find any friends to play with. Soldiers now come in and out of his home, reporting to his father and calling him commandant.
One day Bruno goes exploring and finds a fence that stretches as far as he can see. He walks along the fence for a long time seeing nothing, but then he sees a little speck and coming closer he finds a boy, small, skinny, with large eyes in a thin, grey face, his head shaven. He is wearing striped pajamas, sitting on the ground with his back to the camp and looking through the fence. Bruno sits down in front of him and they talk through the fence. His name is Shmeul and they discover that they share the same birthday and are both nine years old.
Bruno returns day after day, sometimes sneaking food from the kitchen for his friend, who is always hungry, keeping his visits a secret from his family because they’ve forbidden him to go anywhere near the fence. What he learns from his new friend is often too hard for Bruno to believe—that he has no change of clothes, only the striped pajamas and cap he wears, that everyone on that side of the fence doesn’t have their own bedrooms, and the boys don’t have any toys.
One day Bruno contracts head lice and has his head shaven and when he sees Schmeul again, they joke how similar they look, only Bruno is fatter. Shortly thereafter Bruno’s mother decides she and Bruno and his sister will return to Berlin. It’s been almost a year since they arrived in Out-With. Bruno is deeply saddened and when he sees Shmeul he tells him he will be leaving. Shmeul is scared because he can’t find his father. The two boys hatch a plan to go looking for his father together the next day. Shmeul will bring pajamas and cap for Bruno to wear and he’ll crawl under the fence and change clothes; with his short hair he’ll appear no different than the others.
Their plan works. They do go looking for Shmeul’s father, but they get caught up in a large crowd of people who are being forced to march and the grey sky overhead grows darker and the rain falls harder and Bruno starts thinking he should return home because they were having roast beef that night and then he and Shmeul were out of the rain in a large, warm room packed with pajama people and the door closed and all seemed better and, quite out of character, Bruno took Shmuel’s tiny hand in his and told him he was the best friend he’d ever had and then the room went dark.
“Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? … if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.” In the end, I believe, it comes down to making a stance, a stance of faith and trust, even when the evidence, be it historical or personal, the evidence of God’s absence or indifference seems overwhelming; evidence such as Bruno and Shmeul’s camp of Auschwitz, or the killing fields of Cambodia, or the ethnic cleansing of Bosnia or Rwanda. Even when we feel alone and lost and scared and God-abandoned in our hospital room or looking at the foreclosure notice. Can we see God, moving in our midst? In Jesus God has stepped into our skin and God is also in the striped pajamas entering the gas chambers, standing with the oppressed, the hurting, the dying. God dying over and over again. And then being born anew in our midst when we walk with someone through their wilderness, make the hard sacrifice, comfort the grieving, listen with our hearts, practice forgiveness, become hope for someone else, live love. Then we become the midwives for God’s birth. Then we make every day Christmas because every day and every moment in every day is sacramental. Then we become the light in the darkness that the darkness does not overcome.
Amen.
She climbed into her parents’ bed, whimpering. A bad dream. In five minutes she was asleep and her father carried her back into her bedroom, laying her in her own bed. She awoke as he pulled the blankets up. “Noooooo,” she whined. “You’ll be all right, sweetheart.” He knelt down beside the bed, his face close to hers in the dark. “I’ll put your night light on. It was only a dream.” “I know. I don’t like to be alone. I get scared.” “Well, mommy and daddy are just down the hall,” he said. “And you know God is always with you.” She was quiet, looking at him and then looking away. “I know, but…” The “but” hung in the dark quiet. “But what?” “Well,” she said, “I like somebody close to me with skin on.”
Our little theologian gives expression to what we all want at times, to what the evangelist says has happened: And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. Emmanuel—God with us. So, heaven kisses earth; enter Jesus. In the birth of Jesus we see that there is no length to which God will not go to prove that we are loved. To show that God’s love has no bottom, no top, no sides, no end. Yes, we may be afraid to be alone or afraid of the dark, or of the boogie man in the closet or under our bed, or the boogie man of foreclosure or job loss or the diagnosis we dreaded to hear, but since God in Jesus has stepped into our skin we have the reassurance that God knows intimately the depths of our fears, the risk in trusting others, the pain of betrayal, the agony of grief, as well as the dangnabbit feeling of a stubbed toe, the joy of a good laugh, the deep satisfaction of loving others and being loved.
