Disruptive Grace

I think a lot about grace. Frankly because people need it, I need it. Irish rock star Bono has said, "Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff."

When i swim around in grace I try encounter grace in a holistic manner and not in the one sided way that we normally encounter and receive it. Usually, we do something, say something or experience an event that needs grace or to be redeemed because "I feel bad about it." The human tendency is to look for grace as a sentiment. In other words, I need to "feel better" about myself so I need this thing called grace. The result being I will "feel" better, then I can go on with my life again until I need this thing called grace because I feel bad about something again. Grace is not a commodity to grasp it is a person to receive.   

This mindless circling is a cheap thrill, a narcotic that anesthetizes us from the real need.  The real need is to truly be transformed by grace, by God in Christ. Grace is meaningless unless it disrupts, changes and transforms all which, in turn, leads to gratitude. Jean-Paul Sarte once defined sin as the "systematic substitution of the abstract (a sentiment) for the concrete (the work of Christ that brings new)." When all we do is journey to posses the sentiment, satisfy the sentiment and feel better-we really do not have what we are searching for. In fact, we fall deeper and deeper into the meaninglessness of emotion. 

Grace recognizes need, accepts responsibility, receives forgiveness, and grows in a new direction. Something good comes from the brokenness, pain and irritant. Holiness is not a destination or an event it is a direction, a process and a journey. Without pain and flaw nothing new can emerge. Consider the oyster and pearl. A parasitic worm, masquerading as a grain of sand, drills its way through the oyster shell in search of a home. To defend itself the mollusk secretes nacre around the invader for about eight years, forming a perfect sphere. That perfect sphere is called the pearl. A gem is made from gashes of violent torment. Wounded ness and weakness leads to anew beauty.

Who is not overwelmed with the grace that disrupts, transforms and unleashes yet again to a more effervescent future? Disruptive grace is difficult, but it is a good difficult. While grace is many things it certainly is not purely a sentiment. This good difficult of a disruptive grace dances, shines and creates anew. 

Out of Babylon

Five-lane highway danger zone

SUV and a sspeaker phone

You need that chrome to get you home

Doin' time in Babylon

Cluster mansion on the hill

Another day in Pleasantville

You don't like it take a pill

Doin' time in Babylon

In the land of the proud and free

You can sell your soul and your dignity

For fifteen minutes on TV

Doin' time in Babylon

So suck the fat, cut the bone

Fill it up with silicone

Everybody must get cloned

Doin' time in Babylon

Little Boy Blue come blow your horn

The crows are in the corn

The morning sky is red and falling down

The piper's at the till

He's coming for the kill

Luring all our children underground in Babylon

We came from apple pie and mom

Thru Civil Rights and Ban the Bomb

To Watergate to Vietnam

Hard times in Babylon

Rallied 'round the megaphone

Gave it up, just got stoned

Now it's Prada, Gucci and Perron

Doin' time in Babylon

Little Boy Blue come blow your horn

The crows are in the corn

The morning sky is red and falling down

The piper's at the till

He's coming for the kill

Luring all our children underground

Get results, get 'em fast

We're ready if you got the cash

Someone else will be laughin' last

Doin' time in Babylon

So put the conscience on the shelf

Keep the best stuff for yourself

Let the rest fight over what is left

Doin' time in Babylon

Little Boy Blue come blow your horn

The crows are in the corn

The morning sky is red and falling down

Let your song of healing spark

A way out of this dark

Lead us to a higher and holy ground

A Conspicuous Birth

I will try my best to be brief.  Try as I might I still need to bring good news or why bother reading?  I did not know who would be here tonight, and I did not know that you would be here. Perhaps this homily is not for you. 

• This is not for you unless you cannot see what is clearly before you, and you wish to see the world as it really is.
• This is not for you unless you have parts of your life that have crippled and incapicated you and kept you from living freely.
• This is not for you unless there are deep areas of your life that are cut off from others and make you less than acceptable.
• This is not for you unless you have grown tired, numb and indifferent, even resigned to living in a daze of zoned out hopelessness
• This is not for you unless you are poor: in money, spirit, too many debts with diminished credit.

