A Psalm for Chicago (4.26.26)

Psalm 23 
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
     He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
     he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths
    for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
    I fear no evil,
for you are with me;
    your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
    my whole life long.

How would you do on this Chicago Trivia? 

What’s the official name of the bean in Millennium park? (Check the end, no, I’m, not giving you the answer here.)

What year was the Great Chicago fire? 

Which is better ketchup or mustard?  (The answer is so obvious here that you will not find it at the bottom, you will know it in your Chicago bones.)

What street intersection is zero in the street number grid system in Chicago—where the address numbers start going up?

(This is a tricky one, but pay attention because the trivia questions are starting to get relevant…I'll give it to you: State and Madison.  And if you that right, extra credit).

But underneath this trivia, there are older stories.  Try this one: What was the name of the ancestral lake that came before Lake Michigan?  

Lucky for me, we have a Chicago historian in the church who could back me up on this one on a Sunday morning

 
…

Glacial Lake Chicago. 

No, I’m not making this up. 

If you're a Chicago fan, you probably heard at some point about the glaciers that melted eons ago revealing a land that had been ironed flat. (Make way for those Illinois prairies, right?) Almost all the land had been pressed like a panini except, for the high ridges that formed when the glaciers had dumped trailing piles of sediment as they shriveled back to the north. Scientists call these ridges of sediment moraines. And here, around Chicago, they are the shallower edges of what was the Glacial Lake Chicago.  

13,000 years ago, the land the church sits on and possibly the land you’re on right now if you’re reading in Chicago was deep under melted glacier lake water. As the water drained the lake into the size of today’s Lake Michigan, those ancient beaches and bluffs that had been cut by waves and those rocky ridges made of glacial sediment emerged.

As the land settled and grew swampy, ancient people stuck to walking along these moraines and ridges and over time wore these smooth footpaths. One of these ancient paths travels the ridge of what we know we know today to be Lincoln Avenue a few blocks East of church. 

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In Psalm 23, the Shepherd leads us in right paths. 

The Lord is my shepherd, 
I shall not want, 
he leads me besides still waters, 
he restores my soul, 
He leads me in right paths.  

Across our Bible, this same word for paths is translated in a couple of ways (and “scenic walk” ways is not on the list of options.) (Shout out to bible scholar, Joel LeMon here and his translation work). The Hebrew word we know as path can be translated as rut or a trench--like a furrow that forms where people walk it over and over. But our Bible translators chose to use the word path here.   Why? Why did the translators use path? 

My best guess is that they landed on path because the idea of our Lord leading us through the "trench of life"  or “right ruts”just didn’t ring in English—

Or does it--?

**********

In the 1830s the Illinois and Michigan Canal Commissioners hired a surveyor to plan out the young town of Chicago based on the US Public Land Survey System. This system was a standardized way of dividing land into straight rectangular blocks.  I read that it would help make city lots easier to parcel out and sell. Point zero started at (see trivia question) the intersection of State and Madison downtown. The grid was then rolled out from that point on the cardinal directions. 

Today, if you happen to be going down one of these north/south or east/west streets on the grid and you come to a diagonal street— Lincoln, Clybourn, Elston, Archer--It can slow you down.  And likewise, if you’re walking one of those ancient foot paths and you hit the grid, it can trip you up.

The grid is orderly and efficient. Every eight blocks is roughly a mile; every house number calculated and organized. This is not a bad thing.  Life is lived on this city grid. The busses run. The grocery stores are open. Quite possibly, you are sitting on it right now as you read. The vast majority of us live on the city grid in Chicago proper. Life is predictable here. But this isn’t the whole truth of what is going on.

Our person from the bible who gave us 23rd psalm was a person on the move. They are walking beside still waters, they are traveling over paths, through valleys and green pastures. And so are we.  

Some days, we stretch out on the shores of still waters like cats in the sun, our souls restored and purring.

Other days, we drag through the darkest valley, our minds thick with too much, our feet heavy with mud.

And then, there are those times when it can even feel like someone has just picked  up our pretty little grid map and shaken it out like a blanket with all the little characters and street lights and cars and plans tumbling onto each other in a heap--And it can take our breath away. 

But, just as the land has older stories under it that we can’t see, so do we.

We have ancient prayers and songs that have been repeated at bedsides, and whispered on desperate nights. We have stories of healing and persistence, of bitterness and forgiveness that have been passed down and clung to. We've got stories of chicks gathered under fierce wings, of seeds planted, of light dawning. These aren’t just some old stories. They make up the things that have worn the path smooth: The prayers and songs and memories tucked around God’s people like blankets on a cold night that are returned to over and over.

Thank goodness for this. For all of it. Except for the word “path,” which I am embarassed to say I am still using.  Neither “path” nor “trench” nor “rut”  seems to get at what I want. 

Helpfully, that Hebrew word for path is related to the Hebrew word cow (which isn’t as odd as you might be thinking).  Think about it: an ox pulls a cart. A cart would create ruts or even grooves in the earth. Well worn grooves that are traveled over and over and over

.

He leads me in right paths. 

He leads me in right grooves. 

In fact, it would not be inaccurate for me to say The Lord is my Shepherd, he leads me in righteous grooves (thank you again, Joel LeMon). As if walking with God, were like finding the groove: 

The Lord is my shepherd...

He leads me in right paths; 

he leads me in right grooves.

We walk in the groove. But what if we lose it? What if things are shaken up or we wander off—then what? At the end of the psalm, we hear that surely goodness and mercy will follow me all of the days of my life. But this is not “follow” as if God were following me and trailing politely behind—with some encouraging words and applause, Or following with his tricky eye on us.  Instead under this Hebrew word “follow” is a sense that God pursues us. 

Surely goodness will pursue me. 

Surely mercy will pursue me.  

Not the way an enemy pursues us, but the way a shepherd fights to get to the sheep caught in the brambles; the way the woman with the broom sweeps the house top to bottom looking for the precious coin; the way the voice in the garden called out to Mary who wept Easter morn next to the tomb; or the way the stranger on the road popped up next to Cleophas and his wife on their way to Emmaus and joined their conversation. God’s pursuit isn’t one that chases us in order to tackle us or hound us into a corner. God is not interested in conquering us or dominating us or dragging us home by the arm. …

God's pursuit is more like knocking on the door when our soul becomes like a locked house with the blinds drawn. God’s hot pursuit of us  looks more like some question we can’t quite shake, or like someone who said the truth so clearly that it’s still ringing in our ears, or like something so beautiful or fantastic that just stops us mid-sentence, bedazzled and found in wonder.

Surely, goodness and mercy will pursue me.  
Surely God will pursue me. 

For underneath the everyday, scripted hum of life (eight blocks to a mile with every address counted from State and Madison) is an ancient groove that so many have walked before us. 

