A letter to our 2022 confirmands

 Luke 18:9-14

Dear Confirmands,

Today is confirmation Sunday! Today, we confirmed eight of you 9th graders in your faith! You, dear confirmands, have experienced a lot of bumps in the road the last couple of years.  School has been stressful. You’re involved in so many different sports and clubs and activities, and there have been some really hard moments for some of you where the bottom has dropped out of life. 

Last Wednesday, a big group from the church here got together to talk about who we are as a church, what we care about. Some of you youth showed up too. In my particular small group we talked two (of the many) sides of faith. We discussed how faith is: 1. a place of rest and comfort and 2. a place of challenge that calls us change and grow.  Some of you may have heard this before: that church is a place to comfort the afflicted (St. Paul said that) and afflict the comfortable.

I’m going to wager a guess that in the years prior to confirmation, especially the years when you were much younger, church was often a place of comfort and rest. It has been a place of peace. Many of you have come here with your parents. You sit together year after year in the pew.  You sing familiar song and you hear familiar stories. Church is a place that comforts us, that calms us, that brings us peace. But, the other side of the coin is that church is a place that challenges us.  And, I’m going to guess that if you haven’t started thinking deeply about God, or taking a closer look at what Jesus values compared to what the world values, you will. 

Following Jesus is a way of life and when we keep our eye on the path, it will bring friction into our lives. 

We hear the word “friction” and we think it’s a bad thing—is it some sort of conflict? What friction technically is, is a force that opposes motion.  It slows something down. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Friction is the reason that tires on a car have traction and don’t fly off the road.  Or, it’s the reason why our basketball sneakers make that squeaky noise on the gym floor and stop us instead of slide out from under us.  Friction slows us down. 

In the case of our faith, friction asks us to take a closer look and to reflect. Take today’s gospel reading.  There is an easy way for me to just ice skate (friction-free) through this parable of Jesus without thinking too hard.  For me, a face value interpretation of this story would read like this:

There are 2 men: The Pharisee is a Jewish leader, he’s proud and boasts about his good works.  The tax collector is humble and humility is the most important thing that matters here. The tax collector is the one who ends up being cool God.  Better luck next time Pharisee. We should all be humble like the tax collector. The end.

Now, obviously, humility is important and we could talk more about it. There are many ways to reflect one day about humility and pride. However, given that the parables of Jesus are supposed to stop us in our tracks and turn us upside down, I’m going to offer 3 points that make me think twice about this story and challenge me today.

ONE: What if I tell you that St. Luke, who wrote this story down is always describing Jewish leaders like pharisees in a negative light and tax collectors--despicable as they may be--as sort of darlings. You can go back to scripture and see it for yourself.  Have you ever heard the word "Pharisee" and immediately felt suspicious about how they're messing something up or "not getting it" in the bible story? We’ve been taught that in the Christian faith.  

Luke wrote these stories almost 2,000 years ago. The original people who Jesus was talking to would have thought of pharisees as good, compassionate and merciful Jewish leaders.  And, they would have thought of tax collectors as people who worked for “the man,” cheated folks out of money and were despicable. Luke is showing that tax collectors can be good people, religious leaders can be flawed. Thing is, those categories and their stereotypes aren't engrained in our contemporary daily lives they way they were in Luke's time.

TWO: What if I pointed out that this Pharisee is giving a full 10% or more of his income to the temple. He is exceptionally generous.  He is going above and beyond what the law requires of him.  

Take a moment to think about your family income, or ask your parents about it.  Or consider this, if you make money babysitting or some other after school job.  Imagine that you gave slightly more than 10% of your gross income to church or to charity.  Take a second to think of how much money that would be... Maybe some of you are there and give this. Maybe some of you aren’t. If you do give this, or if you did give it, there is a chance you might feel a little proud of yourself, too. This is generous!

Yes, perhaps your pride is not the best character trait and is would be your growing edge, but do you still roll your eyes in the same way at this pharisee who is proud of his generosity?

THREE: Finally, What if I pointed out that where it says the tax collector was the one who was “cool with God” (or justified) rather than the Pharisee, that the word “rather than” (para in Greek) could also be translated as “along side of.”  This would have the verse sound like this: “A tax collector was made cool with God right along side of the Pharisee, not rather than the Pharisee.”  It sounds different right? (1) For some reason, perhaps some anti-Semitism, translators have favored one translation over another. 

