Conversation

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

March 19, 2017

3 Lent A

          Ahmad Deeb is the Executive Director of the Islamic Society of Akron and Kent.  We met at a gathering next door at First Congregational Church just before Thanksgiving, then we were both speakers the following week at the Interfaith Thanksgiving service at Walsh Jesuit.   Ahmad and I have sent text messages back and forth since Thanksgiving, trying to get a date on the calendar for a conversation.  We finally landed on this past Tuesday.  Snow or no snow, I was getting to Cuyahoga Falls to talk with Ahmad.  When I arrived at the Islamic Center, the first thing I noticed was that the entrance is kept locked, even during the day.  At Christ Church, our doors are open during the week.  When I asked Ahmad about the doors, he replied that they have to be very careful at the Islamic Center.  The security concerns at an Islamic Center are real, especially since they have a school on the premises.  The other day, an unknown person was seen taking photos of the Islamic Center and the police were called.  At Christ Church, if someone is outside taking photos of our church, we assume that they are interested in our historic buildings and we think nothing else about it.  From the moment I walked into the Islamic Center, the very different ways Ahmad and I experience the world were quite evident.  We talked for a long time about that, as Ahmad gave me a tour of their facility and offered me cup after cup of tea.  We talked about the similarities and the differences between our faiths, the different ways our scriptures are interpreted, the role of women in our traditions over the centuries, and many other things over the course of an hour and a half.  Toward the end of our conversation, we talked about how we might begin to build bridges and relationships between faith communities that go deeper than simply doing good works together, as wonderful as those works might be.  How do we begin to engage in meaningful conversation with people whose faith and experience of the world may be quite different from our own?

          This morning, two very different people who experience the world in two very different ways have a surprising conversation.  The Samaritan woman has gone to the well in the heat of the day to draw water, and her plan is to get her water and go home before she encountered anyone.  No one goes to the well in the heat of the day if they can avoid it.  When she sees Jesus, she certainly did not expect him to talk with her.  In the years after Israel fell to the Assyrians in 722 BC, the Jews remaining in what had been Israel married non-Jews, and mixed Jewish beliefs and practices with those of their non-Jewish spouses.  These were the Samaritans, and they were considered by the Jewish people to be unclean.  The Samaritan woman expected to be alone at the well in the heat of the day, and when she discovers that she is not alone, she expects to be ignored if she is lucky, and banished if she is not.  She certainly does not expect to be engaged in conversation by a Jewish man.

          Jesus is also at a point of vulnerability, although in a very different way than the Samaritan woman.  Jesus is alone, hot, tired, and deeply thirsty, yet has no way to satisfy his thirst.  Jesus and the woman have both arrived at the well at noon, for very different reasons, and conversation happens.

          The Samaritan woman is clearly capable of holding her own in a conversation with a Jewish man.  When Jesus asks for a drink, or actually seems to demand a drink, the Samaritan woman doesn’t just hand Jesus some water.  Instead she is curious why Jesus would ask a Samaritan woman for a drink.  Jesus takes the conversation a bit deeper by telling the Samaritan woman that if she would ask him for a drink of water, he would give her living water.  To which the woman replies, perhaps with laughter in her voice, “Sir, you don’t even have a bucket!”  But when Jesus tells her that his water will keep her from ever having to draw water again, the woman is immediately intrigued, realizing that living water could mean that she never has to come to this well again in the heat of the day.

          And then the conversation turns to the woman’s marital status, which Jesus names but does not judge, the proper place and manner of worship, and the coming of the Messiah.  This is quite a range of conversation topics for two people considered to have nothing in common.  But the woman at the well and Jesus engage one another.  Each has something the other needs, and both are willing to participate in a conversation that takes them deeper into an understanding of each other.  Neither is defensive, even if both are a little snarky at times.  Both are changed in some way by the conversation.  The woman comes to know the living water and goes off to tell others.  Jesus, who began the conversation tired out by his journey and thirsty, seems quite revived by the conversation, even though there is no evidence that he ever got his drink of water. 

          How do we engage in meaningful conversation with people whose faith and whose experience of the world may be quite different from our own?  I think we begin by admitting that we need each other.  Jesus needed the water that the Samaritan woman could provide and she needed the living water Jesus could provide.  We need the perspective and insight that can only be provided by those who experience and faith is different from our own.  Secondly, we cultivate curiosity.  The woman at the well was curious about this man who asked her for a drink of water.  Curiosity allows us to engage in meaningful conversation that takes us deeper into the depths of what we and they believe, without being defensive.  Lastly, we allow ourselves to be nourished and strengthened by the conversation. 

