Venting or Lamenting

Luke 13:31-35

Second Sunday of Lent:  February 24, 2013

“Can I just vent for a minute?” 

I have a friend who has heard this from me more than once…and vice versa.  She’s a safe person who I can vent to without concern that what I say will be passed on to others, or that what I say will be judged.  And she will give me tons of sympathy and encouragement.  She might even help me figure out how to address whatever it is I’m venting about – but mostly she is just there to listen.

These are good friends, I think.  And I think I benefit.  It’s cathartic.  I suspect it keeps me from venting to the wrong people at the wrong time.  Saying things out loud can sometimes be helpful in terms of figuring out my emotions, sorting through them and tempering them.

But here are a couple of things I know about venting that aren’t helpful:  It is self righteous.  It can feed my skewed emotions rather than mitigate them.  It rarely clarifies or refines my thinking – it does not allow much room for sophisticated debate and learning.  And it is almost always misdirected.

It’s misdirected because the feeling that leads me to vent is born in a place deep within that’s not about the current situation.  It may be fueled by the current situation – the object of my vent may be emblematic of the core problem – but it is not the source.  I vent because I’m frustrated about the human condition – the brokenness in this world that I can’t, no matter how hard I try, fix.  I vent because that frustration is intolerable to feel.

Because I’m human, or maybe just because I’m me, that frustration – that I’m not going to feel – needs another target, so when someone or something comes along that embodies a brokenness I am frustrated about, all my helplessness, all my anger about that, gets directed at that one person. Or rather, misdirected at that one person. 

When we misdirect such feelings at people, it rarely leads to what some might call, “good Christian behavior.”  Without recognizing what is truly going on in ourselves, compassion is hard to reach, empathy even harder, and it’s almost impossible to improve the situation that has triggered it all in the first place.

And all of this is bad enough when I’m venting to my friend about something or someone else.  We all know how much it’s compounded when the vent goes straight to the vent-ee. 

This passage today has often been interpreted as Jesus doing a little venting.  He’s railing at Herod and Jerusalem to the Pharisees who had come to warn him about Herod.  He pulls no punches, and makes no glorious concession of forgiveness.  He is angry, he is pointed, and he vents about Jerusalem.

It’s the self righteous, judgmental, Jesus.  He’s not from Jerusalem – not one of them.  He has never even been there.  He’s out roaming the countryside loving all those who don’t live in Jerusalem.  He’s healing people, exorcising demons, and doing it all while blaming Jerusalem for the very problems these folks face.

Maybe.  But what if Jesus isn’t venting.  What if he’s doing something very Jewish like:  Something called lamenting.

The key lies in what form this passage takes.  I think what we have in this passage is an incredible poem; a poem that uses specific words, people, places, to point to a larger reality that can’t exactly be describe in literal terms.  This poem, all of its words, point to something beyond the recalcitrant Herod, Pilate, and people of Jerusalem.  These are not the objects of Jesus’ misdirected anger.

He is not venting – he’s putting into words a pain that everyone feels when they look at the hurting around them.  This isn’t literally about Jerusalem, like Jesus is upset about them and them alone.  It’s a lament, and Jesus represents the entire human condition – and it’s very Jewish.

These laments are everywhere in the Hebrew bible, and they are some of the most powerful poems we have.  “By the rivers of Babalyon, we sat down and wept,” cried the people living in exile from their homeland.  “Absalom Absalom!” wailed King David when his own army killed his son, who was fighting on the other side of the battle.  “My God my God why have you forsaken me” calls out the Psalmist from the depths of pain.

These are poems.  They are poetic laments.  And they’re powerful not because they are about specific people at specific times.  It’s not about the people sitting by the river that day crying in Babylon.  The lament of exile is powerful because we know we sit by the river sometimes. 

The cry of David weeping over the loss of his son is no different than the Greek tragedies that connect us to the truth that our weaknesses – our human frailties – can bring about the worst of unintended consequences.   My God my God why have you forsaken me is not just about what one writer said when his life sucked.  It is the cry of every person, every human being, Jesus included, when we feel abandoned by a God who is supposed to love, heal, fix, make better.  It is our cry.

