Read the scripture first. If you're zealous, read it in the NRSV version and The Message. This is my attempt at a sermon on this very difficult text.
I do not understand this passage of scripture at all. I can’t even repeat to you what I said when I first read it. What a puzzling piece of literature. I can’t wrap my mind around it. I mean, I guess I get the “you can’t have two masters: god and money” part, but I don’t really get the rest. Especially the part that says, “for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” Excuse me? Non-God-oriented-people are being praised for being shrewd? Children of light are being chided for not being shrewd? Perhaps Jesus referencing the “be shrewd as a snake and innocent as a dove” verse. I don’t know though, for he goes on to say, “Make friends for yourself by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.” Use means of dishonest wealth? HUH?
Eugene Peterson’s The Message version puts it much more gently. Instead of calling the manager shrewd, he calls him “streetwise.” In this version, Jesus admonishes the person of the light to “use every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival.” Okay, that sort of makes sense. But is that what Jesus is saying? I mean, how does, “use dishonest wealth” translate into “use adversity to survive creatively”?
I love Peterson, but this is a bit of a stretch for me.
Perhaps the story Jesus is telling is ironic. What if it’s supposed to be satirical of the Pharisees who constantly abuse money and are of course standing around listening to him? What if the story isn’t for the “people of the light” at all, but rather is a rhetorical devise designed to undercut the Pharisees?
In other words, “you, who take people’s land when they can’t offer a big enough bird at the Temple, let me tell you a story. Here’s a story to you who own plenty of wealth while your people suffer. Once upon a time there was a dishonest manager who was fired, but figured out a way to manipulate a financial situation to save his ass. That is a smart man, let me tell you! Freaking brilliant man of God, right there. Only those like him will enter the kingdom of heaven.” Do you hear the irony, the disapproval, the judgment imposed on the Pharisees?
Read verses 10 and following, “whoever is faithful in little is faithful in much. If you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust you to the true riches?” Were the Pharisees fair in the way they dealt with their people? Not always. Why then should the people look to the Pharisees for spiritual guidance?
On the other hand, this could be said of us too. Why should we be entrusted with things of eternal value when we don’t even use the little we’ve been given? After all, we don’t always appreciate the sunrise and sunset every day. We don’t always feed the poor when we have plenty in our refrigerators. We get tired of listening to our co-workers complain about their lives and we get tired of offering the hope we’ve found. We have too much to do in our daily lives to use our gifts to serve God outside of our jobs.
Look at us! We don’t always take advantage of the resources, the gifts God has given us! And so we are not shrewd, we are not street-smart to use our resources to do what is right in the world. We don’t choose to live resourcefully. And in that way, we’re no different than the “children of this age.”
But that doesn’t change the fact that we are “children of light.” Even if we do come dangerously close to behaving like the Pharisees some days, we are not called “children of the Pharisees;” we are called “children of God.” But we are also called to accountability. We do not serve the God of money, we serve the God of love. Though we may make money, we mustn’t love money. We must use it resourcefully and creatively to bring redemption to our world. And if we don’t make money, we must take what gifts we have been given to offer hope to broken people.
Of course, first we must acknowledge what we have been given…
The parable before this is on the prodigal son, or rather, the loving father. God, the father in the parable, gives the son all he has and of course the son runs away with it to live how he pleases. He doesn’t acknowledge the gifts he has been given. When he realizes how foolish and abusive he has been of his father’s love, he runs home repentant and sad. But the father is good and forgives him and offers him his very best again. So must we acknowledge what God has given us, all the good things he has provided for us. We must not take our gifts and our blessings and use them for our own good. Rather we must stand up, and living in God’s kingdom, we must use these provisions to provide for others.
If that’s what I am called to do – okay. If I am called to subversively manage to help others while using the gifts I have been given by God – okay. If I am called to go against my American culture of materialism and greed, for the sake of equality and opportunity – okay. If I am called to stop the abuse of God’s creation and start taking care of the beautiful earth God’s given to humanity – okay. If I am called to use my gifts of teaching and singing and art to communicate the hope I’ve found in God – okay. If I am called to take my seminary education and use it to disciple others – okay. If I am called to claim my identity as a follower of Christ even when the media paints Christianity in an evil hue – okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.
I’m ready to stand up for what is right. I’m ready to use the unique gifts God’s given me. I’m ready to be called shrewd and cunning and smart. But innocent too. A child of the light, working diligently even after hours, even in the dark to bring about the kingdom of God.
I choose to serve God.
Amen.
Rev. Ann Catherine Pittman
Bereseth
September 26, 2007
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Happy Birthday Mom!
60 years ago today my mother was born. 30 years ago today my mother found out she was pregnant. I'm sure nothing can compare to that birthday greeting, but from that baby growing in your womb thirty years ago, here's hoping this day and this year is your best year yet. I love you.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Jena 6
Maybe you pay more attention to the news than me, but I just learned about a case of segregation-era oppression happening today in Jena, Louisiana. It literally makes me sick at my stomach. So, I signed onto Color Of Change's campaign for justice in Jena, and want to invite you to do the same. The story as circulated by the NAACP and Snope's version of the story with updates is at Snopes.com Here's the version I heard...
Last fall in Jena, the day after two Black high school students sat beneath the "white tree" on their campus, nooses were hung from the tree. When the superintendent dismissed the nooses as a "prank," more Black students sat under the tree in protest. The District Attorney then came to the school accompanied by the town's police and demanded that the students end their protest, telling them, "I can be your best friend or your worst enemy... I can take away your lives with a stroke of my pen."
A series of white-on-black incidents of violence followed, and the DA did nothing. But when a white student was beaten up in a schoolyard fight, the DA responded by charging six black students with attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
It's a story that reads like one from the Jim Crow era, when judges, lawyers and all-white juries used the justice system to keep blacks in "their place." But it's happening today. The families of these young men are fighting back, but the story has gotten minimal press.
The noose-hanging incident and the DA's visit to the school set the stage for everything that followed. Racial tension escalated over the next couple of months, and on November 30, the main academic building of Jena High School was burned down in an unsolved fire. Later the same weekend, a black student was beaten up by white students at a party. The next day, black students at a convenience store were threatened by a young white man with a shotgun. They wrestled the gun from him and ran away. While no charges were filed against the white man, the students were later arrested for the theft of the gun.
That Monday at school, a white student, who had been a vocal supporter of the students who hung the nooses, taunted the black student who was beaten up at the off-campus party and allegedly called several black students "nigger." After lunch, he was knocked down, punched and kicked by black students. He was taken to the hospital, but was released and was well enough to go to a social event that evening.
Six Black Jena High students, Robert Bailey (17), Theo Shaw (17), Carwin Jones (18), Bryant Purvis (17), Mychal Bell (16) and an unidentified minor, were expelled from school, arrested and charged with second-degree attempted murder. The first trial ended last month, and Mychal Bell, who has been in prison since December, was convicted of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery (both felonies) by an all-white jury in a trial where his public defender called no witnesses. During his trial, Mychal's parents were ordered not to speak to the media and the court prohibited protests from taking place near the courtroom or where the judge could see them.
The Jena Six are lucky to have parents and loved ones who are fighting tooth and nail to free them. They have been threatened but they are standing strong. We know that if the families have to go it alone, their sons will be a long time coming home. But if we act now, we can make a difference.
You can make a difference by demanding that Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco get involved to make sure that justice is served for EVERYONE by going to color of change
Racism is alive in America. White people, wake up! This is your battle too. An injustice done to an African American or a Caucasian is an injustice to ALL of us, no matter what our race. Humanity is humanity and we all deserve a shot at living a life where at the very least, in the courtroom, justice prevails and the punishment fits the crime. Life will not always be fair but we shouldn't expect our communities to function with nooses hanging from trees, schools being burned, youth being ignored or threatened by adults, and students being beaten. Do your part to end racism where you live. Speak the truth, stand up for those whose voice is not well heard, and live as though we were all created in the image of God. Because all we, God's children, were...
Last fall in Jena, the day after two Black high school students sat beneath the "white tree" on their campus, nooses were hung from the tree. When the superintendent dismissed the nooses as a "prank," more Black students sat under the tree in protest. The District Attorney then came to the school accompanied by the town's police and demanded that the students end their protest, telling them, "I can be your best friend or your worst enemy... I can take away your lives with a stroke of my pen."
A series of white-on-black incidents of violence followed, and the DA did nothing. But when a white student was beaten up in a schoolyard fight, the DA responded by charging six black students with attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
It's a story that reads like one from the Jim Crow era, when judges, lawyers and all-white juries used the justice system to keep blacks in "their place." But it's happening today. The families of these young men are fighting back, but the story has gotten minimal press.
The noose-hanging incident and the DA's visit to the school set the stage for everything that followed. Racial tension escalated over the next couple of months, and on November 30, the main academic building of Jena High School was burned down in an unsolved fire. Later the same weekend, a black student was beaten up by white students at a party. The next day, black students at a convenience store were threatened by a young white man with a shotgun. They wrestled the gun from him and ran away. While no charges were filed against the white man, the students were later arrested for the theft of the gun.
That Monday at school, a white student, who had been a vocal supporter of the students who hung the nooses, taunted the black student who was beaten up at the off-campus party and allegedly called several black students "nigger." After lunch, he was knocked down, punched and kicked by black students. He was taken to the hospital, but was released and was well enough to go to a social event that evening.
Six Black Jena High students, Robert Bailey (17), Theo Shaw (17), Carwin Jones (18), Bryant Purvis (17), Mychal Bell (16) and an unidentified minor, were expelled from school, arrested and charged with second-degree attempted murder. The first trial ended last month, and Mychal Bell, who has been in prison since December, was convicted of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery (both felonies) by an all-white jury in a trial where his public defender called no witnesses. During his trial, Mychal's parents were ordered not to speak to the media and the court prohibited protests from taking place near the courtroom or where the judge could see them.
The Jena Six are lucky to have parents and loved ones who are fighting tooth and nail to free them. They have been threatened but they are standing strong. We know that if the families have to go it alone, their sons will be a long time coming home. But if we act now, we can make a difference.
You can make a difference by demanding that Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco get involved to make sure that justice is served for EVERYONE by going to color of change
Racism is alive in America. White people, wake up! This is your battle too. An injustice done to an African American or a Caucasian is an injustice to ALL of us, no matter what our race. Humanity is humanity and we all deserve a shot at living a life where at the very least, in the courtroom, justice prevails and the punishment fits the crime. Life will not always be fair but we shouldn't expect our communities to function with nooses hanging from trees, schools being burned, youth being ignored or threatened by adults, and students being beaten. Do your part to end racism where you live. Speak the truth, stand up for those whose voice is not well heard, and live as though we were all created in the image of God. Because all we, God's children, were...
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Vehicular Violations
I felt a little violated when I woke up this morning. It wasn't because I remembered that six years ago terrorists hijacked at least four planes and attempted to kill innocent people, destroy american morale and shock our government. It was because something was wrong with my front yard.
As I unlocked my car after having slept through my alarm and awakened late for work, I realized that my roommate's bike lock that she uses to lock up her two bikes was in my driveway and not wrapped around the bikes... and was it...? it was... snipped, clean through.
We were robbed.
I surveyed the area: my roommate had owned two bikes. There were still two bikes at the house (three counting mine). One i found in the backyard, the one with the flat tire that busted last month. It was leaning against the house next to my piece of crap bike which is locked in only by the giant weeds entangling it. The other bike was laying on the ground in the side yard where her two bikes had been locked to a pole.
I was confused, so i called her at work. No answer, but she promptly texted back. Ah the beauty of communicating undercover. "If you're calling about my bike, it was stolen. Will you put the blue one in the back yard for me?" "Um, sure." But why are there still two bikes at my house?