What does it mean? to be led on right paths or to get in the groove? Well, these ancient, well-worn grooves of our tradition call us to live with kindness and justice towards one another and towards the earth.   But not in a fancy or shiny way, it’s more like in a way of apologies and dishes and cooking dinner, a way of organizing the community and free little pantries and pots of herbs outside the church door for the neighborhood. Getting in the righteous path or groove means--A way of remembering that everything that we touch is touching us right back—the one in the car next to us, the neighbor walking his dog, the woman picking our bananas somewhere far away  

I think Jesus knew something of walking this ancient groove and even of trailblazing when the path was over grown. Of taking the everyday bread and feeding people,  of touching bodies other people didn’t want to touch, of sitting at tables where mercy was seemed to be missing. In fact, Jesus was and is God’s great gift of pursuit for us.  In Jesus, God’s holy goodness and mercy that pursue us takes on flesh and dwells among us. And this groove he walks is a path that calls for love and repair and in living in such a way that the light of God can actually pass though these lives we’ve been given.

If you take a moment to feel the pew beneath you to feel the stone floor beneath you…or feel your chair, your couch where you are.  How many hands have slid down these pew rails? how many feet have worn over these stones in the floor?  

The saints that came before us, both here and beyond deepened that groove of God’s way.   But not on their own.  Goodness and mercy pursued them, pulled them back to those off-center paths. “Surely,” the psalm says, “I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.” 

Underneath that English word “dwell” is a returning to God. And we don’t return to God because we’ve lost God It’s a returning that feels like putting down the thing that has kept our hands full. It’s a Returning that feels: less like climbing and striving and reaching and more like sinking into that soft ground that has been holding us all along. 

Surely I will return to 
and dwell in 
the house of God forever…

******

Should you find yourself walking around Chicago, I’m quite certain you will bump into these diagonal streets.  And when one of these old, ancient paths like Lincoln or Clybourn or Elston or Archer—interrupts the grid, let it interrupt you too.  Like a bell. When you bump into one of these time worn paths. May you notice where you are and remember that there are older deeper grooves beneath the ones we can see.   There is an older, loving mercy underneath and deep within us that reaches for you and calls us to reflect God’s love in our lives. 

*****

This city of Chicago with its El stops, and schools and hospitals, This city with its taco trucks and advertisements and street cleaning, with all its beauty and sting, it’s unfairness and struggles, these people walking with strollers and smartwatches and dogs and brief cases and lunch boxes...even here, and especially here, this city is awash with tiny bells: small interruptions of love and grace calling us back to the path, the groove. 

This city, held by our ancient earth beneath is a picture of Psalm 23.

Trivia answers:  
(cloud gate)
1871
(intersection of State and Madison point zero of the city grid).

Glaring morality and tight fisted mercy (from 3.1.26)

 Luke 7:36-50 Woman anoints Jesus' feet at Simon's party

This week, our story involves a dinner party—quite possibly one that starts out just about perfect. Simon, a respected religious leader has hosted a dinner party and invited Jesus. I imagine Simon has put all the finishing touches on everything and has pulled out his best hospitality for this mysterious and likeable teacher. Simon is good at this sort of thing  and it’s all going just as planned. When it’s going good, it feels good: The right people, the right vibe,  the food is delicious, the conversation just what everyone needs, the optics are great. Until, in walks a woman identified as a sinner. 

Not only was she uninvited, she was complicated. She doesn’t fit the moment.  And then, as if her simple presence weren’t bad enough, things get awkward fast when she begins to weep. She pours oil on Jesus’ feet, kisses them and starts wiping them with her hair.  It’s so intimate, and startling and some probably even grumble inappropriate.  I imagine Simon shooting daggers with his eyes at whoever was standing at the door—who let her in! What is she doing! 

He speaks up, muttering to Jesus maybe under his breath: “do you know what kind of woman is touching you?” (v. 39)

Maybe he was wondering what this would do to Jesus reputation or, worse, what it would do to his reputation? 

What is it that keeps Simeon from open-heartedness and loving this woman in the honest and compassionate way Jesus does?

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Have you ever walked into a room and quickly taken stock of who is where? We scan the people looking for where or how we fit: Who looks like me? Who doesn’t? Who is confident? who seems out of place? Who looks interesting to me? (Have you ever walked into a church and experienced this? I have.)

 We don’t thinking of it as judgement, after all we’re just trying to find our place in the scene, but--it’s a way of ranking people.   In our bible story, Simon, the religious leader, ranks the woman: Is she a religious teacher? (hardly). Respectable profession? (far from it). Respectable actions? (Oy). Simon judges the woman’s place in society before he considers her love for Jesus.  

Now, Simon is respected and has enough esteem and power that he can subtly look at folks as “better” or “worse” than him. His judgement masquerades as righteousness—or, the word that actually comes to mind is snobby.  From where Simon sits, not only are this woman’s actions way over the line, she does not belong. And morally, she’s beneath him.  I think that analysis is so loud in his head that there is no space for the voice of mercy.  

But, just as Simon’s jaw is hitting the floor at what is unfolding before him, Jesus steps in and allows this woman to touch him. He honors her love and takes us to mercy.

Sometimes, I think we to pride ourselves on inclusion. In one sense, yes, we are very inclusive: I am not here to judge your cussing or your dancing or how many cigars you smoke on the golf course.  I’m not here to judge this woman’s very obvious sin whatever it was. 

But, if we were co-hosting with Simon that day, would we stand shoulder to shoulder with him and wonder--who let her in?  Would we quietly and firmly help her up and out of the room so we could get back to the dinner party? We might not judge people for vices so harshly but we sure do sort and rank people according to other standards. And the way we do this can suffocate love.  

I want to nudge us a tiny bit further today. Try this on: Last week, we brought in a new migrant family to be a part of our ministry here at church. I am so grateful to know this family and I’m so grateful for the generosity of you all and the mighty little team of leaders, and our church council.  I’m so grateful that everything aligned just so.

We share common ground with this family. They are parents, earning an honest living, hoping for the best for their kids just like many of us. 

And also, this family is very different from many of us here in the sense that their life experience as a family that has immigrated has been quite distinct from ours. However, we still extend this love to them whole-heartedly.  It’s the right thing to do.  In a sense, it’s easy because loving like this fits with our moral identity as “the good ones.”  We see ourselves as people who reach a hand out to vulnerable folks like this. 

Where love gets complicated for us is when we are asked to love folks who are, let’s say, outspokenly anti-immigrant.  Maybe we’d respond in an emergency, but over the long haul: would we befriend them and invite them to dinner, and stay in relationship with them? Would we do it even if they had views that felt threatening or morally gross?  Could we do it without making them into a project or arguing a point or forcing them to change but simply inviting them to dinner?  

In our gospel story, Simon is from a religiously serious people. His values are traditional and on point. But he assumes he stands in the right place he is “in the right with God.” This assumption blocks his love.  

Here’s what I mean: If you have the chance to get outside of the city on a clear night, or even better, far away from Chicago or any city, you will find that the sky is thick with stars.  The milky way, our galaxy, is a mystery up there and it stretches out softly across the dark night sky.  But, here in the city, we can’t see it. It’s not that the Milky Way has disappeared. No, it’s still there.  We can’t see it because there’s too much light surrounding us. There are vehicle headlights, and street lights, and skyscrapers all lit up. There are glaring buildings, screens glowing, and signs flashing. The dark is overrun with light pollution.  It’s both awful and ironic, this thing that helps us see—this brightness that backlights the words on this page—prevent us from seeing far away.  

What if something similar can happen deep down in our souls?  