This poem in the gospel of Luke stands firmly in its own tradition, and is as beautiful, powerful and painful as the ones that went before it.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem!  The city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!  How often I have desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing.”

This is lament:  It is the lament I should sing instead of venting to my friend.

One major difference between lamenting and venting is what is going on in your heart.  When I vent, I am hard of heart.  When one laments, their heart is broken open.  Jesus loves the people.  He yearns to gather them like a hen gathers her brood.  His heart is breaking – I swear I can almost hear it…like a glass that shatters on the floor.  “Jerusalem, Jerusalem.  The pain you cause, the damage you do, it breaks my heart because I know there is something better, something more: for you, for all of creation.   

So Jesus laments.  But notice lament is not resignation.  As he moans over the world’s insistence on self destruction, even as he recognizes that this will not change in his lifetime, he continues his work of healing – healing those he comes across every day.  He knows the reality of the world, and he still heals people when they are prey to it.  He moves on, even knowing the world he laments is going to get him – it gets us all. 

When something is so contrary to God’s ways in the world, and we are powerless to do anything about it, we have to do something.  And venting is often what we choose.  Because it’s too much to lament.  The pain of lament is too big.  It means adding ourselves to the list of those who cause, participate in, and suffer from, the brokenness.  It means recognizing that the person we’re angry at is just another “me;” different clothes, different gender, different color: same brokenness.  And lament takes our broken heart into the world to heal those right in front of us – talk about something we’d rather avoid.

I swear to God, I’m not kidding when I say that I had at least three times this week when I was convicted by my own sermon.  At least – those were the ones I noticed.  Before I knew what the sermon was going to be, I had encountered three situations that I planned on responding to.   And in each case, the response was to vent, not lament.

It was so frustrating…it was like everywhere I looked I was doing exactly what I was about to preach against.  In fact, it got to be so ridiculous that I had to tell myself, “Okay, Kirsten, you are only human.  You get to vent yourself silly on two of them, but you have to try this “lament thing” on the third.”

I had begun a letter.  It was a vent.  Now, of course, I didn’t think it was venting when I started it.  I thought it was a beautiful, articulate, letter that said things everyone should hear and understand – especially, of course, the offender.  I thought I was standing up for the little guy; I thought I was saving the next person from harm because my beautiful, compelling letter would get this person to change – and make them fee bad about what they did. 

But make no mistake, it was a vent.  And I wasn’t going to show it to my friend and then delete it from my computer.  I was going to address it, put a stamp on it, and throw it in the mailbox…and feel self righteous as I did.  This was a serious issue; real people were being hurt; it demanded a response of some kind…not resignation.  (I probably don’t have to tell you, self righteousness is one of the things I struggle with in this journey called life.)

But a bit clue that I was just venting should have been that I didn’t derive nearly as much satisfaction thinking about how those “next people” might feel when I had saved them from something, as I did from imagining the person’s response as they read the letter.  You think my anger was a bit misdirected?

My emotions weren’t ultimately about the person I was writing to.  This was about a world that includes hurt and abuse, oppression and violence, barriers to love and pathways to hatred.  This person was definitely participating in, and perpetuating, such a world.  But so do I.  It’s the world we live in, and we’re all broken…and that should be breaking my heart open.  But it didn’t.  The pain of that is too big – so I put more cement around my already hardened heart – and no one was going to win on this one.

So I practiced.  I took this letter – this vent – and tried to make it a lament.  I found a moment of quiet, sat in my room, and thought not about the situation and person that had angered me, but about the situation I was really angry about.  I cursed at it, shouted at it, asked my loving God why such things existed.  I didn’t pull punches.  I talked about the ugliest stuff.  And I tried to let my heart break – and it did…a little.  And then, I grieved…I grieved over how a world that suffers because of all of this.

And then I thought about this person I was writing to, and he had gone from being the target to someone in as much need of healing as I, and everyone one I thought I was fighting for.

At times, we’re Jerusalem.  We – our participation in, creation of, suffering in this world.  And so we are to be lamented for all the pain we cause.  And we’re the folks Jesus heals and exorcises.  We have parts of ourselves and our spirits that have been crushed, diminished, twisted because of Jerusalem and all her ways.  And we’re Jesus; the body of Christ.  We have a heart that breaks for the hurting and suffering and we reach out to heal as best we can.  And at times, if not always, we are all of those at once.

