community

It Takes a Village to Raise a Lazarus

/ JJS / 6 Comments

community

Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 99; 146, Jonah 2:2-9, Ephesians 6:10-20, John 11:17-27, 38-44
Eve of Epiphany Readings:
Isaiah 66:18-23, Romans 15:7-13 

Is  faith sufficient as an individual experience, or does it need to be shared among a community of believers? When Jesus returned to Bethany because his friend Lazarus had died, the grief of Mary and Martha, sisters of Lazarus, was certainly shared. Neither knew what to expect, but they shared faith in Jesus. They only knew that in their time of great grief, they needed to be with him. Even after he told them he was the resurrection and the life, the sisters didn’t imagine he would bring Lazarus back to them. When he asked the mourners to roll back the stone covering the tomb, Martha said four days had passed and there would be a stench. Yet moments later Jesus commanded Lazarus to walk out of the tomb, and he did.

Jesus was the source, but it was a community that made his final sign meaningful.
Mary and Martha, each with an imperfect but united faith, together believed that whatever Jesus thought fit to ask, God would deliver. At least a few mourners must have volunteered to move the stone, as it was large and heavy enough to cover the mouth of a cave. The gathered crowd  listened to Jesus loudly giving thanks to God for their benefit so they might believe. Finally, Lazarus arose and returned to his friends and family, restoring their community.

Experienced in isolation, faith may be a comfort to us but it’s of little use to the greater body of Christ. When a community shares its faith – when one person answers Christ’s call to dive into the stench and darkness of tombs like poverty and disease, and another person trusts God to provide even when a loved one is caught in the hopeless living death of addiction, and the rest of us are inspired by and act because of their belief, and therefore sisters and brothers we thought lost forever return to us – that community finds new life as no individual could.

Faith requires community to achieve its fullest expression. Our own imperfect faith is a gift because it reminds us to seek others.

Comfort: When you have faith you are never alone.

Challenge: Explore a faith community that is unfamiliar to you.  Perhaps a charity, or another congregation. If you can, spend some time helping them with their mission.

Prayer: Thank you God for easing my burden by making me only one member of a larger body in Christ. Amen.

Discussion: What do you find most rewarding about community? Most difficult?

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The Joy of Community

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Readings: Psalms 122; 145, 2 Samuel 7:1-17, Titus 2:11-3:8a, Luke 1:39-48a (48b-56)

After the angel Gabriel told Mary she would be mother to the messiah, she visited her relative Elizabeth. Older and childless, Elizabeth was also in the middle of an unexpected pregnancy. When Mary shared her news, Elizabeth’s baby (who would grow up to be John the Baptist) leaped in her womb for Joy (Luke 1:44).

After delivering her news, Mary spoke a prayer we now call the Magnificat. This prayer is an important hymn in the Christian church, particularly among Catholics. In the Magnificat, Mary humbly praises God for the favor he has shown her, and she also praises God for keeping his promises to the nation of Israel. The joy Mary and Elizabeth feel for their own situations is inseparable from the joy they feel for their community.

Throughout the Old Testament we read about how God is invested in the fate of his people as a whole. Individuals are shown favor for the purpose of serving the good of the community, not for individual glory. In the New Testament, the apostle Paul rejoices from his prison because God is blessing the greater church. Paul does acknowledge his personal suffering, but seeing himself as part of something greater allows him to do both simultaneously.

The current culture of the United States teaches us joy is to be found in personal pursuits. When we want to encourage people to act charitably we tell them how good it will make them feel. The faith language of best-selling books focuses on personal salvation and the prosperity gospel. We trade accountability for independence and talk about rights as though they are divorced from responsibilities. We don’t leap for joy if the salvation of the community depletes our wallets or makes demands of us. Mary’s sacrificial  joy  is revolutionary even today.

As our faith grows deeper, our concerns grow broader. If our joy relies only on personal satisfaction, it will be fleeting. We have access to so much more joy when we understand we are part of a community. When the Lord “fill[s] the hungry with good things,” (Luke 39:53) we are filled also.

Comfort: Our joy need not be limited by our personal circumstances.

Challenge: Read the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) aloud. Read it again with a friend – or better yet, a group.

Prayer: Thank you, oh Great God, for the community of your church. Deliver us from evils within and without. Mold us into an vessel of your love. Amen.

Discussion: Do you feel like part of a larger community? What is that community based on?