But as our little theologian bemoans--we do at times lose a sense of God’s presence with us. It’s easy to imagine God’s presence and goodness when things are going well and we’re cartwheeling across the sunny mountaintops of our lives. But when we’re scared or alone, trudging through the dark valleys, or wandering in the wilderness, we often wonder, Where are you, God? Even Jesus, in his most painful skin moment, cries, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And history on more than one occasion has pointed an accusing finger at the faithful and asked, Where was God?
Bruno is a young boy in John Boyne’s novel, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. His father is a high ranking officer in the German army of WWII and at the beginning of the book the family is being transferred to, as Bruno understands, Out-With. In his new home he finds little to like and cannot find any friends to play with. Soldiers now come in and out of his home, reporting to his father and calling him commandant.
One day Bruno goes exploring and finds a fence that stretches as far as he can see. He walks along the fence for a long time seeing nothing, but then he sees a little speck and coming closer he finds a boy, small, skinny, with large eyes in a thin, grey face, his head shaven. He is wearing striped pajamas, sitting on the ground with his back to the camp and looking through the fence. Bruno sits down in front of him and they talk through the fence. His name is Shmeul and they discover that they share the same birthday and are both nine years old.
Bruno returns day after day, sometimes sneaking food from the kitchen for his friend, who is always hungry, keeping his visits a secret from his family because they’ve forbidden him to go anywhere near the fence. What he learns from his new friend is often too hard for Bruno to believe—that he has no change of clothes, only the striped pajamas and cap he wears, that everyone on that side of the fence doesn’t have their own bedrooms, and the boys don’t have any toys.
One day Bruno contracts head lice and has his head shaven and when he sees Schmeul again, they joke how similar they look, only Bruno is fatter. Shortly thereafter Bruno’s mother decides she and Bruno and his sister will return to Berlin. It’s been almost a year since they arrived in Out-With. Bruno is deeply saddened and when he sees Shmeul he tells him he will be leaving. Shmeul is scared because he can’t find his father. The two boys hatch a plan to go looking for his father together the next day. Shmeul will bring pajamas and cap for Bruno to wear and he’ll crawl under the fence and change clothes; with his short hair he’ll appear no different than the others.
Their plan works. They do go looking for Shmeul’s father, but they get caught up in a large crowd of people who are being forced to march and the grey sky overhead grows darker and the rain falls harder and Bruno starts thinking he should return home because they were having roast beef that night and then he and Shmeul were out of the rain in a large, warm room packed with pajama people and the door closed and all seemed better and, quite out of character, Bruno took Shmuel’s tiny hand in his and told him he was the best friend he’d ever had and then the room went dark.
“Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? … if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.” In the end, I believe, it comes down to making a stance, a stance of faith and trust, even when the evidence, be it historical or personal, the evidence of God’s absence or indifference seems overwhelming; evidence such as Bruno and Shmeul’s camp of Auschwitz, or the killing fields of Cambodia, or the ethnic cleansing of Bosnia or Rwanda. Even when we feel alone and lost and scared and God-abandoned in our hospital room or looking at the foreclosure notice. Can we see God, moving in our midst? In Jesus God has stepped into our skin and God is also in the striped pajamas entering the gas chambers, standing with the oppressed, the hurting, the dying. God dying over and over again. And then being born anew in our midst when we walk with someone through their wilderness, make the hard sacrifice, comfort the grieving, listen with our hearts, practice forgiveness, become hope for someone else, live love. Then we become the midwives for God’s birth. Then we make every day Christmas because every day and every moment in every day is sacramental. Then we become the light in the darkness that the darkness does not overcome.
Amen.
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