But no matter who we are, where we are in the story, we are all in this world.  It’s beautiful, it has it’s glorious moments, it is filled with wonderful people who help, solve, heal, hope and sacrifice everything for the good of others.  But it is broken…there are many things we can vent about.  When we see how contrary things are to God’s ways – we can vent.  We can vent to each other.  We can vent to the ones we see as the problem.  We can vent on TV and in the newspapers.

But a world that is so beautiful, created by a God so good, is better than that:  it’s worthy of more; it’s worthy of lament.

During Lent this year, we are trying to confess with a bit of a different understaning of confession from what we usually think of.  The thins we name – confess – are not the sins.  The sins are the barriers that arise between us and God because we aren’t honest about who we are…about the world in which we live.  In confession, in honesty, those barriers – the sins – might just fall before our very eyes.

On these cards each week we are taking a few minutes after the sermon to, if we so choose, write a confession that we will nail to the cross.  This is yours – it’s for you…please do only what is helpful.  Some will write something out, others will think in their heads and symbolically hand in a blank card representing the thought, others will just use the time to meditate and listen for the spirit. 

Where do you see God’s work in the world being thwarted?  Take some time:  What or who is causing you and others pain?  Do you vent about this, or lament?

Draw Near to God

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Ash Wednesday:  February 13, 2013

There’s an episode of Friends (yes, I know I’m dating myself) where one of the characters, Phoebe, is determined to do a deed that is completely altruistic: one in which someone benefits while the person performing the act receives nothing in return. Joey, her friend, believes it’s not possible; Phoebe sets out to prove him wrong.

In an early attempt, Phoebe lets a bee sting her, which obviously is not good for her, but, she argues, the bee gets to [quote] “look cool in front of its bee friends.”  Altruistic, she argues.  But Joey reminds her that now, having stung someone and left its stinger behind, the bee will soon die.  After many other attempts, Phoebe raises the white flag.

This is admittedly a pretty trivial, simplistic look at an ages-old philosophical question, but helpful I think because we can all relate on some level to Phoebe, and because of that, Matthew’s passage kind of hits a nerve. He seems to be asking for the impossible – the purely altruistic act.  And I feel like I’m left waving the white flag of surrender. 

I get praying in secret…that seems easy enough.  Of course, I’m a bit reluctant to give up the prayers we do together here, not to mention the prayer group that meets on Tuesday afternoons, and the prayers I do with people in their homes and in the hospital – all of which have been extremely important to me, and probably some of you as well.  But they are not in secret.

It gets even more complicated when you look at the other things Matthew talks about, like, “practicing your piety,” which is the same as “giving alms,” or “charity.”  This is one of those crazy things of trying to figure out whether you are doing something for others or yourself.  Even if you do the almsgiving in “secret,” even if no one, including the alms receiver, knows it’s you, you will no doubt feel good about helping someone.  In other words, motives and intentions are always mixed – never pure.

But those words – motives and intention – get a little distracting, as if they are easy to measure, much less figure out.  I think a better word when we are talking about how we act in this world is “faithfulness.”  Are we acting faithfully?  The difference for me is that faithfulness happily encompasses the complexity of human motivation and intention.  Faithfulness is not about figuring out the exact right way to act with the exact right intentions.  Faithfulness is not about figuring something out at all.  It is trusting a process. 

Faithfulness is about drawing near to God and trusting that that relationship or connection will form and shape our actions into faithful ones. 

On Ash Wednesday, I think we learn something about faithfulness – about drawing near to God and how that helps us know God and God’s intentions and character more deeply.  Ash Wednesday is the kick off for lent, and the focus is always on confession…saying all those  things we have done wrong and all the stuff that’s wrong with the world. 

Why is this the starting place to knowing God and God’s intentions?  It seems counter-intuitive.  Getting in touch with sin – with all the bad stuff – is about acknowledging our separation from God, not closeness, right?  But the sin – I think…and you might not find unanimous consent out there on this one – the sin isn’t the bad things we do, think or say:  I think covering it up is…not admitting it; to ourselves, each other or God.  It’s the cover-up.  It’s the layers we put over those things we don’t like about ourselves.  The barriers we erect to hide the most shameful truths about who we are.  The things we do to ensure no one – not even us – knows how terrible we are.   That is what separates us from God.  The layers and barriers:  those are the sins.