What a list! What a life right now! This message and this Christmas and this gospel reach folks exactly like this. I am one of them--trust me on that. While you listen, name the place in your life that is like this, and imagine Christmas is for that part of your life. And if you have no such place like that in your life, then forget about yourself and name a person who qualifies for this, and imagine the news of Christmas for just such a person.

Christmas is especially for those of us whose lives are scarred and hurt in debilitating ways. Oh we may look good on the outside but we all have places of pain. So, of course, this is for all of us. You see, Christmas is not about a baby, presents, trees, and good Merlot and all of that romantic business. Christmas is about a word from God addressed to a world in its sheer exhaustion—even wealthy folk are exhausted. God has spoken a word to us in many ways. Try this version on tonight; it is a word from Isaiah. It is addressed to people who are mired down, beaten up, wondering about what next and ready to give up.  It is for people who keep playing the same old tapes-going over and over and over and over again in their heads, about old quarrels and old hurts old failures old sins and old defeats. All of the what if’s that life throws at us.

Here is the gospel version to try on for tonight. It comes in two simple parts. First, do not remember the former ways.  Let me say it again and listen to me, I am a man of the cloth—Jesus came for those former ways—forget about it!  Forget about the “good ole days,” the nostalgia, what you wish you had said but didn’t, the shame, the regret, the anger, the resentment, the guilt that we like to carry because it is so comforting---yet exhausting. Take it put it in your hand and place it down behind you at your feet.   This is gospel—Emmanuel style. It is not romantic, it is hard work but necessary.

Let all of the fear and the stuff dissolve—can you feel it in your stomach?

Have you noticed that everything grows quiet at Christmas for a few hours, a few days, for a while? The whole world stops. In Europe it is more pronounced; even the trains stop. Here the market bell does not sound for a while. The whole earth pauses, like a break in the heaven, so that God can come to town and say—forget about it! Release it! Let it go! Abandon it! Do not remember the former things!

The second part is the really good news tonight: Behold I am doing a new thing!  In the midst of total cosmic silence comes, not Bieber fever but Emmanuel. And when God comes in Jesus—newness, healing, hope, a fresh start, a new beginning. Jesus is meant to be beyond our wildest imaginations, who brought healing and grace everywhere he went, who forgave and transformed and called people out beyond themselves to a newness they could not have imagined.

This is the word of the gospel for you tonight. Behold, God is doing a new thing in this conspicuous birth; new things in the world, new things for you, new things for us, to give us a new beginning from things that are old, tired, angry and honestly—broken!  In a coupla days the world will begin again. The quiet will be broken and everything will be crowded, the bell on Wall Street will call us to worship the anxiety of the traders. Except, it will not be the same. There is a difference, a newness. God has made a move toward new power in the world, power for life. If we will see it and seize it.  This gift of newness is not a magic act. It does not float down out of heaven. It is a word, a gesture—it is a gift, it is a crucifix with an empty tomb. And you may seize it. But it is up to you!

So this Christmas is for you to seize—the gift. 

• The good news newing tonight is that the blind can see with new eyes the way the world is-loved by God and so are you!
• The good news newing tonight for all who are lame is to receive power beyond all of our old handicaps.
• The good news newing tonight for all those who cannot get over their past stuff. God is not preoccupied with your stuff, not at least like you are. It is all so ordinary to God. You can be living in first class again--at least with a new start.
• The good news newing tonight is that the old mortgages of bad theology are not holding us back. God has declared amnesty on old bills unpaid, all outstanding accounts are now settled, all old hurts can be set aside and old shame guilt and mistake are forgiven.              

The world does not expect a gift like this. Friends, join the miracle, notice the gift, and receive new life. Begin again. Our new beginning is not just our idea. It is God’s act, God’s gift, and God’s promise. Don’t try and explain it you’ll go crazy; just seize it—it is a conspicuous birth!