Later I came to realize that not only did someone steal my roommate's $350 bike, her bike headlights, bike basket and helmet, but he left his own bike in my front yard as a trade-in! Apparently, after spotting Melissa's bikes, taking both of them for a test drive and then choosing the bike with the non-flat tire, he decided hers was better than his and he swapped bikes! And of course took all of her accessories.
Ridiculous.
So now, inside my house in my roommate's room are her busted tire bike (cause she doesn't want to risk it being stolen too) and the thief's bike. Very strange.
Very strange to have lost something and yet be left with something of the person's who took it. A constant reminder of your loss.
I suppose she will take the bike to Good Will after the police look at it, but still, the thief's bike is in her bedroom. The perpetrator's possession is in the victim's possession.
I'm having trouble processing that.
As I unlocked my car after having slept through my alarm and awakened late for work, I realized that my roommate's bike lock that she uses to lock up her two bikes was in my driveway and not wrapped around the bikes... and was it...? it was... snipped, clean through.
We were robbed.
I surveyed the area: my roommate had owned two bikes. There were still two bikes at the house (three counting mine). One i found in the backyard, the one with the flat tire that busted last month. It was leaning against the house next to my piece of crap bike which is locked in only by the giant weeds entangling it. The other bike was laying on the ground in the side yard where her two bikes had been locked to a pole.
I was confused, so i called her at work. No answer, but she promptly texted back. Ah the beauty of communicating undercover. "If you're calling about my bike, it was stolen. Will you put the blue one in the back yard for me?" "Um, sure." But why are there still two bikes at my house?
Later I came to realize that not only did someone steal my roommate's $350 bike, her bike headlights, bike basket and helmet, but he left his own bike in my front yard as a trade-in! Apparently, after spotting Melissa's bikes, taking both of them for a test drive and then choosing the bike with the non-flat tire, he decided hers was better than his and he swapped bikes! And of course took all of her accessories.
Ridiculous.
So now, inside my house in my roommate's room are her busted tire bike (cause she doesn't want to risk it being stolen too) and the thief's bike. Very strange.
Very strange to have lost something and yet be left with something of the person's who took it. A constant reminder of your loss.
I suppose she will take the bike to Good Will after the police look at it, but still, the thief's bike is in her bedroom. The perpetrator's possession is in the victim's possession.
I'm having trouble processing that.
911
Love your enemies. It's a hard lesson on days like today.
Six years later we're still feeling empty, hopeful, angry and confused.
Six years later, we're still learning how to forgive.
Six years later we're still feeling empty, hopeful, angry and confused.
Six years later, we're still learning how to forgive.
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Monday, September 03, 2007
Reflections on Luke 14:7-24
Yesterday as I sat in church, a giant of a man, mentally handicapped, sat behind me breathing so loudly, if I closed my eyes, it was easy to picture myself in a hospial with a respitory machine at my left shoulder... or maybe Darth Vader.
As Roger began preaching from the lectionary text, I heard a small voice coming from within the congregation. I looked at the woman sitting next to me and we smiled at each other, both recognizing and confirming the sound. It was a little girl, situated among the adults, so content with her placement that she was humming. Though I couldn't find her, I pictured her looking down at whatever picture she was drawing, or puzzle she was working, humming. Happily humming to herself.
The text was on the banqueting table, and never taking your place of honor, but remaining humble to be put in your place only by the host. Similarly, it was on who we invite to the feast, leaving the door open enough to not offer the easy invitations to our friends, the prestigious, the ones who make us look good, or the ones who are easy to be around. It is about being humble enough, comfortable enough with who we are, to acknowledge the least of these, those who really need to be at the banqueting table.
Roger said, if this doesn't make your stomach turn, you're either made it to true humility or you aren't processing what I've said. Invite the least.
I was sitting by Darth Vader and the humming child and I understood what he meant. And as I pictured in my mind the most difficult people it would be for me to invite to honor in my house, to shower a great feast upon, to spend time with, and as I lamented the thought, I was also struck by the beauty of where I was in that moment. I was a actually sitting by some people's least of these, and it was a beautiful picture of community.
I could tell that some people around the giant man whose breathing could be heard for pews and pews looked around with irritation. But others shook his hand and asked how his week had been. Some rolled their eyes at the little girl who never stopped humming, while others giggled and shrugged their shoulders. This was community. One another infringing on each other, overlapping the circles of our lives to join together before God.
The least of these and the greatest of these, all humbled before the cross, before communion, before the confirmation we receive as children of God. All ready to partake of the feast.
As Roger began preaching from the lectionary text, I heard a small voice coming from within the congregation. I looked at the woman sitting next to me and we smiled at each other, both recognizing and confirming the sound. It was a little girl, situated among the adults, so content with her placement that she was humming. Though I couldn't find her, I pictured her looking down at whatever picture she was drawing, or puzzle she was working, humming. Happily humming to herself.
The text was on the banqueting table, and never taking your place of honor, but remaining humble to be put in your place only by the host. Similarly, it was on who we invite to the feast, leaving the door open enough to not offer the easy invitations to our friends, the prestigious, the ones who make us look good, or the ones who are easy to be around. It is about being humble enough, comfortable enough with who we are, to acknowledge the least of these, those who really need to be at the banqueting table.
Roger said, if this doesn't make your stomach turn, you're either made it to true humility or you aren't processing what I've said. Invite the least.
I was sitting by Darth Vader and the humming child and I understood what he meant. And as I pictured in my mind the most difficult people it would be for me to invite to honor in my house, to shower a great feast upon, to spend time with, and as I lamented the thought, I was also struck by the beauty of where I was in that moment. I was a actually sitting by some people's least of these, and it was a beautiful picture of community.
I could tell that some people around the giant man whose breathing could be heard for pews and pews looked around with irritation. But others shook his hand and asked how his week had been. Some rolled their eyes at the little girl who never stopped humming, while others giggled and shrugged their shoulders. This was community. One another infringing on each other, overlapping the circles of our lives to join together before God.
The least of these and the greatest of these, all humbled before the cross, before communion, before the confirmation we receive as children of God. All ready to partake of the feast.
Saturday, September 01, 2007
Ann is...
On facebook, the world's best networker, one's "status" is displayed as such, "Ann is..." and then you may fill in the blank. I like this feature, and moving beyond the "Ann is at home" or "Ann is at work," it's a fun way to communicate what you're thinking, doing, experiencing, etc.
So I thought I'd give the blogworld a taste. Ann is...
...relieved people only have to get tetnus shots once every ten years cause Ann can't even raise her left arm right now.
...thankful for Joe and Benjamin who chopped down a cherry tree in her front yard today. George Washington must've had a hell of a time doing it by himself.
...officially starting her new job as Minister to Young Adults and of Creative Discipleship today even though today is her day off. Startin' off strong!
...missing her sisters and wishing she could see them sooner than later.
...laying in bed with her computer and her cat after an exhausting day of watching boys labor in her yard for the mere price of an El Chilito lunch.
So I thought I'd give the blogworld a taste. Ann is...
...relieved people only have to get tetnus shots once every ten years cause Ann can't even raise her left arm right now.
...thankful for Joe and Benjamin who chopped down a cherry tree in her front yard today. George Washington must've had a hell of a time doing it by himself.
...officially starting her new job as Minister to Young Adults and of Creative Discipleship today even though today is her day off. Startin' off strong!
...missing her sisters and wishing she could see them sooner than later.
...laying in bed with her computer and her cat after an exhausting day of watching boys labor in her yard for the mere price of an El Chilito lunch.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
three holes make a puncture wound
um, i was bitten by a dog today.
i am not lying.
janie and i were exercising via walking and the dog came up around behind me and lashed out at janie. i pulled on janie's leash to get her away from the dog and started yelling "no!"
the dog circled behind me and i expected him to go at janie again, but instead it bit me on the leg.
bit me on my damn calf!
of course i screamed out in pain and shock. and screamed "no!" some more and scurried up the street. the dog's owner came out and called the dog in back behind the fence (where he should be!) while i ran to put janie inside and wash the wound.
long story short: doctor's office, animal control, antibiotics, a dog owner who doesn't speak english, doctor's bills.
but i think i'm fine. a little traumatized, but generally fine.
the question is: who remembers when i got my last tetnus shot? 1994 or 2002?
crap.
i am not lying.
janie and i were exercising via walking and the dog came up around behind me and lashed out at janie. i pulled on janie's leash to get her away from the dog and started yelling "no!"
the dog circled behind me and i expected him to go at janie again, but instead it bit me on the leg.
bit me on my damn calf!
of course i screamed out in pain and shock. and screamed "no!" some more and scurried up the street. the dog's owner came out and called the dog in back behind the fence (where he should be!) while i ran to put janie inside and wash the wound.
long story short: doctor's office, animal control, antibiotics, a dog owner who doesn't speak english, doctor's bills.
but i think i'm fine. a little traumatized, but generally fine.
the question is: who remembers when i got my last tetnus shot? 1994 or 2002?
crap.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
A Moment
"Ask Hosea where he's from," my friend whispered to me. His two year old son was born and raised all two years of his life in Austin, Tx.
"Where are you from Hosea?"
"I'm from Africa."
"Africa?"
"Yeah, me and the new Bjork."
"Bjork? The singer?"
He just smiled and ducked his head like an embarressed little child. Oh wait, he is a child. And he's in love with an Icelandic icon and thinks he's from Africa. Nice.
"Where are you from Hosea?"
"I'm from Africa."
"Africa?"
"Yeah, me and the new Bjork."
"Bjork? The singer?"
He just smiled and ducked his head like an embarressed little child. Oh wait, he is a child. And he's in love with an Icelandic icon and thinks he's from Africa. Nice.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Beginning and Ending: a week in Jacksonville, Florida
I flew in a day early and stayed a day late, primarily to go to the beach.
Holy cow Florida beaches are so much better than Texas ones. Hate to break it to you Texans but you're not the biggest or the best when it comes to the ocean. (I suppose now they'll use the argument that their body of water is a "gulf." Whatever. Everyone knows Texas beaches suck).
The first day Kevin (the Hendricks Avenue Baptist Church resident), his wife Andrea and I went to a dog-friendly beach. Of course they brought their dog: Bug the Pug which was a blast. The waves were big, the sand was white and the dog would doggie paddle even if you just held him out over the water. Awesome.
Day two everyone began to arrive. Rachel flew in early enough to catch a few afternoon rays at the beach (not that she needed them!) and then most everyone had arrived by dinnertime. We ate at some crazy restaurant that screamed Florida. It was surrounded by water on three sides and actually had small (and one large) crocodiles swimming around with the turtles. That was awesome.
The plethora of stuffed animals (from squirrels to monkeys) displayed ALL OVER the interior of the restaurant, i could have done without though. I love animals. Alive ones. Gross.
The first day of the retreat, i showed up in the lobby to eat my breakfast at 8:45 (we were supposed to be at the church by 9), quickly scarfed down some eggs and a pastry and then left with the residents for the church. I discovered the next morning that I was supposed to have paid. Assuming it was a free continental breakfast and when the lady at the coffee counter didn't say another to me, i just walked out. Don't worry, i paid for breakfast the next two mornings...
At the church we had a morning devotional given by Rachel on beginnings and endings. Then Valerie had us each (residents and supervising pastors) choose one or two pictures from a ton she had scattered on the floor that describes our residency over the past two years. I quickly became aware that this retreat was not going to be like the others; that this was a time for reflection, for shutting doors and opening new ones, for processing, for saying goodbye and saying hello. I thought of how awkward I felt at the first resident meeting, wondering if I even wanted to work in a church while all the other residents seemed so confident, so together, so ready. I picked up a picture. And I remembered how different I felt walking into First Baptist as a member, a minister in the very traditional, high church, hymn singing, hair greying congregation and wonder if I would even fit in. I recalled that at the time, I was just so thankful to have a job. I remember mom and I wondering if the salary FBC/CBF was offering me would be split over two years or if I actually would make that much money every year. It seemed unreal. Foreign. I found another photo. Then I remembered my ordination, how everything changed. How receiving this one grant and getting this one job at this one particular church changed my life forever. I selected my third picture.