Confession is about stripping away the layers.  Confession breaks the barriers we erect between who we pretend to be and who we truly are if we are honest with ourselves. 

To connect with God we have to “be” who we truly are:  broken, bad, good, whole.  Otherwise all we’re doing as we draw near to God is bumping up against God with our barriers and layers.  It’s like trying to find out if a stove is hot by touching it with an oven mitt on.  I move closer to the stove, but I have on protective gear…no matter how close my hand gets – even if I touch it – I’ll never know it’s temperature.  You have to remove the protective gear…then, as you get closer, you will learn more and more about its temperature. 

In confession, our barriers come down, our protective gear is removed, and then, as we move closer to God, we will know more of what we are approaching.   

Now, there is nothing magical about all this.  There are not step by step instructions.  It’s not like God is “out there,” we know where, and all we have to do is remove the barriers then walk up to God.  We get lots of step by step guides in Lent:  Devotional books; pray every day for 20 minutes; give up this, give up that, add this, add that. 

If we are just doing these things because it’s what we’re supposed to do during Lent, these step by step instructions are as shallow as the prayers and piety of the people Matthew was writing about.  It’s not that we shouldn’t do such things, it’s just that we can’t do them believing they are a kind of “key,” a way to be successful at Lent or faith – a way to being a better Christian…getting better “results.”  We won’t magically “feel” better, closer to God, more faithful just because we do something special during Lent.  I really think we have to give up on this notion – these proscribed activities and steps.

So, how do we do it?  How do we draw near to God?  Even if we’re willing to confess, what’s next:  Where is God, and how do we get there?  Honestly, I don’t know exactly.  That’s part of my point.  I can’t be prescriptive.  Wish I could.  I can, and will from time to time, offer ideas, opportunities, suggestions for things we might try.  But they won’t all work for everyone.  Maybe none of them will. 

So really the best I can do is reflect on my own, imperfect, incomplete experience and offer that to you – as I would hope we would all do.  And what I can tell you is that when I start with confession – with Ash Wednesday, with letting the barriers come down and being honest with myself and others about who I am – I have found myself feeling more connected to God – to God’s character – at least I think it’s God.  I have come to trust that taking away the layers is exactly what does draw us nearer to God; no other action necessary. 

I suspect that’s because we are made in God’s image:  Humans in God’s image…and for whatever reason, part of being human – part of God’s image – is being broken, being flawed, sometimes in huge ways.  God is not out there, a destination to be reached.  God’s character, being, is stamped in me and in you.  If we can strip away the outer layers – the things that hide us – even from ourselves – I believe God will be revealed…at least in part.  We will be connected to God’s intentions, character, nature.  And when we are, we will begin to take on that character, those intentions, more and more…we will become more faithful.

Which still begs the question of how to do the peeling away of layers, I know.  Again, I have no prescription.  But here’s an example I will share with you.  One of my common struggles is with compassion.  I’m okay at compassion in many instances.  But I confess that I have a hard heart sometimes.  I am incapable of putting myself in some people’s shoes to understand why they are like they are – which is usually not how I would like them to be. 

One thing I have done is to “pray these people.”  Not for them, not for me to love them more.  Just to pray them…put them in my head and hold them next to the divine.  And when I do, the pain starts…the pain that comes from knowing God’s compassion for that person…and my lack of compassion.  When I sit with that, stay with that – call it prayer if you will – I can feel deep down the disconnect between God’s intentions and mine. 

But I think I have to feel the disconnect…sit with it, painful though it may be, because that is what puts me closer to God and God’s compassion…in my gut, not just my head.  What I’m saying is…that’s it.  I trust that being closer to who God is, even when I’m closer to God because of how much I feel unlike God, I trust that will make me more faithful.