            Our baptismal covenant calls us to seek and serve Christ in all people and to respect the dignity of every human being.  When we engage in the kind of conversation Jesus and the woman at the well exemplify, we are not just being nice or doing something special.  We are not just learning about another culture for our own benefit.  We are living as the people Jesus calls us to be and the people we promise to be in baptism.

                                                                             Amen                                                          

Wrestling

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Episcopal Church

March 12, 2017

2 Lent A

The course “Philosophy of Religion” was one of the greatest challenges of my academic career.  The course was taught by a professor in the philosophy department, which should have been my first clue that I was in over my head.  But I had always worked hard and done well in school.  I figured if I read the material, went to class, paid attention, and did the assignments, I would be fine.  I was oh, so very wrong.  Looking through the books for the course, there were sentences that rambled on for entire paragraphs, words that I could not pronounce, much less decipher, and chapter titles that boggled my mind.  But, I kept telling myself, the class could not be that bad.

My naivete was short lived.  The syllabus was pretty much the only thing about the class that I understood.  Neither the readings nor the explanations of the readings made sense.  The comments of my fellow students did not make sense.  The answers never seemed to match the questions.  I felt like I was on a different planet and everyone else spoke a language I did not understand.  I thought about dropping the class.  In the end, I wrestled and struggled my way through the writing of a paper on some subject I do not remember, turned the paper in, and to my great surprise, got full credit for having wrestled diligently with whatever the subject of the paper was.  For the first time in my life, I had taken a class where the point was not to accomplish a certain number of tasks to gain mastery of a subject, but to surrender myself to wrestling with something beyond my comprehension. 

Nicodemus finds himself in a similarly perplexing and frustrating situation this morning.  Nicodemus knows that Jesus turned an enormous amount of water into an equal amount of wine at the wedding in Cana.  Nicodemus also knows that Jesus drove the money changers out of the temple with an impressive display of passion, if not fury.  Now Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews, comes to Jesus in the dark of the night and says “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.”  Perhaps Nicodemus is just curious.  Or maybe he would like to be able to do such signs and be a more effective leader.  Or perhaps he is looking for a deeper relationship with God.  Whatever Nicodemus’ motive, I doubt he expected Jesus to reply: “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without first being born from above.”  What is that supposed to mean?  Is Nicodemus to enter his mother’s womb and be born again?  While a concrete explanation of what Jesus meant would be nice, Jesus makes matters worse by continuing with “No one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.  What is born of the flesh is flesh, what is born of the Spirit is spirit.”  How is that supposed to help Nicodemus understand?  Nicodemus and Jesus might as well have been speaking different languages, and the answers certainly do not seem to fit the questions.  Nicodemus came to Jesus to find out about the signs, which he understood to be miracles, and Jesus is talking about being born of the Spirit.  Nicodemus must be thinking that he should have just stayed home that night.

When Jesus sees that Nicodemus is truly perplexed, Jesus reminds Nicodemus of a story that Nicodemus certainly knows.  In the book of Numbers, the Hebrew people got tired of wandering in the wilderness and they begin to grumble against God and against Moses.  They said “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?  For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable manna.”  God is fed up with all the complaining, so God sent poisonous serpents among the people.  The serpents bit the people and they died.  When the people realize that they had sinned against the Lord, God said to Moses “Make a bronze serpent and set it on a pole; everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.”  Moses did as God asked, and from then on, anyone bitten by a poisonous serpent could look at the bronze serpent on the pole and live.  Whatever we might think about a story in which God inflicts poisonous serpents on God’s people, Jesus has finally said something Nicodemus can understand.  Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so the people could live, so Jesus will be lifted up so that whoever believes in him will have eternal life.  We will next see Nicodemus when he arrives at the cross with Joseph of Arimathea to remove the dead body of Jesus and place it in the tomb.

The gospel ends with what Martin Luther called the “Gospel in miniature.”  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”  Nicodemus came to Jesus to understand the signs.  What he got in return was a description of a relationship so intimate it can only be described using the language of childbirth.  Nicodemus wanted to gain mastery of a subject that he knew came from God.  Jesus wanted him to wrestle with a relationship that cannot be captured any more than the wind can be captured.  When Nicodemus needed something more concrete, Jesus reminded him of a story in which God’s gift of life is exactly that...a gift, certainly nothing the people earned or even understood.  When Jesus offers the “Gospel in miniature” to Nicodemus, and to us, Jesus is not finally giving up and offering us a sound-bite that makes sense and fits well on a billboard.  Jesus offers us the gospel about the God who is beyond our comprehension, who loves us in a way that is beyond our understanding, and has given us eternal life as a gift, nothing we can earn and beyond anything we can imagine.  Jesus has given us the gospel, not as a subject to be mastered, but as a gift and a mystery to wrestle with.