Take Simon. His light is bright. He is certain and morally clear.  The way he looks at the world and ranks and sorts people into these orderly little groups helps him to get his bearings and know who belongs where.  It also blinds him to this radiant constellation of love that this woman is pouring out at Jesus’ feet.   It’s not Simon’s hatred that keeps him from love—no, that’s too harsh.  It’s the glare.  It’s the glare of having it all figured out.  The glare of being morally proud of himself. The glare of being right. 

In the dinner party scene, Jesus cuts through the glare. “Simon, I have something to say to you” (v. 41).  “Do you see this woman?” (v. 44), Jesus asks him? Not, “do you approve of her?” or “do you respect her?” Do you see her? 

Flooded with that glaring light. Simon can’t seem to get to mercy.   This glare, this moral glare (which Martin Luther might call is self-justification) keeps us from loving people.

I want to mention one other barrier that keeps us from loving our neighbors  because moral glare isn’t the only thing taking up space in Simon’s head. It’s also the noise.  

Let’s say that Simon is managing a lot in this moment as host. He is managing a dinner party, she’s weeping her heart out.  He’s stressed and amped about reputation or vibe or his honored guest, Jesus. She could care less.  He is running the room—something he usually does well. And time has stopped for her.

Sometimes, I think another thing that keeps us from love isn’t cruelty. It’s that we are so busy keeping all the ducks walking in a row and quacking in harmony. We are so busy being competent. So busy being on the right side.  So optimized and efficient and running and around the well-lit house that our eyes--filled with that hurried glare--miss the person right in front of us.  It’s not that we set out to miss people, it’s just that some of us are moving so fast we speed right by them. 

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We are called to great love of God and neighbor. I think this kind of love weaves itself into us and into our relationships, neighborhoods, and into our life together.  This kind of love enlivens and heals and connects and brings joy.  This is an anchor in our faith. It’s Good News. And yet, we are pulled by these counter weights away from this love.  We’re pulled by our busyness, certainty, and by that moral glare.  

In our story, Jesus question cuts through the noise: “Do you see her.”  Jesus cuts in with mercy for this woman; and also, mercy for Simon; and actually, with mercy for us.  

Because just as God sees her, God also sees us: striving, distracted, judgmental, trying our best. And mercifully, God calls us closer: closer to the people who are hard to love. 

Closer to humility. 

Closer to slowness. 

Closer to God. 

Surprise me and take me to joy—with as many puppies as possible (2.22.26)

Wedding at Cana, John 2:1-11

Mustard Seed Matt 13:31-33

Last summer, we lost our pup Clio who we had had since we lived in Mexico. Clio was a special dog for many reasons but one of my favorites happened when she was about a year old.  Some of you have heard this story.  

We took Clio every where with us—to indigenous villages, coffee shops and it was in a shelter run by Quakers that one of the residents looked at her and told me, “your dog is too fat.” Tu perrita esta muy gorda. 

“No! I replied, who says that!? She’s not fat, I just had her at the vet and she’s a healthy size!”

“Si, esta gordita,” he told me, “She’s chubby. She’s pregnant.”

“Impossible!” I huffed, “she’s still a puppy and hasn’t gone into heat!” I spun around left.  

Clio got moodier and moodier and I began to fret. A nagging worry began to tap at me: what if she’s pregnant. We decided to take her to a small hole-in-the wall vet up the mountain for a check.  Thankfully, the vet was immediately reassuring:

“Your dog’s not pregnant” the vet told me, smiling warmly, “this is a psychological pregnancy!”  I looked at him with a desperately weak smile.

“She has developed sympathy placenta,” he explained confidently, “and she may actually birth it.” I felt like I was a kindergartner. I nodded, wide-eyed. “If this continues,” he patted my arm reassuringly, “bring her back a couple weeks, I’ll give her a special shot.”

I drove home dazed. Google later confirmed this was a true possibility and I relaxed into the reassuring knowledge that all was well.  In fact, I became something of an expert on psychological pregnancies, myself after that.

Several weeks later, Omar was boarding a plane to head home to the states for a week and I was getting ready to leave for the final day of a retreat I was leading. Clio was hunched over her bed in the living room and as I stood there, coffee in hand, studying her a small puppy slid out. We stared at each other. I almost dumped my coffee on the floor.

I called Omar on the phone and screamed—"it was real!!! The pregnancy was real! What do I do!?”

“I’m on the plane!” he hissed back, “we’re taxiing! Like on the runway!”

“What do I do!!” I wailed.

“TAKE TO VET!” and he hung up.

I went to a different vet this time.  The one in the fancy plaza with the store where they sold gluten-free bread.  

After shaking hands with the vet who had responded to my early morning emergency call, I smiled wildly, nervously, “just check her out,”  My ears were starting to hurt from all this  smiling. I paced the waiting room like a caged tiger.

After confirming the worst. This vet also patted my arm. He told me her labor was just beginning. I flinched.

“Take her home,” he explained to me sternly, “and to put her in a corner with some sheets. She’ll know what to do.”

He steered me kindly toward the door. On my way home, I called the young adults,  “It was real!” I wailed to them. We cancelled the final day of the retreat, they all came over, and we kept vigil for 23 hours…while Clio birthed 11 puppies. 

My first thought was “this can’t be happening.” Then it turned into “what am I going to do with 11 puppies!?”  (For the record, we were not supposed to have any dogs in our apartment and it was already tense trying to hide a hundred pound Rottweiler.)  Then there was the expense: what was this going to cost!?  What would people think of me!  To say this was an inconvenience was an understatement.   

I am a fairly steady person, but I was wildly all over the map in this moment.

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A compass aligns itself with the strongest magnetic field around it. Usually, that’s the earth, but if you put a small magnet nearby, the needle starts to swing toward it.   

Worry is like that. It pulls our imagination towards worst-case scenarios and all of the sudden, we’re living inside these disasters that haven’t even happened. Cynicism pulls us too. It trains our imagination that hope hurts too much and that it’s better to expect disappointment than be surprised. 

Sometimes, it is logic or control—if I can’t map it, explain it, or diagram it, there’s no way I’m trusting it. (Hello, water into wine? Not possible.) And our imagination whittles down to just what we can manage. 

And if we’re not careful, as these magnets pull at us, our whole sense of what could be has atrophied and narrowed and the joy that God intends is held at bay.  

This cramped feeling of bracing for the worst is exactly the room Jesus walks into at Cana: The wine has run out, I imagine everyone running around, dishes flying, yelling, it was a disaster. Running out of wine at a wedding wasn’t just a bummer, it was socially humiliating. The family’s honor was at stake. 

The servants are pulled by fear—hide the problem! Gah, Fix it, now! save face!  Everyone is panicking. That is, everyone except Jesus and arguably Mary. She calls her son into the moment. He changes the barrels of water to fine wine and his ministry begins--not with 40 days in the desert in this version of the gospel--but with explosive, shocking joy. 

While everyone was managing shame and worry and bracing for the worst, Jesus quietly took everyone to joy.  

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What is it that keeps us from believing that God can surprise us and take us to joy?  

The same magnets that pull at us were pulling at them. Worry that something would crumble. Cynicism that forces us to adjust expectations.  Or control: an inability to logically map it out or believe it. 