Does it really work?  I don’t know for sure.  In one example I can think of, one person I have struggled mightily with over the years, I do feel like my heart is ever so slightly more open because I have “prayed” that person over many years.  I think things have shifted in our relationship, that things are changing and growing…maybe I am even more compassionate.  I know I enjoy this person more, appreciate them, understand them a little bit more.  But the change slight, slow, and not linear.  Which is o so frustrating.

We will mark ourselves with ashes tonight.  In our tradition, the ashes are a sign of our brokenness, our humanness, our mortality.  We admit it all on our foreheads, before God and everyone as they say.  This brings down the barriers between us and each other, between us and God.  No protection.  We are broken, we tell the world.  But so is the sin – it is shattered at the moment of confession.  The barriers are broken down and we are left next to the divine one without protective gear.

We also put them on in the sign of the cross.  With the cross we remember that God meets us in a human being who was broken on the cross because of the broken world in which we live.  God meets us precisely in our brokenness.  So we have to “go” there.  We have to pull the layers back, let the barriers fall, know our true selves…sit with the pain of brokenness – ours and the world’s.  Because that’s where God meets us…that’s how we draw near to God.  Amen. 

I Am Not a Christian

Luke 4: 21-30

February 3, 2013

I’ve decided I’m not a Christian.

At presbytery recently our executive presbyter read us some stats about why people stay away from church.  One of the most common reasons was that people in church are judgmental.  I think a more refined look at this might reveal that what really bothers folks is that we call ourselves Christian and are judgmental.

Our response to this is usually to try and show people the ways we are not hypocritical.  We say, “the Christians you are talking about don’t represent all Christians.  We are loving, welcoming, help the world…not like those other folks who are judgmental and so unchristian.”

Problem is, anyone who stays at any church long enough will find a mismatch between our lives and the life of Jesus:  the Christ – from whence comes the name Christian. In short, our only response to the criticism of Christians being hypocrites really should be “yep.  You caught us.”

If a Christian is one who follows Christ – not just believes in a set a words, but lives as Christ lives – well, until I go for my fitting for a wooden cross, it seems a little presumptuous.  I am not a Christian – at least certainly not all the time.

One thought – I know it’s impractical; I admit I haven’t thought it through; I know there are disadvantages to this – but one thought is that instead of attempting the impossible – to not be hypocrites – maybe we can change what we call ourselves.  Be a little more accurate. 

So I’ve decided I’m not a Christian:

I’m a muddle – er.  I muddle my way through life trying as best I can to be faithful to what I think God would have us be up to in this world.  I’m a muddle-er.  I hit the mark sometimes, I miss a lot, and given how complex this world is, sometimes I’m doing both simultaneously.  But I muddle.  And more and more in my life, I’m making peace with that name: muddler – not least because it’s more accurate than Christian. And frankly, I think this is more than good enough – heck, it means like I am like everyone else!

And I think the folks in Jesus’ hometown, the ones he’s talking to in this passage, were fellow muddle-ers.  In fact, our scriptures are full of fellow muddle-ers.  To give away the ending, I actually think that puts us in pretty good company.  But let me back up.

Let’s remind ourselves who these folks in Nazareth were.  They were Jews – the Jews Jesus grew up with.  Jews that went to the synagogue regularly to read the scriptures and sought to live as faithfully as they could to those scriptures.  And they have pretty darn good scriptures.  You’re not going to go too far wrong with them.  They went about their daily lives and were, I have no doubt, on balance, incredibly good people who were shaped by a faith tradition that stresses caring for the poor, welcoming the stranger, doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with their God. 

But, like us, they muddled through, day after day, doing the best they could – hitting the mark sometimes, missing others, or both. 

Now one of their own, Jesus, is out there – and there is buzz about him.  He was doing great things for people.  There was even some whispering that he might be the messiah – the chosen one come to save the chosen people.  He would be the one who would make all that muddling worth it.  So they were thrilled when he came home – when he came to them.   

Then it happened:  Jesus reminded them of the prophets of old:  Elijah and Elisha.  They came not to cleanse one Israelite, but the foreigner. He basically said, the Messiah is not for you – here, at home – the chosen ones.  The Messiah is for the poor, out there, in the wilderness of life.  The ones chosen for nothing. 

The thing about the folks in Nazareth is that they didn’t want to leave home.  So they don’t like that one bit.  And you know how they respond.