I listened to my friend talk about the photo he selected of eggs lined in a carton with one lone egg broken open. I thought about how when we first met at the first meeting in Atlanta, he had been married and returned home to his wife. After our first conference in Atlanta a few months later, he returned home to an announcement that his wife was leaving him. But he's not the only one broken, he explained. Everyone who sits in our pews has a similar story to tell, a similar paranoia of being the broken egg in a carton full of healthy white ones. I thought about an ending in my residency, something I haven't thought of in a while. I remembered Kyle's death, how it traumatized me, how I wanted to drop out of ministry because God was unreliable and I was unfit for a church. An ending. A broken egg spilling yoke and yellow into the brown recyclable cardboard carton. Broken Broken Broken.
And then I was ordained. Open. Open. Open.
That night Roger arrived from being on vacation and we all went to dinner at a lovely restraurant on the St. John River. After salads, flounder, crab, wine, creme brule, and much much more, my two "best friends" in the residency program and I walked across the split bridge to check out the nightlife in Jacksonville.
We like to keep each other updated on our love lives and latest drama, and make a habit of going out alone to chill at least once on each trip. We settled at the Twisted Martini and after our guts had been spilled, our anxieties released, and our craving for community satiated, we headed back to the hotel.
Day two of the retreat provided for much needed conversation between the residents and Valerie, our closest supportor and "boss," in addition to words of affirmation from our supervising pastors, IME mentors and each other. We received plaques for "completing the program," worshipped together again, and of course, took pictures.
August 31st, my two year Residency ends and September 1st, my new job as Minister to Young Adults and of Creative Discipleship begins. Beginnings and endings. I will pay close attention.
Holy cow Florida beaches are so much better than Texas ones. Hate to break it to you Texans but you're not the biggest or the best when it comes to the ocean. (I suppose now they'll use the argument that their body of water is a "gulf." Whatever. Everyone knows Texas beaches suck).
The first day Kevin (the Hendricks Avenue Baptist Church resident), his wife Andrea and I went to a dog-friendly beach. Of course they brought their dog: Bug the Pug which was a blast. The waves were big, the sand was white and the dog would doggie paddle even if you just held him out over the water. Awesome.
Day two everyone began to arrive. Rachel flew in early enough to catch a few afternoon rays at the beach (not that she needed them!) and then most everyone had arrived by dinnertime. We ate at some crazy restaurant that screamed Florida. It was surrounded by water on three sides and actually had small (and one large) crocodiles swimming around with the turtles. That was awesome.
The plethora of stuffed animals (from squirrels to monkeys) displayed ALL OVER the interior of the restaurant, i could have done without though. I love animals. Alive ones. Gross.
The first day of the retreat, i showed up in the lobby to eat my breakfast at 8:45 (we were supposed to be at the church by 9), quickly scarfed down some eggs and a pastry and then left with the residents for the church. I discovered the next morning that I was supposed to have paid. Assuming it was a free continental breakfast and when the lady at the coffee counter didn't say another to me, i just walked out. Don't worry, i paid for breakfast the next two mornings...
At the church we had a morning devotional given by Rachel on beginnings and endings. Then Valerie had us each (residents and supervising pastors) choose one or two pictures from a ton she had scattered on the floor that describes our residency over the past two years. I quickly became aware that this retreat was not going to be like the others; that this was a time for reflection, for shutting doors and opening new ones, for processing, for saying goodbye and saying hello. I thought of how awkward I felt at the first resident meeting, wondering if I even wanted to work in a church while all the other residents seemed so confident, so together, so ready. I picked up a picture. And I remembered how different I felt walking into First Baptist as a member, a minister in the very traditional, high church, hymn singing, hair greying congregation and wonder if I would even fit in. I recalled that at the time, I was just so thankful to have a job. I remember mom and I wondering if the salary FBC/CBF was offering me would be split over two years or if I actually would make that much money every year. It seemed unreal. Foreign. I found another photo. Then I remembered my ordination, how everything changed. How receiving this one grant and getting this one job at this one particular church changed my life forever. I selected my third picture.
I listened to my friend talk about the photo he selected of eggs lined in a carton with one lone egg broken open. I thought about how when we first met at the first meeting in Atlanta, he had been married and returned home to his wife. After our first conference in Atlanta a few months later, he returned home to an announcement that his wife was leaving him. But he's not the only one broken, he explained. Everyone who sits in our pews has a similar story to tell, a similar paranoia of being the broken egg in a carton full of healthy white ones. I thought about an ending in my residency, something I haven't thought of in a while. I remembered Kyle's death, how it traumatized me, how I wanted to drop out of ministry because God was unreliable and I was unfit for a church. An ending. A broken egg spilling yoke and yellow into the brown recyclable cardboard carton. Broken Broken Broken.
And then I was ordained. Open. Open. Open.
That night Roger arrived from being on vacation and we all went to dinner at a lovely restraurant on the St. John River. After salads, flounder, crab, wine, creme brule, and much much more, my two "best friends" in the residency program and I walked across the split bridge to check out the nightlife in Jacksonville.
We like to keep each other updated on our love lives and latest drama, and make a habit of going out alone to chill at least once on each trip. We settled at the Twisted Martini and after our guts had been spilled, our anxieties released, and our craving for community satiated, we headed back to the hotel.
Day two of the retreat provided for much needed conversation between the residents and Valerie, our closest supportor and "boss," in addition to words of affirmation from our supervising pastors, IME mentors and each other. We received plaques for "completing the program," worshipped together again, and of course, took pictures.
August 31st, my two year Residency ends and September 1st, my new job as Minister to Young Adults and of Creative Discipleship begins. Beginnings and endings. I will pay close attention.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Little By Little (or Kusek by Kusek) They're Leaving Me
There were five in the bed and the little one said, "roll over, roll over" So they all rolled over and two fell out there were three in the bed and the little one said, "roll over, roll over." So they all rolled over and two fell out. There was one in the bed and the little one said, "Where did everybody go?"
Peter and Joy Kusek: Israel
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
I Will Sing You A Song To Tell You How I Feel
five little monkeys jumpin' on the bed
two fell out and bonked their heads
three in the bed and the little one said,
"roll over, roll over"
the exodus begins.
hope you have fun living in sherman.
we'll keep the light on for ya.
two fell out and bonked their heads
three in the bed and the little one said,
"roll over, roll over"
the exodus begins.
hope you have fun living in sherman.
we'll keep the light on for ya.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
It Is Finished. The Final of Four
The final sermon in my month's series: Luke 11:1-13...
Dear God, please keep me safe tonight. Don’t let anyone break into my house and hurt me or my family or kill me. Thank you for the trees and the animals and my cat and the mountains and the sun. Please help me to fall asleep quickly. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.
I used to pray the same prayer every night as a child. I can still remember it. Lord, don’t let anyone kill me and thank you for the trees. Supplication and thanksgiving in its purest form.
That prayer carried on until high school when I became very studious with my Christianity. I bought a prayer journal and read my Bible every night even if I fell asleep halfway through. In the prayer journal I would write my prayer requests on one side and the answered prayers on the other. Week after week I’d write the same requests only by now they had become more sophisticated: please God, help me to get a boyfriend and help my dad to get a job.
The first time I ever experienced pain on a deep level I was in college. To cope, I prayed all the time: I’d lay awake at night praying and crying and crying and praying. The second serious loss I experienced was after seminary. I cried some more and decided to write out my prayers in a journal, this time for a half an hour during lunch. It was Lent and I would sit in the Teacher’s Lounge at work and write; write and beg God and praise God and try not to cry. The third time I experienced overwhelming pain, I stopped praying. The pain was so acute and so unfamiliar that even prayer, which had been as familiar as breathing, could not ease my pain. So I just cried and put up a wall around my heart, to protect it from the world, protect it from an unreliable God. No prayers would escape and no healing would enter in.
So now I don’t pray a lot. I’m not a Jane Lowrimore or a Margie Mines or a Millie Bishop. It doesn’t come easily. It’s confusing, and often the complexity of it overwhelms me. I pray when people ask me to mind you. It’s my job. I pray in staff meeting. I pray for people who call in prayer requests. I pray when emergency vehicles pass me with their sirens blaring. I pray every week at Beresheth and I mean the prayers, I really do. But I don’t know what they mean and I can’t explain them. So when I discovered the topic for my final week of preaching was Prayer, I began my prayer of lamentation.
“Roger, I can’t preach on this I don’t understand it!” He was not helpful in releasing me of this burden. So I went to my friends.
“This is the most difficult topic for me you guys, I can’t do it. I don’t even pray much myself. I don’t know if I believe in it!” (Whatever that means).
“Well that’s not an option Ann,” they chided me. “It’s your job. You’re supposed to pray.”
Their words were a slap in the face. A moment of vulnerability and I was given no grace.
They were right though. If I’m a spiritual leader, or even if I’m just a recent convert, I’m supposed to pray. I’m supposed to talk to God. Even if it weren’t my professional job, it’s my duty as a Christian!
The problem is that fitting prayer into a formula of “give me bread and keep me from trials” isn’t helpful for me. “Ask and ye shall receive” seems a blatant contradiction to much of my experience and observations about life. And just because my dad doesn’t give me a scorpion when I ask for fish doesn’t mean my neighbor won’t. The world is unpredictable.
“The prayer of a righteous man will go far!” people used to tell me. But I don’t know why they quoted that. I don’t have the confidence to admonish someone to pray and to expect it to change their situation in life.
Because when we pray for God to change things in our lives, it doesn’t always happen. When we view prayer like this, prayer doesn’t always “work.” Prayer is not a prescription for success. It’s not a health plan. So when someone calls to tell me their father has cancer, or that their cyst turned into a tumor, I do pray for healing of their bodies, but it scares me. I’m afraid of what will happen if healing doesn’t come, of how that person will feel, how I will feel. So mostly I pray God’s comfort goes to the family, I pray that the best medicine will be prescribed, I pray for wisdom on the part of the doctors, I pray for peace and perseverance for the patient. I pray for healing, but I don’t necessarily believe it will be given.
I’m a terrible minister, I know.
But God doesn’t intervene on every illness. God doesn’t prevent every car wreck. God doesn’t stop the downsizing of a company. And I can’t stop it either. Even if I ask God to, I will not necessarily receive what I ask for. So often I’m afraid to ask.
But the Bible says…
Yes, I know. The Bible says an annoying neighbor will get what they request. The Bible says a father will not give his child a snake. The Bible says ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find.
So I guess my question is – what? What will we receive? And do we even know what to ask for?
Often I think prayer can be easily interchanged with wishes. Wishes and wants. Not necessarily selfish ones, but things we expect from life and from God nevertheless. What I can’t control, I give to God: safety on airplanes, healing of family members, protection of loved ones. As I was growing up, I wished for what was out of my reach, and subconsciously, expected God to deliver.
As a teenager, when I’d catch a star’s eye at night, this is what I’d recite: Starlight star bright first star I see tonight, I wish I may I wish I might have this wish I wish tonight. I wish I would pass my history test, in Jesus name I pray, Amen.
A wish functioned as a prayer and a prayer ended in Jesus’ name. It was habit.
When I have trouble understanding something about life or God or myself, I often turn to music. I find that musicians have a way of articulating through words and music what I cannot express myself. So it is with prayer. Much of what I understand, or don’t understand about prayer is expressed by some of my favorite songwriters. My questions are… Why ask for things in prayer when there is no guaranteed outcome? Why does the Bible speak in such concrete terms about prayer when in reality life is so much more complicated? Should we pray to change the world? Should we pray to change ourselves? If the prayer of a righteous woman goes a long way, why didn’t healing come, why didn’t safety prevail, why weren’t her prayers answered? If I can supposedly raise the dead in the name of Jesus why can’t I get over this cold?