How do these three points make me think differently about this story?  (Remember, Jesus’ parables meant to provoke and challenge us and even make us feel uncomfortable.)

Here’s how this parable could sound in today’s day and age, (I’m taking this entirely from a Jewish scholar named Amy Jill Levine who spelled all this out with this fantastic analogy which I am paraphrasing): Imagine a group project at school. In your group, you’ve got 
1. The smart one (or the over-achiever), 
2. the creative one, 
3. the one who invites everyone over to work on the project and brings snacks, and, 
4. the slacker. 

The first three group members do their fair share. Actually, they do more than their fair share because they’re covering the slacker’s part, right? The slacker shows up to the group meeting and might be 100% friendly and great in the moment but effectively contributes nothing. The project gets an A. The three who contribute are “justified,” they get an A. The slacker also gets an A. She’s also “justified.” The end.

Who reading this finds the scenario unfair? 

I do. 

Have you ever been the over achiever and felt smug about it?  This is what is happening in today’s parable. 

<<says with a hint of sarcasm>> “Hi, overachieving pharisee, thank you for making our world a better place. We know you’re awesome and you kind of want a medal or a prize. Feel free to tone it down a little....Hi, slacker tax collector, you are a little slimy and not exactly embodying God’s love but you’re trying. And we are trying to love you for it but it’s a little hard.”

What if, in this parable, Jesus is telling me that my sense of what’s fair and what’s unfair is off? What if Jesus is telling me that I am being tight-fisted with my generosity? 

Maybe the slacker, who I called lazy, did what she could. Maybe she knew she was slacking and she got all the tense text messages in the group chat, but she trusted the system and she slacked her way through the project. Maybe she had something going at home that we never knew about.  Maybe she sincerely didn’t care and for real just checked out. Was I a fool for doing her work?  Was it dumb for me to be so generous?

What if Jesus is telling me that living in community is actually a kind of group work because not everyone is always their best in community?  And if our good deeds help a sister out, why not just celebrate it instead of begrudge her?

Oh, that’s a hard lesson.  

I just read an article in a business journal about how people who help too much don’t actually get ahead (whatever that means) and Jesus is asking me to help more. This is the kind of challenge that this parable tosses to me today. It’s uncomfortable. It’s irritating. There’s a part of me that wants to fight with it.  

Dear confirmands, the life of faith that you are stepping fully into today needs friction in it.  This goes for all of us.  Some of you are thinking, “Thanks. I’ve got enough friction in my life at the moment, Pastor Lindsay,” and I hear that, some of you do. Friction in life ebbs and flows. How God shows up in our life (as a comforter or an agitator) also ebbs and flows. 

When we put the teachings of Christ into conversation with our own lives, we will be challenged.  There will be times when church or God makes us uncomfortable. So be it.  

But we do not go it alone. Part of what is true in the life of faith is that we need companions on the journey. We need friends, coaches, sparing partners.  We need people who will help us learn how to become more generous in our daily lives. People who will help us identify the places where we’re kind of jerks and how we can take the next step to change. We need people to hold us accountable,  and we need people to bring us a casserole when things fall apart.   God both challenges us and supports us through the community and the congregation. Faith in God is a team sport. 

So, Jesus comforts us, Jesus challenges us, and Jesus does one more thing consistently in scripture…

Jesus celebrates!

He’s constantly throwing parties, inviting folks to dinner, turning water into wine, savoring life, and telling stories about celebrations! His joy is infectious! And this why we celebrate our confirmands today.
God bless you, dear confirmands in this wild and precious life. May your journey with God open your hearts and bless the world around you. To God be the glory!

(1) Jewish New Testament scholar, Amy Jill Levine discusses this at length. She acknowledges the two legit translations of 1. instead of, 2. alongside of. However, she also offers a 3rd fascinating (imo) translation that suggests that the word can also be translated as "because of" rendering an idea that "the tax collector is justified because of the Pharisee's generosity. This third suggestion is even more of a mind-bender for me.