There are more reasons that pull us from trusting that God can surprise us. But there’s a common thread tying these together. When it’s worry, it is our imagination that has gone off the negative deep end. When we’re cynical, it’s our imagination that is fiercely protective (don’t you dare disappoint me.)  When we’re rational, it’s imagination that’s too narrow, too controlling and restricted. 

Mystery is beyond all these categories.   

The good news is that even when these magnets of worry or cynicism or shame or fear are screaming loud and pulling at us, the good news is still louder.  

And it’s exactly in this moment of panic and despair that Jesus makes wine.  No one there at the wedding had the kind of faith that was going to move a mountain. Maybe they just a mustard seed’s worth of hope. Just enough to fill the jars when Jesus told them.

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Several months before Clio had puppies, I had lost a pregnancy. It was awful.  Wouldn’t it just be perfect if I could say right now, that Clio had the puppies and then, suddenly, I became pregnant (yay!)  That didn’t happen.  After the loss, I was magnetized by worry, fear, grief, and so many things. I was used to protecting my heart, lowering expectations, and keeping my hopes narrow and controlled.  I was shocked (shocked!) with what happened when Clio had those pups. It was so bizarre and delightful and we had 7-8 weeks of unmitigated joy and delight with those puppies in our house. My favorite puppy was the huge boss-queen pup that we named horchata.

Yes, it was chaotic and ridiculous and hilarious, but also awesome and shocking and healing.  Joy didn’t fix everything, it didn’t undo what we had lost, but it burst into the room and stayed there along with the grief. 

In Cana, the wine doesn’t appear because the hosts get their act together. The wine fills the barrels because Jesus steps into their panic. They are magnetized by shame and worry.  Jesus is magnetized by generosity and abundance. 

God moves towards us into rooms of panic and shame. Into worried rooms and cynical rooms and suspicious hearts. And God’s magnetic field is stronger. She quietly makes wine. 

In both my story and in the story of the wedding at Cana, we didn’t expect joy.  I was rolling with my grief and holding everything close. But joy showed up anyway. (11 times).  I couldn’t control it or explain it 

I could only laugh and receive it.  

Grace interrupts our boring, mundane little lives and, as time goes on, grace reshapes us. After that evening in Cana, the disciples are changed, and as the years go on they’re transformed. Their imagination of what is possible stretches.  

*******

That night at the wedding, the servants didn’t create the joy, the good news was that it came despite the fiasco of running out of wine.  The good news today is that joy comes to us, takes a seat at our table, steps into our panic and surprises our plans. At first, we shake our heads in disbelief that it happened, but then as that joy rumbles around inside of us, we learn to live as if it might happen again….  We learn that God surprises us. And we throw our hands up in the air and shake our heads in wonder at this living and holy mystery that will not let us go.

How do we live the love of God in public? (2.1.26)

Micah 6:1-8

The Work of Christmas, Howard Thurman

In the beginning, God created the first two humans, Adam and Eve in a beautiful garden. In the center of the garden was a forbidden tree. Don’t eat the fruit from the tree, God tells the humans, explaining the limit.  You can do all these things in the garden but, stay away from that tree.  If they crossed the limit it would bring harm and rupture.  We know the story: They are drawn to the tree, they cross the boundary, and they eat the fruit.  

Shortly after, they hear the Lord God walking in the garden and they hide.  “Where are you?” God calls out?  Adam pokes his head out and says, “I heard you walking in the garden and I hid.” The Lord is quick to figure things out and says—did you eat the fruit? " 

Adam hedges. He deflects: “Not my fault. It was her!” He points. “Her fault. Eve gave it to me!”

God looks at Eve: "What happened?"

“Not my fault!” She says, taking a page out of Adam’s book. "It was the snake.  The snake made me do it!" The snake. Nice, Eve. The conversation God had with the snake was not recorded in the bible.

****

We do the same thing. We deflect. The fault might be in our circumstances, or the way we were brought up, or our genes.   We blame the systems or patterns of thinking. We blame the stars. When lines are crossed, God asks “where are you?” we answer, “It wasn’t my fault.” Rabbi John Sacks explores this story from this angle (1).

God made humans in his image, and gave them the gift of freedom.  But it’s a freedom with limits. In this case, the limit was the tree. Thou shalt not eat the fruit. They cross the line, they eat the fruit and they hide. Then, when the line is crossed, God asks, "where are you?"  Now what?

The biblical story unfolds from here. How we are to act?  What are the moral boundaries and limits? What does the “good society” look like?  

As we page through the stories of scripture, we hear of people wrestling with decisions, and of God’s action and judgement. All these people wrestling with problems and questions accross scripture help clarify how we're supposed to act. The stories sharpens the playing field into focus. 

A thousand years later after the story in the garden, maybe a million years after, God has a beef with the people, and stamps her holy foot, “I’ve had it!!! Get ye in here and plead your case wih the mountains as our witnesses, we have a problem! she says, “with all the wickedness.” 

There are evil landowners, abusive leaders, taking advantage of poor people, people talking the talk but failing to walk the walk and God won’t have it! 

There in the court room, God takes the stand, “Don’t you remember everything I’ve done for you!! she howls, ticking All The Things off on her fingers—to say nothing of the time I rescued you from slavery in Egypt!!” The people, are caught with their hands in the cookie jar.  They backpedal, deflect—they don’t exactly point the finger elsewhere, but they try to buy God off, or to settle: “Ohhh, sorry about that, Lord, how about we give you a thousand rams for those mistakes? No? how about 10,000 rivers of olive oil?” (v. 7) God is not having it.  

“This is on you,” She says: “you know what the Lord requires of you, you know what the boundaries are: to act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God.  You’re playing out of bounds and it is time to take responsibility.”

Pastor Walter Brueggman, writes that this verse of Micah 6:8 is like a blueprint for right living. (2) What does it mean to live a righteous, moral life?   What does the Lord require of us? To do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God. These are the boundaries. These are the moral lines.  And when the people cross them, God issues a courtroom summons. A call to accountability. 

In the garden of Eden when lines are crossed, God asks a question of Eve and Adam that will echo throughout the rest of scripture: “where are you?”  In Micah, the question becomes this courtroom summons. And it doesn’t stop there. It summons us over and over throughout history. And this question is asked of us now.

There are a lot of problems in the world that demand our attention. And I want to take us, for a moment, to what is happening in Minneapolis. 

We are witnessing state power, our state that has crossed a moral boundary and picked the fruit in the garden.  There are communities where this kind of action is nothing new—think Black communities. What we are seeing echos a long history of violence, a long history of over-policing, unjust detentions, and then authorities who deflect responsibility.  It reflects a long pattern of being told that “what happened on the ground was necessary.” That those “violent actions were justified,” or authorities were “just misunderstood.” Still, looking at Minneapolis, this scale and the level of militarized enforcement is shocking—and new in its intensity and speed.  

Brittany Packet Cunningham was a teacher in St. Louis and an organizer at Furgeson and she has commented on the amplified level of tracking and scope of surveillance. Some of are newly disturbed. Some are not. These two understandings don’t compete, they are intersecting.  It’s the same machine that is wildly out of bounds, just from a different angle. And it’s amplified.

In our ancient scriptures, we don’t just find a library of old stories. We find familiar patterns of boundaries crossed, harm done and accountability brushed aside repeating across the generations. And—we also find that persistent question when moral boundaries are crossed, where are you?