CATCHING UP TO EMMANUEL

(This text will be delivered on the fourth Sunday of Advent at LBPC while strategically moving around the space of the sanctuary. It follows the lectionary reading of 2 Samuel 7:1-11. I hope that you enjoy my wandering.)

Bishop Desmond Tutu wrote a book this past year entitled, God is not a Christian: and Other Provocations.  I resonate deeply with books like that. They capture my attention and deservedly so. Teaching and preaching is a dangerous and perilous task, it is a mandate to difference, according to Walter Brueggemann, and one that ought never be taken lightly. Those who presume to speak on behalf of YHWH and I AM should shake in their boots every time they mount the stairs of this office. I assure you that I do.  This God cannot be fooled by and human ruse!

I also resonate with this title because the term, the identity and the word, Christian, was originally given by Rome to a small movement beginning with Christ that has not stopped to this day.  This global cosmic network continues despite every effort of the new atheists to remove God, or other “enlightened religious people” to delete the Creeds and the historical Jesus---this ONE is still here.  The early people of this movement called themselves followers of the way, disciples, and apprentices of a God that tented in their midst.  It was the empire that named people Christian, not the people of the movement. Thus, this God beyond all naming, cannot be named. Which is why I am reluctant to call myself Christian too.

I would agree with Bishop Tutu that we are not Christians either; if by that term you mean a group that is defined, controlled and domesticated either by the empire or the religious political structures that we align with. By a living and tented definition we follow a God that can never be defined, controlled or domesticated---as hard as we might try to do just that. The Prophet Isaiah says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.”

Our text today speaks similarly of a God that cannot be defined, manipulated, managed, or domesticated. This is a message that is imperative for advent seeking people. 

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This passage stands at the heart of key theological themes that are quite pertinent for advent chasers in the story continuum. David’s conquests and ascension to kingship are highlighted, the saga of the roving and moving ark is satisfied, and God’s promise to be with David and his descendants forever is no longer in jeopardy. This passage is both rhetorically clever and theologically profound. David desires to make a name for himself and build his reputation and Nathan, it appears, becomes a chaplain for the state. Both are dangerous liaisons as the story unfolds for the misplaced power and ego of these two must be exposed. 

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In the words of the text, David (verses 1-3) wants to do something for God and announces this to the prophet Nathan. Unfortunately, David forgot that it was God who made this happen and not himself.  Usually a move of this type requires the leader to consult the priest who consults God and God gives the answer. Nathan says in return to David go for it! Do what you like, as God is with you.  Usually the prophet consults the Lord and God gives the direction. Not the case here.  Each make their own moves for their own sordid reasons.

Even in these three quick verses we must not miss the subtleties in the flow of the text.  Because in the center of the small stuff is precisely where all the really big drama is found.  Neither of the main players actually has anything more in mind than power. King David is interested in making his name great and Nathan follows along complicit with a domesticated religion at the will of the state. In this story the people of power care only about their name, the money, the endowment and the buildings. And the prophets are spokespeople for the wily wishes of the empire. Each is a dangerous liaison for advent and Christ following people of the WAY.

Later that night God appears to Nathan in a dream and says basically. I don’t need a building. For I have given the world my people, my promises, and my presence. I am a God who moves with you. I am a God who walks with you. I am a God who tents with you.  

In the text this morning the word move appears twice and the word went withyou appears once. God is a God on the move. God cannot be pinned down, propped up, or pulled apart.  We are always catching up to Emmanuel and always finding God just out of reach, but ever moving.  God is always present but never graspable.

This same verb form is found in Genesis 3:8 where God is on a “walk about” in the garden looking for the first human beings.   My guess is that this advent season we have some considerable catching up to do with the One whose thoughts are not our thoughts and ways are not our ways. 

This text points the way for a moving, walking and tenting God to drop into the center of our frenetic and anxious activity. The Lord is most comfortable living in a tent with a people on the move, as he has done since the day he made a promise to Abraham to be his God in Genesis 12 and realized it the “day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt” (2 Sam 7:6). This thread of theology is tenderly and forcefully tethered with the prologue of John’s gospel, “and the word became flesh and lived among us.” A more literal translation would read, “And the word became flesh and tented among us.” Tents are vulnerable, moveable, walkable, and fluid. In other words they are agile, flexible and constantly in and able to be on the move or in change. 