Sufjan Stevens in one of his songs off his album Illinois articulates my frustration as he sings about a friend who died from bone cancer.
Tuesday night at the bible study
We lift our hands and pray over your body
But nothing ever happens
Yes. Yes. That’s what I don’t understand.
And it makes me feel helpless. Sometimes I feel helpless and I feel like God is helpless too. He’s battling humanity’s free will and the cyclical nature of cause and effect in the world. And so Don Chaffer sings from the perspective of an angry Christian calling God out on all the evil in the world.
I came stumbling into church
With a hot gun in my hands
I was ready to talk to Jesus
To tell him my demands.
(He says to Jesus)
Now you can stand right there and judge me
Shoot, you can send me straight to hell
I know you got the power
I know that fact full well
But before you do explain to me
Why suffering and why death?
And why did I pray all those years
And waste all that good breath?
Do you ever feel like that?
Now you may argue with me and say, “Ann, what you’re describing is an issue of theodicy (reconciling the presence of evil with the presence of a good God), not an issue of prayer.” But to attempt to reconcile the presence of suffering in the world with the presence of an active and wholly good God necessitates, in my opinion, a discussion on prayer.
After all, it is Abraham in the Old Testament who talks God out of destroying Sodom for the sake of 50, 45, 40, 30, 20 even 10 righteous people. And it is Job who boldly confronts God in prayer about taking away everything he had in life from his job to his family to his health. It is Jesus who cries out, “Not my will, but yours!” when facing capital punishment.
They prayed. When faced with evil, they prayed. And so, for me, the two are inextricably linked. You can’t talk about prayer without acknowledging the reality of pain. If God is not good, then why appeal to him for goodness? And if we are not meant to have a personal relationship with God – one in which we can talk, and communicate on an intimate level such as prayer suggests – then why bother with the incarnational Christ?
Prayer is relationship.
No! No! Some of you may want to scream. “Ask and ye shall receive!” “I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly!” “The Lord bless you and keep you.” “The same Lord is the Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him.” “God blesses the home of the righteous.” Are you saying God doesn’t want to give us the desires of our hearts?
I think God would rather give us the Holy Spirit. At least, that’s what it says in verse 13. And then perhaps the Holy Spirit adjusts the desires of our hearts so they match what is in God’s.
Truthfully, I would say my life is a prayer, that as I live and breathe and think and emote, all my self belongs to God. When my life depends on the breathe of God, how could anything I utter be anything but a prayer? Being in constant conversation with God - that feels like prayer. When I’m sad and can’t talk so I go garden, that’s prayer. When I’m overwhelmed with excitement and I rejoice with my friends, that’s prayer. When I’m frustrated in traffic and then get frustrated because I’m frustrated – that becomes prayer too. But somebody else would probably say that “life is a prayer” is a copout answer. And if “life is a prayer” were really what prayer’s like, then why would the disciples have asked Jesus to teach them how to pray? Maybe because they felt like me.
And so Jesus complies.
And so do I. Prayer is obedience.
You know what Mother Theresa told a reporter once when he asked her how does she pray. She responded, “I listen.” And what does God do, the reporter asked. “He listens,” she replied.
I don’t have any brilliant insight on Luke 11:1-13. I don’t have anything profound to share with you about prayer. All I have is my experience and my confession as one of your pastors but more importantly, as your companion on this journey through life in Christ. It’s true, I don’t always voice my prayers, and I’m working on that; but my sighs and smiles and aching and laughter are always lifted up to heaven. I don’t always get what I expect in life, but I depend on God to get me through it anyway. God knows. God is my source and my salvation. The Holy Spirit is my comfort and my conscience. And Jesus Christ was confronted with evil every day he was here too.
Hallelujah.
Ann Pittman
First Baptist Church Austin
July 29, 2007
Dear God, please keep me safe tonight. Don’t let anyone break into my house and hurt me or my family or kill me. Thank you for the trees and the animals and my cat and the mountains and the sun. Please help me to fall asleep quickly. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.
I used to pray the same prayer every night as a child. I can still remember it. Lord, don’t let anyone kill me and thank you for the trees. Supplication and thanksgiving in its purest form.
That prayer carried on until high school when I became very studious with my Christianity. I bought a prayer journal and read my Bible every night even if I fell asleep halfway through. In the prayer journal I would write my prayer requests on one side and the answered prayers on the other. Week after week I’d write the same requests only by now they had become more sophisticated: please God, help me to get a boyfriend and help my dad to get a job.
The first time I ever experienced pain on a deep level I was in college. To cope, I prayed all the time: I’d lay awake at night praying and crying and crying and praying. The second serious loss I experienced was after seminary. I cried some more and decided to write out my prayers in a journal, this time for a half an hour during lunch. It was Lent and I would sit in the Teacher’s Lounge at work and write; write and beg God and praise God and try not to cry. The third time I experienced overwhelming pain, I stopped praying. The pain was so acute and so unfamiliar that even prayer, which had been as familiar as breathing, could not ease my pain. So I just cried and put up a wall around my heart, to protect it from the world, protect it from an unreliable God. No prayers would escape and no healing would enter in.
So now I don’t pray a lot. I’m not a Jane Lowrimore or a Margie Mines or a Millie Bishop. It doesn’t come easily. It’s confusing, and often the complexity of it overwhelms me. I pray when people ask me to mind you. It’s my job. I pray in staff meeting. I pray for people who call in prayer requests. I pray when emergency vehicles pass me with their sirens blaring. I pray every week at Beresheth and I mean the prayers, I really do. But I don’t know what they mean and I can’t explain them. So when I discovered the topic for my final week of preaching was Prayer, I began my prayer of lamentation.
“Roger, I can’t preach on this I don’t understand it!” He was not helpful in releasing me of this burden. So I went to my friends.
“This is the most difficult topic for me you guys, I can’t do it. I don’t even pray much myself. I don’t know if I believe in it!” (Whatever that means).
“Well that’s not an option Ann,” they chided me. “It’s your job. You’re supposed to pray.”
Their words were a slap in the face. A moment of vulnerability and I was given no grace.
They were right though. If I’m a spiritual leader, or even if I’m just a recent convert, I’m supposed to pray. I’m supposed to talk to God. Even if it weren’t my professional job, it’s my duty as a Christian!
The problem is that fitting prayer into a formula of “give me bread and keep me from trials” isn’t helpful for me. “Ask and ye shall receive” seems a blatant contradiction to much of my experience and observations about life. And just because my dad doesn’t give me a scorpion when I ask for fish doesn’t mean my neighbor won’t. The world is unpredictable.
“The prayer of a righteous man will go far!” people used to tell me. But I don’t know why they quoted that. I don’t have the confidence to admonish someone to pray and to expect it to change their situation in life.
Because when we pray for God to change things in our lives, it doesn’t always happen. When we view prayer like this, prayer doesn’t always “work.” Prayer is not a prescription for success. It’s not a health plan. So when someone calls to tell me their father has cancer, or that their cyst turned into a tumor, I do pray for healing of their bodies, but it scares me. I’m afraid of what will happen if healing doesn’t come, of how that person will feel, how I will feel. So mostly I pray God’s comfort goes to the family, I pray that the best medicine will be prescribed, I pray for wisdom on the part of the doctors, I pray for peace and perseverance for the patient. I pray for healing, but I don’t necessarily believe it will be given.
I’m a terrible minister, I know.
But God doesn’t intervene on every illness. God doesn’t prevent every car wreck. God doesn’t stop the downsizing of a company. And I can’t stop it either. Even if I ask God to, I will not necessarily receive what I ask for. So often I’m afraid to ask.
But the Bible says…
Yes, I know. The Bible says an annoying neighbor will get what they request. The Bible says a father will not give his child a snake. The Bible says ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find.
So I guess my question is – what? What will we receive? And do we even know what to ask for?
Often I think prayer can be easily interchanged with wishes. Wishes and wants. Not necessarily selfish ones, but things we expect from life and from God nevertheless. What I can’t control, I give to God: safety on airplanes, healing of family members, protection of loved ones. As I was growing up, I wished for what was out of my reach, and subconsciously, expected God to deliver.
As a teenager, when I’d catch a star’s eye at night, this is what I’d recite: Starlight star bright first star I see tonight, I wish I may I wish I might have this wish I wish tonight. I wish I would pass my history test, in Jesus name I pray, Amen.
A wish functioned as a prayer and a prayer ended in Jesus’ name. It was habit.
When I have trouble understanding something about life or God or myself, I often turn to music. I find that musicians have a way of articulating through words and music what I cannot express myself. So it is with prayer. Much of what I understand, or don’t understand about prayer is expressed by some of my favorite songwriters. My questions are… Why ask for things in prayer when there is no guaranteed outcome? Why does the Bible speak in such concrete terms about prayer when in reality life is so much more complicated? Should we pray to change the world? Should we pray to change ourselves? If the prayer of a righteous woman goes a long way, why didn’t healing come, why didn’t safety prevail, why weren’t her prayers answered? If I can supposedly raise the dead in the name of Jesus why can’t I get over this cold?
Sufjan Stevens in one of his songs off his album Illinois articulates my frustration as he sings about a friend who died from bone cancer.
Tuesday night at the bible study
We lift our hands and pray over your body
But nothing ever happens
Yes. Yes. That’s what I don’t understand.
And it makes me feel helpless. Sometimes I feel helpless and I feel like God is helpless too. He’s battling humanity’s free will and the cyclical nature of cause and effect in the world. And so Don Chaffer sings from the perspective of an angry Christian calling God out on all the evil in the world.
I came stumbling into church
With a hot gun in my hands
I was ready to talk to Jesus
To tell him my demands.
(He says to Jesus)
Now you can stand right there and judge me
Shoot, you can send me straight to hell
I know you got the power
I know that fact full well
But before you do explain to me
Why suffering and why death?
And why did I pray all those years
And waste all that good breath?
Do you ever feel like that?
Now you may argue with me and say, “Ann, what you’re describing is an issue of theodicy (reconciling the presence of evil with the presence of a good God), not an issue of prayer.” But to attempt to reconcile the presence of suffering in the world with the presence of an active and wholly good God necessitates, in my opinion, a discussion on prayer.
After all, it is Abraham in the Old Testament who talks God out of destroying Sodom for the sake of 50, 45, 40, 30, 20 even 10 righteous people. And it is Job who boldly confronts God in prayer about taking away everything he had in life from his job to his family to his health. It is Jesus who cries out, “Not my will, but yours!” when facing capital punishment.
They prayed. When faced with evil, they prayed. And so, for me, the two are inextricably linked. You can’t talk about prayer without acknowledging the reality of pain. If God is not good, then why appeal to him for goodness? And if we are not meant to have a personal relationship with God – one in which we can talk, and communicate on an intimate level such as prayer suggests – then why bother with the incarnational Christ?
Prayer is relationship.
No! No! Some of you may want to scream. “Ask and ye shall receive!” “I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly!” “The Lord bless you and keep you.” “The same Lord is the Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him.” “God blesses the home of the righteous.” Are you saying God doesn’t want to give us the desires of our hearts?
I think God would rather give us the Holy Spirit. At least, that’s what it says in verse 13. And then perhaps the Holy Spirit adjusts the desires of our hearts so they match what is in God’s.
Truthfully, I would say my life is a prayer, that as I live and breathe and think and emote, all my self belongs to God. When my life depends on the breathe of God, how could anything I utter be anything but a prayer? Being in constant conversation with God - that feels like prayer. When I’m sad and can’t talk so I go garden, that’s prayer. When I’m overwhelmed with excitement and I rejoice with my friends, that’s prayer. When I’m frustrated in traffic and then get frustrated because I’m frustrated – that becomes prayer too. But somebody else would probably say that “life is a prayer” is a copout answer. And if “life is a prayer” were really what prayer’s like, then why would the disciples have asked Jesus to teach them how to pray? Maybe because they felt like me.
And so Jesus complies.
And so do I. Prayer is obedience.