“Where are you?” God asks, calling us into responsibility.

Minneapolis isn’t the only place where we are asking this question,  but it is one place where we can’t ignore it at the moment.  There are a lot of awful problems in the world that demand our attention.  And then, there are a lot of reasons we deflect or step back from responsibility. 

Here’s one reason that I wrestled with this last week: Things are unfolding faster than ever in our world right now. John Sacks explores the impact of speed on our lives. Around the turn of the 20th century, radio was invented. It took 38 years for radio to reach 50 million users.  For computers? It took 16 years for computers to reach 50 million users.  For the internet: it took 4 years for the internet to reach 50 million years. Don’t even ask me about open platform AI.  

The speed with which we can now see things unfolding is breathtaking. The speed does not excuse moral failure. But the tsunami of information does make it tempting to look away or quietly hand responsibility elsewhere.  The speed and volume is not a bad thing, video footage can hold people accountable on the south side of Chicago, Minneapolis, or Kiev, Ukrainian a way we could not before. But, the velocity of it all is rattling and when God calls out because boundaries are crossed, “where are you?” we stammer…we deflect. And point: it’s the system! It’s too big! It’s this economic philosophy! It’s the state! Or it’s XYZ’s fault, (who can we scapegoat? Black folks? Latino Folks? Trans folks?)

***************

Sacks wrote that things are moving fast but we can handle a fast pace right now, as long as we know where we’re going.  As long as we’re clear about the guardrails, about the boundaries of ethical living: Justice, kindness, humility.  And then love of neighbor, love of enemy. Care for poor folks. All these things that point to that distant and hoped time when all will be well. Jesus teaches about this idea calling it the Kingdom of God.  All of these things point to a moral vision that’s woven into our humanity.  

I spoke about Lincoln last week, it was that moral vision that enabled him to say “with malice toward none and charity toward all.”   Or Nelson Mandela, it was this moral vision that helped him bring healing around the wounds of apartheid. Without the vision, the bible says, the people perish. (And, I might add, the people look to leaders that teach us to cope with uncertainty by blaming other groups—that story shows up in the bible too.)

How do we live the love of God in public right now? How do we live it between you and me, between one another? 

*******

When God asks “where are you?” we want to answer faithfully. And the faithful answer isn’t panic, or deflecting or pointing the finger.  The faithful answer is presence. And so we seep ourselves again and again in God’s word, not in the pundits or the posts or the panic but in the stories that have anchored us across the generations. And then, we also remember that we do not live this life alone. We live it in community. We live it with memory. We have folks in our midst who lived through ruptures in their own lives and in society before.  

As a child, Dieter’s hometown as bombed during world war II. And somehow he is still capable of tenderness and hope. There are others in the room too who hold wisdom for us on what keeps us steady, what keeps us rooted in God’s love, and what keeps God’s compassionate vision alive? What keeps us human? Because when God asks “where are you?” our faith doesn’t answer with panic, or deflection or blame.  It says here we are.

Here, rooted in the Word. Here, braided and bound together as community. Here, honoring and learning from the memory of the ancestors. And Here, as Howard Thurman reminds us Is the work that still remains:

To reach out and find the lost

To Heal the broken

To Feed the hungry

To Release the prisoner

To Rebuild the nations and bring peace

Here to make music in the heart. (4)

(1) Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explores this bible story and the ethical question of "where are you?" that I come back to several times in this message in his book, "the Ethics of Responsibility" (2003)

(2) Pastor Walter Brueggeman "Introduction to the Old Testament" (2003)

(3) "We can do hard things" podcast, Jan 27, 2026. "How we all became Minnesota: Brittany Packnett Cunningham."

(4) The Work of Christmas, Howard Thurman

Fourth Sunday of Advent: What is the right thing to do? (12.21.25)

Matthew 1:18-25

A couple of weeks ago I told you about my nativity set and how it does not have a John the Baptist figurine.  It turns out that today’s starring bible character in our gospel reading also has a problem in the little manger set in my living room: In the scene, we’ve got the baby Jesus and the animals.  Mary is fabulous with this bright blue flashy dress with gold trim, and then there’s Joseph…wait. Which one is Joseph--?  

Hm. There’s the one guy with the sparkling gold trim on his suit, he seems like a good guess—that is, if he’s not one of the three kings. (Everyone is wearing robes in this manger town it’s hard to tell.)  There’s another guy in the group that could be Jospeh, but he’s holding a staff...maybe he’s actually a shepherd? I thought Jospeh was a carpenter—did he have a staff?Which one is Joseph!?  Of all the characters in the nativity, you’d think the adoptive father of our Lord would be important, but the poor guy has been relegated to the B-list of supporting actors. 

 

In today’s gospel reading, Joseph does get a few minutes in the spotlight. I just read you the version of St. Matthew’s nativity story. I admit, it doesn’t quite have the same sparkle as the “shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night” version from the gospel of St. Luke. (there’s a reason I’m not reading version I just read to you on Christmas Eve.  One theologian mused, "can you imagine a Christmas pageant about a man who has a dream that helps him decide what to do about a woman in his life?" Hallmark might have better luck with that story line.)  But Joseph does get his moment here in this scripture reading today.

Maybe there’s a reason they give us Matthew’s version of the Christmas story now. St. Matthew’s gospel bumps us into a different room of the Nativity a room where things are uncertain and all is not yet calm and bright.  And that’s exactly where many of us live right now.  

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In this part of the story, we get the camera angle that amplifies Joseph’s stress or worry.  He and Mary have a big problem on their hands with this whole immaculate conception thing. I do wish Mary had some lines in this version. She doesn’t. Maybe she has already rushed off to her cousin Elizabeth’s house searching for support. 

We don't have much from Mary but we do have a very pensive Joseph and what is pretty clear is that he wants to do the right thing. The story says that Joesph is “righteous” which doesn’t mean he’s high and mighty or sanctimonious. It means that he wanted to do the right thing before God. I think most of us here today do—that’s how God built us. We want to take care of the ones we love, we want people to be taken care of, for life to flourish abundantly. we don’t want to do harm. We want to do the right thing.

Joseph seems like a pretty ordinary, probably good person.  Yes, he does to have a very religious fiancé—she sure quotes a lot of ancient scripture off the top of her head in that Magnificat she sang when the angel gave her the pregnancy news.  And most likely, Joseph is just as seeped in religious teaching as she is.  The conundrum for Joseph is: What is the right thing to do in this situation? 

This camera angle on the scene takes us through Joseph’s thinking: first he decides to end his engagement to Mary but as “quietly” as possible, scripture says. Today, engagements can be called off with relative ease. But in Joseph and Mary’s situation, it’s complicated. It’s possible that land or animals have been exchanged and that the families have officially opened a metaphorical investment account together. Most likely, it’s going to require legal action to annul this thing. How Joseph can do this while shielding them both from all the small-town eyes that are watching (from “disgrace”)? It’s a lot to think through.  What is the right thing to do?