Amen.

Wilderness

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

March 5, 2017

1 Lent A

          My first clergy colleague when I came out of seminary was something of a wilderness man.  Think John the Baptist in a clergy collar.  David’s idea of a good time was to be dropped off by himself at the entrance of a vast wilderness area in Michigan’s upper peninsula with nothing but the clothes he was wearing and a small backpack.  He would eat what he could find and sleep where he could.  This was not a state park with cabins, indoor plumbing, or cooking facilities.  This was nothing but acres and acres of wilderness.  Weeks later, his wife would pick him back up at the entrance, unshowered, unshaved, unkempt, but happy.  How David even knew what day he would be picked up is beyond me.  How does one keep track of the days out in the wilderness?  This was before cell phones were readily available, and my guess is that he doesn’t own one even today.  And if he had one, how would he have kept it charged in the wilderness?  Somehow, David managed not only to survive his wilderness time, but to thrive there.  The challenge of conquering the wilderness energized David and I believe he experienced something of God there.

          We hear two wilderness stories from scripture this morning.  In the story from Genesis, we hear about Adam and Eve’s disobedience in the garden.  God has put Adam and Eve in the garden to till it and to keep it.  Then God gives Adam some simple instructions about what may, and may not be eaten.  And we know what happened after that.  In short Adam and Eve eat from the fruit of the one forbidden tree and realize they are naked.  The lectionary reading stops before we get to God’s response, but obviously God is not going to be happy with this turn of events.  God had said “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden, for of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat.  For in the day that you eat of it, you shall die.” 

          What is God’s response to Adam and Eve’s disobedience?  If we read further in chapter 3, we will hear God’s fury as he addresses first the serpent, then Eve, then Adam.  But, Adam and Eve do not die that day and God certainly does not kill them.  In fact, after God finishes rebuking them, God makes garments of skin for Adam and Eve and God clothes them.  And then God sends Adam and Eve forth from the garden to till the ground from which Adam was taken.  The picture of God that we get from the whole story, and not just the piece in today’s reading, is of a God who deeply loves the creatures God has made, to the point of making garments for them and clothing them, even after they have disobeyed the one simple command God gave them.  While God does send Adam and Eve out of the garden and into the wilderness, God gives them what they need to survive there in an act of love and compassion.

          This morning, we also hear about Jesus’ time in the wilderness.  When the Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness, Jesus is still wet from his baptism and the words of the voice from heaven are still ringing in his ears “This is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”  We are not told what happens during the forty days and forty nights in the wilderness, other than that Jesus did not eat.  But the last thing Jesus heard before entering the wilderness was God’s voice saying “This is my Son, the beloved.” The first voice Jesus hears in the wilderness is the voice of the tempter saying “If you are the Son of God.” So, my hunch is that Jesus spent some time in the wilderness wrestling with what it means to be the Son of God.  What we learn from Jesus’ response to the three temptations is that whatever it means to be the Son of God, it does not mean using special powers, like the ability to turning stones into bread, or calling on special protection such as safety if he throws himself off the top of the temple, or abusing special privilege such as having all the kingdoms of the world.  When the devil departs, presumably in frustration, angels come and wait on Jesus.

We all find ourselves in the wilderness from time to time.  Sometimes entering the wilderness is completely our choice, like my colleague David.  Sometimes we enter a wilderness of our own making, like Adam and Eve.  Sometimes we wake up to one morning to a wilderness not of our own making when suddenly our whole life has been turned upside down-by natural disaster, diagnosis, or tragedy.  And sometimes we are led by the Spirit into the wilderness as Jesus was, and as we are during Lent, to spend some time deliberately figuring out what it means to be a child of God.  Lent is not about entering the wilderness to be without God.  Lent is a time to enter the wilderness so we recognize our dependence on God and wonder more deeply about who we are as children of God.

In both of stories this morning, and in all the wilderness stories in Scripture, no matter the cause of the wilderness, God is present.  God did not abandon Adam and Eve, and God does not abandon us, even when the wilderness is of our own making.  God did not abandon Jesus, and God does not abandon us, when we enter the wilderness voluntarily.  And God did not abandon Jesus and does not abandon us in the darkest wilderness of our lives, when all hope seems pointless.  In the wilderness, however we got there and no matter how desolate, we learn more deeply who we are as children of God, and how to be sustained by nothing more and nothing less, than the sheer presence of God who never abandons us.