A message about sleepless nights, struggle in our souls and holding on

 Genesis 32:22-31

A couple of weeks ago when talking about the parable of the lost sons (or prodigal son), I mentioned that there is something refreshing about hearing the stories of families in the bible. For all that we hear this day and age about “family values” that are based in scripture, for some reason, our bible stories sure like to zero in on the moments when families are cracking or people are at their worst.

Today’s story about Jacob is no different. Jacob was the younger of twin boys.  Remember, his dad, Isaac was the one who was almost sacrificed by Abraham until the angel intervened?  Right. Dad, Isaac married Rebecca who eventually got pregnant with twins.  Rebecca had a miserable pregnancy. She said it felt like the babies fought the whole time in the womb. And as the story goes, Jacob was born clutching the heel of his slightly older brother Esau.  These two brothers are in competition from the moment they were born.  Years later, they were probably teenagers, Jacob dressed up as his brother and convinced his dad, Isaac, to give him the special blessing of the firstborn son.  Esau is furious. He vows to get revenge. Jacob takes off running to the hills to Uncle Laban’s house.  

When our story picks up many years later, Jacob is married with several wives, several concubines, lots of kids, tons of animals, loads of drama. (Any of you see Joseph and the amazing technicolor dream coat? You know the song “Jacob and sons”. This is that Jacob).

Jacob, there in mid life, gets to reflecting on things and decides to send a messenger out to test the waters with his twin: “Hey Esau, it’s me your long lost twin brother. I know things weren’t so great the last time we hung out, but I was wondering if we might mend the bridge, bury the hachet, let by gones be bygones, what do you say…? 

Esau sends a message back, “ah, you want to meet? Okay. I’m on my way. With 400 men in tow. See you soon. xo"

400 men. Instead of accepting Jacob’s olive branch, Esau seems to have ignited it. This is not exactly how Jacob was hoping this would go.  Jacob is freaking out. The bible records it in detail: “How am I going to survive this!”  He panics. He splits his wives, kids, animals into two groups hoping that one of the groups will survive the attack. He prepares this nice present for Esau and sends it ahead, maybe this will help soften him up—and then he starts praying: “Look God. I’m in a mess. A real mess here. You said you’d protect me. Okay, this is the moment.” The bible records this prayer. I’m paraphrasing. But clearly Jacob is freaking out. He is haunted by his mistakes. He’s in a serious bind. He’s estranged from his extended family.  He has sent the rest of the family away to hide and he is alone. Dusk falls. And then night. And this is where our bible story picks up today. 

Justin Renteria is an illustrator and created this picture of a woman sitting at a desk.  She’s presumably a modern business woman but she has that 1950s looking housewife vibe of a woman who looks like she’s just been delivered the washer and dryer set of her dreams.  She’s beaming, but sitting at a massive, formidable desk. She’s one of those annoying images of carefree perfection. What is not immediately apparent is that her desk is sitting on top of a tank, an army tank that is bulldozing forward come hell or high water. 

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We do not always see what is going on beneath the surface. We don’t always share what keeps us up at night.  The mistakes that haunt us. The stress that amps us up.  A lot of us are wrestling something in a dimly lit space that we can’t make out the end of.  Jacob doesn’t know what the morning will bring when he meets Esau. He is between worlds, straddling the boundary between what was and what will be. We straddle those in between, liminal spaces all the time. Sometimes its after hitting send on the email, we wait. After an argument with a spouse or a sibling, we wait. In the 5-7 days before the biopsy results come in, we wait. 

We wait for something we hope for or for some higher love to intervene. With Jacob’s story, there are chapters and chapters detailing his mistakes and freak outs, but all we get is a couple little lines about his dark night of the soul.  What happened between the lines?

We know that night falls and Jacob is attacked in the dark. It is a full on fight. He wrestles with someone there on the banks of the river.  Who is he fighting? We’re not really sure.  The scripture doesn’t say. There are ancient tales in the middle east of river spirits that only come out at night—is that who he wrestled with? Some people say he wrestled God.  Some say it was an angel (the book of Hosea suggests that). If you’re into Karl Jung, maybe you’ll say Jacob was wrestling his shadow side.  