As an aside, too many of us have heard sermons about Joseph trying to save Mary from being stoned to death but, if we are going to take the bible seriously, David and Bathsheba were accused of the same sin that modern people are holding Mary to in this story and they weren’t stoned to death. We don’t need to diminish Mary and Joseph’s Jewish culture in order to make the Christian story look good. I think the good people of Nazareth would have taken care of Mary and Jesus had Joseph split from her.  In truth, we don’t need to add drama like that to this story. Joseph already has enough and doesn’t have easy options here.  Finally, in a dream, God shows Joseph what is in store and it helps Joseph decide the right thing to do.  He stays with Mary and names Jesus. I’m sure it was more complicated than the five bible verses we have about it.  

As theologian Matt Skinner put it, “the angel Gabriel doesn’t give him some token (of assurance) or notarized document from God to prove to the people that everything is fine. All he gets (from that angel) is a promise. Which is evidently enough for him.” 

Which leads me to our contemporary world, today. Tonight, the night of, Dec. 21st, is the longest night of 2025. Night after night has gotten longer and longer as the sun has set earlier and risen later. I am all for a little Christmas coziness in the evenings but by this point, I’m about done with the long night.  In my head, I know that the astronomical balance will tilt back and the days will get longer, but at the moment, it feels like that will never happen. Joseph’s uncertainty echos even now; and these long, cold nights resonate in this cultural moment we’re living in.  

Many of us are carrying this underground sense of strain these days.  It’s not necessarily fear but uncertainty and maybe some pressure. Chicago is a big, complicated city.  We all regularly encounter people who are pretty different from us—who have different experiences, and opinions. We are seeing power exercised on our streets, we are reading a variety of headlines, and we are thinking of actual faces of people connected to these storylines.  Some of us are worried about it. Some of us are angry or fed up. There’s strain around what’s happening: Pressure to have the right opinion. A push to respond quickly. 

I think, in moments like this, the hardest thing isn’t knowing what we oppose, it’s knowing what faithfulness is. What is the right thing to do right here now and in our own lives? And that question doesn’t just belong to the headlines—it shows up at our kitchen tables, in our friendships and in all those little decisions we’re holding on a given day. Joseph  wants to do the right thing, but whatever that is isn’t obvious to him and all of the options are risky. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have clairvoyant dreams like Joseph did that help me make decisions every time things get rough. How do we figure it out?

Have you ever been in an eye exam they ask you, “this lens or this one?”  With each answer and adjustment of the dial, you edge closer to the right prescription? The right thing to do is not always the loudest response, knee-jerk response. It’s not always the speedy reaction or the morally safe-looking behavior.  The right thing is what participates in God’s life-giving activity around us.   What amplifies God’s love in the world?  We can’t see the whole picture of what God is doing so faithfulness shows up as a next right step and not necessarily as a full map. 

We see characters in the bible beyond Joseph who wrestle with their next steps all over the place in scripture. We watch Queen Esther wrestle with whether or not to defy the evil King Hammond. We watch Jacob wrestle with whether he should reconcile with his brother.  We watch the Apostle Philip question with whether or not to baptize the Ethiopian man in the desert. We watch them edge toward the right thing to do—like the eye doctor asking “this lens or this one,” edging them closer to the answer. (1)

Instead of adjustments to the lens, our wrestling deals with questions like: Does this step I could take preserve human dignity?  Does this thing I could do (or not do) widen or shrink Love in the world?  In this situation I’m in what else might be true here?

These questions aren’t going to illuminate the instant answer, instead they guide us. Faith is not applying rules to a situation.  Yes, we do ground our responses into some ancient, wise pilars of our faith-- Like the knowledge that we are called to act with neighborliness and that all people are created in precious God’s image, even the ones we don’t like--ugh. 

Joseph faces his conundrum and wants to do the right thing. Then, with a little help from the angel in a dream, he figures out what that right thing is, And then, finally, Joseph has got to follow through and do it. And we have arrived at our final step.

Josph has got to act. It’s a turning point. He doesn’t just sit there watching or thinking about it. He’s got to find the courage to do it.  Joseph has a decision to make when he wakes up from that dream. 

If he doesn’t act swiftly, he might question himself as the dream fades. But, Joseph chooses to trust the angel’s voice.  I admit that if I had a dream like this, I would have a more questions for the angel Gabe: (ie. How exactly does one parent a kid who is descended from God?) Joseph doesn’t seem worried. In fact he seems okay to move ahead even though it’s not totally clear how things will work out. 

And, maybe this is what it looks like to follow God, I’m not sure how this is going to shake out. or if the journey will be hard,  or what it will cost me, but I’m going to walk it.  

On any given day, we’re faced with problems that ask for faithful answers—some of them downright courageous answers. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit moves among us. Building a new world takes thoughtfulness and heart.  Taking care of people—especially when things are strained--takes faithfulness and courage.  Doing the right thing isn’t always the flashiest option. Joseph isn’t the flashiest character in the nativity scene. But Joseph wakes up from his dream and he walks. And sometimes, that is faith: trusting God enough to take ordinary grace-filled steps of love that give shape to the Holy Light already present around us.

(1) Not all bible characters are positive moral examples.  Joseph from the Hebrew Bible (the one with the amazing technicolor coat) is thrown into a pit and left for dead after his brothers wrestle with their jealousy about him.  Their actions do not widen God's love in the world. 

2nd Sunday of Advent: Here's why J.B. doesn't make it into the Nativity Set on your mantel (12.7.25)

 Matt 3:1-12

Every year during Advent—this season leading up to Christmas—John the Baptist makes an appearance in our assigned readings.   In my house we have a little nativity set made of carved wooden figurines that we bring out each Christmas season.  The set has lots of characters: there are the pious Mary and Joseph. We put them on either side of the manger. There are some humble looking shepherds holding their staffs with their wooly sheep.  We’ve got the three fancy magi holding their snazzy gifts and with their fancy camels, and there is a cherubic little angel who flutters above the stable.  But we have no John the Baptist… In fact, have multiple nativity sets in our house—made of clay, straw, wood, stone--I checked them all. Nope. No J.B. in any of them.

Just for fun, let’s think about what he would look like if he were part of the carved little set: For starters, instead of a pretty, flowing robe, he’d be wearing a furry animal skin. Then, instead gold, frankincense and myrrh in his arms, He would be holding a jar of Christmas locusts in one hand—maybe chocolate covered locusts?--And…a pitchfork! in the other—or an axe? (maybe they could put a bow on the pitchfork to take the edge off a little). and then, I think he would also have some sort of softly glowing…(let’s say) bull horn at his feet.   when the children would ask about this sweet character, we would tell them: "Ah, this is humble John who prepared the way for Jesus!" And then, when the children ask what that means, we could tell them that he roared at the people and called them a pack of snakes that needed to repent and then yelled about hellfire. 

Nah…! No one wants a pitchfork at the nativity! If we did include him, it would mess up our whole little serene scene…which I suppose would be something, wouldn’t it?

Gotta love John the Baptist—it’s true, he doesn’t totally fit with the—ah--Christmas spirit.   Funny thing is, although he’s not so popular now, people apparently flocked to the desert to hear him back in the day—quite possibly Jesus being one of these people.  He’s a little fringy, but everyone’s very into it.   Part of the thing with John is that he’s always railing about repentance! And God’s judgement!  And, let’s be honest…God’s judgement is not top of the list for festive conversation topics for holiday parties.  Repentance is not our go-to conversation starter for “the most wonderful time of the year.”  and really, is it our go-to—any time of the year?