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Class War and Class Peace

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 103; 150, Nehemiah 5:1-9, Acts 20:7-12, Luke 12:22-31

“Class warfare” is a term left over from the Marxist rhetoric of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Over time its frequency of use has shifted away from leftist thinkers who embraced Marx’s idea that “the history of all society up to now is the history of class struggles” which they felt the lower economic classes were losing, toward the right who interpret “struggle” as “warfare” and generally use it to describe what they feel are political and economic socialist attacks – usually in the form of wealth redistribution – against the rich.

The cultures of Europe and Asia have long been class conscious and it shapes much of their history and societal expectations. In the United States we pride ourselves on class mobility. The American Dream, after all, is for each generation to work hard and succeed beyond the previous one. Anyone with ambition, so the legend goes, ought to be able to rise to whatever level of society they like. Ignoring class barriers promotes the story that we rise and fall on our merits. It also makes it easier to ignore our responsibilities because we can explain away the less fortunate as less deserving. If we are indeed exceptional it’s not because we have risen above class structure, but because we have done our best to deny it.

Jesus did not ignore class divisions. Claiming the first would be last and the last would be first was a direct acknowledgment of them. Some were economic, some were religious, and others were tribal. His answer was not to pretend they would go away, but to help us understand how they hurt people on both sides of a given divide. When he told the rich young man he needed to give everything away, it wasn’t an endorsement of forced wealth redistribution, but an indictment of what the young man valued. He doesn’t tell any of us we have a right to take what others have earned, but he does tell us we ultimately don’t have a right to what we’ve earned either – because it all comes from God, and should be used to God’s glory.

In the Book of Nehemiah, the prophet chastises the rich who would ignore and even benefit from the plight of the poor. The rich became richer by accepting children of their less fortunate (that is, starving) fellow Jews into slavery and charging interest on people’s debts – a practice forbidden under Mosaic law. We may not be religiously forbidden to charge interest, but we are the home of a payday loan economy designed to charge the highest interest to those who can least afford it (and justify it with the supposedly moral neutral concept of “risk”). Our poorest children are not (generally) sold into slavery, but they are much more likely to die or be wounded in the service of a nation which asks relatively little of its wealthiest citizens. The wealthy aren’t even the ones who bear the brunt of the waste they disproportionately generate; landfills and toxic dumps aren’t set up in suburbs full of millionaires.

Marxism isn’t the answer of course. Neither is free market capitalism. Nor is any worldly ideology. Jesus calls us to look at the world around us as it is – classes and all – and make the sacrifices necessary to make it more just – which in the kingdom means to put the last first – whether we are legally required to or not. We shouldn’t need the government to tell us how to redistribute our wealth; Jesus already has. Are we willing to do it?

Further Reading: For thoughts on today’s passage from Acts, see The Ledge.

Comfort: Whatever our class, we are the same before God.

Challenge: Don’t ignore the reality of class divides. Try to approach them as Christ did.

Prayer: The LORD works vindication and justice for all who are oppressed. (Psalm 103:6)

Discussion: Do you think there is a class system in the United States?

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Uprooted

/ JJS / Leave a comment

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 84; 148, Nehemiah 2:1-20, Revelation 6:12-7:4, Matthew 13:24-30

Jesus shared several parables about how, in the end, God will separate the good from the evil. He compared them to sheep and goats, good guests and bad guests, and – in today’s parable – wheat and weeds. A farmer sowed good seed in a field, but an enemy snuck in while everyone was asleep and sowed weeds among the wheat. When they started to sprout together, the field hands asked whether they should pull the weeds. The farmer told them not to, because they would uproot the good with the bad. They were to wait until the harvest, when they could be separated safely.

While this parable is primarily about the final judgment, it has other things to tell us as well.

We share the world with many people who don’t share our values. For that matter, we share it with many fellow Christians whose values don’t exactly align with ours. Because this is so, Christians are often tempted to turn our criticisms and judgments outward. Jesus had a parable for that too, one about pointing out the speck in a neighbor’s eye when there’s a log in our own. We are called to repentance … and we are called to invite others to repentance … but we are not called to force it on anyone. That’s between them and God. Jesus’s contemporaries were experts at condemning others for the most minor infractions of the law, yet had very little inclination to turn that criticism on themselves.

Yes scripture contains guidance on responding to those who sin, but arguably it is about those who sin against us, and specifically those who are fellow believers. When we become preoccupied with tearing out the sins we see in others, rather than focusing on changing our own flaws and hearts, the roots of our spirit never have the chance to grow deep. Without deep roots the fruit we bear will be puny, and make for a sorry witness. When we go after others, we damage ourselves.