You know what Mother Theresa told a reporter once when he asked her how does she pray. She responded, “I listen.” And what does God do, the reporter asked. “He listens,” she replied.
I don’t have any brilliant insight on Luke 11:1-13. I don’t have anything profound to share with you about prayer. All I have is my experience and my confession as one of your pastors but more importantly, as your companion on this journey through life in Christ. It’s true, I don’t always voice my prayers, and I’m working on that; but my sighs and smiles and aching and laughter are always lifted up to heaven. I don’t always get what I expect in life, but I depend on God to get me through it anyway. God knows. God is my source and my salvation. The Holy Spirit is my comfort and my conscience. And Jesus Christ was confronted with evil every day he was here too.
Hallelujah.
Ann Pittman
First Baptist Church Austin
July 29, 2007
Friday, July 27, 2007
The Time Was Sweet, the Hour Has Passed
Day is Done
Gone the Sun
And so are the parents.
Sigh. So short lived. But man we got a lot accomplished in four days (three full, two half).
4 Lunches
2 Bar-B-Cues
3 Dinners
1 Breakfast
Which makes 8 restaurants, two friends homes, good food and of course a ton of friends (including FBC friends, Mosaic friends, Waco friends and neighborhood friends)
I had bought Dad (and mom) tickets to see Jesus Christ Superstar/Estralla at Zach Scott for Dad's Birthday/Father's Day gift. The show is an artistic masterpiece. With regard to its creativity, it beats every show I've ever seen - London, Broadway, wherever. Mom and Dad were shocked and in love with it too and dad said I should have been cast in it. That made me feel good.
They got to go to their favorite Sunday School in the world which happens to be at my church: Symposium. That made them happy. Then worship of course where their darling daughter preached and hopefully didn't embarrass them too much with anecdotes of their family. :) Then came bbq and swimming with Awakening (mine if i went to one) Sunday School class which was so relaxing and fun. Will, Frank and Michael diving off the board were the icing on the cake. Too much fun. We finished up Sunday with another bbq at Ren and Alicia's where mom and dad got to see the Johnsons and the Chance's which they liked.
Monday we attacked my yard moving 6 bushes to the back of the house. Thank you Jesus! and rearranging several in front. It was hard on my parent's progressively older bodies, but even more painful for the plants. We definitely killed one of them, my favorite, but mom bought me another one to make up for it and after trimming the dead one, she assured me it would bloom back again!
My father loves to shop. So one day we went down to San Marcos to peruse the #3 Mall in the World. A huge outdoor outlet mall with "Little Italy" inside it. Complete with gondolas. It rocked and I hit some much needed sales on some much needed work clothes, so that was a bonus too. The hideous restaurant we ate at after shopping did not rock. It was unpleasant. I hope that word conveys what is really in my heart. Blech. However, the next day when we shopped at Home Depot (one of my favorites!), my dad bought me a weed eater!!!! Watch out world. I will whack you! It's the best gift all summer!
We got to spend time with the Nethercuts (always a hoot and a half), Roger, and Pete and Joy too. They updated my parents on all of their adventures. My parents left breakfast motivated and inspired.
And then they left town. I was sad to see them go. I wish they could have stayed longer. But maybe next time they'll stay longer and bring grandma, and emily.
That'd be fun too.
Gone the Sun
And so are the parents.
Sigh. So short lived. But man we got a lot accomplished in four days (three full, two half).
4 Lunches
2 Bar-B-Cues
3 Dinners
1 Breakfast
Which makes 8 restaurants, two friends homes, good food and of course a ton of friends (including FBC friends, Mosaic friends, Waco friends and neighborhood friends)
I had bought Dad (and mom) tickets to see Jesus Christ Superstar/Estralla at Zach Scott for Dad's Birthday/Father's Day gift. The show is an artistic masterpiece. With regard to its creativity, it beats every show I've ever seen - London, Broadway, wherever. Mom and Dad were shocked and in love with it too and dad said I should have been cast in it. That made me feel good.
They got to go to their favorite Sunday School in the world which happens to be at my church: Symposium. That made them happy. Then worship of course where their darling daughter preached and hopefully didn't embarrass them too much with anecdotes of their family. :) Then came bbq and swimming with Awakening (mine if i went to one) Sunday School class which was so relaxing and fun. Will, Frank and Michael diving off the board were the icing on the cake. Too much fun. We finished up Sunday with another bbq at Ren and Alicia's where mom and dad got to see the Johnsons and the Chance's which they liked.
Monday we attacked my yard moving 6 bushes to the back of the house. Thank you Jesus! and rearranging several in front. It was hard on my parent's progressively older bodies, but even more painful for the plants. We definitely killed one of them, my favorite, but mom bought me another one to make up for it and after trimming the dead one, she assured me it would bloom back again!
My father loves to shop. So one day we went down to San Marcos to peruse the #3 Mall in the World. A huge outdoor outlet mall with "Little Italy" inside it. Complete with gondolas. It rocked and I hit some much needed sales on some much needed work clothes, so that was a bonus too. The hideous restaurant we ate at after shopping did not rock. It was unpleasant. I hope that word conveys what is really in my heart. Blech. However, the next day when we shopped at Home Depot (one of my favorites!), my dad bought me a weed eater!!!! Watch out world. I will whack you! It's the best gift all summer!
We got to spend time with the Nethercuts (always a hoot and a half), Roger, and Pete and Joy too. They updated my parents on all of their adventures. My parents left breakfast motivated and inspired.
And then they left town. I was sad to see them go. I wish they could have stayed longer. But maybe next time they'll stay longer and bring grandma, and emily.
That'd be fun too.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Returning To Our Roots
Week Three of the Sermon Series: Luke 10:38-42...
I know all about what it means to have a younger sister. I’ve got two of them. And for this reason, I’m pretty sure Martha’s the oldest sister and Mary is younger. I’m not comparing myself to a Martha mind you – don’t be so quick to judge. But I am an older sister and I know what it means to feel alone.
Isn’t that strange? To have siblings living in the same house as you, and to feel alone? Sisters are supposed to be your best friends. And mine are, by the grace of God. We all made it through high school and now we’re all friends. But that doesn’t mean at one time or another, our sisterhood didn’t make us feel alone. That’s what happens when sisters disagree on matters of the house and how to life’s gonna get lived. Jealousy rules the roost.
Now, I gotta tell you, my father was the only man in my house and he was faced with four Pittman women. You can imagine how that fared. Needless to say, my dad never made any decisions regarding the family. Mom would pick what’s for dinner cause she was cookin’ it anyway. Each evening each of the daughters would announce what her schedule was for that night and demand to be driven around. My dad would suggest that we should help mom clean up in the kitchen, but that usually amounted to mass hysteria because somebody was late and had to go, somebody had a test the next day, somebody was too short to put away the dishes and somebody always ended up in tears. I think my dad ended up cleaning the kitchen.
Not on holidays though. True to our matriarchal heritage, the women took to the kitchen. First would appear the appetizers: little water chestnuts wrapped in bacon, cheese balls with crackers, pickles and okra and olives and shrimp. The main course would probably be a large turkey with stuffing and green beans or brussel spouts and rolls with homemade jelly, probably some sort of salad and of course mashed potatoes with brown gravy. Dessert came hours later as everyone was always too stuffed to eat immediately after our meal. So we would partake of the cherry pie, pumpkin pie, rhubarb pie and angel fruit cake (for anyone watching their weight) later in the day. The women produced the food. Except me. Cooking food was of no interest to me, still isn’t, and so I’d take to the living room to hear about politics or sports (which I don’t even like) or I’d hear the latest theatre gossip or about what’s going on with the businesses or what second cousin so-n-so is doing now - all depending on who the guests were at the house. And if all that conversation became boring, I’d read.
When my sister Amy got old enough to join the cooks in the kitchen, she would complain that I wasn’t helping, that I was just sitting around sipping on sparkling grape juice not doing anything while she rolled the crescent rolls or tried her hand at a homemade pie crust. Maybe she was right, but usually my mom would say to my sister, “Well do you really want her cooking?” and she’d call me in to stir the gravy. I’d smoosh out the hot bubbles with the spoon as the gravy boiled in the pan and wonder about the book I’d left and whether Atticus was going to be able to get Tom Robinson out of jail.
As we got older, we took to fighting over cars. We had one to share, the Green Bomb, a 1980 Buick Century and technically it was mine, I was older. That car was a disaster but we’d fight over who got control of it come Friday night. I’d take the higher road insisting that I was older and the car was mine after all until my parents starting giving Amy their car to use which was at least made in the 90’s and had air conditioning and a tape player and was obviously not a fair decision. I was older, I should get to drive their nicer car – give Amy the Green Bomb!
And back and forth it was – who wasn’t helping out with chores, who wasn’t being nice enough, who was misbehaving at dinner, who got the good car, etc. etc. etc. It didn’t really end until my sister got divorced and I stopped believing that life would be fair. The need for equality and everybody putting in their share, their effort, their dues went out the window. Life wasn’t going to be fair so we were going to have to support each other.
Some say the story of Mary and Martha, is a study on attitude. Martha is nervous and uptight with her tasks, with her duty, with Jesus. Mary is focused, calm, receiving the ample love of God. If the two characteristics of people who belong to the covenant of God are to love God and give that love to others, then they cannot be separated. For without receiving what God gives, we see giving to others as undesirable, a burden, something we have to do. Or worse, our self-righteousness produces anger at those who we feel are not doing their part. Attitude issues. Nervous, over-wrought, judgmental, bitter, work-a-holic attitudes. “I’d love to go sit with Jesus and get out of this kitchen, but somebody’s gotta get dinner on the table…” Martha may have muttered. Attitude.
Some describe the story of Mary and Martha as a clash of the temperaments: the active person versus the contemplative person, the busybody versus the quiet listener, the practical versus the spiritual.
My grandma is offended by this interpretation. In fact, she’s offended by the whole Mary Martha text. I remember her telling me so when I was in high school. “There’s gotta be a Martha!” she exclaimed. “Otherwise nobody’d eat!” and she’d serve me some cottage cheese. But my grandma is a very practical person. She has the gift of hospitality and so does my mother. So when their children and grandchildren come home, the feast is prepared. “Do you want chicken with avocado tonight, Ann or Aunt Martha’s spaghetti?” Yep, my Great Aunt was named Martha. Not a joke.
But if hospitality’s a gift of God, it’s gotta be used properly. So some scholars say the Mary Martha story is one that illustrates the wrong type of kindness. We find mercy in the Good Samaritan story, good kindness, but in Martha’s story, kindness is appropriated according to her need, not Jesus’. He was tired from traveling, was on his way to Jerusalem to die, he needed quiet, he needed time with good friends, he wanted a simple meal (not some grand feast) and he wanted time to talk. To give him those things would have been to show him mercy. Putting on all the airs was to extend kindness he didn’t need or want.
Some scholars say the Mary Martha story is in juxtaposition with the Good Samaritan story in a different way though. Whereas the story of the Good Samaritan illustrates the second commandment, love your neighbor, this passage illustrates the first commandment: love your God. And so we as readers get stories that show us how to love God and how to love our neighbors. In this reading of the text, Mary is the embodiment of what it means to love God wholly, just as the parable of the Good Samaritan held up the Samaritan as the embodiment of what it means to love one’s neighbor. The two together teach us what it means to inherit eternal life.
But still others describe the Mary Martha story in a slightly different way. Some say it’s a parable, a parable about discipleship: First we get the Good Samaritan, a story about serving, and now we get the Good Disciple in a story about loving God. In this parable, Mary can see that Jesus is himself the Law and is ready to receive her instruction. Martha however, lacks proper attention which brings insight. And so our heroine, Mary, is the Good Disciple.
This are all helpful interpretations of this biblical passage, some you may have considered before, and some perhaps are new to you, but as I reread the text again, I return to my own family, to our dynamic. And I revisit the story again.