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Judgement is a hard one. I know there are a lot of people out there who have experienced judgement from Christianity.  To some, it can seem like “Christians” (in the big sense) have some sort of license to decide what’s sinful and who deserves condemnation. And for some of us—many of us--that is cringy. we want to distance ourselves from this kind of intolerance or hypocrisy (like preferably distance ourselves with a 100 foot pole) and…we tend to gravitate towards the bible stories that describe God’s love and acceptance and generosity and bypass the ones that talk about judgement and repentance. Or, if we’re going to talk about judgement, maybe God could use a bit more gentle parenting?

Over the next year, starting now in the season of Advent, we will be working our way through the gospel of Matthew. And let me tell you: John the Baptist is tone setting here here in his opening act for his whole gospel story. This John-the-Baptist-story is going to shape Matthew’s version of the Jesus story.

A couple of months ago, I told someone Matthew was my favorite gospel.  Yeah, I changed my mind about that a few days ago. There’s some anger running through the chapters of Matthew.  And with it, some harsh language. People who question or challenge Jesus—like religious leaders?--are painted in a pretty unflattering way.  Which has given Christians ammunition for antisemitic hatred over the centuries.  Jesus threatens judgement and punishment all over Matthew.   What do we do with gospel texts that talk about “casting people into eternal fire” when we know God is love?  

As I was thinking about this this week, a phrase kept echoing through my mind by James Baldwin’s—an American author and civil rights voice known for his fierce honesty. he once wrote: “Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”  

Believe me, I didn’t expect to connect Baldwin to the Baptist but they both seem to get how we’d much rather avoid the truth.  And—ugh—they’re both very good at dragging what is hiding out into view. I searched through my files and sermon to see where I had quoted this—yes several times for you—and specifically multiple time on…Ash Wednesday, which is the day that I refer to as, “the most honest day of the year.” 

Baldwin and the Baptist are both painfully honest. Baldwin’s original article, called “As Much Truth as One Can Bear” was published in the NYT in 1962. Nothing can change, he says, without facing it.  And we want change And it is terribly hard to take a hard look at things. He writes that “people cannot bear much reality; most of us do not dare to look directly at our lives.”    Baldwin wrote that telling the truth is key and that it would,

“illuminate that darkness, 
blaze roads through that vast forest, 
so that we will not, in all our doing,
 lose sight of its purpose, which is, after all, 
to make the world a more human dwelling place.”  

Blaze roads through that vast forest.  John the Baptist bursts into the gospel story insists, fiercely, that there is brokenness in the world that must be repaired. 

In the whole cycle of confession, accountability, repentance we want to jump over the part where we admit wrong-doing to the part of grace and forgiveness and mercy.  We want to get to that place of restoration that we heard about in Isaiah. A place where:

They will not hurt or destroy
    on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD
 as the waters cover the sea.

But we can’t skip over the truth telling on our way to wholeness. We have to admit it.  We have to shine a light on the places where things are cracking in our own lives and around us. 

Our old liturgy would say  “that we are in bondage to sin and we cannot free ourselves.”   We have to turn and look at the sting we cause, the suffering we turn away from, the way we participate in harm without meaning to, the ways things are not what God intends. John has some anger about the truth of the way things are. So does Jesus. (so does Baldwin!) (I think it’s because they all love ferociously). John sounds like someone who is at the end of his rope.  Who is sick of the way things are—“utterly sick of injustice and wickedness.” He wants people to face the truth. 

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One of the hard things in this is that it can be paralyzing to face what’s wrong in ourselves and in the world.  How do we get from where we are (here) to a place of growth (there). This has always been a hard question.  Leave it to John to ask the hard questions.  (Hello, this is why we don’t want him with his pitchfork in our nativity scene). Getting from here to there (otherwise known as growing) has always been a process. It’s learning from our mis-steps, discovering that it actually matters when we act mercifully.  Then, actually doing something about it--Changing, transforming, and growing. This is God’s creative energy moving and working in us. It is asking where does the question of “What can I do” meet the question of “what needs to be done?”  A lot might need to be done to repar our world and lives, but what can I do? We know it is God who redeems the world.  But what is also true is that God acts through us.  

Redemption is a series of small steps.  Of small acts. Day after day.  

Each step mends a crack in our world.  John doesn’t quite use worlds like mend. He’s more of the “take an axe and cut off the branch that isn’t bearing fruit” variety. Isaiah has a chopped tree image today too and he reminds us that a shoot shall break forth out of the stump, a branch shall grow forth from its’ roots.  

We’re called to prune our lives into the shape of “the one who is coming”  as John puts it. Into the shape of Jesus. John shows up in the beginning but then Jesus takes the baton and he will have more pointed teaching for us, some of them fiery, all of them motivated by passionate love for people.

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John the Baptist.  John is not a seasonal interruption.  There is a hallmark version of Christmas ( hot coco and all.) But our story is not that.  It’s not even just loving a sweet little bland babe in a manger. 

This is a story of tyrant kings and brave young parents, It’s a story where God’s angels singing out among the stars herald the promise of a new day.  In this story of Christmas, God breaks into our broken world to be with us to mend us.  And God does it in the most upside down and confounding way—as this baby.

At Christmas, we celebrate that this is astonishing. And we open our hearts to this stunning aliveness of God’s presence which will change us—for the better! A life of faith demands that we pause and listen and evaluate our lives.  Judgement and repentance aren’t the extra, take it or leave it parts of our faith—they’re the everyday, honest way we stay open to grace. 

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John isn’t asking for a dramatic overhaul. He’s inviting us into the pattern of faith: That we face what is real. That we prune off what needs to go. (John would recommend an axe instead of pruning sheers—meh. God works with either). And, then that we begin again.

John the Baptist would have known that a journey from here to there takes time, that transformation doesn’t happen overnight. It took 40 years for the Israelites to journey through the wilderness for pete’s sake. But we’re called to a life shaped by transformation. A life suffused with the love of God. This love repairs. This Grace heals. This Accountability rights wrongs. 

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You know, Maybe John never makes it into our little nativity sets, maybe he’s too loud, too honest, too wild for the little wooden stable.  But, doesn’t mean he’s not there on the edge of the scene, ruffling feathers, pruning branches and even encouraging us in his brusque, direct way to look at life squarely, release what must go and repair what needs mending. To open our hearts to a God who comes close and shimmies into the cracks to face what we fear and heal where we hurt. 

Joy to the world, the Lord is come, let every heart prepare him room, for the kingdom of God is near.

At our band-led service, we finished with this song.  This kind of transformation and change doesn't happen overnight. It's not easy. And we are sustained, undone and redone by God's gracious presence who sees us through. 

First Sunday of Advent: when peace asks something of you (11.30.25)

Isaiah 2:1-5

Matthew 24:36-44

We’ve had Omar’s brother and sister in town the last few days which we have loved.   I’ve known my in-laws for a long time—we met in what sometimes feels like it was another life time when I lived in Honduras.  Now, we all live in the US and things are different.   Today, Honduras will hold national elections for president.  Since the coup de’etat 16 years ago, tension has been very fraught and a few days ago, on the eve of these very important national elections, it was announced that a corrupt former president serving time in the US may be pardoned which will have grave ramifications for today’s elections.  There is such a painful of history in Honduras coupled with so much tension and desperation it’s difficult to understand how could this be?