Compare that to another group.  Just a chapter later in Luke we find out that there is a group of folks who lived and worked and grew up in a community very much like Jesus’.  Muddlers I’m sure.  But when Jesus comes to them, they don’t try to keep him there – they don’t think he’s coming to them – to save them – they get up, leave everything and follow.  The disciples. 

They left home.  They did amazing things.  They got scared.  They failed miserably. But they realized, at least from time to time, that it was all for others – not just for them.

I think, we, us muddlers here, vacillate between being the ones at home, and being the disciples in the world.

I think if we visited the synagogue at Nazareth and met these folks, we would really like them.  We would find much in common.  They got together, read the bible, sang, prayed, had 3^rd Sunday – well Saturday – potlucks.  They went to work the next day to try and integrate it all into their lives.  They cared for each other and they had an impact on each other and the community around them. 

And…. I think when Jesus shows up, and calls us to leave home, most of the time we want to keep him here – we think he’s “ours”.  And when he says, “no – I came to call you to leave everything and go heal the broken world,” we try to shove him to the back of our minds…throw him off a cliff, if you will.

So I think we’re like the folks in Nazareth.

MOST OF THE TIME….

Sometimes we are the disciples.

Sometimes we do leave home, at least metaphorically – leave our comfort…give up those things we rely on when the going gets rough.  Sometimes we follow Jesus into the world and see that others need Jesus desperately – need us.  Just like the Jews in the synagogue in Nazareth, we do a pretty good job caring for our own – when people are broken, lost, poor within our community, almost all the time, we step up.  But, we all know there are people who are hurting, and no one steps up.  Those are the ones Jesus goes to – to step up for them.  And those are the ones we, from time to time, go to as well.  We still muddle – we do amazing things, we mess up, we get scared; but we go, and there we work with Jesus.

I don’t pretend that this is an easy way of looking at this passage.  Jesus doesn’t stay with us – the ones muddling along pretty well.  Jesus goes away, and we choose whether to follow.  We might want to ignore this Jesus.  We ignore the parts of scripture that say, “deny yourselves and follow me.  Give up all you have and follow me.”  We might even want to kill him…we want to stop listening to the hard passages in the bible.  We reduce him to what makes sense for us here at home. 

BUT, remember – and this is key folks…you are not allowed to underestimate this…remember: they didn’t kill him.  They may have wanted to, but in the end, he passed right through them and they let him go.  They raised him…he grew up there, and they were the incubator for this ministry that would bring light to those in the darkness.  They provided a home he needed until he was ready.  And they let him go.  It was an incredible act of sacrificial faithfulness.  And dollars to donuts, I bet from time to time, they probably left home – either literally or metaphorically – to follow the one they set free.

My point is that we are muddlers, co-muddlers with the folks in Nazareth, at our best muddlers with disciple-y moments.  (hey, if I get to make up words, I might as well go for it).  Staying here…staying home…trying as best we can to take this incredible book and let it impact our lives…taking our best guess at what it means for what I do each and every day.  And dollars to donuts, every once and a while, we follow Jesus into the world – if only for a while –  by being his disciples far beyond our homes.  And that ain’t nothin’.  It isn’t.  Look around you.  Look at the people sitting next to you.  Look at what this church does. (I SO wish you all could have been here last week!! J).  Think about how this book has shaped us into people who care, who yearn, who, as we will sing in a moment, genuinely desire, yearn, want to be a Christian in our souls.  A desire that drives us to do some pretty amazing things.  It ain’t nothin’.

I did spend some time thinking about whether I could ever call myself Christian.  And I think Paul solved that one for me.  He believed we were called to be the body of Christ:  Christians.  That was what being Christian meant to Paul.  Being the body of Christ.  That means being out living as Christ lived.  When we leave home and follow, we take our place in the body.  But notice there’s a catch.  We’re never the whole body.  There’s no way to be the body of Christ – to be Christian – alone…by yourself.  It’s only the body of Christ if all the members are present. We have to do it together.  We can be Christians if all of us muddlers come together, work together, leave our homes together, and live as Jesus did.  So, I’m not a Christian…not yet.

In the meantime…I’m perfectly happy with being a muddler.  Amen.