                                                                   Amen.

Gifts

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Episcopal Church

March 1, 2017

Ash Wednesday

          The season of Epiphany began almost two months ago with the visit of the Magi to the child Jesus.  The Magi brought Jesus three gifts, fit for a king.  They arrived with gold, frankincense, and myrrh as gifts appropriate for the one born King of the Jews.  If Jesus is a king, the magi thought, he should have these things.

          The season of Epiphany has come to an end and the season of Lent has now begun.  On Ash Wednesday, Jesus gives us three gifts.  We don't normally think of Ash Wednesday as a time to receive gifts.  Instead, we think of Ash Wednesday and Lent as a time of self-denial.  But in the Ash Wednesday gospel lesson, Jesus talks about three gifts; gifts fit for children of God.  Those gifts are almsgiving, prayer, and fasting.  If we are children of God, we should have these things. In a service in which we confess a whole host of ways we fail to live as God's children, it is easy to assume that almsgiving, prayer, and fasting are, if not punishment for our sins, at least our way of making things up to God, or earning a little forgiveness. We are also tempted to understand fasting as just about giving up food, prayer as just about talking to God, and almsgiving as about putting a few more dollars in the offering plate.  On Ash Wednesday, however, we are reminded that forgiveness is God's job, and that these are gifts, not punishments.

          The first gift Jesus mentions is almsgiving.  Almsgiving is not just a matter of denying ourselves so that we have some extra money to give to the poor.  Almsgiving is about acknowledging that all of humanity is connected and that when one person suffers from lack of food, clothing, or shelter, we are all responsible for that.  In the first letter to the Corinthians, Paul reminds us that we are all one body, and that when one part of the body suffers, all suffer.  When one part of the body is homeless, or hungry, or marginalized, we are all broken. Almsgiving reminds us that we are all connected in a world that stresses rugged individualism.  The litany of penitence, which we will pray in a few minutes, gives us a whole host of ways that we fail to live as if we are connected to our fellow human being: not loving our neighbor as ourselves, our dishonesty in our daily life and work, our exploitation of other people, and blindness to human need and suffering.  Jesus offers us the gift of almsgiving as a way to reconnect and be reminded that God made us all from the dust of the earth and that we are all connected.

          Jesus' second gift is the gift of prayer.  The world tells us that we should fill our lives with activity, and the one who accomplishes the most, wins.  From sun up to sun down and beyond, we are busy to the point that busyness has become competitive sport.  Jesus' tells us to stop.  Stop and make room for God.  Be still and feel the connection not only with each other but with the God who created us.  That is prayer.  In our Litany of Penitence we also confess the ways we fail to make room for God: filling our lives with our self-indulgent appetites and ways, our negligence in prayer and worship, our pride, hypocrisy and impatience, and our love of worldly goods and comforts.  Jesus offers us the gift of prayer as a way to empty ourselves of that which clutters our souls and make room for the God who creates in us a new and contrite heart. 

          Jesus' final gift is the gift of fasting.  Fasting is usually and historically associated with abstaining from food.  In a world that tells us that the one who dies with the most toys, wins, fasting can have a broader meaning.  We fill our lives with possessions, people, food, all kinds of things in order to make ourselves feel full.  Jesus calls us to a different kind of fullness.  Jesus calls us to a life that is full and rich because it is centered in the richness of God's Spirit.  Again, in the Litany of Penitence we confess the many ways we try to make ourselves feel less empty by relying on material things rather than God for that sense of fullness: our self- indulgent appetites and ways, our intemperate love of worldly goods, our waste and pollution of creation.  Jesus offers us the gift of fasting so that we may know God as the source of our contentment and fullness.

          In the reading from 2 Corinthians, Paul entreats us to be reconciled to God.  Lent is a time to live into that reconciliation and to learn how to better live as the children of God we were created to be.  Jesus does not leave us to our own devices to figure out how to do that, but instead gives us almsgiving, prayer, and fasting as gifts to help us on that journey.  In a few minutes, we will be anointed with ashes in the form of a cross, just as we were anointed with oil at our baptism in the form of a cross.  Both the cross made of oil and the one made of ashes are reminders that we are children of God, not the world, and that without God, we are empty.  On this Ash Wednesday, Jesus offers us the gifts of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, not to make us suffer for our sins, but so that we may deepen our relationship with the God who created us. May this Lenten time of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving be a holy time that breathes life into the dust of our being.

                                                                             Amen