When we do turn our attention toward others, be they weeds or wheat, perhaps our energy is best spent on tending the common ground by stripping away injustices that poison and enriching it with the mercy and love that feeds our souls. In the end we may not have the power to turn weeds into wheat, but we have a savior who turned water into wine and death into life. Let him decide what’s possible.

Comfort: You are not responsible for someone else’s repentance.

Challenge: You are responsible for letting them know it’s possible.

Prayer: O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, O God of Jacob! (Psalm 84:8)

Discussion: How distracted do you let yourself get by other people’s lives?

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Plainspoken

/ JJS / Leave a comment

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 15; 147:1-11, Jeremiah 37:3-21, 1 Corinthians 14:13-25, Matthew 10:24-33

Slang. Jargon. Idiom. Argot. Dialect. Lingo. These words all have slightly different definitions and connotations, but have something in common: they often determine whether you are in a group or out of it. Slang is largely generational; when you’re no longer up on the latest – or worse, desperately fumbling with it – you’re old. Jargon and argot have a more professional context; try to fake your way around a profession you don’t know, and your vocabulary will betray you soon enough. Idiom and dialect are perhaps the most tribal of the group, as they are defined primarily by geographic location; nobody in Georgia is fooled when someone from Connecticut drops a “y’all.”

There’s something comforting about sharing a special, almost secret language. It immediately establishes common ground, even with strangers, in a positive way. Yet even as language draws a circle of inclusion, it excludes everyone who stands outside the circle. This exclusion isn’t necessarily intentional, but it’s an unavoidable byproduct.

Which brings us to “Christianese.”

Paul was concerned about the Corinthian church’s tendency toward an inward focus. They seemed to have a real fondness what may be the ultimate insider language, speaking in tongues (which, let’s be honest, is pretty easy to fake if you can’t hone in on your spiritual gifts). Paul tried to make them aware of how an unbeliever might feel walking in on a service where everyone seemed to speak independent gibberish:

If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your mind? […] in church I would rather speak five words with my mind, in order to instruct others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue.

We may not be speaking in tongues, but when churchgoers casually throw around words like “narthex” (what’s wrong with “lobby”?), acronyms like “VBS,” or phrases like “slain in the spirit” without explanation we erect a language barrier between us and newcomers or strangers. It’s not bad to let people know our culture is different – if it wasn’t, why bother? – but the differences we want to emphasize are compassion, inclusion, and forgiveness. Even “grace” can be a mystery word to the uninitiated, but “love” is universal. Let’s show it by saying it clearly.

Comfort: There can be great comfort in being part of a community with common culture.

Challenge: Don’t make assumptions that people know what you know, or understand everything you say.

Prayer:  Teach me, O Lord, to speak with love and thoughtfulness. Amen.

Discussion: When you don’t understand what people are talking about, are you comfortable asking for clarification?

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Playing in the Key of U

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 123; 146, Jeremiah 36:27-37:2, 1 Corinthians 14:1-12, Matthew 10:16-23

A piano has eighty-eight keys. Anyone can walk up to one and bang on them until sound comes out. Fewer can skillfully combine them to play an actual song. And fewer still can create something entirely new from those same eighty-eight keys. The same eighty-eight keys can produce a jarring jangle or breathtaking beauty. A toddler can find great joy simply making noise. Most people could pluck out “Chopsticks” or “Heart and Soul.” Only a talented few can create a song that is not only recognizable as music, but can make us experiences the story and emotions they have to share.

Paul used musical instruments as a metaphor for how we use our gifts to benefit our faith community.

If they do not give distinct notes, how will anyone know what is being played? And if the bugle gives an indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle? So with yourselves; if in a tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is being said?

He was speaking specifically about the difference between speaking in tongues, which usually benefitted only the speaker because no one else understood the language, and prophesying, which provided “upbuilding and encouragement and consolation.” Isn’t the principle true of any undertaking though?

If we pursue a ministry which appeals to us but doesn’t speak to anyone else, is it a meaningless noise? If we complete a difficult task at work or home, but nobody else cared whether it got done, what is there to crow about? Of course it’s fine – even important – to take time to do some things for ourselves, but when it comes to how we relate to our community, we need to be speaking the same language … or at least hitting some mutually recognizable notes.