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Perhaps a few key questions might be helpful today. What are our assumptions about what will be pleasing in Gods sight? What are the ways we seek to set up a building and confine God? Should we not be much more reticent before linking Gods’ purposes with political agendas (David) or religious totalizing viewpoints (Nathan)? Where in the world, Burien, LBPC, Your life, does God want to do something completely sick (this is the new word for cool) and outrageous only to have your agenda in the way?  How open and receptive are we to a God who dropped in the backstairs of a Bethlehem one star hotel, become trailer park trash by an unwed teenage mom, to grow up in the hick town of Nazareth, to live with and connect with the worst of the worst and die on a cross?  Could that same moving, walking and tenting God be leading this church in new and un-thought of directions?  I think so.

God says, “I, through you, will show the rest of the world a new way to be human.” Stay light on your feet as I am. Be ready to move about to respond to the needs that you see as I do. I am a God who seeks to catch people off guard in the midst of all of the Empires of the world.  I will not be domesticated by the politician or boxed in by religious people who tote a flag under the rubric of my name.  God says, “I AM who I AM” and I will walk where I desire to walk. 

We are getting near to this amazing new way to be with this walking, moving and tenting God. We too can use a reminder and a history lesson from David and Nathan in the ways we get in the way. It seems appropriate to linger just a bit longer over the idea of a God who is constantly ready to pull up stakes and move someplace new, different and unique. Lets linger and remember and then lets go on a walk. A walk that catches up to Emmanuel, at least a little bit.

An "IN-YOUR-FACE-GRACE!"

I warned you ahead of time, this is an in your face grace this morning.  Please don’t blame me, take your struggle to the lectionary and then to God.  If anyone can handle it - God can. (You ought to read 1 Thes 5:16-24 and Isaiah 61:1-4,8-11 first--just saying).

This is probably the earliest letter of all NT letters. It is written to a church going through much of the same as we go through today: ethics, politics, Christ and culture issues, what is salvation? And what do we do in the between times of the two advents.  Paul starts this section off with rapid-fire succession of no less than 8 imperatives:

         Rejoice always!

Pray without ceasing

Give thanks in all circumstances

Do not quench the Spirit

Do not despise the words of the Prophets

Hold fast to what is good

Abstain from every sort of evil

 Not bad advice for a church living between the two arrivals.  I have to pull out a couple of phrases here this morning for an in your face grace conversation. The first is, “Do not quench the Spirit.”   Quenching the Spirit is dangerous business. It is certain death. It means be on the look out for substituting the real thing for an imposter. It also means hanging onto to what no longer works, or is relevant, or even the old “right things.” It means be careful of making the form of anything, the god.  Consider what we make Christmas this time of year:

         *Hanging the trees and lights

         *Decking the halls

         *Holding the cocktail parties

*Making our lists and making sure that they are well communicated because, heaven forbid, we would get something we don’t want.

*Babies in a manger

*Christmas cards

*Shopping—I think that you are getting my drift right about now.

 I will stop because I don’t want for you to think that I have gone all postal on Christmas- I love Christmas, and even more- I love advent. Yet we quench the spirit when we make it about that stuff. We quench the spirit when we make it about the same old thing again. We quench the spirit when we make it about the same thing over and over and over. We quench the spirit when we domesticate God, a holiday, a worship form or anything.

 Okay, so that is out of the way. Then how do we keep listening to the Spirit?  Easy. Well, easier said than done, we, in the words of the lection “Do not despise the words of the prophets.”  Or positively we listen to the words of the prophets.  The prophet for this morning has a name. It is Isaiah. Here was a guy who knew how to shake things up. Get people to listen, or at least reconsider!