The Hebrew just says that Jacob wrestled an Ish, which simply means “man.” He wrestled for hours. Until he was exhausted. Have you been exhausted? By your pace? By your anxiety? By your anger? By your grief for something or someone who is no longer the same? All night long on the banks of that river, Jacob wrestled. He’s alone. No one is there to bear witness to his struggle with this man. Except us.  

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Why don’t we let people see the real struggle that we experience. Not in the sense that we’re supposed to bleed all over people, but we don’t let people see failure, the stress, the strain the wrestling match.  While we might prepare some well crafted answer about “failure” for an interview, that’s about it. Researcher Cia-Jung Tsay who teaches at the Wisconsin School of Business has explored the psychology around struggle and its’ role in success.  She explains that if you ask folks in the US which is more important to success: effort or talent, they are 50% more likely to say “effort is most important to success” There’s a 2:1 probability they’ll say this. But, if you ask them what’s most important in a new hire: talent or effort, they pick talent over effort 5 to 1. 

Deep down, we bias talent over effort. We think that people succeed or make it through or grow because they are naturally strong, or gritty or they were born gifted.  We don’t want to think about how they’ve fought for it: Fought for their mental health, their relationships, their craft, their career, their compassion, their faith, fought for a better world…

Journalist Jerry Useem wrote that, “You cannot find youtube videos [of the struggle]: of Yo-yo ma tediously repeating a difficult passage, or Ronald Reagan practicing his speeches in front of a mirror, or Steve Jobs unveiling a half-baked iPhone.”  He says he closest he came to finding this on youtube was an early Rolling Stones draft of “start me up” as a reggae tune which was, to say the least, a bust. 

We don’t want to see the struggle, admit it’s there or even, find the value in effort.  Jacob wrestles the man in the dark and no one is around to see it. If struggle or wrestling sets off this alarm in us, then we’ll always pull back when we’re confronted with it.  What does that mean when the going gets tough? When the conversation gets real? When the stake are raised? 

Back to our story of Jacob.  Jacob wrestles all night.  It’s not clear what the Ish is after. But these two are relentless and they will not let each other go.  By this point, Jacob has hung on long enough to be hurt.  And as dawn approaches, the Ish slams him in the hip. It’s dislocated out of the socket, maybe it pops in and out, the text isn’t clear, but it sounds bad. And still Jacob hangs on. The Ish tells Jacob to let him go. Jacob throws back “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” The Ish says alright.  He changes Jacob’s name to Israel (which means the one who wrestles with God) and then blesses him.  There is this fuzzy clue that maybe the Ish wrestling Jacob was God. Maybe, it was God that came to him, in that place of struggle in that dark night. 

As the sun rose, Jacob walked away from the river bank with a limp.  He walked the whole rest of his life with that limp. But his wound wasn’t a sign of failure, but of growth, in a sense success and in a sense persistence during a really tough time.

A lot of us are facing uncertainty in our lives.  Some of it big, some of it small. Some of it personal some of it societal.  How do we hang on? (Think of that persistent widow in the gospel story for today who hung on pestering that judge.)  For our lives thrive and flourish, we must hang on. The same goes for our lives of faith.  God isn’t always that image of the gentle shepherd or loving servant. Sometimes, God is our streetfighter who will not be wrestled into a box and who will not be wrestled into our understanding. God is the one who calls us, even pushes us to growth and to change. God is the one who loves us too fiercely to let us go. 

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The end of Jacob’s story isn’t as much of the point today.  While Jacob did indeed change, he didn’t become this whole new person after wrestling and being wounded and being blessed.  His life moved on.  He survived the night.  

The next morning, he met his twin Esau and the four hundred men. And before he could get a word out of his mouth, Esau ran to him and embraced him and they wept. They reconciled. They met each other’s families, they probably ate together and told old stories and carried each other’s kids around on their shoulders.  And then they went on their ways and life went on. Jacob had another child, Benjamin. He buried his beloved wife, Rachel. He moved his family to Egypt.  He passed the story of God’s love to his children who passed it on, in turn, to their children. 