“Ann isn’t helping! She’s just sitting on the counter!”
“Just cause I’m female doesn’t mean I have to cook, Amy.”
“I don’t care. You should at least help.”
“I don’t like it, I’m not good at it. Leave me alone.”
Tears would well up in my eyes. I knew everyone in my family was good at cooking. I knew it was a favored pastime of all my relatives. But it didn’t interest me. To be myself wasn’t to be in the kitchen.
Some read the Mary Martha story as a subversive text. Jesus gives Mary the freedom to get out of the kitchen. Her role in society pales in comparison with who she finds herself to be in Christ. Sitting at someone’s feet meant studying under him or her, being a disciple of someone. With regard to church-work and what it means to be a pastor, I sit at the feet of the Rev. Dr. Roger Paynter (don’t tell him I said that!). But no real rabbi at the turn of the first century would teach a woman. Jesus however extends to Mary citizenship in the kingdom of God, he grants her worth in the realm of the spiritual and secondary to this identity are society’s expectations.
But I think there’s more to the text than just that.
With sisters there’s always judgment. Even in love, we critique each other. Our choices in men, our choices in clothing, our choices in movies. My sisters and I are constantly laughing and critiquing and encouraging and judging each other. Sometimes it’s fun. Sometimes it’s frustrating. But none of us has pulled a Mary.
You see, some scholars assert that Mary is not only the sister of Martha who we know through other texts is also the sister of Lazarus, but that Mary, Martha and Lazarus’ sister, is actually Mary Magdalene. What an interesting turn the text takes when we consider this option.
Imagine your sister is the shunned prostitute, the deranged woman with the demons. You don’t know why she chose this path, how she grew so sick. All you know is you don’t know how to help, what to do, and quite frankly, it’s embarrassing the way everyone looks on you with pity. “There’s the sister of that demonic…” You can only extend so much love to one who behaves like that, even if she’s family. So Martha would scurry off to the kitchen to hide her shame. It was safe in the kitchen behind the scenes, where you didn’t have to hear them talk about your family.
Mary is crazy, demon possessed and then she encounters the love of Jesus. He gives her healing and redemption and Mary, she goes home. She commits her life to being a disciple of Christ, and she returns home, healthy and wonder-filled, and when Jesus comes to visit, she can’t help but be near him. Him who brought her healing, him who gave her back her life, him who changed everything.
But Martha thinks her sister Mary ought to be in the kitchen with her. Having a guest is no time to be lazy around the house, gaggling over him. That’s the sort of nonsense that got her in trouble in the first place. If Mary’d just stick with her responsibilities, maybe that would help her stay on track.
“Jesus do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.”
But Mary has learned something from Jesus that Martha has yet to embrace. Mary knows the mystery of God and she wants to know more. Mary has been trapped by demons in her life and Mary has been set free. Mary has stayed silent in the arms of many men, but now in her silence she forms prayers. Mary has seen the world through the eyes of an imprisoned woman, and now she sees the world through the heart of an empowered disciple. And she needs more. More teaching, more learning, more time in the presence of her Master, her Healer, the God who set her free.
Avocado chicken or Aunt Martha’s spaghetti? In Mary’s case it didn’t really matter. Hosting Jesus in their home wasn’t the issue. Hosting him in their hearts was.
You know, the only other person in the book of Luke described as sitting at the feet of Jesus is the Gerasene demoniac. The man who was so severely possessed by demons that he could break chains lived wild and alone in the graveyard outside of town. But after an encounter with Jesus, he too was healed and sought to hear more from his new Master.
Maybe when our pain becomes so acute, we have no choice but to cling to God. Any word from our sacred text, any prayer uttered from our lips, any spiritual discipline we can find becomes our energy, our connection to our source, to the One who makes us well. Maybe that’s why Mary Magdalene and the Gerasene demoniac both got it. They’re so in tune with how they desperately needed Jesus that it becomes easy to see Him as their only priority.
When life fails us, there is a remnant remaining inside, and if we turn to our hearts, turn to our Spirits and open ourselves to God, we return to our roots.
It’s always been about communing with God. In the garden, God and the humans talked, they had a relationship with one another. They lived in community. In the beginning, Abraham left his gods and idols to develop a relationship with a relational God. He talked to God, he learned from God, he communed with God. Josiah, as a teenager, when he found the sacred scrolls in the Temple ruins knew God well enough to demand that the nation cling to that Scripture. Prophets prayed and fasted and slept in the sacred halls begging to get closer to God or to get away from God, because they knew the power of God in their lives.
It’s all about God saving us. It always has been. And maybe what Mary teaches us is that it’s time to return to our roots.
Except this story is also about Martha. It is Martha who takes Jesus into her home, it is she who meets his needs, it is she who plans the huge meal and gets out the tablecloth and the good silver. But it’s Martha who needs to be fed. And probably most of us in here today do too.
Good news: loving your God doesn’t mean being a work-a-holic. Loving God means taking in the words of Jesus, taking in the Spirit of God. It means receiving and giving back. Receiving healing from Jesus and giving him back our adoration.
It’s not our job to host Jesus in our churches or in our homes. To parade him around like a superstar: put his pictures up and eat meals together complete with BBQ and homemade ice cream. That’s fun, but that’s not what’s needed. As John 6:27 says, what matters is the “food which endures to eternal life.” The world is hurting and it doesn’t want to have fun with Jesus or dine with Jesus, the world wants to be near Jesus. The world needs to be healed by Jesus. We need to learn how to be disciples. We need to listen, to study, to heal and to give Jesus our undivided attention.
Mary got it. Maybe she got it because she’d strayed so far from the law – she knew how much grace really cost. Maybe she got it because she was quiet, not really a people person, but a thoughtful girl in her own right. Maybe she got it because her father had taught her the scriptures, because when she burned too many pieces of hallah in the kitchen, she got sent out to play with her dad.
Maybe she just wanted it. Wanted to be filled.
So do I.
So do I long to be refreshed, to relax at the feet of Jesus, to take it in and not constantly give it out. To learn and listen. To be healed and feel safe. To not feel so alone in the kitchen we call life, but to be loved intimately by the Spirit of God.
You see, Jesus’ own service to us is the source of our being, and consequently of all our action. Love God and love your neighbor. Love of God isn’t just connected to love of neighbor. Jesus as Lord, as Healer, as Teacher is the connection between the two. We can’t claim to either love God or love others without choosing to sit, to be quiet, to be changed by Jesus.
It’s Jesus who will get us through. It’s Jesus who can move us from loving God to loving our neighbors. It’s Jesus who can heal and empower and forgive and love. Jesus.
Jesus.
And it’s Jesus who will get us out of the kitchen.
Ann Pittman
First Baptist Church
July 22, 2007
I know all about what it means to have a younger sister. I’ve got two of them. And for this reason, I’m pretty sure Martha’s the oldest sister and Mary is younger. I’m not comparing myself to a Martha mind you – don’t be so quick to judge. But I am an older sister and I know what it means to feel alone.
Isn’t that strange? To have siblings living in the same house as you, and to feel alone? Sisters are supposed to be your best friends. And mine are, by the grace of God. We all made it through high school and now we’re all friends. But that doesn’t mean at one time or another, our sisterhood didn’t make us feel alone. That’s what happens when sisters disagree on matters of the house and how to life’s gonna get lived. Jealousy rules the roost.
Now, I gotta tell you, my father was the only man in my house and he was faced with four Pittman women. You can imagine how that fared. Needless to say, my dad never made any decisions regarding the family. Mom would pick what’s for dinner cause she was cookin’ it anyway. Each evening each of the daughters would announce what her schedule was for that night and demand to be driven around. My dad would suggest that we should help mom clean up in the kitchen, but that usually amounted to mass hysteria because somebody was late and had to go, somebody had a test the next day, somebody was too short to put away the dishes and somebody always ended up in tears. I think my dad ended up cleaning the kitchen.
Not on holidays though. True to our matriarchal heritage, the women took to the kitchen. First would appear the appetizers: little water chestnuts wrapped in bacon, cheese balls with crackers, pickles and okra and olives and shrimp. The main course would probably be a large turkey with stuffing and green beans or brussel spouts and rolls with homemade jelly, probably some sort of salad and of course mashed potatoes with brown gravy. Dessert came hours later as everyone was always too stuffed to eat immediately after our meal. So we would partake of the cherry pie, pumpkin pie, rhubarb pie and angel fruit cake (for anyone watching their weight) later in the day. The women produced the food. Except me. Cooking food was of no interest to me, still isn’t, and so I’d take to the living room to hear about politics or sports (which I don’t even like) or I’d hear the latest theatre gossip or about what’s going on with the businesses or what second cousin so-n-so is doing now - all depending on who the guests were at the house. And if all that conversation became boring, I’d read.
When my sister Amy got old enough to join the cooks in the kitchen, she would complain that I wasn’t helping, that I was just sitting around sipping on sparkling grape juice not doing anything while she rolled the crescent rolls or tried her hand at a homemade pie crust. Maybe she was right, but usually my mom would say to my sister, “Well do you really want her cooking?” and she’d call me in to stir the gravy. I’d smoosh out the hot bubbles with the spoon as the gravy boiled in the pan and wonder about the book I’d left and whether Atticus was going to be able to get Tom Robinson out of jail.
As we got older, we took to fighting over cars. We had one to share, the Green Bomb, a 1980 Buick Century and technically it was mine, I was older. That car was a disaster but we’d fight over who got control of it come Friday night. I’d take the higher road insisting that I was older and the car was mine after all until my parents starting giving Amy their car to use which was at least made in the 90’s and had air conditioning and a tape player and was obviously not a fair decision. I was older, I should get to drive their nicer car – give Amy the Green Bomb!
And back and forth it was – who wasn’t helping out with chores, who wasn’t being nice enough, who was misbehaving at dinner, who got the good car, etc. etc. etc. It didn’t really end until my sister got divorced and I stopped believing that life would be fair. The need for equality and everybody putting in their share, their effort, their dues went out the window. Life wasn’t going to be fair so we were going to have to support each other.
Some say the story of Mary and Martha, is a study on attitude. Martha is nervous and uptight with her tasks, with her duty, with Jesus. Mary is focused, calm, receiving the ample love of God. If the two characteristics of people who belong to the covenant of God are to love God and give that love to others, then they cannot be separated. For without receiving what God gives, we see giving to others as undesirable, a burden, something we have to do. Or worse, our self-righteousness produces anger at those who we feel are not doing their part. Attitude issues. Nervous, over-wrought, judgmental, bitter, work-a-holic attitudes. “I’d love to go sit with Jesus and get out of this kitchen, but somebody’s gotta get dinner on the table…” Martha may have muttered. Attitude.
Some describe the story of Mary and Martha as a clash of the temperaments: the active person versus the contemplative person, the busybody versus the quiet listener, the practical versus the spiritual.
My grandma is offended by this interpretation. In fact, she’s offended by the whole Mary Martha text. I remember her telling me so when I was in high school. “There’s gotta be a Martha!” she exclaimed. “Otherwise nobody’d eat!” and she’d serve me some cottage cheese. But my grandma is a very practical person. She has the gift of hospitality and so does my mother. So when their children and grandchildren come home, the feast is prepared. “Do you want chicken with avocado tonight, Ann or Aunt Martha’s spaghetti?” Yep, my Great Aunt was named Martha. Not a joke.
But if hospitality’s a gift of God, it’s gotta be used properly. So some scholars say the Mary Martha story is one that illustrates the wrong type of kindness. We find mercy in the Good Samaritan story, good kindness, but in Martha’s story, kindness is appropriated according to her need, not Jesus’. He was tired from traveling, was on his way to Jerusalem to die, he needed quiet, he needed time with good friends, he wanted a simple meal (not some grand feast) and he wanted time to talk. To give him those things would have been to show him mercy. Putting on all the airs was to extend kindness he didn’t need or want.