  ~

We let the “in your face sounds” of contemporary music waken us to what we are to be about in the spirit. That is if we are not quenching the work of the Spirit of God in anyway—including the instruments we use.  We let the sounds and symbols of every generation to wake us up to what we are called to enter into--- a new kingdom. A kingdom that is radically opposite from much of what we find comfortable. That is the kingdom of the incarnation, the insertion of a new way to be human into the middle of the politics as usual.

 Let me try and illustrate how truly crazy this incarnation thing really is. Let me ask grace to get in our face for a moment: What if I said that you were getting a new pastor today and he/she had this type of a vita?:

1. Asian born
2. Mixed race heritage
3. Mother was unwed
4. Mother was a really young teenager
5. They were a political refugee
6. Immigrant
7. Very poor
8. From the city
9. Was homeless
10. Definitely an outlaw
11. Despised and rejected
12. Was a innocent victim—really didn’t do anything wrong just was in the wrong place at the wrong time
13. Forsaken by his father

 You would say, “Ahhhh, Yeah, Ummm, I don’t think so!”

 Well, can you guess who this was? Yup, Immanuel. Wow. REALLY???  What an in your face not a warm and fuzzy grace.

 Gospel today is this: the spirit of the Lord is upon us, has anointed us to bring good news to the poor, to bind up the broken hearted, liberate the captives, release the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lords favor and the day of the vengeance of our God. This is what the new city will look like. This is exactly what LBPC is called to be and do in the between times of the two advents.

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So we ask a contemporary band to use the instruments of the street, to speak for those of the street, which have no voice so that we, the just church people, can listen, hear and respond. This morning the people who have no voice will be given one.

*We say thank you to the drums, who through their violence awaken us to the needs of the oppressed: That 8.7 million undocumented immigrants live in the US and more than 1/3 of the world is Asian born and over 100 different languages are spoken in Chicago, LA, and NYC.  Every day 160,000 children stay home from school because they are afraid of being bullied.  Slow that down a bit and hear it again pleeez.  When will Christian people actually be Christian and say no to bullying! May we not quench the Spirit by listening to the words of the prophet in the between advent times. 

*We say thank you to the base guitar that captures the blue note of the poor and homeless and brokenhearted in our midst. Bring alive in us, O God, the need to be the hands and feet of Christ in a world where 1 in 6 Americans are poor and 60% of our entire population lives in city. May we listen to the words of the prophet in the between advent times. 

*We say thank you to the screaming rifts of a good rock n roll guitar solo—I am partial to  U2’s “The Edge,” Slash, Eric Clapton or even some serious B.B. King- that remind us that the captives and prisoners are still among us. Remind us that 25% of African American men are incarcerated. Remind us that every 11 seconds a child is reported abused or neglected.

The original “Old St Nick” who later became Santa Claus was Nicholas, a Bishop of Myra in fourth century Turkey. He gave his life to Jesus at an early age and, when his parents died, gave all of their possessions to the poor. While serving as Bishop, he learned of three young girls who were going to be sold into slavery by their father. Moved to use the church’s wealth to ransom the lives of the three little girls, he tossed three bags of gold through the family’s window.  Remind us, guitar rift, that 1.2 million children are trafficked each year into the global sex trade—in 2011. 

Remind us that about 25% of all children in the US live without a father. May we listen to the words of the prophets in the between advent times.

*We say thank you to the singers who gather all of these instruments in their individual remindings and give them a voice in our midst to be heard, because this is the year of the Lords favor. This is a new day! This is hope with flesh on! This is God moving into the neighborhood! May we hear them because we have first heard the words of the Prophets in the between advent times.

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As if this is not enough to digest, the poet continues. This is important to combat a sentimental advent. This is important because this is what God is like, this is what holiness is like, this is what verse 8 describes as justice. When we enter into the landscape of Burien we discover our “inscape” for outreach, mission and difference.  It defines our “thisness” in the midst of our “thatness.”  May our “thisness” of our “inscape” be our only “thatness!”

May grace be true grace between these two advents. Grace is only a sentiment if it does not translate into action and change and gospeling. For grace really is not grace unless it is a bit in your face. So, Have an in your face grace this Christmas season.

May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this. 

May it be so!