Over the generations, the people made mistakes that they wrestled with. They struggled with God, they figured it out—or didn’t. They turned away and God took them by the shoulders and turned them back.  
Some storyteller somehow, somewhere passed this story of Jacob’s long night down to us today to remind us that this life isn’t easy. This life of faith isn’t easy. Loving God and letting God love us and change us in the midst of our pain isn’t always easy; but we stand on the shoulders of people who have known the struggle and who point to the way. We know that in that challenge, somehow, God strives alongside of us.

St. Agustin of Hippo famously wrote that “if you have understood, than what you have understood is not God.” 

This faith that we inherit and pass on and cherish has so much more to do with hanging on than with being certain.  Truthfully, our faith in anyone—including God—has to do with being willing to fight for the relationship. To risk getting hurt. To risk the dirt of the rough and tumble. To have faith of the blessing that is ours in the midst of it. 

In my own case, there are days when I believe and God’s presence shimmers with certainty. These are days when God fights with me, or alongside of me through my struggle. And then, there are days when I don’t believe, and I grasp for God in the night.

Understanding it or not, or having certainty or not doesn’t threaten my call to struggle for beauty and justice and this world. It doesn't dim my effort to be transformed. It doesn’t steal God’s presence or God’s essence from my life. 

God uses Jacob to remind us that sometimes the dark nights are long. Sometimes the wounds we carry into the morning stay with us forever. Sometimes we are unsure of where the road may take us. But, we carry God’s blessing with us along the way.

A samaritan, a mindset, a community

 Last week, with the parable of the lost, sheep, coin and son, I mentioned the power of stories or ideas grouped in threes.  Folk stories grouped in threes catch our attention. It’s always the third character that succeeds. The rule of three also has this element of predictability.  If we think groups of three:

Father, Son and Holy Sprit.
Larry, Moe and Curly.
Snap, crackle, pop.
Signed, sealed, delivered.
Back to that same old place, sweet, home Chicago!

This favorite bible story that we just heard is about the man who is beaten up, thrown to the side of the road, and he needs help. 

1. The first person who might help him is a priest, 
2. The second is a Levite and when Jesus told this story, all his people  are going to know that your... 
3. ...third person in that trio is going to be an Israelite.  

(A levite, priest and an Israelite—it’s the old standard formula(1)). When Jesus says, “Samaritan” you can almost hear everyone go, “Noooooo! C’mon, man!!”  

While we look at the story and might say, “ah, the first two characters failed. Yes, yes, sometimes we too fail. We should be like the lovely, generous Samaritan.” That perspective is not wrong.  But it’s a little more nuanced than that. In Jesus’ time, there was bad history, with the Samaritans and Jewish community. Some folks considered the Samaritans Jewish, some didn’t. There was a complicated history all around, but people would have really booed at Jesus with this story.  Jewish scholar, Amy Jill Levine explained this point and went on to say that “A priest, a levite and a Samaritan would have been like saying, “Larry, Moe, and (enter the name of some famous terrorist). For a lot of reasons Samaritans were not beloved.

When we don’t like someone, there’s something in us that prefers a simple lie about them to a complex truth. As with anyone who you really don’t like, it was tough to imagine the Samaritan was motivated by good old fashioned compassion.  

MLK, on the night before he was assassinated, gave a speech called “I’ve been to the mountaintop.” He was in Memphis and the city's sanitation workers were striking. In it, he reflects on the priest and the Levite who first stumble upon that injured man and why it was that they didn’t help.  He suggests that are worried about what will happen to them if they stop and help.  That makes sense. We have worried about that too: What will happen to us if we help a person who is in need, if we support a movement, defend a cause? Just look at the bible story: It takes time to get involved with this guy on the side of the road. It takes money to truly help him. It’s uncomfortable. It’s an inconvenience. The Samaritan loses the better part of a day. These first two characters in the story, King said, couldn’t get over the question of, if I stop to help this man, what’s going to happen to me?

But the Samaritan is different, King says. The question he asks is, when he sees the man in need is if "I don’t stop to help this man, what’s going to happen to him?" 

Spin this question out just a little bit and extend those comments of King and ask, “if I don’t stop to help this man, what’s going to happen to us? 

We are part of a collective whole. 