Consider one small example. Many Christmas toy drives specifically emphasize the need for toys for older children, especially boys. Yet donations are overwhelmingly toys intended for young children, weighted toward girls, because many donors prefer to shop for them. Now there’s nothing wrong with any specific donation, but when a symphony is written in D major and a bunch of musicians play in F minor because of personal preference, the right music doesn’t get made.

Faithful use of our gifts involves more than doing what we find personally rewarding. It asks us to learn the songs in other people’s hearts too.

Comfort: You are part of a great and blessed orchestra.

Challenge: At least once, take time to volunteer with a charity that doesn’t “speak” to you. Pay attention to why it is important to others.

Prayer:  Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. (Psalm 86:4)

Discussion: Is there anything you do because it is important to someone else?

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One Body to Heal

/ JJS / 2 Comments

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 51; 148, 2 Kings 23:36-24:17, 1 Corinthians 12:12-26, Matthew 9:27-34

If one member suffers, all suffer together with it;
if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.
– 1 Corinthians 12:26

Today’s reading from 1 Corinthians can be read on many levels. It is often used to describe the importance of each person’s role in the body of Christ and to celebrate the many gifts they contribute. It also describes the importance of diversity within the church.

Read in context with today’s healing story in Matthew, there is yet another meaning. When Jesus healed two men of blindness, they were not passive recipients, but participants in the process. He asked them if they believed, and when they said yes he told them, “According to your faith let it be done to you.” Christ does not just do things to us, he does them with us.

When one part of the body is sick, it depends on the others for healing. An ailing tooth does not walk itself into a dentist’s office, but relies on the feet. A foot with a splinter cannot remedy itself, but depends on the hands to remove it. Hands that tremble from hunger cannot feed themselves, but rely on the mouth and teeth to chew and swallow. Each part is not only equally important, it is equally interdependent.

As members of the body of Christ, we must rely on each other and be present for each other in times of illness and distress. None of us is completely self-sufficient. We receive care when we need it, and we offer care when it is needed. And as the feet don’t feel burdened by the tooth, and the hands don’t feel burdened by the feet, we do so not out of obligation nor to secure help for ourselves in the future, but because we are one. The well-being of one is inseparable from the well-being of others.

Christ was extravagant in his love for all people. Christ was extravagant in his healing. As we are now his body, we are called to the same extravagance. Let us heal not out of duty, but out of extravagant love.

Comfort: It’s okay to rely on other people when you need to.

Challenge: Mental illness is often met with less sympathy and support than physical illness. Make an effort to learn more about how you can appropriately support people with mental illnesses.

Prayer:  Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. (Psalm 51:10)

Discussion: How do you feel when people ask you for help?

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Uncommon Good

/ JJS / Leave a comment

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 97; 147:12-20, 2 Kings 23:4-25, 1 Corinthians 12:1-11, Matthew 9:18-26

President Theodore Roosevelt is credited with saying “Comparison is the thief of joy.” The Apostle Paul spent a good chunk of time assuring members of the early church that they need not compare their spiritual gifts: each one – wisdom, prophecy, healing, tongues, etc. – had its own important role to play. He wanted them to understand “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”

“Common good.” That’s a phrase that’s become loaded. Though it was a principle of the earliest Christian communities, today it’s as likely to be associated with socialism. And like socialism, common good is a slippery term which not everyone can agree on. Perhaps there’s no real incentive to find agreement; the common good often demands the personal not-as-good.

But all those spiritual gifts Paul lists (and some he doesn’t) have something in common: they are useless until we employ them in service to someone else. Healing, wisdom, and prophecy aren’t too impressive if no one benefits from them. For that matter neither are generosity, empathy, and patience. It seems the common good is inherent in the activities of the Spirit.

Christianity is a full contact sport. If we are not willing to encounter people – via whatever gifts we’ve been given – in spirit, mind, and body how can we possibly be servants to all? We say we are blessed by things like talents, resources, and relationships, and while we may legitimately benefit from them ourselves, they are meaningless until we use them to bless someone else.

Maybe you don’t feel like you have blessings to share. If so, could that be because you’re unfavorably comparing what you have to offer with other people’s gifts? If we can’t seem to find our gifts, maybe instead of looking inward at what we lack or sideways at what someone else has, we should look outward to see what other people need. If we want to feel the charge of the Spirit moving through us, we might have to establish contact with someone else to complete that circuit. Only by getting to know people do we learn what good needs to be done.

Comfort: You have something someone needs.

Challenge: Be open about your needs so that others might feel more comfortable letting you know about theirs.