As we make a turn to Advent where we’ll soon sing those words from Mary’s Magnificat at evening vespers, “you have cast the mighty down from their thrones, you have filled the hungry with wondrous things…”  the headlines in the world make me ask, Have you, God?

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Do you find yourself reaching for hope these days? I also stumbled over our verses in the book of Isaiah this week too, maybe you recognize these verses: 

“they shall beat their swords into plowshares 
and their spears into pruning hooks; 
nation shall not lift up sword against nation; 
neither shall they learn war any more.”  

Those words sound hollow as Ukrainian flags still fly in my neighborhood, as I hear stories about war and destruction in the middle east including tens of thousands of children who have been killed in Gaza, and as we hear of acts of violence here in our city of Chicago.

They shall beat their swords into plowshares…Right. So, exactly when was that part going to begin…?

******

We can’t always see the world as Isaiah saw it.  Our attention is constantly called to weapons of war and acts of violence.  The idea of peace would have been provocative in the time of Isaiah and Amos, too, just like it is now.  On one hand, it was a prosperous time where the government was building a strong army but on the other hand, Isaiah cries out in judgement about the sinfulness of the people. His world was thick with problems. And apparently, even in the midst of that chaos and all those problems there was still a vision of peace. 

This image of swords being beaten into plowshares has come up in recent decades. We love the poetry. Many of our presidents, from FDR, to Nixon, to Reagan, and Carter have all given a shout out to Isaiah 2.   In 1959, the USSR gave the US an iconic statue based on this verse which sits in front of the UN. Given the state of the world these days, it is mind-boggling to me that a statue of this vision still sits there on the sidewalk with these unresolved conflicts raging around it.  Loving this imagery is one thing—everybody wants the poetry—but living it? Well, that’s another thing. 

For starters, I’m quite conscious that, for all we talk of peace, religions have been a source of conflict.  In the verses from Isaiah we have an image of peace where God is supreme and all the nations are streaming towards this holy mountain where God is. 

There is this cosmic uniformity in these verses.  It sounds a little like, “if everyone would just turn towards God who looks like this, we would have peace.”   But we are not all the same and neither is our understanding of God. On closer look,  We find these same verses—almost exactly the same—Are also recorded in the book of Micah—another prophet who was writing around the same time. But after the prophet Micah explains that everyone will stream in unison to God’s holy mountain, he adds that 

[everyone] shall all sit under their own vines 
and under their own fig trees,
    and no one shall make them afraid,
    for the mouth of the LORD of hosts has spoken.
For all the peoples walk,
    each in the name of its god,
but we will walk in the name of the LORD our God

As Micah explains it, there is space for religious diversity here.  Rabbi Johnathan Sacks pointed this out.  Peace does not require sameness but requires making space for real difference and this is hard.  If you think about it, war is more emotionally satisfying than peace.  When we’re at war on a great or small scale, we get to dig our heels in, grip our opinions fiercely.  We like fighting. Peace threatens our identity.

We don’t want to compromise and we don’t want our leaders to compromise.  Sacks wrote, 

“those who show courage in the heat of battle are often celebrated. Those who take risks for peace are all too often assassinated, among them Lincoln, Ghandi, MLK, Anwar Sadat…the pursuit of peace can come to seem like a kind of betrayal. It involves compromise. It means settling for less than one would like. It has none of the purity and clarity of war in which the issues—national honour, patriotism, pride  are unambiguous and compelling.” 

If we actually want peace, we have to be willing to cede, to give a little—we have to be able to let go a little even if it’s something we feel very passionately about—we have to be okay with being a little dissatisfied.  We have to advance the ball a little, a few yards, even if imperfectly. This is why peace can feel like betrayal because we have to be uncomfortable, or lose a little. It costs something. This can challenge our pride, our identity, our need to be right.  Peace can destabilize the way we imagine ourselves.  It asks us to make space for the ones who are different from us.  It calls for restraint and humility. (Not exactly the most celebrated cultural values at the moment.)  Peace is both provocative and evocative. It pulls us magnetically toward God’s vision and, at the same time, it exposes these parts of ourselves that resist it (resist God’s vision)—Peace exposes our pride, our certainty, our ego. This is one reason the poetry of peace is more compelling than the practice.  No wonder we find war emotionally satisfying and peace emotionally costly… 

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The challenge of practicing peace isn’t only out there in global conflicts—it lives in the moral vocabulary and habits we carry every day too.  If peace is costly, then it needs a vocabulary that acknowledges that we belong to each other. One that acknowledges our duty to one another, but that vocabulary has been thinning…

Consider this: In the last 50-70 years, there has been a decline in the English phrase (American English phrase, that is) “I ought.”  It’s much more common to hear “I want,” “I choose,” or “I feel.”  Or even “you do you.”  There’s been a shift in recent decades away from language of moral obligation and towards language of personal desire and autonomy.

When I speak Spanish, as we do at home, I use words like deber or hay que much more frequently than words like must or ought in English. (I kind of never us the word ought.) We do use the word should, in English some (I use it), but we’ve taught ourselves to be suspicious of it.  Could be because we are suspicious of moral authority? 

As your institutional spokesperson for morality this morning, I want to emphasize that I’m not here to rail on you about the sins of dancing, cussing and living with your boyfriend.   Sure, I’ll talk about any of it, but, I am asking us this morning to trace a moral line and consider how our language leads us to think about the duty we have to one another. Peace requires a moral imagination that is bigger that just me. Sometimes, this means peace asks for restraint. Sometimes, it asks us to think of a common good over our individual good.

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So how do we, as ordinary people hold onto this costly, dazzling vision of peace? When I think of the vision of peace that Isaiah describes, I think of it like a lighthouse. Isaiah wasn’t describing a moment of peace; he was describing a direction like a horizon line of God’s longing for the world that we row our boat towards, that we walk towards, move towards. If peace is the lighthouse, what are the lanterns of peace that light our way as we walk in the shadows toward it? 

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Lanterns don’t illuminate miles ahead, They light the next few steps. They don’t solve world conflict but they orient us and  help us walk differently in our own lives.  They are lanterns of choosing curiosity over victory in a hard conversations. They are the lanterns of allowing someone else to be different without needing them to be wrong.  They are the lanterns of pausing instead of pouncing on someone, of asking a question instead of preparing our accusation. They are these small plowshares that we fashion instead of the swords of snap judgements or cutting anger. And here is where it gets even cooler: lanterns accumulate.

One small act of restraint, one word that is softened, one attempt at humility, one generous moment of giving someone the benefit of the doubt, all of them together, they glow. They gather into a path and they begin to change how we show up in the world. They begin to change the air around us. These small, simple, unglamorous lanterns do not look like geopolitical peace. They look like human peace—the kind that begins in us. We love the poetry of peace—but the lanterns are its practice where peace begins to come into view.  

Advent teaches us that God’s great light arrives not all at once but in flickers and glimmers in the shadows.  In one small  but sacred candle that lights the next, and the next, and the next until the path glows with more light than we first imagined possible.