Catholic Priest, Father Richard Rohr wrote about how during the South African Truth and Reconciliation process, the perpetrators apologized to the victims and when they did that they used the words “I’m sorry. Forgive me.” It was a way to take responsibility for what they did or what they had done. But, when this was translated the victims heard something different. It was a painful miscommunication. They instead heard what the translators said to them: Nidi cela uxolo which has a different meaning. When we say “I’m sorry” in English, it’s something that we say individually: I did something wrong and I’m responsible for it. The words, “forgive me” Father Rohr explains, are specifically about me and my guilt that has weighed heavily on me. Please cancel this debt. Forgive me. But the translators translated the words “I’m sorry” as Nidi cela uxolo or “I ask for peace.” You can feel the difference between “I’m sorry” and “I ask for peace.” Peace is wider than just you and me. It is an Ubuntu way to apologize and it is about “we.”  The elders heard a request for peace and they offered forgiveness with this spirit of “us” with a “hope that seeds would be planted for the good of the whole community.”  It is a way of asking for a better “we” and for a healing of the fabric of the collective people. It’s a little bit of a mind bender but it’s one we’re called to adopt.   

What does it look like to think collectively?

It’s not easy. 

This last week, I was talking with Dave, who many of you know in our congregation, who is a business man. He works in sales. He mentioned how strategies around leadership are changing since he got his MBA 10 years ago. He is obviously concerned about a profit in his line of work, but he told me he has been thinking about servant-leadership. 

Clearly, this piqued my attention. I asked him about it and he reflected. Servant leadership is simply good for the people he works with. It helps everyone become their best selves which is healthy for the collective. He told me he’s still trying to figure it out and that it’s not intuitive. I believe him. But we’re called to move in this direction and he's thinking about how to do that.

We are not trained, not raised, not guided to think of the collective. For example, here in the US, folks talk about buying organic produce because it was good for them. (Fine and good, buy the produce you like organic or not. However, for the sake of the example:) my own thought process on it changed a little when I worked with some migrants farm workers in Mexico who told me how their eyelashes would fall out after a pesticide was sprayed. While we tend to consider the individual cost, implication, benefits, etc, I realized there was a collective consideration wrapped up here that goes beyond the “cost to my own body.” 

Every once in a while, this church sells fair trade coffee. It’s a similar idea: there’s an effect that goes beyond the cost to us but that affects a wider circle of farmers. Regardless of the kind of produce or coffee you buy, we’re just not trained to think this way. 

Kevin once told us in a message that his mother said she didn’t always go to church for herself but for the people down the pew who needed the presence of another person there. We’re not taught to think of the wider collective implications of caring and helping. 

African American activist and writer, James Baldwin wrote that it’s actually in the interest of American whites to think of the collective and to pursue racial reconciliation.  At first that sounds like a mindset of self-interest. Yes, in a sense, he appealed to our tendency towards self-interest (What’s in it for me?), but racial healing is actually to everyone’s benefit. It’s about us.

It’s not the easiest shift for us to move from, what could I lose if I help? (What will this cost me in time, money, and energy? if I give, serve, advocate, and participate) to what do we lose if I don’t.

How can you practice thinking collectively this week? How can you practice this in the way you respond to people who are in need, in the way you interact with your team at work, in the way you buy things, in the way you serve?

When we don’t stop to help, when we ignore the pain of the person, when we make snap judgements of people, when we stop deeply caring about our neighbors, we lose something of the kingdom of God. Something cracks. We lose something. Justice frays. We lose connection, trust, grace. We lose peace. Our vision of a world animated by God’s love dims.

God’s kingdom doesn’t just exist between two people: for example, between the wounded person and the one who helps. It is something collective that is shared between all of us.  Maybe the Samaritan isn’t showing us what it looks like to individually sacrifice. Maybe he’s showing us what community looks like and the kind of world he wants to live in.

I want to live in that world too.

And we can. We build it—we experience it--with each action of service we do.

Clearly, Jesus wanted to get us thinking and reflecting with this one. But then, he tells us at the end where to land. Go, he says. Be like the Samaritan. Do likewise.

(1) Ezra 10:5, Nehemiah 11:3. Amy Jill Levine elaborates this idea in "Short Stories by Jesus."