Prayer:  I bless the LORD who gives me counsel; I keep the LORD always before me. (from Psalm 16)

Discussion: Have you ever assumed you knew what someone needed and later learned you were wrong?

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Faith and Friction

/ JJS / 3 Comments

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 5; 145, 2 Kings 21:1-18, 1 Corinthians 10:14-11:1, Matthew 8:28-34

Early followers of Christ lived in a culture where a temple or idol to one deity or another lurked around almost every corner. Even within the Christian church, Jews and Gentiles had backgrounds and beliefs which were not always in agreement. This created complicated social situations where believers had to balance being a loving neighbor (or business partner or customer) against upholding their principles.

In today’s reading from Corinthians, Paul writes about eating meat sacrificed to idols or demons – which would have been forbidden under Jewish law. Instead of declaring such actions sinful or not, he wrote: “‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things are beneficial. ‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things build up.” He advised them their actions should be chosen in accordance with their convictions, yet not to undermine their witness to the people around them. He didn’t want them leading anyone into behavior that other person thought was a sin.

We face similar challenges. Every day we are called to follow our principles even when they run contrary to social pressures, politics, employers, friends, family, foreign cultures, and fellow people of faith. In some situations, particularly matters of personal ethics, we may simultaneously be judged by some people as too pious while others see us as terrible sinners. If we remain loving, it doesn’t matter. Christ didn’t worry about being called a glutton or a drunkard, and John the Baptist was just fine being a holy freak. Isn’t it liberating to know our allegiance is never to public opinion, but to God, “for why is [our] freedom being judged by another’s conscience?”

We are not a people bound by laws and technicalities of action and thought (no matter how much some people might cling to that model). We are a people freed by love and meant to love freely. Our faith is in constant friction with the world. We are called to live our faith, but never to impose it. It is up to us to decide whether that friction is a source of irritation like sandpaper on skin, or a source of warmth like two hands rubbing together as if in prayer.

Comfort: You don’t need to worry about how other people judge you.

Challenge: Seek common ground rather than the upper hand.

Prayer:  Give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. Amen. (Psalm 82:3-4)

Discussion: Where do you encounter the most friction between your faith and the world?

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#notalllogs

/ JJS / Leave a comment

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 12; 146, 2 Chronicles 29:1-3, 30:1 (2-9) 10-27, 1 Corinthians 7:32-40, Matthew 7:1-12

Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye?

Jesus didn’t seem concerned with teaching us to identify flaws in other people – that job had too many people doing it already. Rather, Jesus invites you (and me) to repent and reflect, not to feel smug about telling others to do it. Yet somehow we manage to twist his words to point fingers and deflect criticism – Get the log out of your eye before you talk to me about my speck! – when confronted with our own failings. Repentance is something we embrace, not something we inflict.

While repentance is a personal pursuit, it has communal dimensions. Belonging to a specific community doesn’t make us responsible for the actions of every individual in the community, but … Paul’s letters are full of expectations that we hold our community – our body – accountable for its behavior. When one or a few people undermined the character of the Christian church, Paul didn’t accept “it wasn’t me” as an excuse to ignore the behavior.

In Paul’s case he was addressing a church, but community comes in many forms, sometimes with involuntary membership. Gender is an example of a community to which we belong but do not (generally) choose. While gender equality has made remarkable strides over the last century, there are still systemic injustices which need attention. When a topic like sexual harassment is broached, almost invariably some men respond with “not all men are like that.” It’s a defensive reaction meant to communicate, “Hey, I’m one of the good guys!” In reality, “not all men” derails the conversation; it prioritizes “my” comfort with being a man over problems women actually face. When the community has a plank in its left eye, what exactly is accomplished by pointing out how healthy the right one is?

Of course gender is just one example. Is it possible we are even more accountable for communities we join voluntarily? Not all Christians? Not all Democrats? Not all gun-owners? Not all police officers? Not all protesters? And none of these groups (and countless more) are mutually exclusive! The thread of our accountability runs through a series of knots where we’ve anchored ourselves to others.

Let us – individuals and communities – whittle away at those planks until they disappear. We might be surprised to discover how much we contribute to a problem and how much more we can contribute to a solution once we commit to seeing clearly.

Comfort: Community is a blessing.

Challenge: Let’s keep it that way.

Prayer: I will give to the LORD the thanks due to his righteousness, and sing praise to the name of the LORD, the Most High. (Psalm 7:17)

Discussion: Do you ever feel pressured to ignore problems of a group you belong to?

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