Some scholars say the Mary Martha story is in juxtaposition with the Good Samaritan story in a different way though. Whereas the story of the Good Samaritan illustrates the second commandment, love your neighbor, this passage illustrates the first commandment: love your God. And so we as readers get stories that show us how to love God and how to love our neighbors. In this reading of the text, Mary is the embodiment of what it means to love God wholly, just as the parable of the Good Samaritan held up the Samaritan as the embodiment of what it means to love one’s neighbor. The two together teach us what it means to inherit eternal life.
But still others describe the Mary Martha story in a slightly different way. Some say it’s a parable, a parable about discipleship: First we get the Good Samaritan, a story about serving, and now we get the Good Disciple in a story about loving God. In this parable, Mary can see that Jesus is himself the Law and is ready to receive her instruction. Martha however, lacks proper attention which brings insight. And so our heroine, Mary, is the Good Disciple.
This are all helpful interpretations of this biblical passage, some you may have considered before, and some perhaps are new to you, but as I reread the text again, I return to my own family, to our dynamic. And I revisit the story again.
“Ann isn’t helping! She’s just sitting on the counter!”
“Just cause I’m female doesn’t mean I have to cook, Amy.”
“I don’t care. You should at least help.”
“I don’t like it, I’m not good at it. Leave me alone.”
Tears would well up in my eyes. I knew everyone in my family was good at cooking. I knew it was a favored pastime of all my relatives. But it didn’t interest me. To be myself wasn’t to be in the kitchen.
Some read the Mary Martha story as a subversive text. Jesus gives Mary the freedom to get out of the kitchen. Her role in society pales in comparison with who she finds herself to be in Christ. Sitting at someone’s feet meant studying under him or her, being a disciple of someone. With regard to church-work and what it means to be a pastor, I sit at the feet of the Rev. Dr. Roger Paynter (don’t tell him I said that!). But no real rabbi at the turn of the first century would teach a woman. Jesus however extends to Mary citizenship in the kingdom of God, he grants her worth in the realm of the spiritual and secondary to this identity are society’s expectations.
But I think there’s more to the text than just that.
With sisters there’s always judgment. Even in love, we critique each other. Our choices in men, our choices in clothing, our choices in movies. My sisters and I are constantly laughing and critiquing and encouraging and judging each other. Sometimes it’s fun. Sometimes it’s frustrating. But none of us has pulled a Mary.
You see, some scholars assert that Mary is not only the sister of Martha who we know through other texts is also the sister of Lazarus, but that Mary, Martha and Lazarus’ sister, is actually Mary Magdalene. What an interesting turn the text takes when we consider this option.
Imagine your sister is the shunned prostitute, the deranged woman with the demons. You don’t know why she chose this path, how she grew so sick. All you know is you don’t know how to help, what to do, and quite frankly, it’s embarrassing the way everyone looks on you with pity. “There’s the sister of that demonic…” You can only extend so much love to one who behaves like that, even if she’s family. So Martha would scurry off to the kitchen to hide her shame. It was safe in the kitchen behind the scenes, where you didn’t have to hear them talk about your family.
Mary is crazy, demon possessed and then she encounters the love of Jesus. He gives her healing and redemption and Mary, she goes home. She commits her life to being a disciple of Christ, and she returns home, healthy and wonder-filled, and when Jesus comes to visit, she can’t help but be near him. Him who brought her healing, him who gave her back her life, him who changed everything.
But Martha thinks her sister Mary ought to be in the kitchen with her. Having a guest is no time to be lazy around the house, gaggling over him. That’s the sort of nonsense that got her in trouble in the first place. If Mary’d just stick with her responsibilities, maybe that would help her stay on track.
“Jesus do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.”
But Mary has learned something from Jesus that Martha has yet to embrace. Mary knows the mystery of God and she wants to know more. Mary has been trapped by demons in her life and Mary has been set free. Mary has stayed silent in the arms of many men, but now in her silence she forms prayers. Mary has seen the world through the eyes of an imprisoned woman, and now she sees the world through the heart of an empowered disciple. And she needs more. More teaching, more learning, more time in the presence of her Master, her Healer, the God who set her free.
Avocado chicken or Aunt Martha’s spaghetti? In Mary’s case it didn’t really matter. Hosting Jesus in their home wasn’t the issue. Hosting him in their hearts was.
You know, the only other person in the book of Luke described as sitting at the feet of Jesus is the Gerasene demoniac. The man who was so severely possessed by demons that he could break chains lived wild and alone in the graveyard outside of town. But after an encounter with Jesus, he too was healed and sought to hear more from his new Master.
Maybe when our pain becomes so acute, we have no choice but to cling to God. Any word from our sacred text, any prayer uttered from our lips, any spiritual discipline we can find becomes our energy, our connection to our source, to the One who makes us well. Maybe that’s why Mary Magdalene and the Gerasene demoniac both got it. They’re so in tune with how they desperately needed Jesus that it becomes easy to see Him as their only priority.
When life fails us, there is a remnant remaining inside, and if we turn to our hearts, turn to our Spirits and open ourselves to God, we return to our roots.
It’s always been about communing with God. In the garden, God and the humans talked, they had a relationship with one another. They lived in community. In the beginning, Abraham left his gods and idols to develop a relationship with a relational God. He talked to God, he learned from God, he communed with God. Josiah, as a teenager, when he found the sacred scrolls in the Temple ruins knew God well enough to demand that the nation cling to that Scripture. Prophets prayed and fasted and slept in the sacred halls begging to get closer to God or to get away from God, because they knew the power of God in their lives.
It’s all about God saving us. It always has been. And maybe what Mary teaches us is that it’s time to return to our roots.
Except this story is also about Martha. It is Martha who takes Jesus into her home, it is she who meets his needs, it is she who plans the huge meal and gets out the tablecloth and the good silver. But it’s Martha who needs to be fed. And probably most of us in here today do too.
Good news: loving your God doesn’t mean being a work-a-holic. Loving God means taking in the words of Jesus, taking in the Spirit of God. It means receiving and giving back. Receiving healing from Jesus and giving him back our adoration.
It’s not our job to host Jesus in our churches or in our homes. To parade him around like a superstar: put his pictures up and eat meals together complete with BBQ and homemade ice cream. That’s fun, but that’s not what’s needed. As John 6:27 says, what matters is the “food which endures to eternal life.” The world is hurting and it doesn’t want to have fun with Jesus or dine with Jesus, the world wants to be near Jesus. The world needs to be healed by Jesus. We need to learn how to be disciples. We need to listen, to study, to heal and to give Jesus our undivided attention.
Mary got it. Maybe she got it because she’d strayed so far from the law – she knew how much grace really cost. Maybe she got it because she was quiet, not really a people person, but a thoughtful girl in her own right. Maybe she got it because her father had taught her the scriptures, because when she burned too many pieces of hallah in the kitchen, she got sent out to play with her dad.
Maybe she just wanted it. Wanted to be filled.
So do I.
So do I long to be refreshed, to relax at the feet of Jesus, to take it in and not constantly give it out. To learn and listen. To be healed and feel safe. To not feel so alone in the kitchen we call life, but to be loved intimately by the Spirit of God.
You see, Jesus’ own service to us is the source of our being, and consequently of all our action. Love God and love your neighbor. Love of God isn’t just connected to love of neighbor. Jesus as Lord, as Healer, as Teacher is the connection between the two. We can’t claim to either love God or love others without choosing to sit, to be quiet, to be changed by Jesus.
It’s Jesus who will get us through. It’s Jesus who can move us from loving God to loving our neighbors. It’s Jesus who can heal and empower and forgive and love. Jesus.
Jesus.
And it’s Jesus who will get us out of the kitchen.
Ann Pittman
First Baptist Church
July 22, 2007
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
When the Bad Guy Wins
This is the sermon I preached yesterday at First Baptist Church Austin...
It doesn’t matter who the hurting person is; it matters who you are.
“Who is my neighbor?” the man asked coyly. He’d been questioning Jesus on behalf the Pharisees with the intent to catch him in either a lie or blasphemy. They had offered him five silver coins to strike up a conversation with this Jesus fellow, so he had to make good. He asked the question and his eyes glanced for a second over to where the Pharisees stood watching, smiles just barely curled the edges of their lips. He had asked the right question. His eyes darted back to Jesus.
It doesn’t matter what falls across your path in life; it matters who you are.
Maybe the man just wanted clarification. “Who is my neighbor?” he asked, wanting to make sure he got it right. His friends called him anal retentive. He chocked up his need for preciseness to being a “type A personality.” Whatever the motivation, he wanted to make sure he covered all his bases so he asked his final question and looked at Jesus honestly wanting to get the rules down good, do it right the first time.
It doesn’t matter what other people have done; it matters who you are.
Maybe the man was tired. He knew the deuteronomic code said to love your God and love your neighbor. It was the shema. He’d been fed that line his whole life. So it was easy to answer Jesus. And so he asked, “Who is my neighbor?” seeking understanding to the mystery of God and what it meant to really live out his Jewish faith. He knew that “neighbor” technically meant Jew but he was tired of the pat answers and needed something more. That’s why he asked the Teacher for clarification. He was tired of searching and just wanted the truth.
But he got a story instead. They all did. No matter what the man’s motivation was for engaging in this conversation with Jesus, no matter what prompted him to ask the question that would plague our world for years to come, he got his answer and it changed the world.
It was a story about a man mugged by robbers. A Jewish man. A story about who would be a neighbor to this beaten down Jewish man.
Once upon a time there was an American and he was mugged and robbed and left for dead. Who would be a neighbor to this beaten down American man?
It’s a story not only about the shema: about what it means to love God and love your neighbor, it’s a story about seeing. Seeing people, seeing relationships, seeing how far the kingdom of God will extend. It’s a story about inclusion.
A priest walks by, sees the bloody man and in an effort to avoid him, crosses over to the other side of the road. Ooooh. The Parisees shift their stance and cross their arms; they were used to being the bad guys in Jesus’ tall tales. Another dumb parable. The disciples pat each other on the back and lean in. They loved it when Jesus really stuck it to the temple priests.
A Baptist minister saw the man lying on the sidewalk. She couldn’t tell if the man was moving. So she stopped at the crosswalk and pressed the button to cross to the other side. Unwilling to wait for the flashing white symbol, she hurriedly jaywalked across fumbling in her purse for her phone. It wasn’t there. She must have left it in her office. She was always doing that! Well, hopefully someone else would dial 911.
It’s a story about people, the way we interact with each other, what we believe about each other. It’s a story about the covenant and drawing lines around who’s in and who’s out. “Who is my neighbor?” is a question of boundaries: we want to know who’s in and who isn’t.
Jesus’s tale continued prickling the necks of all who heard. A levite passed by – not a priest by vocation, but he was in the family line. A “PK” passed by, “preacher’s kid,” 25 years old and he still couldn’t move passed that affiliation. Both saw the man lying there and both had been sucked dry by good deeds and sacrifice and living in holy community. Both looked. Both stood a moment, uncomfortable with the options. But both crossed the street.
It’s a story about godliness, about understanding, about loving your neighbor. Loving your enemy. It’s a story about loving the people who hurt you.
Jesus continued, “Then a Samaritan saw him and bent down to him and began to bandage his wounds.”
Everyone drew in a breath, the lawyer, the Pharisees, the disciples. “Jesus…” one of the twelve started to question. They all looked at each other. This Teacher of theirs was full of surprises and full of nonsense. Just a few days earlier they had been in Samaria. Look at chapter 9 in your Bibles verses 51 and following. “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him: but they did not receive him.” Samaria wouldn’t take him in.
The disciples were mad. Nobody says no to Jesus. “Do you want us to call down fire on top of this stingy Samaritan village?” they asked Jesus as they began to look for some stones to set up as a marker of their wrath. But Jesus rebuked the disciples, they dropped the stones and they all walked on to another town.
The Samaritans were bad people. Not only did they practice faulty Judaism, but they kicked Jesus out of their community. They rejected the idea of the Temple being in Jerusalem and they rejected the Messiah God had sent to save them. Ever since the Jewish people returned from exile it’d been nothing but problems with the Samaritans and this was the final straw.
So when the disciples heard Jesus describe the Samaritan binding the wounds and taking the man to the inn and paying for his room there, they too felt defeated. This was no longer just a story about a hurt Jew and some Temple so n so’s passing him over like they always did. Why was the one who showed mercy a Samaritan? Why had Jesus chosen a Samaritan to play the good guy? Was this a joke?
The disciples had been kicked out of the Temple by the Pharisees and they’d been kicked out of a town by the Samaritans. Those heretical fools, the disciples had thought as they kicked the dust off their sandals and kept on traveling. And now Jesus was telling a story and the protagonist, the hero, was a Samaritan. A Samaritan.
After the two had passed, a Mormon traveling came upon the beaten man. After the other two had crossed over to the other side of the road, a Muslim came and tended to the man’s needs. After the minister and the P.K. passed by, an illegal immigrant bent down to check on the man.
Choose your enemy. Choose who’s outside the box; outside the realm of redemption. And get ready to change the way you view God. Get ready to change the way you see people. Get ready to move the lines you’ve drawn around your church and draw them a little wider next time. Or don’t draw them at all.
Because God is bigger than boundaries and lines and races and religions and denominations and differences.
And because with Jesus everything gets turned around.
A Samaritan is a good neighbor. A Savior is a carpenter. A revolution requires no swords. Women are healed, the poor are forgiven, the outsiders drawn in and to those who believe, the kingdom of God they will receive.
It’s not about number of Temple sacrifices or how often we volunteer at church. It’s not about the location of the Temple nor is it about what kind of instruments get played in worship. It’s not about whose been to the synagogue this week or who’s been to a bar.
It’s about people hurting and people being redeemed. There are so many layers to this text. There’s the hurting Jew: a normal man who got jumped but who is now stuck, alone. There’s the hurting Samaritan, shunned by the Jews but faced with one who needs his help. There’s Jesus who just days earlier had been subbed by the Samaritans and now tells a story praising a Samaritan. There are the disciples as confused as ever still hungry from missing dinner cause that Samaritan village didn’t let them in and still learning what it means to forgive your enemies.
I can’t decide who to empathize with more: the hurting Jew, the compassionate and forgiving Samaritan, the ashamed disciples or Jesus who teaches us again and again in overt and subtle ways that his way is peace, his way is love, his way is unpredictable.
You never know where Christ will find you and you never know who Christ will find you through.
It didn’t matter what baggage they brought to the table. Social norms went out the window. When it came down to it, it was a Samaritan and a Jew. It was Jesus and a town. It is us everyday. And it’s the Samaritan’s character that takes the tale. Loving your neighbor is about who you are. The door was shut on Jesus in a Samaritan village but Jesus knew how great God’s love ran. It flowed beyond city borders or racial lines or societal norms or even religious affiliation. Jesus knew that God is in the work of bringing redemption and all have the possibility of being redeemed.
So go ahead and second guess that guy with the tattoo who shops at your grocery store. And second guess your neighbor who always keeps the shades drawn. And second guess the young woman who wears too much make-up to worship. Don’t leave them marked in your
mind by your first impression by your first experience. Widen your horizon. They are your neighbor. Give them the grace to be full of God.
And go ahead and love your ex-wife or your ex-boyfriend no matter how they’ve hurt you. Go ahead and be graceful towards your oppressive boss or your spiteful co-worker. Go ahead and pray for the men and woman who spend their lives making sure ours are miserable.
They too have the potential to be our neighbor. And we have the potential to be a neighbor to them.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free, old nor young, Baptist nor Catholic, rich nor poor, gay nor straight, east side nor west side…
We are all one. We all sin. We all are being redeemed. Give yourselves the freedom to live fully in that mercy. Mercy.
Mercy mercy me.
It doesn’t matter who the hurting person is; it matters who you are.
“Who is my neighbor?” the man asked coyly. He’d been questioning Jesus on behalf the Pharisees with the intent to catch him in either a lie or blasphemy. They had offered him five silver coins to strike up a conversation with this Jesus fellow, so he had to make good. He asked the question and his eyes glanced for a second over to where the Pharisees stood watching, smiles just barely curled the edges of their lips. He had asked the right question. His eyes darted back to Jesus.
It doesn’t matter what falls across your path in life; it matters who you are.
Maybe the man just wanted clarification. “Who is my neighbor?” he asked, wanting to make sure he got it right. His friends called him anal retentive. He chocked up his need for preciseness to being a “type A personality.” Whatever the motivation, he wanted to make sure he covered all his bases so he asked his final question and looked at Jesus honestly wanting to get the rules down good, do it right the first time.
It doesn’t matter what other people have done; it matters who you are.
Maybe the man was tired. He knew the deuteronomic code said to love your God and love your neighbor. It was the shema. He’d been fed that line his whole life. So it was easy to answer Jesus. And so he asked, “Who is my neighbor?” seeking understanding to the mystery of God and what it meant to really live out his Jewish faith. He knew that “neighbor” technically meant Jew but he was tired of the pat answers and needed something more. That’s why he asked the Teacher for clarification. He was tired of searching and just wanted the truth.
But he got a story instead. They all did. No matter what the man’s motivation was for engaging in this conversation with Jesus, no matter what prompted him to ask the question that would plague our world for years to come, he got his answer and it changed the world.
It was a story about a man mugged by robbers. A Jewish man. A story about who would be a neighbor to this beaten down Jewish man.
Once upon a time there was an American and he was mugged and robbed and left for dead. Who would be a neighbor to this beaten down American man?
It’s a story not only about the shema: about what it means to love God and love your neighbor, it’s a story about seeing. Seeing people, seeing relationships, seeing how far the kingdom of God will extend. It’s a story about inclusion.
A priest walks by, sees the bloody man and in an effort to avoid him, crosses over to the other side of the road. Ooooh. The Parisees shift their stance and cross their arms; they were used to being the bad guys in Jesus’ tall tales. Another dumb parable. The disciples pat each other on the back and lean in. They loved it when Jesus really stuck it to the temple priests.
A Baptist minister saw the man lying on the sidewalk. She couldn’t tell if the man was moving. So she stopped at the crosswalk and pressed the button to cross to the other side. Unwilling to wait for the flashing white symbol, she hurriedly jaywalked across fumbling in her purse for her phone. It wasn’t there. She must have left it in her office. She was always doing that! Well, hopefully someone else would dial 911.
It’s a story about people, the way we interact with each other, what we believe about each other. It’s a story about the covenant and drawing lines around who’s in and who’s out. “Who is my neighbor?” is a question of boundaries: we want to know who’s in and who isn’t.
Jesus’s tale continued prickling the necks of all who heard. A levite passed by – not a priest by vocation, but he was in the family line. A “PK” passed by, “preacher’s kid,” 25 years old and he still couldn’t move passed that affiliation. Both saw the man lying there and both had been sucked dry by good deeds and sacrifice and living in holy community. Both looked. Both stood a moment, uncomfortable with the options. But both crossed the street.
It’s a story about godliness, about understanding, about loving your neighbor. Loving your enemy. It’s a story about loving the people who hurt you.
Jesus continued, “Then a Samaritan saw him and bent down to him and began to bandage his wounds.”
Everyone drew in a breath, the lawyer, the Pharisees, the disciples. “Jesus…” one of the twelve started to question. They all looked at each other. This Teacher of theirs was full of surprises and full of nonsense. Just a few days earlier they had been in Samaria. Look at chapter 9 in your Bibles verses 51 and following. “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him: but they did not receive him.” Samaria wouldn’t take him in.
The disciples were mad. Nobody says no to Jesus. “Do you want us to call down fire on top of this stingy Samaritan village?” they asked Jesus as they began to look for some stones to set up as a marker of their wrath. But Jesus rebuked the disciples, they dropped the stones and they all walked on to another town.
The Samaritans were bad people. Not only did they practice faulty Judaism, but they kicked Jesus out of their community. They rejected the idea of the Temple being in Jerusalem and they rejected the Messiah God had sent to save them. Ever since the Jewish people returned from exile it’d been nothing but problems with the Samaritans and this was the final straw.
So when the disciples heard Jesus describe the Samaritan binding the wounds and taking the man to the inn and paying for his room there, they too felt defeated. This was no longer just a story about a hurt Jew and some Temple so n so’s passing him over like they always did. Why was the one who showed mercy a Samaritan? Why had Jesus chosen a Samaritan to play the good guy? Was this a joke?
The disciples had been kicked out of the Temple by the Pharisees and they’d been kicked out of a town by the Samaritans. Those heretical fools, the disciples had thought as they kicked the dust off their sandals and kept on traveling. And now Jesus was telling a story and the protagonist, the hero, was a Samaritan. A Samaritan.
After the two had passed, a Mormon traveling came upon the beaten man. After the other two had crossed over to the other side of the road, a Muslim came and tended to the man’s needs. After the minister and the P.K. passed by, an illegal immigrant bent down to check on the man.
Choose your enemy. Choose who’s outside the box; outside the realm of redemption. And get ready to change the way you view God. Get ready to change the way you see people. Get ready to move the lines you’ve drawn around your church and draw them a little wider next time. Or don’t draw them at all.
Because God is bigger than boundaries and lines and races and religions and denominations and differences.
And because with Jesus everything gets turned around.
A Samaritan is a good neighbor. A Savior is a carpenter. A revolution requires no swords. Women are healed, the poor are forgiven, the outsiders drawn in and to those who believe, the kingdom of God they will receive.
It’s not about number of Temple sacrifices or how often we volunteer at church. It’s not about the location of the Temple nor is it about what kind of instruments get played in worship. It’s not about whose been to the synagogue this week or who’s been to a bar.
It’s about people hurting and people being redeemed. There are so many layers to this text. There’s the hurting Jew: a normal man who got jumped but who is now stuck, alone. There’s the hurting Samaritan, shunned by the Jews but faced with one who needs his help. There’s Jesus who just days earlier had been subbed by the Samaritans and now tells a story praising a Samaritan. There are the disciples as confused as ever still hungry from missing dinner cause that Samaritan village didn’t let them in and still learning what it means to forgive your enemies.
I can’t decide who to empathize with more: the hurting Jew, the compassionate and forgiving Samaritan, the ashamed disciples or Jesus who teaches us again and again in overt and subtle ways that his way is peace, his way is love, his way is unpredictable.
You never know where Christ will find you and you never know who Christ will find you through.
It didn’t matter what baggage they brought to the table. Social norms went out the window. When it came down to it, it was a Samaritan and a Jew. It was Jesus and a town. It is us everyday. And it’s the Samaritan’s character that takes the tale. Loving your neighbor is about who you are. The door was shut on Jesus in a Samaritan village but Jesus knew how great God’s love ran. It flowed beyond city borders or racial lines or societal norms or even religious affiliation. Jesus knew that God is in the work of bringing redemption and all have the possibility of being redeemed.
So go ahead and second guess that guy with the tattoo who shops at your grocery store. And second guess your neighbor who always keeps the shades drawn. And second guess the young woman who wears too much make-up to worship. Don’t leave them marked in your
mind by your first impression by your first experience. Widen your horizon. They are your neighbor. Give them the grace to be full of God.
And go ahead and love your ex-wife or your ex-boyfriend no matter how they’ve hurt you. Go ahead and be graceful towards your oppressive boss or your spiteful co-worker. Go ahead and pray for the men and woman who spend their lives making sure ours are miserable.
They too have the potential to be our neighbor. And we have the potential to be a neighbor to them.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free, old nor young, Baptist nor Catholic, rich nor poor, gay nor straight, east side nor west side…
We are all one. We all sin. We all are being redeemed. Give yourselves the freedom to live fully in that mercy. Mercy.
Mercy mercy me.
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